NB Power blind to plant problems

Posted on April 5, 1997 by Other News Sources

David Stonehouse
The Telegraph Journal
April 5, 1997

Projected profit turns into $70-million loss thanks to Point Lepreau shutdowns
FREDERICTON – Facing Canada’s nuclear watchdog, NB Power admitted it did not see warning signs of trouble at Point Lepreau.

It told the Atomic Energy Control Board it did not keep itself up on advancements in the nuclear industry and its staff may not have kept up to standards. Saying it may be blinded to its own performance problems, it pledged to hire a consultant to turn Point Lepreau around.

And NB Power president Jim Hankinson told the regulator that shutdowns at the plant have hurt the utility’s bottom line by $70-million. “We will now report a loss rather than a planned profit,” Mr. Hankinson said. His appearance before the board in Ottawa this week was considered unusual – nuclear operators usually send plant managers to give updates.

The board that served NB Power notice last year that it was concerned about safety standards at Point Lepreau and it wanted six-month updates on what the provincially-owned utility was doing about it.

Several officials joined Mr. Hankinson during meeting with the five-member board Thursday – the same day the nuclear station near Saint John began pumping electricity again after a 75-day shutdown costing an estimated $40-million.

Peppered with questions by board members about safety and operating procedures, NB Power officials assured board members steps were being taken to improve the situation.

In a written brief to the board, the utility outlined plans that included workshops on improving the safety-consciousness of the plant staff, changing procedures for repairs and encourage communication between staff and management. “Recent events have shown that we did not identify and respond to the precursors that indicated a falling off of performance,” NB Power said in the 18-page brief. “Moreover, we did not keep abreast of opportunities for improvement that had been undertaken by others in the nuclear industry. Performance in some areas may have lacked the necessary and expected quality,” the brief said. “Other factors which influenced the success of the organization included plant ageing, staff turnover, fiscal restraint and growing backlogs.”

The shutdown in mid-January was caused by a leak near the station’s reactor core. Staff later discovered that one of the 360 feeder pipes at Lepreau had been left unlocked at one end, causing a crack in the pipe. It cost $7-million to repair the leak and about $450,000 a day to replace power while the plant sat idle.

One NB Power critic was taken aback yesterday to learn the losses for that shutdown and an earlier one would set back the utility by $70-million – and dashed its earlier forecast of a profit for last year of more than $30-million.

“That’s a huge swing,” Energy Probe official Thomas Adams said in a brief interview from Toronto yesterday. “I think that it is going to mean a rate increase of above the three per cent.” NB Power had set the three per cent hike for this year as part of a five-year plan. Meanwhile, the utility told the board it would hire a consultant to help turn around safety and operating performance at the 14-year-old nuclear plant. It is expected the consultant will be from the United States.

“We recognize that when you get into a situation where you are having performance problems, it is difficult to see clearly what the problems are, since you are part of it,” nuclear division general manager Rex Johnson told Dow Jones news service.

Government ignored cries early this year from Conservative Leader Bernard Valcourt to bring in a consultant to evaluate NB Power.

Reached yesterday, Mr. Valcourt expressed concern about the admissions about lack of quality and performance at the plant that NB Power made its brief to the board. “Do you want a straighter mea culpa than that? That admission by management is just appalling,” Mr. Valcourt said from his office yesterday. He believes the admission continues to raise questions about safety. “We’re talking about pipes that are thinning, we are talking about leaks of nuclear water. Is that not safety? Of course it is,” he said. “And if these guys were ignoring warning signs because of complacency, I wonder whether it is complacency or competence.”

Last September, the plant was shut down for just over a month when engineers discovered that pipes inside the boilers had corroded and needed to be replaced immediately. It cost an estimated $6-million in repairs and $22-million to buy electricity the plant would have generated. Utility officials could not be reached late yesterday.

Posted in New Brunswick Power | Leave a comment

Canada Sells Controversial Nukes Abroad

Posted on February 10, 1997 by energyprbe

Mark Clayton
The Christian Science Monitor
February 10, 1997

TORONTO—

On a trade tour last month, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien gave Thai, Korean, and Filipino officials a familiar pitch: Buy Canadian nuclear power plants – the world’s safest and most efficient.

For decades CANDU (Canadian Deuterium Uranium), the world’s only commercial heavy-water nuclear reactor, has been the pride of Canada’s nuclear industry.

And for nearly as long, critics have questioned the selling of technology to nations like China that violate Canada’s promises to uphold nuclear-weapons nonproliferation and human rights.

But what recently has surprised many Canadians is their government’s willingness to set aside environmental laws and use a billion-dollar government loan to sell CANDU reactors abroad that Canadian banks will not finance and Canada’s utility companies themselves will not buy.

“These reactors we’re [selling] to Asia, they’re so expensive and defective that the market for them has dried up [here],” says Tom Adams, a senior associate at Energy Probe, a Toronto public-policy group.

