Green talk

Posted on December 7, 2005 by energyprbe

Tom Adams

December 7, 2005

Letter to the Editor

Premiers Doer and Charest plead for meaningful action to cut greenhouse gas emissions (“Seize the climate-friendly day” December 7, see below). Both premiers preside over government-owned power utilities right now selling power to households at prices that deliver home heating at prices below those of natural gas heating, thereby encouraging customers to switch from gas to inefficient baseboard electric heaters. Meanwhile, both utilities rely on natural gas and coal or oil-fired generators to supply electricity demands at during the winter. Indirectly meeting heating needs with fossil-fired power multiplies emissions by a factor of three. The same anti-environmental power pricing situation exists in B.C. as well.

If Doer and Charest want to implement their own environmental advice they will introduce seasonal pricing for electricity, so that winter electricity prices reflect the real costs.

Tom Adams, Executive Director, Energy Probe

Posted in Reforming Ontario's Local Electrical Distribution Sector | Leave a comment

Alternative Energy: Greasing The Wheels

Posted on December 5, 2005 by energyprbe

Peter Evans
Canadian Business Online
December 5, 2005

Hurricane Katrina’s destructive swath may have caused a spike in oil prices, but it also spiked interest in alternative energy technology.

Take Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Though they earn their bread in the food business, the company recently announced it is set to open Canada’s first large-scale biodiesel plant.

Biodiesel, made from excess food oils and rendered fats, can be blended with diesel fuel to make it environmentally friendlier. The fuel is considered “greener” because it allows engines to use less diesel; it also produces less carbon dioxide than conventional petroleum, and uses materials that might otherwise be wasted.

Maple Leaf’s facility in Rothsay, Ont., won’t be at full capacity until 2006, but there are already high-profile markets for its product.

For example, from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9, Montreal hosts delegates from 157 countries who signed the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gases, at the first United Nations conference on climate change since Kyoto took effect in February 2005. Charged with establishing the next round of environmental targets, the federal government has pledged to make even the staging of the event green-friendly; 10,000 delegates will be ferried through the city on biodiesel vehicles.

The exhaust fumes generated by biodiesel supposedly smell like french fries, which may or may not be a good thing. Likewise, the scientific jury on biodiesel is out ─ but skeptics maintain biodiesel’s hype is a lot of hot air.

The main problem, says Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, is its energy efficiency. He cites a Cornell University study that found biodiesel can sometimes require 27% more energy to produce than the resulting fuel is worth. Yet other studies (including one co-sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture) claim a net energy gain.

“[Biodiesel] is a step in the right direction, but in terms of energy for meeting transportation requirements, it’s really not a viable option,” Adams maintains. “There really is no such thing as a free lunch.” Even when you’re feeding the remains of lunch to your car.

From the December 5-25, 2005 issue of Canadian Business Magazine

 

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Manitoba wastes electricity, and now gas, too

Posted on November 6, 2005 by energyprbe

Tom Adams
November 6, 2005

Winnipeg Free Press  

Already overseeing the world’s most inefficient electricity consuming economy, Manitoba’s NDP government’s speech from the Throne sets a course to promote natural gas wastage as well.

Kicking off this session of the legislature on October 27th, the government committed to introduce legislation to end Manitoba’s longstanding and wise practice of offering natural gas to distribution customers of Centra Gas Manitoba at floating market rates. Instead, the legislation will allow the provincially-owned gas utility to defer rate increases it would otherwise implement to capture increases in the commodity cost of natural gas in the continental market.

The government’s policy follows a recent decision on the Manitoba Public Utilities Board. In deciding the most recent rate adjustment to reflect rising continental gas prices, the Board created a complex shell game to temporarily shield residential consumers from the full effect of higher costs. Other classes of customers like businesses will continue to pay the real cost.

Noting the hardship energy bills represent for low income households, the Board decided to confer rate relief upon all households, including the well to do. At best, this is an inefficient method of protecting the poor.

