Energy Probe’s Sept 1997 Submission to US Dept. of Energy

Posted on August 17, 1997 by energyprbe

Norman Rubin
Energy Probe
August 17, 1997

Dean Triebel
U.S. Department of Energy
Fax:505-665-4872
Tel: 505-665-6353
e-mail: dtriebel@doe.lanl.gov.

To the U.S. Department of Energy:

I am writing on behalf of Energy Probe concerning the “Parallex Project”, which involves the fabrication of weapons-grade plutonium into reactor fuel (“MOX”) at Los Alamos, and transport of said fuel to Chalk River, Ontario, for testing in an experimental reactor. We understand that the “test burn” is a precursor for the possible eventual large-scale importation of plutonium MOX fuel for use in CANDU nuclear reactors over a period of two or three decades. In particular, we refer to the preliminary Environmental Assessment prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy on the Parallex Project.

Energy Probe is the largest of Canada’s environmental groups that focuses on energy and nuclear issues, and has taken a decades-long interest in issues concerning nuclear energy and nuclear weapons proliferation. We also corresponded with the Department of Energy (June 6, 1966) in response to the Draft PEIS on the Storage and Disposition of Weapons-Usable Fissile Materials.

In that correspondence, we cautioned the U.S. Department of Energy not to assume that official Canadian Government approval of “the CANDU Reactor Alternative” is based on either full assessment of the program’s potential impacts, or full public discussion in Canada of those potential impacts. We call attention to your response to our comments (Final PEIS, Comment Response Document, Volume IV, Part A, pp. 3-196 through 3-202). In that response you state:

“. . . In addition, according to the Canadian Government, implementation of the CANDU Reactor Alternative would be subject to Canadian Federal and Provincial policies and regulations and would require health, safety, and environmental assessments before issuance of a Canadian license. (See the letter from the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC, dated June 6, 1996, reproduced in this CRD.)”

In that letter, signed by Brian Morrisey, the Embassy’s Minister-Counsellor, Economic and Trade Policy, the final paragraph reads as follows:

“If the DOE selects Ontario Hydro CANDU reactors for the plutonium disposition program, implementation would be subject to Canadian federal and provincial policies and regulations. These would include detailed, satisfactory assessments of health, safety, and environmental aspects before issuance of an Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) operating license to Ontario Hydro for the use of MOX fuel. We expect that the public reviews included in the AECB assessment process would focus on issues such as the safe and secure transportation of MOX fuel from the international boundary as well as matters specific to the reactor site.”

We do not believe that the promised “public reviews” will approach the level of democratic public scrutiny that this paragraph would suggest to a U.S. (or indeed a Canadian) reader. Indeed, past AECB “public reviews” on important licensing decisions have generally been completed in the course of an hour or two, giving five or ten minutes for the presentation of each independent analysis, followed (usually immediately) by the decision of the Board. In the case of the Parallex Project, including the proposed December shipment of MOX fuel to Chalk River, Ontario, we do not believe that even this level of “public review” has taken place or is anticipated. We believe that common decency in international relations, concern for the environment of a neighbouring state, the U.S. National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and the Presidential Executive Order requiring your Department to implement the principles of environmental justice in your review process, all require that Canadians must be accorded the right to a meaningful public review and assessment before the proposed shipment for the Parallex Project can proceed.

As you know, one of the credible scenarios described in the preliminary Environmental Assessment prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy on the Parallex Project involves a traffic accident resulting in the release of plutonium oxide particles to the atmosphere and subsequent inhalation of such particles by members of the public. This scenario has not been taken seriously, or publicly reviewed, in Canada. We believe a full-scale environmental assessment process must be initiated so that the details of this analysis can be critically scrutinized and alternative scenarios studied.

It is noteworthy that the preliminary EA does not specifically discuss security measures or armed guards for the transport of plutonium fuel, other than to describe a tamper-proof on-board satellite tracking system for the trucks. However, it is apparent that any attempt to hijack the shipments by force of arms could have both direct and indirect environmental consequences, and is, we believe, just as credible as the other accident scenarios discussed in the EA. Such scenarios must be included in a comprehensive environmental assessment.

Furthermore, we note that most credible assessments of the security requirements of shipments of weapons-plutonium MOX (including notably that of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences) suggest that they be handled to “The Stored [Nuclear] Weapons Standard”. It would appear that the proposed shipment would not meet that standard, in part because it does not anticipate the use of safe secure transport (SST) vehicles for the MOX export. Full discussion of this issue must be included in a comprehensive environmental assessment.

