ONLY NUKE FACTS - BULLETINS - SMRs Information Task Force

[Oscar]

Bulletin No. 16 • June 2025 -

FRENCH VERSION: [ https://share.sender.net/campaigns/bCsU ... est-ouest- ]

Tariff threats spur need for “east-west” electricity integration

Canada must focus on increasing our energy security.

Unfortunately Ontario is increasing reliance on the US by building four US GE-Hitachi nuclear reactors which require US enriched uranium fuel.

This is not the time to increase our economic and energy dependency on the US. Sharing renewable electricity interprovincially can cut that dependency.

As Prime Minister Carney has suggested, Canada can be an energy superpower, but only if we follow the world by focusing on low-cost, reliable renewable energy.

We do not need a power corridor from coast to coast. We need more east-west interconnection of regional and distributed transmission systems. This would allow the growth and sharing of new community-based, low-cost renewable energy, creating local green jobs while meeting Canadian needs.

The renewable grid would build on our existing hydroelectric base and draw in new power from our abundant wind and solar resources.

For example, the Ontario government recently introduced an act opening procurements to renewable power from Manitoba and Quebec. This corresponded with Manitoba announcing 500 MW of renewable power available after ending US export contracts. Quebec's massive hydro reservoirs are a giant battery to support renewables in eastern provinces.

When connected, integrated renewable and storage systems can optimize generation, increasing grid stability while providing redundancies to deal with variable weather or unplanned outages.

Importantly, an integrated renewable grid would avoid the high costs of large new centralized fossil and nuclear power plants while eliminating toxic emissions and wastes associated with them.

The federal government should encourage greater coordination and integration of provincial and territorial systems through climate policies and financial support.

By coordinating and connecting distributed regional and community grids, we can create a resilient, renewable, clean and affordable electricity system for all Canadians.

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The SMRs Education Task Force is a network of groups in Canada concerned and active on the nuclear file. Together we have many decades of experience providing information to Canadians about nuclear issues, including the proposed small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). We are providing this bulletin free of charge to encourage more informed awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country.

[Oscar]

Bulletin Number 17 - July 2025

"Local opposition grows to the Peace River Nuclear Power Project."

SMRs INFORMATION TASK FORCE

FRENCH VERSION: [ https://campaign-statistics.com/browser ... rvv-1Dcj9h ]

"The 300 members of the Society of High Prairie Regional Environmental Action Committee (REAC) in Alberta are concerned and opposed to the proposal to build four large CANDU reactors in their region.

At public meetings, REAC members questioned why an additional 4,800 megawatts of electricity is needed. Local communities are being asked to accept routine radioactive air emissions and the long-term storage of nuclear waste. Contaminants deposited in the forest ‘re-volatize’ into the air when burned, adding cumulative effects.

CANDU reactors operating in other provinces have experienced regular shutdowns due to equipment failures and also planned and unplanned radioactive releases. Yet preparatory documents for the Peace River CANDU project hardly mention potential health issues at all.

Federal taxpayers are supporting the multinational company AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC Lavalin) to develop its new ‘MONARK’ CANDU design in Alberta. The CANDU reactors built in Ontario and New Brunswick have been financial boondoggles.

The citizens of the Peace River area overwhelmingly rejected nuclear proposals in 2009, and yet here they are again. REAC’s additional concerns include:

- Water lost to evaporative cooling
- Storage of ‘heavy’ (radioactive) water
- Water availability for severe accidents
- Emergency preparedness – no Vacuum Building included in Model Plan

Project proponents say: “...severe accidents are not realistically expected during the plant's lifetime.” REAC says: emergency preparedness includes having realistic expectations to plan for severe accidents.

Among the many unanswered questions:

Are there plans to compensate local farmers and traditional land users in case of a severe incident?

What provisions are in place for monitoring locally produced milk, meat and leafy vegetables for radioactive iodine and cesium following a severe nuclear accident?

