RE: Ontario faces decision on new nukes: Duncan

 

Dear Editor:

 

It’s about time the ball finally got rolling on the future of Nuclear Power in the province of Ontario.  Unfortunately, as your article clearly shows, the anti-nuclear dogma is already being brought out in full force.

 

It is easy to see why.  The anti-nuclear message is well suited for mass media distribution where thirty second sound-bytes are the order of the day.  Meanwhile the pro-nuclear story can (and does!) fill textbooks.  I’d like to take this opportunity to briefly address some of the points brought up by the anti-nuclear crowd in your article.

 

It was mentioned that this is a divisive issue.  While the arguments are certainly vocal the race is not as close as it may seem.  In Ontario 60% of us support nuclear power!  Add to that the 20% who “don’t know or don’t care” (in this issue that’s usually considered de-facto support) and that makes a strong 80% of Ontarians who want Nuclear in our energy mix.  These numbers even pre-date the strong voice the environmental sector has added to the debate recently.  James Lovelock (the Gaia hypotheses) and Patrick Moore (founder of Greenpeace) have both recently expressed their support for nuclear and accused their green friends of blindly following the false arguments of the past without considering facts.

 

That’s hardly surprising as in Canada nuclear power prevents the release of over 6 million tonnes of greenhouse gas and air pollution every single month!  Doesn’t that make it ironic that a “clean air coalition” is promoting natural gas which still emits two thirds the amount that our existing coal plants!

 

In Ontario there have been several well publicized cost overruns which makes the “costly” argument popular.  The question that should be addressed is: are these overruns inherent in nuclear?  The answer is no.  As one striking example take the Darlington nuclear station.  It ballooned to over double its projected cost before it was finished.  Seems like a lot until you consider that 40% of the total final was interest costs.  This is a combination of bad legislation, poor management, and a meddling (anti-nuclear NDP) government.  Most of Ontario’s nuclear costs can be attributed to these factors.  Around the world it has been proven time and again that if you start it and keep supporting it until its built then on-time and on-budget is a very realistic goal.  Combined with the relatively negligible fuelling costs and the lifetime total cost of nuclear has been shown to be even with or better than coal fired options.

 

The last point to be addressed is nuclear risk.  This is perhaps the easiest of the points to explain.  All one has to do is look at the underlying design philosophy: defence in depth.  This leads to multiple redundant equipment in multiple redundant systems all protecting the uranium fuel bundles.  Combine this with the two fast acting, independent shutdown systems and the robust containment system and countless risk assessments agree.  Nuclear Power is among the safest of all human technological endeavours.

As I mentioned, explaining nuclear power and countering arguments about it takes rather longer than a newspaper letter.  Please look into this important issue.  Perhaps the definitive Canadian resource is http://www.nuclearfaq.ca

 

Andrew Daley

Toronto On