Selecting one rate class over others for relief sends the regulatory process down a slippery slope. Having established the precedent of considering the relative degree of hardship, the Board may in future find itself inundated with businesses making their own pleas of special need.

The utility’s losses associated with residential underpayment will be paid by borrowing. Business customers not benefiting from subsidized rates might be at risk when payback time rolls around because, if market prices don’t plunge, payback time will be painful for vote-rich households. Interest costs on the borrowing to cover unpaid amounts will make the pain worse.

Until Wednesday, Saskatchewan, whose government has historically encouraged wasteful consumption by underpricing natural gas by its Crown gas utility SaskEnergy, often with disastrous consequences for the provincial government budgets, appeared to be on the verge waking up to the problems this creates.

SaskEnergy, the Crown gas utility, has been underpricing gas most of the time this decade. SaskEnergy’s loses on commodity sales to distribution customers in the period 2001-2003 alone totaled $430 per customer. On Wednesday, the government decided to up this amount by a further $400 per customer.

Ironically, the gas rate subsidization initiative of the Manitoba regulator and the government mitigates slightly the negative economic and environmental implications of Manitoba’s current waste-encouraging electricity pricing policies. This winter it will be cheaper for Manitoba households to turn off their furnaces and plug in electric baseboard heaters. Without subsidized gas rates, the urge to switch from gas to electricity would be even greater.

Power usage in Manitoba, identified in a 2003 study by Energy Probe for Winnipeg’s Frontier Centre for Public Policy as the highest electricity consumption in the world per unit of economic output, is likely to soar to new records.

Manitoba and all the jurisdictions around it rely on coal and gas to supply electricity during the winter. Gas furnaces are typically three times as efficient as gas-fired electricity in delivering home heat. Through their baseboard heaters, Manitobans will be throwing away a fortune this winter that the province and its citizens could be earning by charging all customers market prices for electricity, drastically cutting power usage, eliminating Manitoba Hydro’s gas and coal usage, and selling the surplus power to neighbors.

Prices reflecting the real value of Manitoba’s electricity would be higher in winter to reflect expensive fossil-fired power and would also reflect the costs of forgone electricity export sales

Efficiently pricing electricity and gas, particularly when the competing sources are becoming more expensive, provides Manitoba with an opportunity to leave behind its status as an economic “have not” region.

Without subsidizing conventional fuels, the province would be well placed to develop renewable heating options. Manitoba has some of the lowest hay prices in North America, reflecting vast agricultural capacity to produce crops suitable for low cost home heating, such as switchgrass and other prairie grass species. Combined with Manitoba’s large demand for heating fuels, the province could be leading a transition away from conventional heating fuels.

Manitoba’s NDP government appears to be cribbing its gas pricing policy from Ontario’s former Tory premier, Ernie Eves, who slashed and froze electricity rates three years ago. The Eves policy is not only a financial disaster but now threatens Ontario consumers with blackouts.

Manitoba has the potential to make vast economic and environmental gains by charging customers energy prices that reflect real costs. The government’s Throne speech sets a course in the opposite direction.

Tom Adams is Executive Director of Energy Probe, a Toronto-based think tank.

 

Posted in Manitoba, Utility Reform | 9 Comments

The Marketplace: Is it really an advantage to lock into a natural gas contract?

Posted on November 2, 2005 by energyprbe

Michael Prentice
Ottawa Business Journal
November 2, 2005

Lately I have been a two-time loser when it came to selecting a mortgage and deciding how to pay my natural gas bill. I made the wrong choice – or so some would argue – on both over the past five years.

I chose a five-year fixed-rate mortgage, as usual, thereby paying substantially more in interest than I would have paid if I had opted for the bank’s floating interest rates or short-term rates over the five-year period.

Conversely, I chose to pay floating rates to cool and heat my home, and ended up paying higher prices for natural gas than I would have paid with some fixed-rate plans.

We are supposed to learn from our mistakes, but I don’t think I made any here.