What methods will be used to decontaminate buildings and remediate contaminated soil?
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Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more

The SMRs Education Task Force is a network of groups in Canada concerned and active on the nuclear file. Together we have many decades of experience providing information to Canadians about nuclear issues, including the proposed small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). We are providing this bulletin free of charge to encourage more informed awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country."

[Oscar]

Bulletin number 18 • August 2025

FRENCH VERSION: [ https://share.sender.net/campaigns/cHVd ... -des-armes ]

Canada proposes to export weapons proliferation-prone nuclear reactors

Eighty years ago, two atomic bombs were used against civilian populations in Japan. Uranium for these bombs was mined in Port Radium, NWT and the Belgium Congo and refined at Port Hope, Ontario.

For twenty years after the war, Canada contributed to the Cold War build-up of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in the US through massive sales of uranium from Saskatchewan and Ontario, combined with sales of plutonium from Chalk River nuclear laboratories upriver from Ottawa. These military sales ended in 1965 when Prime Minister Pearson stopped them.

Nevertheless, in 1974 India exploded its first atomic bomb using plutonium created in a Canadian research reactor, a gift to India in Canada's attempt to build a nuclear export market.

Today, Canada is proposing to develop and export proliferation-prone nuclear reactors. This impetus is based on the dubious belief that there is no path to net zero without nuclear power – a public relations trope of the beleaguered nuclear industry. Not only is renewable energy cheaper, faster to deploy and quicker to deliver a payback, but nuclear reactors cannot be easily cooled in a warming world.

The market share of nuclear power has been continuously declining for the last 30 years. Many analysts have concluded that nuclear power is too slow, too costly and too consequence-ridden to address the climate emergency.

Some “advanced” nuclear technologies provide more immediate access to weapons-usable nuclear materials. Such is the case with reactors predicated on the recovery and re-use of plutonium, like the Moltex and ARC designs proposed for New Brunswick. Others require dangerous levels of uranium enrichment, like the eVinci reactor design proposed for Saskatchewan.

Let's look before we leap. Let's not jump out of the carbon frying pan into a nuclear firestorm.

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Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more

The SMRs Education Task Force is a network of groups in Canada concerned and active on the nuclear file. Together we have many decades of experience providing information to Canadians about nuclear issues, including the proposed small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). We are providing this bulletin free of charge to encourage more informed awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country.

The SMR Education Working Group is a network of Canadian groups concerned and active in the nuclear field. Together, we have decades of experience providing information to Canadians on nuclear issues, including small modular reactor (SMR) projects. We provide this newsletter free of charge to encourage greater awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country.


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[Oscar]

Bulletin number / numéro 19 • September / Septembre 2025

SMRs Information Task Force

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Confusion About a Second Repository for Radioactive Wastes

In June, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) posted a “discussion paper” outlining their intention to site a second deep geological repository (DGR) for radioactive waste.

The NWMO announcement of an additional DGR has caused confusion. MPs are having trouble keeping the story straight among the various nuclear waste schemes. Already constituents are receiving letters from MPs that clearly confuse the two, which puts MPs’ credibility on the line, as well further reducing public trust in the nuclear industry.

The latest NWMO DGR proposal is for a mix of “intermediate level” radioactive and – as an add on - high-level radioactive waste from future reactors.

The NWMO, a collaboration between the provincial utilities that generate and own the high-level nuclear fuel waste produced by nuclear reactors, has a mandate under the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act (2002) to develop an option to manage the highly-radioactive nuclear fuel waste long-term.

The NWMO’s June 2025 paper is purportedly premised on the “Integrated Strategy for Radioactive Waste” which they proposed to the federal government in 2023.

Making a careful distinction between government policy and industry strategy, the Minister of Natural Resources had acknowledged the nuclear industry’s proposed strategy for low and intermediate level wastes, framing the proposed strategy as one of “two fundamental recommendations” (the other related to low level wastes). The Minister summarized the plan thus: “Intermediate-level waste and non-fuel high-level waste will be disposed of in a deep geological repository with implementation by the NWMO.”