We are also concerned that the largest impact of this “test of feasibility” has not been assessed adequately at all, on either side of the border between our countries. Specifically, we believe that there is a crucial non-proliferation danger even in merely demonstrating the feasibility of using MOX fuel in CANDU reactors. CANDU reactors are operated in India, Pakistan, South Korea, Romania and Argentina, each of which have or have had an active program to develop nuclear weapons. China is about to buy two CANDU reactors. Non-Canadian CANDU operators can be expected to seize on this demonstration in Canada as a precedent to justify their own use of plutonium. The likely result is the further spread of weapons-usable plutonium in civilian nuclear power programs around the world. More than a decade ago, the U.S. government intervened to prevent the same Canadian agency, AECL, from sharing plutonium-use technology with the South Korean nuclear establishment, on legitimate anti-proliferation grounds. If even moderately successful, the proposed test of feasibility — whether or not full-scale implementation follows — will give comfort and encouragement to precisely those forces within South Korea (and other CANDU client states) that still wish to proceed towards full plutonium use.

In Canada, seven CANDU reactors are slated for shutdown due to a poor “safety culture”, manifested in sub-standard practices, sloppy management and a huge backlog of safety-related maintenance problems. The reactors to be shut down include the Bruce A reactors which were selected by AECL as the best candidates for eventual use of MOX fuel. This calls into question the judgment of AECL officials, the wisdom of consigning MOX fuel to AECL without any independent oversight, and the reliability of Ontario Hydro and AECL to fulfill the terms of any proposed plutonium disposition agreement. (Indeed, we believe that the same “safety culture” problems most likely apply as much to AECL as to Ontario Hydro.) We therefore believe that this test is at least premature, and is likely to prove useless, as it will not lead to successful disposition even if the test succeeds.

As stated in the EA, “environmental assessment of activities conducted in Canada would be the responsibility of the Canadian government”. However, there has been no environmental assessment process initiated in Canada. In fact, there has been no public process of any kind to involve the Canadian parliament or the Canadian population in approving, disapproving, or otherwise commenting on this project. For U.S. authorities to approve the project under such circumstances would inevitably lead to strong public opposition within Canada, as well as violating the spirit and (we believe) the letter of U.S. law. We urge the DOE to request the Canadian government to conduct an environmental assessment in parallel with your own.

cc. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, fax: 613-941-6900

Norman Rubin Senior Consultant, Borealis Energy Research Association Director of Nuclear Research and Senior Policy Analyst, Energy Probe 225 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2M6 Canada

 

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CANDU falls on hard times

Posted on August 14, 1997 by energyprbe

Stan Josey
The Toronto Star
August 14, 1997

 

Problems have plagued Ontario’s nuclear program

CANDU, Canada’s much-touted nuclear power generator, has long been advertised as the best in the world. But it has fallen on hard times in Ontario.

Ontario Hydro, whose nuclear program has been plagued by leaks, malfunctions and management problems, has decided to cut its losses and close the oldest seven of its nuclear generators – about one-third of its nuclear power-producing capacity – likely for good.

One other nuclear generating unit at the Bruce station was “laid up” or closed last year without fanfare because it needed costly repairs.

The utility has announced it plans to spend up to $8 billion to replace the power lost by closing these units and to refurbish its newer generating units at the Pickering, Darlington and Bruce nuclear stations.

The moves come in the wake of a devastating report on Hydro’s nuclear program.

The unique reactor design put Canada in forefront of nuclear power

While Hydro has been saying it can provide 65 per cent of Ontario’s power needs from nuclear sources, it has actually provided only about 50 per cent in recent years because reactors have been out of service for maintenance and retooling, as well as because of leaks and other problems.

The CANDU system was created at Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, about 225 kilometres northwest of Ottawa, in the 1940s and ’50s by a group of scientists who thrust Canada into the forefront of nuclear power generation with their unique reactor design.

CANDU uses regular uranium that is formed into tiny fuel rods to create a chain reaction in the core of the reactor.

That, in turn, heats heavy water or deuterium. This heated heavy water then passes through heat exchangers that create steam which then drives large steam turbines to create power.

The Pickering nuclear plant, with all eight reactor units running in top order – something that hasn’t happened much in the last decade – could provide 20 per cent of Ontario’s power needs; that’s enough power to light all of Metro Toronto.

The CANDU system is considered by many to be safer than the U.S. system, which uses enriched uranium and ordinary water as a coolant.

It is also considered safer than the Soviet-developed system that uses graphite powder as a moderator. It was graphite that caught fire when a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine blew up in April, 1986, killing at least 30 people outright and exposing about 5 million to radioactive fallout.

The Pickering nuclear station has had a number of radioactive leaks and spills in recent years that have caught the attention of the federal nuclear regulatory agency.

