Decommissioning Canada's nuclear activities

Story by Brennain Lloyd/Special to BayToday.ca

Day One of the Canadian Nuclear Society’s international Conference on Management, Decommissioning and Environmental Restoration for Canada's Nuclear Activities ran for a solid nine hours before spilling some its 400 participants out in the muggy streets of downtown Toronto to jostle with crowds of tourists in town for the Toronto International Film Festival, while others lingered in the lower levels of the Marriot Hotel to enjoy some quintessential industry conference hospitality.

The day had begun with an opening plenary for the international conference featuring several speakers from the nuclear trinity of industry, government, and the federal regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

A theme ran through the opening presentations: the problem is not with nuclear power or nuclear waste, the problem is the public perception of risk associated with nuclear technology and the radioactivity it generates.

Linking public distrust and apprehension about nuclear technology and nuclear waste with the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear station in Japan, the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission – the agency whose job it is to provide independent oversight of the nuclear industry – used the “we” word when describing the challenge the nuclear industry faces in persuading a reluctant public to accept more nuclear risks.

“We have to do a better job of explaining our business”, explained Dr. Michael Binder, president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Other speakers joined the chorus with a representative Natural Resources Canada – the federal government department that both funds and regulates the nuclear industry - suggesting that the public needs to “read the literature” to get over their fear of radiation. Tom Mitchell, the Chief Executive Officer and President of the provincial utility Ontario Power Generation described the public as having an “unfounded but real fear of radiation”.

“Radiation is all around us”, the former head of Ontario Power Generation’s nuclear division proclaimed, citing televisions, WiFi, and cell phones – all of which are sources of non-ionizing radiation – as regular sources of radiation exposure. Notably absent from his list of examples were the very large sources of ionizing radiation that Ontario Power Generation has generated through the use of nuclear power reactors to supply some of Ontario’s demand for electricity, including an estimated 50,000 tonnes of highly radioactive nuclear fuel waste.

Billed in its promotional material as a “forum for discussion and exchange of views on the technical, regulatory and social challenges and opportunities for radioactive waste management, nuclear facility decommissioning and environmental restoration activities in Canada”, the conference was organized by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in cooperation with several international nuclear organizations, and with Canada’s key nuclear players – Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Ontario Power Generation , Natural Resources Canada – represented on the organizing committee. It was not unusual for such a conference to be taking place – similar gatherings among the nuclear industry and its regulatory bodies happen on at least a semi-regular basis.

What was somewhat unusual was that there was a sprinkling of public interest organizations throughout the crowd of what would have otherwise been a much more uniform group in terms of world view when it comes to nuclear technologies. Drawn largely by the multiple proposals to bury various categories of nuclear waste deep underground, the public interest groups were there primarily to hear what industry has in the works in terms of proposals to bury low and intermediate level radioactive wastes at the Bruce nuclear station near Kincardine, “research” generated wastes at Atomic Energy of Canada’s laboratory at Chalk River on the Ottawa River, and highly radioactive nuclear fuel wastes at a location which is as yet unknown but is currently the subject of a site search launched by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) in May 2010.

Even more unique was the presence of community representatives from each of the eight communities that have agreed to have the NWMO study them – at least for an initial review based on already available information – as a potential end point for all of Canada’s nuclear fuel waste. Hornepayne, Wawa, Schreiber, Ignace and Ear Falls from northern Ontario and Pinehouse, English River First Nation and Creighton from northern Saskatchewan were all attending at the invitation of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. It must have seemed a long way from home.