Federal nuclear power plan is a pipe dream

[Oscar]

Federal nuclear power plan is a pipe dream

[ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publi ... pipe-dream ]

Not only are SMRs expensive compared to the alternatives, we still haven't resolved issues around radioactive contamination and hazardous waste streams.

AUTHOR(S): M. V. Ramana Eva Schacherl DECEMBER 31, 2020 (***Numerous internal LINKS)

"In its fall economic statement, the federal government announced that it “intends to launch an SMR Action Plan by the end of 2020 to lay out the next steps to develop and deploy this technology.” SMR stands for small modular nuclear reactor, the nuclear industry’s latest pipe dream.

At least a dozen corporations around the world are hoping for Canadian taxpayer funding to further develop their SMR designs, all of them still on the drawing board. In October, the federal government handed out $20 million to Terrestrial Energy. Other expectant entities include SNC-Lavalin (which bought Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s CANDU division and is developing a CANDU SMR), United Kingdom–based Moltex Energy, and Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation.

The federal government says it supports small modular reactors to help Canada mitigate climate change. The government is simply barking up the wrong tree, for several reasons. They are 1) cost, cost and cost; 2) renewables; 3) safety; and 4) radioactive waste. . . . . "

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[Oscar]

The nuclear option

[ https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites ... 281%29.pdf ]

CCPA Monitor May June 2021 WEB (1).pdf - Page 3 - LETTER from Ken Chaplin (***NOTE: Google Search: Possible I.D. - Principal Scientist at AECL, Deep River, ON)

I’d like to refute arguments made in Ramana and Schacherl’s article on nuclear power in the Jan/Feb issue of the Monitor.

First, the article’s portrayal of nuclear safety and waste result from the misleading idea that any amount of radiation can be deadly. For example, decades ago people became convinced that plutonium in nuclear waste is extremely toxic and will cause harm thousands of years from now. This is not true. Radiation is only dangerous at high dose rates.

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