When interest rates are low, it makes sense to me to go for a fixed rate, five-year mortgage, with a monthly payment that’s within my means. If interest rates shoot up during the five-year period, I’m protected. If they don’t, I don’t mind paying the extra interest required on a five-year loan. I see it as the cost of peace of mind.

With natural gas and now also electricity, it’s different. Despite soaring energy costs, I can stand the risk of a continuing price surge in natural gas and electricity. By not locking into a fixed price for future energy supplies, I shall be a winner unless future price hikes are steeper than expected.

Businesses offering fixed rates for future supplies of natural gas for home or office are making much of the fact that many of their customers have saved money over the past five years.

Direct Energy Essential Home Services, one of the most successful and aggressive marketers of fixed-price energy, has been running ads stating that its typical Ontario residential customer saved $848 on natural gas between 2000 and 2005.

That sum represents the difference between what the Direct Energy customer paid for natural gas and what the average home owner paid at the floating rate charged by the local utility, which is Enbridge Gas Distribution in the case of Ottawa customers.

No one can foretell the future, but consumers should be wary of locking into fixed prices for natural gas and electricity, says Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, an Ontario-based consumer advocacy group.

Marketers of fixed-price natural gas and electricity are middlemen, operating much like banks, he says. A bank offers a five-year fixed-rate mortgage loan with money borrowed from customers who bought five-year guaranteed investment certificates, or GICs. The bank’s profit is the difference between the interest rate charged to the borrower, who obtains a mortgage, and the interest paid to the lender, who invests savings in a GIC.

Similarly, says Mr. Adams, energy marketers take little or no risk in offering fixed prices for future delivery of natural gas and, increasingly, electricity. Their retail prices are based on contracts they have already made with natural gas and electricity producers, for delivery as much as five years ahead.

“My criticism of marketers (of natural gas and electricity) is that their mark-ups are quite steep,” says Mr. Adams. “The mark-up is typically around 20 per cent.”

Purchasers of fixed-price contracts are gambling that future prices of natural gas and electricity will rise faster than expected, says Mr. Adams. Even if prices do rise faster than expected, he says, the increase must exceed the marketer’s mark-up in order for the customer to come out ahead of those paying floating rates for energy.

Utilities like Enbridge and Hydro Ottawa make their money by delivering the product, not on the sale of the product itself.

Energyshop.com is a good website to review prices and options for the purchase of energy. It notes: “If you choose to buy from a gas marketer, your gas delivery won’t change. You will still get a bill from your distribution utility. (This) will indicate a regulated delivery and transportation charge – about one-third of your bill – that goes to the utility, and a gas supply charge (price of the gas). The remaining two-thirds – that goes to the competitive supplier you chose.”

Energyshop.com estimates that, by the start of 2006, Enbridge’s price of the natural gas itself is likely to be above 38 cents a cubic metre. Direct Energy recently offered a five-year contract at 42.7 cents a cubic metre for the first year, and 43.7 cents thereafter.

You make your pick and pay your money.

 

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Haldimand County : Coal Fired Plant in Ontario Not As Dirty As Reported

Posted on October 7, 2005 by energyprbe

CD 98.9 FM
October 7, 2005

A report by Energy Probe says coal-fired power stations such as Nanticoke’s aren’t as big a polluter as originally thought. The report says two of the units at the Lambton generating station near Sarnia rank in the top 10 cleanest in North America. Energy Probe executive director Tom Adams says it makes no sense to shut down Ontario plants and import large amounts of power from dirtier coal-fired stations in the U-S.

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Ontario to mothball two CANDU reactors

Posted on August 26, 2005 by Other News Sources

Paul Webster
Science Magazine, Vol. 309
August 26, 2005

Only months after Canadian-made reactors were rejected in U.S. and Chinese markets, Canada’s 60-year-old civilian nuclear industry has suffered a potentially mortal blow at home. Facing a $1.6-billion repair bill, the government of Ontario decided this month to mothball two 540-megawatt Canada Deuterium-Uranium (CANDU) nuclear reactors more than a decade before their projected retirement date.

