Stop the Hogs!

Budget may reveal extent of federal support for risky new nuclear reactors – Part I

[ https://rabble.ca/news/2021/04/budget-m ... r-reactors ]

Joyce Nelson | April 15, 2021

Across Canada, environmentalists and First Nations will be closely watching the April 19 release of the federal budget to see just how far the Trudeau Liberals will go in their push for small modular reactors (SMRs).

In September 2020, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O'Regan endorsed SMRs and stated that there is "no pathway to net zero [carbon emissions] without nuclear," which prompted David Suzuki to famously tell the CBC: "I want to puke."

Apparently, many share that feeling.

More than 100 Indigenous and civil society groups across Canada are now opposed to the new nuclear reactors, which are being pushed by the federal government and four provinces -- Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick and Alberta -- as so-called "clean energy" and a supposed solution to climate change.

These governments argue that the reactors would be the replacement for diesel in remote communities and for use in off-grid mining, tar-sands development, heavy industry, and as exportable expertise in a global market.

But opponents call SMRs "dirty, dangerous and distracting" [ https://cela.ca/dirty-dangerous-new-reactors/ ] from real climate solutions.
MORE. . . .

Billionaires leading push for nuclear reactors in Canadian mining

[ https://rabble.ca/news/2021/04/billiona ... ian-mining ]

By Joyce Nelson, Rabble, April 19 2021

This is part two of a two-part series on small modular reactors.

In January 2019, Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, warned that the Trudeau government has a "desire to build small modular nuclear reactors [SMRs] all over Canada, especially in the North, to support the accelerated exploitation of natural resources." Edwards included an excerpt from Nuclear Energy Insider, published January 16, 2019, which stated: "Canada's large mining sector is seen as a key early market for SMR plants as operators look to reduce carbon emissions and costs."

That "early market" for small modular reactors has been cleverly targeted by a key lobby group. As I wrote for Watershed Sentinel, Bill Gates and 28 other billionaires and "high-net-worth" individuals launched the Breakthrough Energy Coalition at the 2015 Paris climate talks to lobby for small nuclear reactor development as "clean technology" in dozens of countries, including Canada. [ https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/m ... -reactors/ ]

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