But, most experts agree, there has been no danger to Hydro employees or the public.

In fact, they say, if you look at nuclear power production as an industry, compared to the auto industry or coal mining, it has a have much better worker and public safety record.

But the problems that have forced Hydro to reduce its nuclear capability drastically were not expected to occur so soon.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which sold Hydro the units built over the last 27 years, told the utility they would have a 30-year lifespan.

However, Tom Adams of Energy Probe says that the oldest of the Pickering units – Unit 1 in the A plant – is not far off the 30-year mark, at 26 years of operation.

Adams said that, in 1982, Hydro was faced with a major reactor building program at Pickering and Darlington, and arbitrarily boosted the life expectancy of the units to 40 years as an accounting move.

Cracks appeared prematurely in reactor pressure tubes at Pickering in 1983, resulting in $1 billion in repairs to the A plant there.

The same retubing was due to be done at the Bruce station in Kincardine, but now has been put off indefinitely.

Ontario Hydro president Allan Kupcis resigned at the start of the utility’s board meeting on Tuesday, just before the critical report on the utility’s nuclear division was tabled.

That report, authored by Carl Andognini, the utility’s chief nuclear officer, found the Ontario nuclear stations’ performance to be “minimally acceptable.”

But it also said that they would be allowed to continue operating in this condition in the United States.

The Atomic Energy Control Board, Canada’s nuclear regulatory agency, criticized “human errors and operational failures” when it granted Hydro a limited nine-month licence renewal for Pickering in June.

AECB spokesperson Robert Potvin said officials there are still scratching their heads over Hydro’s admission two weeks ago that it has been trying to fix a leak of radioactive tritium-laced heavy water from a facility on the grounds of the Pickering station for 18 years.

The AECB did not learn about this leak until July 25 of this year.

“This is definitely an incident we should have known about at the very beginning,” Potvin said.

Another major embarrassment for Hydro lately was the revelation in The Star recently, that 1,000 tonnes of copper and zinc washings from the brass heat condensers at Pickering and other provincial power-producing facilities had washed into Lake Ontario over a 10-year period, without notification to the proper environmental authorities.

Canada’s nuclear regulatory agency has been critical of Hydro procedures

Rather than continuing to pump money into the aging and failing nuclear units, Hydro now has decided to close them down and concentrate its financial resources on upgrading the remaining newer operating nuclear generators.

Meanwhile, the provincial officials have said that Hydro’s monopoly as the province’s supplier of electricity likely will end in the near future as the North American power grid is thrown open to competition.

Previously, other potential power suppliers, such as Ajax Hydro which wants to produce local power from a steam plant, have been thwarted by Hydro’s enforcement of its monopoly on power production.

Likewise, a private firm that wanted to produce power at a refurbished private dam on the Trent River just north of Trenton also has had a long and frustrating battle with Hydro.

Nuclear watchdog groups, such as Durham Nuclear Awareness, say one reason Hydro is cutting its nuclear losses now is that power produced in this way will not be competitive when the electricity market is thrown open to competition from private producers.

 

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Ottawa skips reactor advice

Posted on August 11, 1997 by energyprbe

Jeff Sallot
The Globe and Mail
August 11, 1997

 

Warnings about environmental impact ignored in Candu sale to China, documents show

The federal government ignored its own consultants’ warnings about the need for environmental studies when it signed a contract to sell nuclear reactors to China last November.

Internal federal documents show that Marbek Resource Consultants Ltd. of Ottawa advised the government on Nov. 18 that there was not enough scientific analysis and data available to determine the environmental impact of the construction of two Candu nuclear reactors on Hangzhou Bay south of Shanghai.

The consultants recommended further studies and public environmental hearings in Canada to air the issues because taxpayers are guaranteeing $1.5-billion in loans to China to cement the deal.

Nevertheless, on Nov. 26, eight days after the Marbek report was received by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Prime Minister Jean Chretien signed the Candu agreement with China during a visit to Shanghai.

The sale of the reactors by federally owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is the jewel in the crown of the Chretien government’s China trade policy.

Mr. Chretien has met several times with China’s top leaders to promote Canadian exports in general and the nuclear reactor sales specifically.

The reactor sales will create 27,000 jobs, according to briefing notes prepared by bureaucrats for cabinet ministers.

But Canada’s environmental laws, requiring thorough impact studies for federal projects, were seen by the government as a potential stumbling block.

The Marbek report was released only recently under the Access to Information Act. Public-interest researcher Ken Rubin of Ottawa was told initially that no studies existed, but after a six-month battle he obtained the Marbek report from Foreign Affairs.