For instance, even as Mr. Chrtien was touting the CANDU in Asia last month, serious CANDU problems were bursting out in Point Lepreau, New Brunswick. The CANDU reactor there had sprung a leak, causing a shutdown. After nearly two years and millions of dollars spent fixing the CANDU at Point Lepreau – one of Canada’s best – came the new leak and a big new problem: corroding “feeder tubes” that carry reactor coolant. For a 14-year-old plant with a design life of 40 years, this was yet another disheartening sign of “premature aging.”

Are prospective buyers like the Thais, Koreans, or Filipinos told about the premature aging when they sign up? Perhaps.

There are 21 operating CANDU reactors in Canada. Yet no new CANDUs have been built in Canada since construction began on the last one in 1982. So Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. (AECL), the government-owned corporation that designs and markets the CANDU reactors, has turned to overseas markets – Argentina, Romania, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines – mainly focusing on Asia.

Costly downtime, few sales

But selling Canadian reactors overseas has not been easy. Prior to the China sale in November, only nine commercial CANDU reactors had been sold outside Canada in more than three decades. Partly this is because CANDUs have proven costly to maintain. Despite claims of greater efficiency than other reactor designs, CANDU reactors seem to be experiencing much more downtime as they age.

AECL officials point out that there are six CANDU reactors among the 25 most efficient in the world. But a 1995 global tally in Nuclear Engineering International magazine shows CANDU reactors operating at only a 61.4 percent load factor, lowest of all reactor types.

“Nobody in their right mind would want to build one of these things here [in Canada],” Mr. Adams says. “That raises the question of why the Chinese and other governments are buying?”

Aside from high maintenance costs, a global trend toward light-water technology has also made CANDUs a hard sell. Increasingly, AECL has come to rely on large-scale government financing to help sell CANDUS.

On Nov. 26, 1996, Chinese officials signed a contract for two CANDU reactors worth $3 billion – a reactor design similar to the one at Point Lepreau. AECL had been working for years to get the sale, but hit a snag when Chinese negotiators wanted major concessions. Faced with a financing deadline, the Canadian government last summer made the Chinese an offer they could not refuse: the largest loan on any single project – $1.1 billion – ever made to a foreign government.

“Clearly, the main reason the Chinese bought CANDUs is that Canada was willing to put up the financing at very cheap rates,” says David Martin of the Nuclear Awareness Project, a nuclear watchdog group in Uxbridge, Ontario.

Defending the loan before Parliament, Trade Minister Art Eggleton said the deal was not a sweetheart, but “a regular commercial operation.” Details cannot be made public, the government says. But far from being “commercial,” such a loan would be considered far too risky for any Canadian bank, most observers agree.

One reason no bank would touch the deal, for instance, is that financial liability in the event of a nuclear accident has not been determined. Since China is not a signatory to the Vienna Convention on third-party liability, Canadian taxpayers could owe billions if an accident occurred at a CANDU in China, says the Ottawa-based Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout.

For AECL officials, all this amounts to sniping at a deal they say will create 27,000 “person years” of work in Canada. Selling reactors to China will help China’s air quality and the global environment by lowering greenhouse-gas emissions.

Robert Morrison, director general of the Uranium and Nuclear Energy branch of Natural Resources Canada, says, “Having a big project like this in China is a bit of a flagship” for selling to all of Asia.

Critics, however, doubt such exports will ever recover the $9.5 billion in direct taxpayer subsidies pumped into AECL since the 1950s. That same amount adjusted for inflation would have lowered Canada’s national debt by $24 billion, the Sierra Club says.

“The federal expenditure on CANDU has been a financial disaster,” wrote George Lermer of the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, in an April 1996 critique of the CANDU program.

Setting aside environmental law

Such criticism has had an impact. AECL funding has been cut in recent years. But it retains key support in Ottawa. Mr. Chretien, a former energy minister, says selling CANDU remains a priority. “Some people don’t like nuclear energy,” he said at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting last November. “For me, I like it.”

But what many Canadians don’t like is the government brushing aside Canada’s own environmental laws – which require an environmental review on federal overseas projects – in order to smooth the way for the China sale.

On Nov. 6, 1996, the federal Cabinet met in a quickly arranged session to change the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Those changes were published Nov. 27, the day after the contract signing in Shanghai, exempting the government from environmental assessments on federally funded overseas projects.

In response, the Sierra Club of Canada filed suit last month to force Ottawa to conduct an environmental assessment of the CANDU reactors sold to China.

Canada’s sale to China is rippling south of the border, too. Before any US reactors can be sold to China, the White House must certify to Congress that China is not selling nuclear-weapons technology to rogue nations. “There’s no question the US nuclear industry is pointing to the CANDU sales and increasing pressure to get China certified,” says Steven Dolley, of the Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute.

