Electricity Daily
March 24, 2003

An incorrectly installed reactor instrument disabled a crucial nuclear shutdown system at a Candu reactor at the Bruce B nuclear station for several weeks late last year, as British Energy left the Bruce Power partnership (ED, Jan. 7), and there appears to have been a cover-up with regard to the incident.

Tom Adams of public interest group Energy Probe, and some commissioners of the Ottawa-based Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), question whether the new plant operating partners can maintain nuclear safety as BE leaves.

The six public commissioners of the CNSC say that the CNSC staff withheld information about the incident from them for a month. They learned of the problem on Feb. 12, after holding hearings that approved the restart of two units of Bruce A. CNSC Commissioner Letha MacLachlan said the safety oversight "shakes my confidence in the assertions" by Bruce Power of the quality of their safety management. The six commissioners indicated they no longer accepted assurances that the six reactors would be operated safely.

The Bruce complex is the largest nuclear facility in the world, and consists of the Bruce A and Bruce B stations, with eight Candu reactors totaling some 6,000 MW. The four reactors of Bruce A, and Pickering A, were shut down by Ontario Hydro due to the financial crisis which led to its breakup in 1999.

Hydro’s scion Ontario Power Generation Inc. leased the Bruce complex in 2001 to the British Energy-led Bruce Power partnership, which has profitably operated the Bruce B station. But British Energy then had to sell its stake due to its own financial crisis in the U.K.

The sale of British Energy’s stake in Bruce Power, brokered last year, closed on Feb. 14. The hurried $598 million deal was widely considered a "fire sale" bargain for the new partners – a pension fund, uranium company Cameco, and TransCanada PipeLines – who have no history or experience in nuclear safety or nuclear operations.

Preparations for the restart of the two Bruce A reactors by this summer are now proceeding. Restart is considered essential to lower the costs and maintain the reliability of the power-short Ontario electricity system.

Whether the alleged cover-up of safety information at Bruce B will delay restart is not known.