The consultants pointed out that electricity produced by the nuclear reactors would reduce the need for dirty coal-fired power generation in China, significantly reducing air pollution.

Even so, throughout the report the consultants point out gaps in the scientific information about the possible impact of the project. Highlights include:

The consultants had to rely on an “incomplete version” of environmental reports from the Shanghai Nuclear Energy Research Institute;

Marbek, which had only five days to complete its report, could not verify the accuracy of the Chinese information and strongly recommended that the documentation be further reviewed by nuclear safety experts;

More information is needed on the probability of earthquakes, tornadoes, typhoons, floods or other disasters in the vicinity of the nuclear reactors;

Additional information is required on the impact of the construction project on the shoreline and the bay;

Not enough information was available to assess the project’s impact on currents, tides and other ocean conditions in the vicinity of the reactors;

Further reviews should be conducted by oceanographic and water-quality experts, as well as experts from the Atomic Energy Control Board, Environment Canada and the Departments of Fisheries and Oceans and Natural Resources.

The consultants said it is “not practicable” for a full environmental consultation with the local Chinese population, but the Canadian public should be given a chance to comment on environmental issues.

(China’s Communist Party authorities maintain a tight grip on information and political activity throughout the country. They have rarely allowed the concerns of local populations to stand in the way of large infrastructure projects.)

The Marbek report said there was no evidence of significant adverse environmental effects from the project, but cautioned that “it is not possible to reach a final conclusion concerning the environmental impact” because of gaps in the information.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act would require the government to conduct additional studies to determine whether the project complies with Canada’s environmental standards, the report concluded.

This cautionary report arrived 11 days after cabinet had already dealt with the issue. On Nov. 7, in preparation for Mr. Chretien’s Shanghai trip, cabinet approved an unprecedented order waiving requirements for a full environmental-impact assessment under Canadian law.

Briefing notes prepared by the Foreign Affairs Department for cabinet ministers suggest that the politicians tell the public “we do not expect projects in other countries to conform to Canadian environmental law.”

The Sierra Club of Canada and other environmental groups argue that Canadian assessment standards should apply when the project involves Canadian technology and the financing is being underwritten by Canadian taxpayers.

The Sierra Club is asking the Federal Court of Canada to order the government to conduct an environmental assessment under Canadian law.

The briefing notes say that requiring environmental assessments to Canadian standards for these kinds of projects will put Canadian technology exporters at a disadvantage with foreign competitors for sales.

The French were considered rivals for this particular project.

The briefing notes also say Canada is trying to get an international agreement on an environmental assessment process for these kinds of projects so that everyone is competing on a level playing field.

The Marbek report was completed in secrecy and with great haste. The Nov. 13 contract required the report to be completed five days later. “Time is of the essence,” the contract says. The consultants were also required to treat all information provided to them in confidence.

 

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Update on the Ontario select committee on Ontario Hydro nuclear affairs

Posted on July 21, 1997 by energyprbe

October 21, 1997

Energy Probe, a national environmental and consumer advocacy organization, presented its five recommendations to the Ontario Select Committee on Ontario Hydro Nuclear Affairs yesterday evening. The recommendations are:

1. The eight reactors at Pickering A and Bruce A should be written off and the units permanently closed.

2. The Committee should urge the government to investigate all opportunities for financing future nuclear investments (beginning with Ontario Hydro’s planned ~$1.6 billion for “nuclear recovery”) outside the public purse — e.g. out of the ~$9 billion Ontario Hydro pension fund, or by outside-financed equity transfer to Ontario Hydro’s unions.

3. Ontario Hydro’s financial reporting should be thoroughly revised to accurately report all expenditures and liabilities. In particular:

3a. Ontario Hydro should not be allowed to capitalize any costs related to operating or maintaining its reactors.

3b. Depreciation of nuclear assets and all financial implications related to depreciation period should be based not on 40 years of reactor service life as is currently the case but on 25 years.

3c. Nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning liabilities should be funded in an external account. If Ontario Hydro is unable to produce the money (roughly $2.8 billion) it has collected from customers for the purpose of nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning, the government must produce the money, to avoid burdening future Ontarians with the costs of cleaning up after us.

4. The government of Ontario should break up Ontario Hydro with a view to permitting customers to buy power from producers of their choice and making power producers accountable to customers and investors.

5. The Committee should recommend that the Ontario Government begin a transition to a world of full nuclear accident liability. The Ontario Government should legislate that as of a date certain in the near future (perhaps 2005) no nuclear reactor will be permitted to operate in Ontario unless its owners and operators are liable without limit for the off-site consequences of a reactor accident, and have demonstrated the capability of discharging that liability.