“The US [nuclear] industry is saying: How can things be so bad [with human rights and nuclear proliferation] when Canada is willing to sell?” says Leonard Spector, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But beyond such moral questions there is the question of the CANDU’s cost to taxpayers. And despite strong support in Ottawa, Canada’s deficit cutters have gotten through. The AECL subsidy was slashed from C$174 million last year to C$100 million this year “Public and political patience is running out. They’re running out of largess,” says Adams of Energy Probe.

Posted in Nuclear Economics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Letter to Bill Clinton

Posted on January 14, 1997 by energyprbe

Manuela Krauter

January 14, 1997

Letter to Bill Clinton signed by 171 international organizations and individuals

January 14, 1997

The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton President of the United States of America 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500 U.S.A.

Dear President Clinton:

Please do not endorse the proposal to convert warhead plutonium into civilian reactor (MOX) fuel, in your country, or in another country. We fully support the effort by both the United States and Russia to dismantle nuclear weapons. The goal is to make this world safer. A MOX program will not meet this goal. We call upon you, on behalf of concerned citizens, to take a leadership role by turning to other options for making the warhead plutonium unavailable for weapons use.

Putting the plutonium from weapons into a nuclear power reactor still results in the formation of plutonium and additional wastes. In order to truly make the world safer, leaders must choose other options for making plutonium not-bomb-ready.

The use of MOX in the U.S. sends precisely the wrong signal in the effort to end nuclear proliferation. We oppose the use of MOX because of increased reactor hazards, but also because it promotes the plutonium industry. We oppose plans to start reprocessing and the construction of a breeder reactor which are the inevitable outgrowths of a U.S. MOX program. It is time to turn to other sources of energy, that are truly clean, truly cheap and truly safe, without the potential for massive accidents like Chernobyl.

There are technical problems with MOX as well. Use of warhead plutonium in mixed oxide fuel in power reactors in Russia, in the U.S., or elsewhere is highly experimental, and it is an experiment with very risky stakes. Plutonium in the system makes more–and more dangerous–types of radioactivity. This affects the discharges to air and water, and all waste types. Plutonium fuel also affects the fission process itself, making it more difficult to control and leaving an even narrower margin for human error, as well as affecting the physical integrity of the reactor itself.

For all of these reasons, and the many materials accounting and security, transportation concerns and more problems that would appear if the MOX path were taken, we call upon you to reject the MOX fuel option for plutonium disposition in the United States and support our efforts to stop the use of MOX everywhere as well. It is a fine moment in history that we have come this far towards reducing the nuclear threat, but we must be careful now, and not allow falsehoods to take the place of the truth that people require both peace and a safe, clean environment.

Sincerely,

Manuela Krauter Global 2000 Vienna, Austria Canada

Sincerely,

Manuela Krauter
Global 2000
Vienna, Austria

 

Canada

 

Norman Rubin

Director of Nuclear Research and Senior Policy Analyst

Energy Probe

Toronto, Ontario

Gordon Edwards, Ph.D.

President

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

Montreal, Quebec

Dr. Rosalie Bertell

President

International Institute of Concern for Public Health

Toronto, Ontario

Irene Kock

Nuclear Awareness Project

Oxbridge, Ontario

Chaitanya K. Kalevar

Director,

United Nations Association in Canada

Toronto Branch

159 Glenholme Ave. Toronto M6E-3C5

 

Czech Republic

 

Jan Beranek

Friends of the Earth Czech Republic

Jakubske nam. 7, 602 00 Brno

 

England

 

Dave Knight

Chair

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

London

 

Germany

 

Michael Weiss

Coordinator

Green Party Parliamentary Group in Bavarian Landtag

 

Munich

 

DEUTSCHE SEKTION DER INTERNATIONALEN ÄRZTE

FÜR DIE VERHÜTUNG DES ATOMKRIEGES

ÄRZTE IN SOZIALER VERANTWORTUNG

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW)

D-10967 Berlin 61

 

India

 

Dr. Surendra Gadekar

Dr. Sanghamitra Gadekar

Mr. Narayan Desai

Anumukti

Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya

Vedchhi 394641

 

Japan

 

Mika Obayashi

Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center

Tokyo

Shigetoshi Iwamatsu

Japan Congress Against A- and H-Bombs (Gensuikin)

Tokyo

Yurika Ayukawa

4-19-6 Kyuden, Setagaya-ku

Tokyo 157

Lithuania

Linas Vainus

Chairman

Lithuanian Green Movement

P.O. Box 156 LT-3000

Kaunas

 

Netherlands

 

World Information Service on Energy

P.O. Box 59636

1040 LC Amsterdam

Dirk Jan Dullemond

Secretary General

Nederlandse Kernstop Coalitie

Wageningen

Ak Malten

Global Anti-Nuclear Alliance

Irisstraat 134

2565 TP Den Haag

 

New Zealand

 

Barbara Frame

Peace Action Dunedin

Dunedin

 

Russia

 