However, over the last 18 months the NWMO has increasingly been adding to the proposed DGR mix the high-level waste fuel waste from future small modular reactors and from the mega-reactors proposed for both the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in southwestern Ontario and the Peace River area in Alberta.

The siting process for the DGR for high-level waste was extremely divisive and since the selection of the Revell site in northwestern Ontario in November 2024 there has been rising opposition and now a legal challenge from a nearby First Nation. The new DGR proposal promises more of the same divisiveness, opposition, and political pressures.

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Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more

The SMRs Education Task Force is a network of groups in Canada concerned and active on the nuclear file. Together we have many decades of experience providing information to Canadians about nuclear issues, including the proposed small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). We are providing this bulletin free of charge to encourage more informed awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country.


Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM est un réseau de groupes canadiens préoccupés et actifs dans le dossier nucléaire. Ensemble, nous avons plusieurs décennies d'expérience dans la fourniture d'informations aux Canadiens sur les questions touchant au nucléaire, y compris les projets de petits réacteurs nucléaires modulaires (PRM). Nous fournissons ce bulletin gratuitement afin d'encourager une prise de conscience plus éclairée des PRM et de leurs implications potentielles pour les communautés à travers le pays.

SMRs Information Task Force -
Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM
Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more.

1 855 225 8055
contact@smrs-info.ca



[Oscar]

Bulletin number / numéro 20 • October / Octobre 2025

SMRs Information Task Force

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Boosting Nuclear Power Is Not Nation-Building

Prime Minister Mark Carney has released his priority “nation-building projects,” including the Darlington New Nuclear Project (DNNP) in Ontario. He claims this project will “build Canada strong,” but nuclear power is the slowest, most expensive way of providing electricity, far greater than the costs of renewables and energy storage.

Canada’s nuclear regulator has already fast-tracked the DNNP, awarding a construction license despite the lack of a credible environmental assessment or an approved design.

The projected cost of the DNNP’s “small modular reactor” (SMR) is in the billions, greatly exceeding the $970 million contribution from the Canada Infrastructure Bank in 2022. There is essentially no interest by private investors in nuclear power owing to its substantial financial risks, so it is funded by taxpayers and ratepayers.

The BWRX-300 SMR planned for the DNNP is American, made by GE Hitachi. Its projected completion date is 2030, though almost all reactors built in the past have overshot their expected completion dates by years, often decades. Canada would have to buy enriched uranium fuel for this American reactor from the U.S. because enriched fuel is not produced in Canada.

Many unanswered questions remain about this dubious “nation-building project”. Prime Minister Carney may hope that Canada will become a global energy “superpower” by selling SMRs all over the world, but how likely is this? The BWRX-300 is untested technology with no performance track record. SMRs are far from being built at scale to bring the exorbitant price down. Canada has not sold a reactor since the 1970s. Canada would have an American reactor, reliant on American fuel, and subject to the whims of an unpredictable American administration.

Spending billions of taxpayer dollars on nuclear power, using an American reactor that uses American fuel, when cheaper, cleaner technologies already exist, does not make sense as a “nation-building project.”

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Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more

The SMRs Education Task Force is a network of groups in Canada concerned and active on the nuclear file. Together we have many decades of experience providing information to Canadians about nuclear issues, including the proposed small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). We are providing this bulletin free of charge to encourage more informed awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country.

Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM est un réseau de groupes canadiens préoccupés et actifs dans le dossier nucléaire. Ensemble, nous avons plusieurs décennies d'expérience dans la fourniture d'informations aux Canadiens sur les questions touchant au nucléaire, y compris les projets de petits réacteurs nucléaires modulaires (PRM). Nous fournissons ce bulletin gratuitement afin d'encourager une prise de conscience plus éclairée des PRM et de leurs implications potentielles pour les communautés à travers le pays.


SMRs Information Task Force -
Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM
Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more.


1 855 225 8055
contact@smrs-info.ca



[Oscar]

Bulletin number / numéro 21 • November / Novembre 2025

SMRs Information Task Force

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A costly way to depend on others

Prime Minister Carney is giving two billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to a “nation-building” project that already has three strikes against it.