In addition to Energy Probe’s presentation, the Committee heard from former Ontario Hydro Chairman Maurice Strong and Jack Gibbons representing the Clean Air Alliance, a coalition of environmental organizations. A main theme of Mr. Strong’s presentation was that if any safety problems indirectly resulted from any action he took as Chairman, particularly through the voluntary severance program, this would have been contrary to his instructions. On behalf of the Clean Air Alliance, Mr. Gibbons outlined the environmental and human health problems caused by ongoing operation of Ontario Hydro’s coal-fired generating stations and explained the need for tougher regulations of air emissions for Ontario Hydro and potential future electricity suppliers.

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NB Power president refuses to debate environmentalist on future of nuclear power in New Brunswick

Posted on June 30, 1997 by Other News Sources

June 30, 1997

NB Power refused today to provide a company representative to appear on the CBC television program “Focal Point” to debate the future of the province’s nuclear program with Thomas Adams, Executive Director of the national environmental and consumer watchdog Energy Probe.

A representative of NB Power’s confirmed to “Focal Point” producers that the utility’s president James Hankinson would not debate Mr.Adams and that no one else in the corporation would be available.

A consulting study, performed by the firm Hagler Bailly and commissioned by NB Power, recently three weeks ago recommended potential life extension of the Point Lepreau nuclear station beyond its current expected end of service date around the year 2014 and also recommended changes in the accounting treatment for the facility that would recover depreciation and waste disposal costs over a shorter period than is now used. The staff of the Atomic Energy Control Board last week criticized operating practices at the utility’s trouble prone Point Lepreau nuclear generating station. The utility announced its 1997-98 financial results today which show a $21.2 million loss, the fourth straight annual loss after removing the effect of accounting changes.

Energy Probe’s analysis of NB Power’s environmental, financial, and operational status is available on the Internet at http://www.nextcity.com/EnergyProbe/nbpower/index.html.

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Lepreau’s Lament

Posted on June 20, 1997 by Other News Sources

Moncton Times Transcript
June 20, 1997

Can NB Power count on its aging nuclear plant for power well into the future? The utility thinks so, but a spokesman for a watchdog agency has doubts:

Plagued by operational glitches and costly shutdowns, the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station has suffered through its worst year since it was commissioned 13 years ago, but NB Power is confident it can turn around the fortunes of the plant the flagship of its electrical power generating fleet.

Stung by an Atomic Energy Control Board report earlier this month that called for “urgent action” to improve safety performance management, NB Power has launched a program to improve operational and human performance procedures at Lepreau and appointed a veteran utility employee to make sure it is carried out.

Rod White, named this week as the utility’s new vice-president in charge of the plant, says the Atomic Energy Control Board has raised the bar in terms of its expectations for Lepreau’s operation.

“What the board has said. . . is the reactor is safe and we have operated safely in the past year,” said White in a telephone interview. “The concerns they have expressed are ones they see in the indicators that there is a need for improvement, that some of the safety culture issues may be slipping from a level that we should be operating at, and they’d like us to pay attention to them at an early opportunity,” said White, who until this week was general manager in charge of NB Power’s overall electrical generation.

Those “indicators” include some 30 incidents reported to AECB in 1996 by NB Power where the board said the utility failed to comply with the terms of its operating licence. The board said 20 of those events directly involved personnel error.

In fact, throughout its report, the board attributes many of Lepreau’s woes to human error something White indicated NB Power is aware of and is addressing.

NB Power is targeting several areas for improvement: “safety awareness for our staff, human performance issues either in terms of training or the standards that we set for our people,” White said.

White said operational procedures will also be tightened so they conform to “the way we want work done, so the results are more predictable.”

Ensuring “predictable results” is crucial because when Lepreau goes down it hurts.

Two major shutdowns at Lepreau last year cost the utility about $14 million for repairs and about $60 million to buy replacement power.

NB Power counts on the nuclear power plant to produce 30 per cent of its electrical generation and the plant displaces between $100 and $150 million in fuel oil costs annually. Lepreau also contributes between $150 to $200 million in cash flow each year from power sales outside New Brunswick. “So its important for us to make sure that station runs to meet its long-term mandate,” said White.

NB Power is counting on Lepreau operating at 85 per cent efficiency to meet the goals set out in its five-year plan to reduce its huge $3.4 billion debt. A stable Lepreau is also crucial if NB Power wants to compete in the coming era of a more open marketplace for electrical power.