Vladimir Sliviak

International Nuclear Campaigner

Socio-Ecological Union

Moscow

Lagutov Vladimir

President

Zelenyi Don

Natalia Mironova

Chairman

Movement for Nuclear Safety/Chelyabinsk

Pavel Malyshev

Energy Campaigner

Ecodefense!/Kaliningrad

Alexandra Koroleva

Director

Center of Environmental Education/Kaliningrad

Olga Pitsunova

Director

Center for Assistance to Citizen Initiatives/Saratov

Mikhail Oisboit

Chairman

Kalinigrad’s “Chernobyl” Union/Kalinigrad

Alisa Nikulina

Nuclear Campaigner

Rainbow Keepers/Moscow

Natalia Mironova,

President Movement of Nuclear Safety,

454084,Chelyabinsk, Russia

Kaslinskaya 29-12

 

Scotland

 

Lorraine Mann

Convener

Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping

Fearn, Rosshire

Kevin Dunion

Director

Friends of the Earth, Scotland

 

Slovakia

 

Juraj Krivosik

For Mother Earth Slovokia

P.O. Box 93

Bratislava 814 99

 

South Africa

 

Dr. Thomas Auf der Heyde

Department of Chemistry

University of Cape Town

 

Sweden

 

Tage Wallstrom, P.T. P.O.Box 137

S-74523 ENKOPING, SWEDEN.

 

Turkey

 

Prof. Dr. Leziz Onaran (Chair)

Dr. Derman Boztok

Turkish Health Professionals for Peace and Environment and Against Nuclear Threat

(NUSED) (also IPPNW Branch for Turkiye)

Necatibey Cad. 27/11

06440 Yenisehir-Ankara

Ihsan Catay (Coordinator)

Melda Keskin

Antinuclear Platform-Istanbul

Tarlabasi Bulvari, Istanbul Sanat Merkezi, Kat 3

Istanbul

Aynur Sungur Tuncer (Coordinator)

Ruhtan Gonullu

Nuclear Awareness Working Group

Tesvikiye, Sekayik Sokak, 37/1, Sungur Apt. D/12,

80200 Istanbul

Metin Karadag

HABITAT II (and Agenda 21) Local Monitoring Group

Havyar Sokak, No: 11, Kat: 2

Siraselviler, Cihangir

Taksim-Istanbul

Fatma Guresin

Editor in Chief

Journal Against War For Peace (Savasa Karsi Baris Dergisi)

Nane Sokak, No: 18, Kat: 3

Beyoglu-Istanbul

Umit Tuncel

Editor

Environmental News (Cevre Gazetesi)

Nuzhetiye Cad. No: 48, D/3

Besiktas-Istanbul

Seher Karabol

President

Hope Art Products (Umut Sanat Urunleri)

Halaskargazi Cad. 214/7,

Gaziethempasa Sitesi

80220 Istanbul

Arif Hikmet Iyidogan

Warresisters Association- Istanbul

Nane Sokak, 18/3,

Beyoglu- Istanbul

Osman Murat Ulke (Chair)

Coskun Usterci

Warresisters Association-Izmir

1420 Sokak No: 62, Kat 4, Daire 7

Alsancak-Izmir

Hale Ozen (Chair)

Sinop Friends of the Environment Association

Okullar Cad. Berguzar Is Hani No: 3

Sinop

Ismail Duygulu,

Ozden Saldiran

Socialist Greens- Antalya

Ataturk Cad.

Rasit Berberoglu Is Hani, Kat: 3, Daire :8

Antalya

Asli Delikara

Socialist Greens- Ankara

Selanik Cad. 19/11

Ankara

Bilge Contepe

Socialist Greens-Bodrum

Cevat Sakir Cad. 175/1

Bodrum

Kaya Ozkaracalar (Coordinator)

Party of Freedom and Solidarity (ODP)

Commission of Ecology

Necatibey Cad. 23/11

Ankara

Mustafa Tuncaelli (Chair)

Neslihan Terlemez

Marmaris Environmental Protection Association

(Marmaris Cevre Koruma Dernegi)

Halici Is Hani- Kat 2

48700 Marmaris

Gaye Con

BACEP (Western Mediterranean Environmental Platform)

Working Group-Mugla

Gen. Muglali Is Hani, Kat 2, No: 306

Mugla

Saynur Gelendost (Secretary)

Association of the Volunteers from Bodrum

(Bodrumlu Gonulluler Dernegi)

Baris Mevkii, No: 23

Bodrum

Resat Uygun (Coordinator)

Gokova Coalition for Action

(Gokova Surekli Eylem Kurulu)

Turgut Reis Cad.