Touted as the western world’s first small modular nuclear reactor, to be built in Ontario, the BWRX is an American design, requiring enriched uranium fuel that must be purchased from a non-Canadian supplier, and is too expensive to be sold abroad. Three strikes.

BWRX is a Boiling Water Reactor, version 10. Globally, there are more boiling water reactors shut down than operating. The three that melted down in Japan in 2011 were precursors of BWRX.

The only Canadian-designed boiling water reactor, Gentilly-1 in Quebec, was a technical and economic fiasco. G-1 ran for only 183 days over six years and will soon be dismantled at great expense.

The first BWRX, to be built on the Darlington site, will be the most expensive electrical power plant in the world. Ontario Power Generation anticipates spending $7.7 billion for 300 megawatts of power. That’s $25,700 per kilowatt installed – four times the cost of renewable energy.

The only other nuclear plants in North America to get a construction licence in the last 45 years were four large reactors, two in South Carolina and two in Georgia. The South Carolina reactors were never finished, as Westinghouse went bankrupt over the $9 billion loss from that dead-end project.

The two reactors in Georgia were finished, at the staggering cost of $16,500 US per kilowatt – that’s $23,500 Canadian per kilowatt. The Georgia project has been identified as the costliest electrical capacity ever built – but the BWRX cost is higher.

OPG says enriched fuel may be acquired from the USA or France. But both countries, unable to meet their own demand, are still buying enriched uranium from Russia. With BWRX, will Canada also become a Russian client?

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Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more

The SMRs Education Task Force is a network of groups in Canada concerned and active on the nuclear file. Together we have many decades of experience providing information to Canadians about nuclear issues, including the proposed small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). We are providing this bulletin free of charge to encourage more informed awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country.

Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM est un réseau de groupes canadiens préoccupés et actifs dans le dossier nucléaire. Ensemble, nous avons plusieurs décennies d'expérience dans la fourniture d'informations aux Canadiens sur les questions touchant au nucléaire, y compris les projets de petits réacteurs nucléaires modulaires (PRM). Nous fournissons ce bulletin gratuitement afin d'encourager une prise de conscience plus éclairée des PRM et de leurs implications potentielles pour les communautés à travers le pays.

SMRs Information Task Force -

Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM

Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more.


1 855 225 8055
contact@smrs-info.ca

[Oscar]

Bulletin number / numéro 22 • December / Decembre 2025

SMRs Information Task Force

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A Preventable Health Crisis - The Toll of Uranium Mining

Saskatchewan’s projected Wheeler River Uranium Mine proposes in-situ-leaching, yet in-situ-leaching causes contamination of underground aquifers which appears impossible to remediate.

Nova Scotia's 44-year ban on uranium mining and exploration was recently repealed.

These two developments are concerning.

Uranium mining is hidden away in marginalized or Indigenous areas. The health effects on affected citizens remain understudied and are best described by them.

1. Navajo elders develop lung cancer after living in buildings constructed of cement mixed with radioactive mine wastes. A study shows uranium in newborns’ urine.

2. A German paediatrician describes childhood leukemias and adult lung cancers in people living downwind from the Wismut Uranium Mine. Remediation costs seven billion euros so far and is not complete.

3. Uranium exploration in Nova Scotia (1970s) is blamed for causing uranium contamination in wells. (CAPE, 2025)

4. A mother from Blind River, Ontario describes yellow radioactive dust from the nearby uranium refinery.

5. A Cree father from Saskatchewan learns that his family’s traditional food, caribou, is contaminated by radioactive uranium byproducts.(Thomas & Gales, 1999)

Excess lung cancers in uranium miners are well documented and attributed to radon (a uranium byproduct).

Health Canada recognizes radon as the leading cause of lung cancer for those who have never smoked. The risk is directly related to the total amount of radon levels whether from ‘naturally occurring’ radon seepage from the ground, or releases from uranium mines and wastes.

Uranium, when disturbed, dissolves readily in water thus contaminating wells and aquifers. When ingested, uranium is chemically toxic, affecting the kidneys, bones and other organs.