“We know we have technical issues with Lepreau in the longer term that need to be addressed and that’s one of the reasons why we also have an external organization that’s doing a technical and economic study,” said White. That external expertise will come from Hagler Bailly of Colorado a consulting company well respected within the industry and which has oodles of experience in dealing with issues in utility design and operation. Hagler Bailly is now looking at “how Lepreau will perform its role in the future for NB Power and the issues that may affect it.”

“For example, we know we have pressure tube issues, we know we have feeder tube issues. There are certain technical resolutions to those you need to plug those into your operating model for your power system and see how you make decisions in the future,” White said.

White said it will take between one and three years for NB Power’s improvement plans for Lepreau to have an impact. “They’re not something you turn around and do overnight usually. There are easy things you can do, like reducing (maintenance) backlog those are fairly easy.

“There are more difficult things that you do that’s actually changing the way people think and work and do things that’s part of the human performance issues that you have to deal with,” he said.

But there is one enemy that Lepreau and all nuclear reactors can’t beat, and that’s age, says Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe of Toronto, an environmental watchdog agency specializing in energy matters. NB Power is similar to other utilities in its belief that fixing the people problem and improving maintenance procedures will address most concerns, Adams said in a telephone interview.

“Aging has very pernicious effects that are often difficult to judge and what you often get from the nuclear utilities is kind of an enthusiastic engineering attitude where they’ll say ‘look we’ve identified six problems that have definitely contributed and we’re confident we can fix those problems.’ that’s the process they go through.”

The difficulty with that, Adams said, is that the problems utilities know about now don’t correspond with the universal problems that are unfolding.

“Aging is a very surprising phenomena it keeps catching you from behind,” he said. “If you had perfect foresight, you might be able to ward some of these things off, but they get caught with things they didn’t think needed to be addressed.”

In NB Power’s case, Adams said the utility’s entire five-year business plan which is coming up for review by the provincial legislature’s standing committee next week is predicated on the assumption that Lepreau will rebound, that it will bounce back to the “good ole days.”

“I’m just concerned that those good ole days are gone,” he said. Adams believes what is needed is some “level-headed” planning on how to get reasonable value out of Lepreau over the next few years without “blowing the budget. . . .and keeping it safe.”

But Adams views as very positive the move by NB Power to seek outside advice by hiring Hagler Bailly.

“The utility has been too insular in past, closed to outside input and the fact that they are calling on outside people that’s very positive and they deserve credit for it.”

But in the end, Adams firmly believes the aging process will be Lepreau’s downfall, and he points to the experience in the United States where nuclear reactors get to their mid-20s in age and “they just get shutdown.” “And sometimes it’s not one big problem that gets them its death by a thousand cuts.”

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What’s acceptable to nuclear industry shouldn’t be to us

Posted on June 9, 1997 by Other News Sources

Monday 9 June 1997

Norman Rubin

As in most of his writing, and on his Web page, Jeremy Whitlock’s letter (June 4) is a mixed bag: a handful of quasi-religious nuclear-industry “perspective” and a pinch of downright falsehood.

Whitlock is leaping to the defense of hi s employer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, which has been discovered — again — to have allowed radioactive liquid waste — tens of millions of litres of it — to reach the Ottawa River because of leaky plumbing (“Another leak at Chalk River,” June 4) .

Part of the defense is that the Ottawa is a large river, and any toxic and cancer-causing substance leaked into it — the main concern here is a radioactive hydrogen isotope called tritium — would be diluted by its impressive volume. That’s a fact. But for those who don’t share his nuclear-industry religion, it’s not a justification for putting cancer-causing substances into the public drinking water for 20 years in a row.

Another part of his defense is that nature exposes us all to a great deal of radiation — more, for most of us, than the nuclear industry does. That is also a fact and a sad one: Whitlock conveniently neglects to mention that the international scientific establishment now estimates that roughly one percent of Citizen readers wi ll die of cancer caused by that natural radiation. I can accept that risk in return for living on this terrific planet, but I’ll be damned if I’ll condone AECL making those risks even greater.

Unfortunately for the truth, Whitlock confuses the nuclear industry with Mother Nature when he says “the natural radioactivity of the Ottawa River is something like five becquerels per litre.” In fact, the vast majority of the Ottawa’s “background” radioactivity is not from nature, but from the remaining fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. So is the tritium in our milk, and our beer. That might seem “natural” to some of the former weapons designers at Chalk River Labs, but not to me.

The real tragedy is that Canada’s nuclear regulator, the AECB, sh ares Whitlock’s quasi-religious views on radioactive pollution. That is why its “strict” regulations allow Chalk River to dump more tritium into the Ottawa River each month than our whole planet creates naturally in a year.