Seyfi Ulkumen Apt. Kat 1, No: 17

Mugla

Ahmet Kizen

Kayakoy Cooperative Society for Tourism

(Kaya Turizmi Gelistirme Kooperatifi)

Kayakoy

Fethiye

 

Eastern Mediterranean Environmental Associations:

 

Mebruke Turhancik (Chair)

Adana Cevre Gonulluleri Dernegi

Ataturk Parki, Buyuksehir Belediyesi,

Saglik Merkezi, 2. kat,

01120 Adana

Dr. Figen Doran (Chair)

Adana Cevre ve Tuketici Koruma Dernegi (CETKO)

Resat Bey Mahallesi, Cumhuriyet Caddesi

Ener Apt. A Blok No: 7,

01120 Adana

Iris Senturk (Chair)

Antakya Cevre Koruma Dernegi

Ihsan Ofset, Vilayet Caddesi

Samiye Dokmeci Is Hani No: 18

31050 Antakya

Nizamettin Sekip Duman (Chair)

Harbiye Cevre ve Dogayi Koruma Dernegi

Ataturk Caddesi No: 40

31080 Harbiye, Antakya

Dr. Adil Bayram (Chair)

Icel Cevre Gonulluleri Dernegi

Istiklal Mahallesi, Emine Kara Is Hani

Kat: 4, No: 35

Mersin

Semsittin Eser (Chair)

Iskenderun Cevre Koruma Dernegi

Ziya Gokalp Caddesi, No: 12/1

31200 Iskenderun

Hasan Goktekin (Chair)

Kahramanmaras Cevre Koruma Dernegi

SIR Baraji Isletme Muduru

P.K. 96

46100 Kahramanmaras

Mehmet Gocmen (Chair)

Kavasli Cevre Koruma Dernegi

Kavasli Mahallesi

Odabasi Belediyesi

Antakya

Boysan Boyra (Chair)

Kibris Yesil Baris Hareketi Dernegi

Posta Sokak No: 23/1

Lefkose/Cyprus

Dr. Umur Gursoy (Chair)

Osmaniye Cevre Dostlari Dernegi

Palali Suleyman Caddesi No: 10

(Akdeniz Laboratuari)

01820 Osmaniye

Dr. Sabahattin Teymur (Chair)

Pozanti Cevre Koruma Dernegi

Sebze Hali Civari

01470 Pozanti

Misel Atik (Chair)

Samandag Cevre Koruma ve Turizm Dernegi

Hayuk Pasaji

31800 Samandag

Naim Erturk (Chair)

Kulturel ve Dogal Yasami Koruma Dernegi (KUDYAK)

P.K. 28

33940 Silifke

Tulay Sevgi Can (Chair)

Tarsus Cevre Koruma Kultur ve Sanat Merkezi (CEKSAM)

Ataturk Caddesi, Dabis Han No: 2/12

Tarsus

Oktay Demirkan (Executive Secretary)

The Secretariat of the Eastern Mediterranean Environmental Associations (DACE)

Ziya Gokalp Caddesi No: 12/1

(Yeni Eczane)

31200 Iskenderun

Yasar Ozturk

Arkadas Cevre Grubu

Ilhan Akgun Caddesi No: 12/C

33960 Silifke

Arif Ekim (Chair)

Environmental Protection Association-Yalova

(Cevre Koruma ve Yasatma Dernegi)

Cumhuriyet Cad. 13/10

Yalova

 

Ukraine

 

Alexei Shumilo

Professor of Law

Director,

EcoPravo-Kharkov

Kharkov

Anatoly I. Zolotukhin,

Chairman, Nikolaev Regional Ecological Association “Zeleny Svit”;

327001, Ukraine, Nikolaev

 

United States

 

Michael Mariotte

Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Washington DC

Harvey Wasserman

Senior Advisor

Greenpeace USA

Scott Denman

Executive Director

Safe Energy Communication Council

Washington DC

Laura Kriz

Legislative and Field Director

20/20 Vision National Project

Washington DC

Native Youth Alliance

Washington DC

Gordon S. Clark

Executive Director

Peace Action

John W. Winchester

Chair

Sierra Club National Nuclear Waste Task Force

Pamela S. Meidell

Director

The Atomic Mirror/Earth Trust Foundation

Port Hueneme, California

Dan Coleman

Orange County Greens

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Van Crandall

Sierra Club, North Carolina Chapter

Raleigh, North Carolina

David Ellison

Northeast Ohio Greens, Greens/Green Party USA

Cleveland, Ohio

Ann Hunt

Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination

Lake, Michigan

Dr. Judith H. Johnsrud, Ph.D.