“Ontario’s decision to write off two reactors early could signal the end of the road for CANDU,” says Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, a nonprof it nuclear watchdog group based in Toronto. In January, the reactor company’s U.S. partner, Dominion Resources of Richmond, Virginia, decided to abandon plans to seek a U.S. license for its next-generation CANDU. And in May, Chinese authorities announced that they weren’t interested in buying any units beyond the two 700-megawatt units already operating near Shanghai.

Canadian officials have long touted the CANDU reactors, manufactured by the government-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), as an example of the country’s technological prowess. A descendant of the Manhattan project, CANDU’s first forebear went on line at Chalk River, Ontario, in 1945. Since then some 34 large commercial versions have been built and installed around the world, including 20 in Ontario. But their complex cooling systems, which allow the reactor to be refueled without going off line, have proven very costly to maintain.

The reactors to be mothballed are two of eight at the Pickering Nuclear Station in the Toronto area. Built in the 1970s, they’ve been idle since 1997 largely because of thinning in the hundreds of pipes carrying heavy water coolant from the reactor core. Two years ago, three other laid-up Ontario reactors were restarted after refurbishments costing billions of dollars, and their operators now say more repairs are not far off. Adams says that CANDU reactors of various vintages in Argentina, India, Pakistan, Romania, China, and Korea will require extensive repairs sooner than planned.

Experts point to the corrosive effect of the heavy water coolant as a major culprit, with the reactor’s design contributing to the large repair bills. “Just getting at the pipes is fantastically difficult, dangerous, and expensive,” says Frank Greening, former head of nuclear cooling systems analysis at Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the government utility that owns all of Ontario’s CANDUs. Even for reactors in which the coolant feeder pipes haven’t yet deteriorated, says John Luxat, president of the Canadian Nuclear Society and OPG’s former head of nuclear safety, “the costs of demonstrating [their safety] are becoming a problem.”

Ken Petrunik, AECL’s chief operating officer, says the CANDUs, which cost about $1.5 billion new, “perform well in their early years” and that their ability to refuel on line has yielded “better performance results than any other reactor type in the world.” He downplays the impact of Ontario’s decision to mothball two reactors by noting that AECL is only weeks away from launching a sales campaign for an advanced version of the CANDU reactor that will compete with new designs from other countries. Petrunik also discounted the recent bad news from the United States and China. “We remain conf ident we’ll secure a reasonable share of the world market,” says Petrunik.

Posted in Towards Shutdown | Leave a comment

Ontarians haven’t learned the need to conserve since 2003 blackout: experts

Posted on August 12, 2005 by energyprbe

Gillian Livingston
Maclean’s Magazine
August 12, 2005

In the two years since the great blackout of 2003, Ontarians haven’t learned the valuable lesson of conservation and energy experts warn that rolling blackouts could become a reality if the province’s power supply crunch worsens.

The good news since the blackout is that electricity transmission facilities, their maintenance standards and emergency measures have improved, said Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe.

“But the bad news is on the consumption side we have continued to hit records . . . and are on track to just continue” doing that, he said.

With weeks of sweltering weather this summer, Ontarians cranked up their air conditioners, which led to record-breaking demand for power and four pleading calls to conserve from the agency that monitors the province’s power system.

In an effort to avoid rolling blackouts, voltage across the province was cut by five per cent over two consecutive days – a measure that causes brownouts and keeps some equipment from working.

“On the consumption side, we have not turned the corner yet and there’s no sign of it,” Adams said.

With demand nearly outstripping supply at times, “there’s no question that it’s just a matter of time before another blackout happens,” said Dave Martin, energy coordinator with Greenpeace Canada.

“The electricity system in Ontario is stressed to the max.”

It was 4:15 p.m. EDT on a sweaty Aug. 14, 2003 when a fault on a transmission line in Ohio led to a cascading blackout that cut power to the eastern Unites States and all of Ontario.