Norman Rubin director of nuc lear research Energy Probe, Toronto

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Energy Probe declares victory as NB Power discontinues libel suit

Posted on May 30, 1997 by Other News Sources

May 30, 1997

In a letter dated May 23 and received today, counsel for NB Power, Marc Bosse, announced it was discontinuing its liable action against Energy Probe and Tom Adams.

NB Power had filed a Statement of Claim alleging that some of our published statements about the utility’s management of financial, operational, and nuclear safety issue were defamatory. Energy Probe responded to the utility’s claims by thoroughly documenting the truth of all of the impugned statements.

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Energy Probe’s 1997 accomplishments

Posted on May 23, 1997 by energyprbe

On many fronts, 1997 was a watershed year for Energy Probe and Canada’s environment.

On May 23, NB Power backed down on its threat to sue us for saying “NB Power is not being responsibly managed,” “the utility responded to many of (Energy Probe’s) criticisms with incorrect assertions and incomplete information,” and “the response of NB Power’s management to the recent problems raises a concern about the management’s judgement in nuclear operations.” After we documented the truth of our statements to their lawyers, it withdrew its suit.

On August 13, Ontario Hydro announced its plan to close seven more reactors (one was already closed in 1995). After new revelations about Ontario Hydro’s “nuclear cult” surfaced, the truth about the cost of nuclear power started to come out. We expect that the ultimate costs of the whole nuclear program will be far higher than Ontario Hydro, the federal government, and the other nuclear proponents have claimed. Energy Probe will continue to uncover the human, environmental and economic costs of this irresponsible experiment. Now that the public at large is beginning to understand how we have been lied to about costs, there is much more critical attention addressed to the nuclear industry’s myths about safety.

We also continued our work against the radioactive waste practices of the nuclear establishment and nuclear pollution.

During the fall hearings of the Ontario government’s Select Committee on Ontario Hydro Nuclear Affairs, we argued that nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning liabilities should be responsibly funded, as they are not now. We prompted Environment Canada to investigate whether or not radioactive emissions are legally “toxic” to hon-human species. Due to our continuing efforts, that investigation shows promise of restricting emissions, especially from uranium mines and mills. In direct response to our critiques, the Atomic Energy Control Board agreed that radioactive emissions to the environment – not just doses received by humans – should be kept “as low as reasonably achievable” – something unprecedented in nuclear regulation. We hope to use this principle to fight one of the nuclear industry’s favourite “waste management” measures – dilution.

Our efforts to avert the irreversible burial of radioactive wastes have borne fruit in another arena. In mid-October, the federal government and the town of Deep River, Ontario announced that they will stop trying to build a repository near Deep River to contain the low-level radioactive wastes from Port Hope, Ontario. Instead, the federal government will work with the town of Port Hope to stabilize the wastes in monitorable, retrievable form near Port Hope. (Earlier, the federal government had proposed burying the wastes irreversibly in deep caverns mined under Lake Ontario near Port Hope. After hearing arguments from Energy Probe, local environmentalists, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, and Dr. David Suzuki, Port Hope decided that it would not support that proposal.)

We upgraded our Internet site on Canada’s notorious Candu reactor exports to China, coordinated our work with other human rights and environmental activists around the world, provided information to the press, and responded to information requests. One of our priorities now is to draw public attention to our Prime Minister’s plan to sell more nuclear reactors to Turkey, China, Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea.

We also worked hard throughout the year advocating alternative sources of electricity from environmentally and economically responsible sources like cogeneration, biomass waste, and other renewable sources.

Some of our campaigns dealt directly with consumer interests. For example, before the Ontario Energy Board last summer, Consumers Gas agreed to reduce costs for homeowners and small businesses by $1.5 million dollars in response to Energy Probe’s evidence showing that the meter reading costs for Consumers Gas were three to four times too high.

In 1998, we will continue to work for the interests of the environment, taxpayers, and consumers. Because we get less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of our revenue from corporate donations and no government donations, you can count on us to be Canada’s voice for sustainable development in energy. Please donate to help us continue our work.

 

Posted in Towards Shutdown | Leave a comment

NB Power won’t bully me into silence: Critic

Posted on May 8, 1997 by Other News Sources

Alan White
The Telegraph Journal
May 8, 1997

FREDERICTON – A vocal critic of NB Power says he isn’t going to be bullied into silence by a lawsuit brought against him by the publicly owned utility.

While NB Power dropped its recently filed lawsuit against the high-profile directors of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies Tuesday, it is still suing Energy Probe executive director Thomas Adams for defamation. Mr. Adams wrote Energizing New Brunswick Power: A Brighter Future for Consumers and Taxpayers, which was published earlier this year by AIMS and which the utility alleges defames it and president James Hankinson.