Director

Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Power

State College, Pennsylvania

Mavis Belisle

Peace Farm

Armarillo, Texas

Cliff Honicker, Executive Director

Jackie Kittrell, General Counsel

American Environmental Health Studies Project

Knoxville, Tennessee

Marvin Resnikoff

Radioactive Waste Management Associates

New York, NY

Scott D. Portzline

Security Committee Chairman

Three Mile Island Alert

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Ernest Goitein

Bay Area Nuclear Waste Coalition

San Francisco, California

Bruce Drew

for the Steering Committee

Prairie Island Coalition

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Mike Ewall

Director, “Low-Level” Radioactive Waste Leadership Network

Pennsylvania Environmental Network

Tom Goldtooth

Indigenous Environmental Network, national office

Bemidji, Minnesota

Ron Stanchfield

Peconic Greens

East Hampton, New York

Preston Truman

Director

Downwinders

Pocatello, Idaho

John LaForge

Bonnie Urfer

Nukewatch

Luck, Wisconsin

Yvonne Hartnett

Tehachapi Residents Against Pollution

Tehachapi, California

Jane Williams

Desert Citizens Against Pollution

Rosamond, California

Stormy Williams

California Communities Against Toxics

Rosamond, California

Daniel Roman

The Desert Rebellion/Don’t Waste the Desert

Indio, California

Roland Valentine

Southern Kern Residents Against Pollution

Rosamond, California

Lyle Talbot

Hi-Desert Citizens Against Pollution

Lancaster, California

Barbara Wiedner

Grandmothers for Peace International

Elk Grove, California

Bonita McKowen, President

Santa Fe Chapter

Grandmothers for Peace International

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Corine Thornton, President

Hayward Chapter

Grandmothers for Peace International

Hayward, California

Jan Provost

Northland Chapter

Grandmothers for Peace

Superior, Wisconsin

Ted Tourlentes

Prairie Alliance

Dahinda, Illinois

Barbara Hickernell

Alliance to Close Indian Point

Ossining, New York

William deCamp, Jr.

Nancy McGreevy

Oyster Creek Nuclear Watch

New Jersey

Peg Ryglisyn/Michael Albrizio

Connecticut Opposed to Waste

Broad Brook, Connecticut

Patricia T. Birnie, Chair

GE Stockholders’ Alliance for a Sustainable, Nuclear-Free Future

Tucson, Arizona

Betty Schroeder, Chair

Arizona Safe Energy Coalition

Tucson, Arizona

Molly Johnson

Tori Woodard

Save Ward Valley

Needles, California

Marilyn Elie

Indian Point Project

Cortlandt Manor, New York

Francis U. Macy

Director, Center for Safe Energy

Earth Island Institute

San Francisco, California

Corbin Harney

Executive Director

Shundahai Network

Las Vegas, Nevada

Jennifer Olaranna Viereck

Coordinator

Healing Global Wounds

Boulder Creek, California

James DeMeo, Ph.D.

Orgone Biophysical Research Lab

Ashland, Oregon

Jeff Krolick

Clinical Director

Options for Southern Oregon

Mr Tim McAllister,

Chief Operations Officers for WIRELESS PLUS COMMUNICATIONS, INC.,

wireless R&D labatory

President for BROADLINK COMMUNICATIONS, INC., high speed wireless

internet provider

Secretary for WIRELESS PLUS OF SANTA ROSA, INC., wireless cable TV

provider

Kaz Tanahashi, Director

Plutonium Free Future

Berkeley, California USA

Wendy Oser, Director

Nuclear Guardianship Project

Berkeley California USA

NC Triangle Chapter

Womens International League for Peace and Freedom

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

NC Triangle Chapter

Physicians for Social Responsibility

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Colby Lowe

United Nations Representative

Peace Action

New York, New York

Lorraine Krofchok, Coordinator

Grandmothers for Peace

Southeast Chapter

Alpharetta, Georgia

Sally Stepath, Dave Kraft

Nuclear Energy Information Service

Evanston, Illinois.

Marylia Kelley

Tri-Valley CAREs

Livermore, California

Rudi H. Nussbaum, Ph.D.

Charles M. Grossman, M.D.

Northwest Radiation Health Alliance

Portland, Oregon

Mary Ann Beattie, M.D.

Physicians for Social Responsibility, Kansas

Wichita, Kansas

John Runkle, President

Conservation Council of North Carolina

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Charles Margulis

Co-Director

Westchester People’s Action Coalition

New York

Alice Slater

Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE)

New York, New York

Marty Grey

Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice/WILPF

Cleveland, Ohio

Elizabeth Apfelberg

San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace

San Luis Obispo, California

Richard Nielsen

Citizen Alert

Las Vegas, Nevada

John Knox

Earth Island Institute

San Francisco, California

Francis Chiappa, Ph.D.

Cleveland Peace Action

Cleveland, Ohio

Tim Fish

New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution

Brattleboro, Vermont

Alice Hirt

Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy

Toledo, Ohio

Mary Byrd Davis

Director

Ygdrasil Institute

Georgetown, Kentucky

Jack Igel

President

Sacramento/Yolo Peace Action

Sacramento, California

Dan Hirsch

Committee to Bridge the Gap

Los Angeles, California

Mary Schmuck, RSM

Brooklyn, New York

Kathleen Sullivan, Tom Marshall, LeRoy Moore

Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center

Boulder, Colorado

Andy Caffrey, director

Climate Action NOW!