Uranium mine wastes contain 85% of the ore’s radioactivity and continue to generate new radioactive byproducts for thousands of years.

Parliament passed Bill C-226 in 2024, a National Strategy to address Environmental Racism and Advance Environmental Justice, and Bill S-5 in 2023, which enshrines the right to a healthy environment in federal law.

Will these Bills be respected?

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Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more

The SMRs Education Task Force is a network of groups in Canada concerned and active on the nuclear file. Together we have many decades of experience providing information to Canadians about nuclear issues, including the proposed small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). We are providing this bulletin free of charge to encourage more informed awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country.

Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM est un réseau de groupes canadiens préoccupés et actifs dans le dossier nucléaire. Ensemble, nous avons plusieurs décennies d'expérience dans la fourniture d'informations aux Canadiens sur les questions touchant au nucléaire, y compris les projets de petits réacteurs nucléaires modulaires (PRM). Nous fournissons ce bulletin gratuitement afin d'encourager une prise de conscience plus éclairée des PRM et de leurs implications potentielles pour les communautés à travers le pays.


SMRs Information Task Force -

Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM

Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more.

1 855 225 8055
contact@smrs-info.ca

[Oscar]

Bulletin number / numéro 23 • January / Janvier 2026

SMRs Information Task Force

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Transportation of Nuclear Waste to be Excluded from the Impact Assessment of Nuclear Waste Project?

With the release of their “initial project description” - required as the first step in the federal impact assessment process - the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has confirmed that it will seek to exempt radioactive waste transportation from the assessment, despite having described it as part of their project for more than 20 years.

The Impact Assessment Act requires that activities integral to a project be assessed. But, the NWMO project description for their proposed Deep Geological Repository (DGR) for high-level nuclear waste transport and burial project in northwestern Ontario omits the long-distance transport of waste along public roads from reactor stations to the DGR site. Transportation will involve 2-3 trucks per day for fifty years travelling an average of 1,800 km from the reactor stations to the proposed DGR location.

Following the 160-year operating phase of the NWMO project, 150,000 tonnes of highly radioactive fuel waste would be left underground in the headwaters of the Wabigoon and Turtle-Rainy River watersheds.

The project has triggered sustained opposition from members of the public living along transportation routes and in the siting region, and from First Nations throughout Ontario. Just weeks before the NWMO announced their site selection in November 2024, Treaty 3 Chiefs in Assembly passed a resolution reiterating their opposition to the project and the NWMO’s presence in their territory. Eagle Lake First Nation, whose territory is immediately downstream from the selected site, has launched a legal challenge of the NWMO site selection process. In November 2025, both the Anishinabek Nation and the Chiefs of Ontario passed resolutions opposing the NWMO project, while demanding that long-distance transportation be reviewed as part of the federal assessment process.

The public has only 30 days to comment on the 1,233-page initial project description of the NWMO DGR project. A public comment period commenced on January 5th and will close on February 4th. Surely the public deserves more time to carefully consider the implications of a project of this magnitude. Members of Parliament can expect to hear concerns from their constituents about the NWMO plan and the current assessment process.

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Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more

The SMRs Education Task Force is a network of groups in Canada concerned and active on the nuclear file. Together we have many decades of experience providing information to Canadians about nuclear issues, including the proposed small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). We are providing this bulletin free of charge to encourage more informed awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country.

Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM est un réseau de groupes canadiens préoccupés et actifs dans le dossier nucléaire. Ensemble, nous avons plusieurs décennies d'expérience dans la fourniture d'informations aux Canadiens sur les questions touchant au nucléaire, y compris les projets de petits réacteurs nucléaires modulaires (PRM). Nous fournissons ce bulletin gratuitement afin d'encourager une prise de conscience plus éclairée des PRM et de leurs implications potentielles pour les communautés à travers le pays.

SMRs Information Task Force - Le groupe de travail sur l'éducation relative aux PRM

Visit smrs-info.ca to learn more.

1 855 225 8055
contact@smrs-info.ca