“I stand by my work,” said Mr. Adams yesterday. “If they prove that some facts are incorrect, that’s fine and that’s public debate. But a bully is not going to push me off my position that I believe to be – that is correct.”

In its statement of claim submitted to the Court of Queen’s Bench, NB Power contends that certain passages in Mr. Adams’ report suggest the utility lied to the public and that Mr. Hankinson is irresponsible, untrustworthy and unfit to run the utility.

A summary of the report published in The Telegraph Journal called on the utility to be more accountable to the public and charged that it was not being responsibly managed. NB Power was also criticized for being defensive and dismissive in an October 1996 appearance before the legislature’s standing committee on Crown corporations following a scathing report by AIMS and Energy Probe.

NB Power dropped its lawsuit AIMS and its directors late Tuesday after the institute agreed to issue an apology, which was formally released yesterday.

In its statement, AIMS officials said they stood by the report but made it clear the criticisms were not directed at individuals, including Mr. Hankinson.

“To the extent that remarks made in the report suggested that Mr. Hankinson misled the Legislative Committee, questioned his integrity and veracity, or cast doubt on his and NB Power’s concern for safety issues at Point Lepreau, AIMS is sorry and apologizes for having published such remarks,” AIMS chairman Purdy Crawford said in a three-paragraph statement.

“We at AIMS have the greatest respect for the integrity of the management of NB Power, including specifically Mr. Hankinson and the Board of NB Power.”

Because Mr. Adams will no longer be headed to court alongside the likes of AIMS directors John Crosbie, a former federal cabinet minister, and former New Brunswick Economic Development minister Denis Losier, his trepidation has increased, but he vows to stand up to NB Power in court.

“Our organization is a tiny little consumer and environmental charitable foundation,” he said. “We’re going to be defending ourselves, but having the full weight of a controlled utility and their unlimited legal budgets against us is cause for some serious concern here. I’m not going to put too shiny a face on that one.”

Mr. Adams said the lawsuit feels like a “SLAPP suit,” a term coined by U.S. environmentalists to describe corporations using “Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation” to try to “silence their critics and shoot the messenger.”

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, isn’t going to silence Mr. Adams and Energy Probe, he said.

“We’re not going away,” he said. “NB Power is about to announce its business plan and they’re about to announce their financial results. There are major decisions required in the near term and we’re in this for the long haul.

“We remain very concerned about where the utility is going.”

In its statement of claim, NB Power took exception to the following four specific statements in Mr. Adams’ report and the accompanying news release:

“The utility responded to many of the criticisms with incorrect assertions and incomplete information that may have created confusion among members of the legislature and the public. Future official inquiries into NB Power should require presenters to testify under oath …

“… NB Power’s management appears to be in denial, unwilling to acknowledge the grave problems the utility faces, instead offering false assurances to the legislature and the public. Taxpayers and ratepayers are both at risk, and the risks can only increase while management’s approach persists …

“… Mr. Hankinson offered assurances to the legislators and to the public about the condition of the Point Lepreau reactor without having made an appropriate effort to ensure that those assurances were warranted. Rather than responding to the issue by focusing on resolving technical uncertainties that can undermine safety, Mr. Hankinson instead focused on assuaging public concerns …

“By putting public relations assurances ahead of caution, he failed one of the most basic requirements of nuclear management – the requirement that safety comes first.”

NB Power’s view of the report was that it intended to suggest its management and Mr. Hankinson:

“Knew of existing problems at NB Power and intentionally and deliberately lied and withheld the information from the public and the legislative standing committee on crown corporations;

“Are irresponsible and untrustworthy in the discharge of their obligation to inform the public and the Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Crown Corporations and should replaced.”

NB Power also said:

The report suggested Mr. Hankinson “is irresponsible and unfit to be in charge of NB Power and cannot be trusted to tell the truth about a nuclear plant and is prepared to put public relations ahead of public safety;”

The report’s “words and statements … were maliciously calculated to bring Mr. Hankinson’s character into contempt and lower the high estimation he holds in the business community and the community at large.”

Mr. Adams said he appreciated the opportunity to work with AIMS and believes they have done some “good work together,” but would not comment on the institute’s decision to apologize for statements made in his report.

Brian Crowley, AIMS’ executive director, said yesterday his group’s statement was aimed at putting the focus on the public policy questions raised in the newsletter, rather than on personalities.

“It was never our intention to criticize anyone personally, but we believe these are still important public policy questions that should be addressed,” he said in an interview yesterday.

“That’s where the focus should be, and we hope this will put it back there.”

Posted in New Brunswick Power | Leave a comment