O’Regan all in on unnatural resources

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/01/2021 (1901 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“ALL in” is a fair description for federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan’s approach to all things nuclear.

His plunge into this radioactive rabbit hole has occurred during a time in history when precious funds need to be spent on significant adjustments to our health-care system and energy sources to provide this country with a sustainable future. O’Regan has stated that there is no way to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 without nuclear power, which he refers to as clean.

Nuclear is not economical, renewable or in any way clean, and is only a diversion from the goal of net-zero.

One needs only to follow the reports of our local research facility at Pinawa to realize just how dangerous and dirty this industry is. Cleaning up the site has been a challenge for Canadian Nuclear Labs, as the desire to restore the site to a greenfield state has been shelved in favour of removing as much radioactive garbage as possible and leaving the rest in-situ, such as the highly radioactive remains of the WR1 research reactor.

According to CNL’s own (2017) annual report, there are bunkers of waste where leaching is occurring, and radioactive materials, including plutonium and cesium, that have somehow entered the sewage lagoon — the same lagoon that is purged into the Winnipeg River twice a year. Requests for information from the regulator have been going on for more than a year.

A Freedom of Information request resulted in 1,400 pages of dated reports and more than 100 pages of questions and answers, none of which pertained to the relevant questions. In colloquial terms, it is referred to as “being snowed.” Manitobans have a right to know how these radioactive materials entered the lagoon, and what is being done to prevent them from spilling into the Winnipeg River.

Canada’s nuclear industry and its regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), continue to be shrouded in a veil of secrecy.

The ministry of natural resources, which is promoting the expansion of nuclear power in Canada, also monitors and regulates the industry. This clear conflict of interest makes O’Regan both the cheerleader for the industry and the referee. Moving the regulator (CNSC) to another department, such as environment, is essential to keep it at arm’s length, and has been recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

To illustrate how conflicted this relationship is, Michael Binder, former president and CEO of the regulator (CNSC), has recently taken an advisory position with Ultra Safe Nuclear, a company lobbying the ministry he previously led in an effort to sell reactors in Canada.

O’Regan’s action plan for small modular reactors (SMR) was released just before the holidays and will undoubtedly siphon off more than the $20 million the feds put up in October. This is a dangerous distraction from what needs to be done. David Suzuki, when hearing of the investment, said, “I want to puke. … That kind of nuclear development is decades away from becoming anything like the possibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve got to act now.”

Politically the Bloc Quebecois, NDP and the Greens have made it clear that they do not support SMRs, which could affect O’Regan’s aspirations.

Research from the University of Calgary has shown the cost of wind and solar power is on par with natural gas and, as such, leaves nuclear economically in the dust. Nuclear cannot compete without government to buoy it up. The reactors being proposed won’t be ready for sale for a decade, as they are still on the drawing boards.

The key time period is the next 10 years, and in order for Canada to meet its Paris Agreement commitment, the UN has said it will require a 7.6 per cent drop in emissions per year over that decade — and that won’t be coming from SMRs.

Another strike against these mini-reactors is that Canada does not have a solution to either its existing stockpile or any new radioactive waste that comes from a mini-reactor. In November, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) announced it would be developing its own strategy at O’Regan’s request.

The NWMO consists of representatives from the waste producers — in other words, the government that subsidized this industry for decades is passing the nuclear waste ball to the producers who will be happy to get it out of sight and out of mind so they can produce more. One of the two top proposed locations is Ignace, Ont., conveniently located on the Lake Winnipeg watershed.

There is nothing natural about these resources O’Regan is pursuing. His energies would better serve Canadians if they were spent cleaning up his own portfolio.

Dave Taylor has been a regular contributor to the Winnipeg Free Press on environmental issues for decades.