It ground air and public transportation to a halt. Traffic lights stopped. Cities went dark. Businesses closed for days and workers walked home in the oppressive heat of the summer.

Although the transmission problem was blamed for the blackout, it highlighted the interconnectedness of the power grids between the United States and Ontario and the stress the system faced from ever-rising demand.

Since then Ontario’s hydro maintenance practices have been held up as the standard, said Hydro One spokesman Peter Gregg. Recent audits of utilities in Ontario and the eastern United States have made the entire electricity grid more reliable, he added.

The blackout drove home to people and businesses just how valuable electricity is in our digital world, and how we can’t get along without it.

In the days following, businesses and residents were asked to severely curtail their use of electricity as hydro officials restored power to the strained system.

And people heeded the call, cutting back by about 20 per cent, said Fiona Oliver-Glasford, director of operations with the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance.

But several weeks later people went back to their usual habits of blasting the air conditioner and leaving lights and electronics on, and those habits are hard to break, Oliver-Glasford said.

“To change that takes a long time,” but slowly people are starting to make conservation part of their daily lives, she said.

But change requires more government incentives and higher efficiency standards on new appliances and buildings, added Oliver-Glasford.

The province has faced criticism for being slow to act on conservation, the cheapest way to get more power. In May, the government named Peter Love as its chief conservation officer to lead its charge.

Love said he’s working with local hydro utilities on their conservation plans, and this fall will outline other provincewide programs to spur changes to energy consumption habits.

Love said he will also issue a formal call for proposals from big industry to cut 250 megawatts of demand.

The four warnings from the Independent Electricity System Operator, which manages the power system, has kept conservation at the forefront this summer, said Terry Young, the agency’s spokesman.

“The situation we’ve been in this summer has certainly reinforced that thinking (that) we need to change the way we use electricity, we need to improve our efficiency,” Young said. This summer’s electricity bills will emphasize that fact, he added.

“We need to understand that there’s not a limitless supply at times,” he said.

Although Adams doesn’t expect a blackout in the magnitude of 2003, he said he thinks Ontario could face California’s dilemma in 2000 where rolling blackouts become the norm. That’s where power to one region is cut temporarily because demand outstrips supply.

“That the scenario I fear,” Adams said.

Ontario has taken steps to get 9,000 megawatts of new power built in the province, but it will be years before new generating plants are up and running. In the meantime, the government is going ahead with closing its polluting coal plants, which provide about 20 per cent of Ontario’s power.

The province has to move on conservation, improve transmission and get more supply, Adams said. The government needs to get out of regulating prices so that people pay the real cost of electricity, and that will spur companies to come into the market and build more generating capacity, he added.

 

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N.B. Power faces costs of aging plant

Posted on July 29, 2005 by Other News Sources

Kevin Bisset
Globe and Mail
July 29, 2005

Fredericton: The New Brunswick government is expected to announce today its plans for a $1.4-billion refurbishing of its aging Point Lepreau nuclear power plant near Saint John.

The question is: How will the province do it without jolting consumers and businesses with hefty rate increases.

Earlier this month, the federal government rejected the province’s request for a $400-million contribution to the project, saying such a grant would set an expensive precedent that would prompt other provinces to seek a similar deal.

Premier Bernard Lord said the federal government misled and betrayed the province.

With Ottawa out of the picture, the province will need a partner with deep pockets to get the job done. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and Bruce Power of Ontario have said they could help.

In a deal with Bruce Power, the company would shoulder most of the refurbishment risk in exchange for a long-term contract to operate the plant and sell its electricity back to New Brunswick Power Corp.

With AECL, the province would take on most of the risk while the Crown corporation would be contracted to do the retrofit, extending the use of the plant 25 years beyond its projected lifespan.

Point Lepreau came on-line in 1983, and it generates one-third of the province’s power. It was to be pulled from service in 2008.

Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, says if N.B. Power sticks to its business philosophy, it won’t take on a money-hungry project like the retrofit of Lepreau.

“The project is not economic. It doesn’t stand on its own, and can’t pay for itself. . . . New Brunswickers simply can’t afford it.”

 

Posted in New Brunswick Power | Leave a comment

Ministers decide fate of N.B. power plant

Posted on July 28, 2005 by Other News Sources

Canadian Press
Canada.com
July 28, 2005

 

Fredericton: New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord and members of his cabinet are meeting this afternoon to decide the future of the aging Point Lepreau nuclear power plant. At issue is whether to go ahead with a $1.4 billion refurbishment, and if so, how?

 

The province could partner with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, or Bruce Power of Ontario.

Cabinet ministers entering the meeting weren’t offering many hints.

Energy Minister Bruce Fitch would only say the province is looking at an interesting concept that has many pros and cons.

The premier has promised to make the official announcement tomorrow morning.

Ross Galbraith of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers says he expects the province will proceed with refurbishment.

He says his members could work well with either AECL or Bruce Power.

IBEW represents 640 of the 700 employees at Point Lepreau.

But a leading energy watchdog says he expects the province will scrap the power plant.

 

Tom Adams, director of Toronto-based Energy Probe, says if N.B. Power is sticking to its new business philosophy, it won’t take on a uneconomic project like the retrofit of Lepreau.

 

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Ontario pays towns to take nuclear waste

Posted on July 27, 2005 by Other News Sources

April Lindgren
Ottawa Citizen
July 27, 2005

Toronto: Government-owned Ontario Power Generation paid more than $3 million to municipalities on the shores of Lake Huron this spring as part of a deal clearing the way for construction of North America’s first deep rock nuclear waste storage facility.

The cash, which some critics have decried as hush money aimed at silencing opposition, is the first instalment of a “hosting agreement” that will see the utility pay the Ontario communities of Kincardine, Saugeen Shores, Huron-Kinloss, Arran-Elderslie and Brockton $35.7 million over the next 30 years.

In return, the five municipal councils have embraced OPG’s plan to store low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste in a deep rock geologic repository at the Bruce nuclear plant in picturesque Kincardine.

The plan for the repository includes digging 660 metres down into limestone and carving out 38 caverns, each as long as a football field, up to eight metres wide and 6.6 metres high.

While the project is massive and involves radioactive waste that will remain contaminated for thousands of years, the proposal has attracted scant attention in a province that was in an uproar five years ago over Toronto’s plans to dump city garbage into an old iron ore mine in Northern Ontario.

“Our municipal council volunteered us as the site for this, which is almost unheard of in the world,” says Jennifer Heisz, a critic of the scheme who lives one kilometre from the Bruce station. “OPG has not based this on health and safety considerations or the suitability of the site. It’s based on our councillors volunteering the site in exchange for $35 million.”

Ms. Heisz questioned whether it was appropriate for OPG to pay for municipal council members to visit nuclear waste storage sites in Europe and the United States. She says many council members are less-than-objective decision-makers because they have relatives who work for the Bruce nuclear station or are themselves current or former employees or contractors who did business with the facility. She insists there should have been a formal referendum on a matter that will affect the community for years to come.

And she railed against provisions in the formal agreement that allow OPG to cancel payments to the municipalities if there is any opposition to the deal. “The gag order aspect of this is terrible,” Ms. Heisz said. “It stifles open debate. It has intimidated a lot of public representatives into not being able to represent the public for fear the town will lose the money.”

The 20-page agreement states early on that payments to Kincardine and the neighbouring communities can be halted if any or all of them “have failed to exercise best efforts to support the construction of (the) deep geologic repository.”

High-level waste – used nuclear fuel – is stored at the nuclear power station where it is generated and that will continue, said OPG spokesman John Earl.

The Bruce station, however, has been the storage site for low- and intermediate-level waste from all of Ontario’s reactors since 1974.

