Good for the citizens of Ignace

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/08/2024 (465 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

How are we going to save the planet unless someone is willing to support alternative energy sources? The residents of Ignace, Ont., have shown the kind of courage it takes to facilitate the change we need.

Of the 640 voters in Ignace, 495 voted to accept the possibility that their region will host a deep geological repository (DGR) for nuclear waste.

No one doubts that Canada will have increasing electricity needs in the coming decades. For winter heating and summer cooling, we need firm power, not interruptible power. Cleaner choices like solar and wind power are not as dependable. So if we plan to reduce fossil fuel use to produce electricity, we are going to need more hydro and nuclear power.

The demand for more electricity will be driven by more than just electric vehicles (EVs). Technology, including the smart devices we now rely on, are driving up the demand for electricity by four per cent this year. Demand is expected to triple over the next decade. It is estimated that the demand for electricity to power our tech devices will exceed the energy demand for all EVs by 2050.

We cannot wait another generation to finalize our plans to stop burning fossil fuels. There must be change and risks must be taken. In much of Canada, the green energy relied on for most of the year is hydroelectric. Ontario, on the other hand, currently gets about 56 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power.

Perhaps the residents of Ignace are particularly brave — or perhaps they have simply listened more carefully to those spreading facts and less to those spreading fear. Because if one thing is abundantly clear after 50 years of climate warming talk, we can no longer wait for action.

There have been many half-hearted measures over the years to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, like the carbon tax, ethanol gas, e-bikes and now EVs. These are worthy measures with a small measurable impact but they do not really make a dent in the massive problem of GHG emissions overall.

And sometimes the cure turns out to be worse than the disease. The truth is that the process of making large EV batteries may add as much CO2 to the atmosphere as the manufacturing of some small cars. One study reported by the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability suggests that manufacturing a 1,100-pound lithium battery could emit up to 74 per cent more CO2 than the production of a conventional car. The mining of lithium will also turn out to have its own environmental problems, as will the production and maintenance of EVs themselves.

No one can deny that choosing to use nuclear energy to generate electricity has its risks. But risk is relative and it is important not to exaggerate the risk or to ignore other potential risks that pose even greater danger.

Generating electricity from nuclear sources has been the norm in some countries for more than 60 years. France produces almost 70 per cent of its energy from nuclear generators in 56 power plants. France also reprocesses 96 per cent of spent nuclear fuel, eliminating much of the angst around the disposal of nuclear waste that face Canadian nuclear power generators. Given that nuclear power plants dot the countryside in France, the French are clearly comfortable with the risk — and for good reason.

There is a strong case to be made that the benefits of nuclear power outweigh the risks. With an aim to end the use of fossil fuels, it must be seriously considered. To that end, fears about the history of nuclear accidents must be replaced with facts.

Undeniably, there has been life lost as a result of nuclear accidents around the world. The three worst nuclear accidents — Three Mile Island in the U.S. (1979), the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine (1986) and Fukushima in Japan (2011) — are frequently used as examples of the dangers of nuclear generating stations. This despite the fact that the Three Mile Island radioactive releases, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “had no detectable health effect on plant workers or the public.”

Likewise Canadian nuclear accidents at Chalk River (1952 and 1958) and Darlington (2009) resulted in no detectable health impacts on workers or other Canadians.

The other two nuclear accidents, at the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the Fukushima nuclear plant, did kill people. Reports, as of 2023, suggest a total of 31 people died as a direct result of these two nuclear accidents.

At the time of the Chernobyl accident, 134 workers were exposed to varying levels of radiation. Two workers were killed in the initial blast and 28 workers died from injuries and/or radiation poisoning within months of the accident. Although the contamination was widespread, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a report in 2008 (and a follow up study in 2018) that found that adults in the region had largely avoided health impacts from fallout.

The Fukushima nuclear accident, caused by a tsunami, has also been broadly used as example of the inherent dangers of using nuclear energy. The failure at the Fukushima plant was certainly dramatic but it was the tsunami that rolled over the coast of Japan that killed thousands of people. According to the Japanese government, only one death was identified as a direct result of injury or radiation poisoning at the Fukushima nuclear plant itself. The disaster has been studied repeatedly and in 2021 UNSEAR reported that, “No adverse health effects among Fukushima residents have been documented that are directly attributable to radiation exposure from the nuclear plant accident.”

Our real battle is not with nuclear power but with climate change, an existential threat entirely of our own making. We must evaluate risks and benefit differently to have a fighting chance. GHGs are killing us right now. A 2023 study published in the British Medical Journal estimates that 5.3 million people die each year as a result of health complications due to GHG emissions. That bears repeating — 5.3 million deaths implicated as a result of fossil fuel emissions. Millions of deaths every year and possibly even more deaths each year as the climate warms and pollution grows. And we haven’t even considered the damage being done to the Earth’s ecosystem.

Yes, there are inherent dangers in storing nuclear waste but it is possible to reduce the waste, as France has demonstrated, and take measures to store the waste safely. As Ignace, Ont., has offered to do. The concern about the half-life of radioactive waste is legitimate. But GHGs have their own legacy effect. According to NASA, some GHGs can hang around for a thousand years — and we are producing more now than ever.

It may not be a perfect solution but the risks of nuclear power are known and can be mitigated. The risk of continuing to let our climate warm is much greater than the risk of choosing nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels.

The people of Ignace are giving us a chance to store our nuclear waste as safely as possible and that is a good start. Let them lead the way.

Jerry Storie is a former minister of energy and mines and minister responsible for Manitoba Hydro.