Berkeley, California

Alden Bryant, president

Earth Regeneration Society

Berkeley, California

Lynn Sims

Colleen O’Neil

Lloyd Marbet

Greg Kafoury

Don’t Waste Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Joseph DeMare

Voters for Environmental Conservation

Alden, New York

 

Basil M. Kyriakakis

Forest Inholders Guarding Habitat Together

Parks Arkansas

Karin Lee Norton

Member of Green Party of Connecticut, Eastern CT Chapter

Storrs, Connecticut

Christopher E. Williams

Executive Director

Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Inc.

Roger Snyder

Long Island SHAD (Sound & Hudson against Atomic Development)

Smithtown, New York

Marion Pack

Alliance for Survival

Santa Ana, California

Diane Conn Darling

Editor of The Green Man magazine

Point Arena, California

Alexandra Hart

Editor, The AHP Perspective

Association of Humanistic Psychology

Sebastopol, California

Robert L. Fies, M.D.

Integrative Health and Medicine Services

Santa Rosa, California

Nicholas Lenssen

Energy Researcher

Boulder, Colorado

Steve Cohn

Chair

Department of Economics

Knox College

Illinois

Steve Wing

Department of Epidemiology

School of Public Health

University of North Carolina

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

John J. Metz

Dept of History and Geography

Northern Kentucky University

Highland Heights, Kentucky

Dr. Ritchie Lowry

Good Money, Inc., & Boston College

Boston, Massacusetts

John W. Travis, M.D., MPH

Director

Wellness Associates

Faber, Virginia

Ted Nickerson

National Director

SHARE, Inc.

(The Sacred Hoop of America Resource Exchange)

Greenwich, Connecticut

Chuck Johnson, Board Member,

Center for Energy Research

Salem, Oregon

Kirsten Randall

WEASEL

Wild Earth Action Squad for Eco-Liberation

Charlottesville, Virginia

Richard Boren

Southwest Toxic Watch

El Paso Texas

John Coover

Madison, Wisconsin

Portia Maureen Sinnott

Small Business Owner

Sebastopol, California

Glenn Cheney

Hanover, Connecticut

John M. Miller

War Resisters League

USA

Diane J. Peterson

White Bear Lake, Minnesota

Member of the Religious Society of Friends

at the Twin Cities Friends Meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota

 

Posted in Nuclear Safety | Leave a comment

Canadian-designed nuclear reactor design flaw discovered

Posted on January 10, 1997 by energyprbe

January 10, 1997

Canadian-designed Nuclear Reactor Design Flaw Discovered as Prime Minister Peddles Nuclear Technology in Southeast Asia

Prematurely thinning pipes could force nuclear plant into costly repairs or early shutdown

Engineers at a nuclear plant in eastern Canada have discovered a serious flaw in the Canadian-designed reactor that could cost millions of dollars to repair or force government-owned New Brunswick Power, to cut short the life of the plant.

According to a report produced by New Brunswick Power for the Atomic Energy Control Board, the federal nuclear safety regulator, routine measurements identified the problem. Coolant-carrying pipes, which take superheated heavy water from the reactor core to the steam generators are corroding much faster than expected.

According to local press reports, officials now doubt whether the pipes will last the full 30-year lifespan of the plant.

The 630 MW Point Lepreau plant, which was once considered a flagship for the Canadian nuclear industry, located in the province of New Brunswick, is only 13 years old. Planners justified its Cdn$1.4 billion construction cost assuming that the plant would produce power at 80 per cent capacity for 30 years. For the last two years, the plant has produced at less than 50 per cent capacity.

When the plant is running, Point Lepreau supplies the province with one-third of its total electricity supply. If shut down now for repairs, New Brunswick Power faces replacement power costs of $350,000 per day.

Over the past two years, the plant has been plagued with technical problems and was shut down for eight months in 1995 for repairs. According to an official with the Atomic Energy Control Board, no one is sure how many feeder pipes are affected — there are 760 pipes but only about 12 pipes have been checked. Due to the location of the pipes right next to the reactor core, the problem can only be monitored when the plant is shut down. Until the discovery of wall thinning was made, the next planned shut down was not scheduled to begin for several months.

Scientists and engineers are now scrambling to determine the cause of the rapid corrosion in the hope of finding a way to stop it. Iain Lee of the Atomic Energy Control Board said there is evidence of similar problems at other aging Candu reactors across the country but he was not aware if the problem was noticed at Candu reactors sold to other countries.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien left this week for southeast Asia as part of a 400-member trade delegation that includes representatives of Canada’s nuclear industry vying for Candu export deals in South Korea, Thailand, and the Phillippines. Canada has sold Candu reactors to India, Pakistan, Argentina, Romania, and South Korea. In November last year, Canada sold two reactors of the Point Lepreau design to China.