Low-level waste, made up of minimally radioactive materials such as mop heads, protective clothing and floor sweepings, is placed in above-ground concrete warehouse-type structures.

Intermediate-level waste, such as used reactor components, resins and filters, is stored mainly in steel-lined concrete containers that have been set into the ground.

Mr. Earl said the Bruce site has been selected for the repository because “the community came and asked us to look at what the options are for the future and to look at deep geologic repository as the one that they considered to be the best technology available.”

The utility, he insisted, will “work diligently to meet the needs and satisfy the concerns of the community as we move this forward.”

Kincardine Mayor Glenn Sutton also makes no apologies for the money-for-waste deal he and the council signed with OPG last fall.

“There has been extensive consultation,” including a public opinion survey that found 60 per cent of residents support the project, Mr. Sutton noted. Seventy per cent of Kincardine’s approximately 8,319 adult residents were contacted for the poll. When respondents who were neutral or refused to answer were excluded from the total, the approval rating climbed to 73 per cent.

As the actual host community for the OPG project, Kincardine will receive the lion’s share of the OPG money over the next three decades. The $2.94 million paid earlier this year has been used for park projects and a reserve fund for a possible hospital expansion.

Mr. Sutton rejects suggestions the community has been bought off. “We did a survey of other jurisdictions across the world and the amounts paid as a hosting fee are consistent with other jurisdictions in Western Europe and the United States.”

He also disputes suggestions that becoming a major nuclear waste repository will put off the tourists and cottagers who flock to Lake Huron’s beaches each year.

“We’ve had a low-level waste storage site for the Bruce and Pickering and other nuclear plants for more than 30 years and it’s been a very safe storage procedure and we’ve had basically no reaction.”

Indeed, OPG is currently seeking permission to triple the size of its current surface storage facility for low and intermediate nuclear waste to accommodate contaminated materials generated by the refurbishment of its aging nuclear reactors.

About 60,000 cubic metres are stored at the Bruce site, which is equipped to handle 72,000 cubic metres. OPG wants to begin site preparation in December to expand that capacity to 212,000 cubic metres.

The schedule for the deep geologic repository is also ambitious. The utility aims to launch an environmental assessment of the proposal by 2007 and to complete that process by 2010.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would then be asked to issue the necessary licences so construction could begin by 2013. The goal is to begin storing waste in the caverns beginning in 2017.

William Fyfe, a retired University of Western Ontario professor who is Canada’s foremost Earth scientist and an international consultant on nuclear waste issues, attacked OPG’s plans yesterday.

“You do not put nuclear waste near things like the Great Lakes or the great rivers in case there’s a leakage that you haven’t expected,” he said. “The Earth changes … and nuclear waste is dangerous for at least one million years.

“It wasn’t that many thousands of years ago when we had ice on top of southern Ontario. That could happen again and when that happens, you get all sorts of new cracks and things formed.”

Mr. Fyfe, who has been a consultant to Switzerland and Sweden on nuclear waste, said it should be buried in areas where naturally occurring materials that are easily corroded or soluble have survived unscathed for millions of years. This indicates the geology is stable.

“In Canada, we have a lot of these in old mining areas,” he said, citing Sudbury as one example.

Mr. Fyfe said OPG should consult experts, including the Swedes, who are burying their nuclear waste deep under the Baltic Sea, before pushing ahead with the Bruce project.

The Swedes “are going underground more than a kilometre and if there ever was leakage, before the stuff gets into the sea, it has to go through a lot of clay sediments and things that accumulate from erosion on the ocean bottom that is very good at absorbing stuff. It is a perfect barrier.”

Norm Rubin, the director of nuclear research for the watchdog group Energy Probe, suggested that the number of jobs and economic activity generated in the Kincardine area by the Bruce station are factors in how the story is unfolding.

“If you start making decisions during a short-term period when everybody and their brother-in-law is working for the company, and you make decisions that are irreversible, then you stand a really good chance of making a really regrettable decision.

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