 

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CANDU Reactor Deal Controversy

Posted on December 9, 1996 by energyprbe

Mark Nichols and Showwei Chu
Maclean’s
December 9, 1996

Call it the Great Mall of China. Two years ago, Prime Minister Jean CHRÉTIEN led nine premiers and more than 400 business people on a mission to vastly expand trade with the world’s most populous market. The results of the “Team Canada” trip have been impressive: nearly $9 billion worth of confirmed deals involving Canadian banks, financial and legal services, and manufacturing ventures. Yet trade with what is also the world’s largest totalitarian state is never free of controversy. Last week, Chrétien was in China again to conclude the biggest single Canada-China deal ever: a $4-billion contract for the construction of two of Canada’s CANDU 6 nuclear reactors to supply electricity to an industrial region south of Shanghai. Federal officials hailed the sale as a major step in building Canada’s presence in China. But at home, the sale provoked an explosion of protests.

To critics, it presented the deplorable spectacle of Canada selling sensitive technology to a country known for its human-rights violations and poor environmental record. At a time when China has launched a new crackdown on dissidents, declared René Goldman, a professor of Chinese studies at the University of British Columbia, Ottawa “is bending over backwards to oblige China. I have never been so ashamed to be a Canadian.” A coalition of environmental organizations threatened legal action. They were angered at regulatory changes approved by the federal cabinet last month that exempt the CANDU sale from Canadian environmental assessment.

In Vancouver, the sale triggered brief violence as students tussled with protesters to prevent them from burning a Canadian flag near a statue commemorating the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy activists in Beijing. Other critics challenged the terms of a $1.5-billion Ottawa-backed loan that helped the federally operated ATOMIC ENERGY OF CANADA LTD. (AECL) swing the deal. Some also questioned the wisdom of making Canadian nuclear know-how and materials available to the at times belligerent Asian giant. “I don’t think,” said Roy Culpeper, president of the Ottawa-based North-South Institute, “that China is necessarily a country that can be trusted to keep the peace.”

Despite the furor, the deal’s signing ceremony in Shanghai was a high point in a week-long Asian trip by Chrétien that began at a meeting of Pacific Rim leaders in Manila, Philippines, and concluded with a visit to Japan. The sale appeared to signal a new closeness between Canada and China. After the ceremony, Premier Li Peng – known to his critics as “the butcher of Beijing” for his role in ordering the bloody 1989 clampdown – joined Chrétien in some uncharacteristic clowning at the opening of the new Shanghai offices of Canada’s Manulife Financial insurance company. When Chrétien jokingly tried to place a ribbon on Li’s head, he was rewarded with a friendly shoulder squeeze from Li.

Such scenes also demonstrate China’s growing ability to get the world to deal with it on Beijing’s terms despite its repressive policies, exemplified by the stiff 11-year prison sentence imposed in October on political dissident Wang Dan. Chrétien conceded he did not use the term “human rights” during a meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Manila, preferring milder references to “the rule of law.” U.S. President Bill Clinton agreed to an exchange of state visits with Jiang, a long-sought plum for China, despite a lack of progress on other issues, including human rights, in their Manila session. And last week, South Africa stunned old friend Taiwan with an announcement that it would switch recognition to Beijing.

Lured by the gradual opening of China’s once-closed market and its population of 1.2 billion, foreign governments and businesses are scrambling for a share of the action. “China is being courted,” said Robin Hibberd, a Hong Kong-based Bank of Nova Scotia vice-president. “And they’re going to strike a very hard bargain, because if you aren’t interested in a deal, there is another guy behind you who’s just as eager as you are.”

For the CANDU sale, critics claimed, Ottawa was willing to rewrite Canadian environmental rules to avoid offending China. A regulation abruptly enacted by the federal cabinet on Nov. 7 exempted deals like the reactor sale from the stringent provisions of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which require environmental impact studies and public consultation for ecologically sensitive projects involving the federal government. Ottawa officials maintained that the new order simply clarified the law. “It was never our intention,” International Trade Minister Art Eggleton told Maclean’s, “that the act would apply to projects carried out in other countries.”

Opponents of the CANDU deal stuck to their guns, arguing that despite the regulatory change Ottawa is still legally obliged to carry out a review. In a letter to federal officials, Elizabeth May, executive director of the Ottawa-based Sierra Club of Canada, demanded that the government launch an environmental assessment of the China deal within 30 days or face a court challenge to the sale.

Ottawa officials brushed off the court threat as unlikely to succeed, and rejected charges that China’s past record of giving technical assistance to Pakistan, which is believed to be trying to develop nuclear weapons, makes it a poor security risk for the CANDUs. Ottawa insisted that adequate safeguards were in place, because the two Chinese CANDUs will be open to inspection by officials from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. “We’re fully confident,” said a foreign affairs spokesman in Ottawa, “that our nuclear trade with China will be for peaceful purposes only.” Asked whether CANDU plutonium could be used for Chinese weapons, Zhang Jun Sheng, a senior official at China’s de facto embassy in Hong Kong, the Xinhua news agency, told Maclean’s: “It won’t happen. China is for global nuclear disarmament. It has already stopped all nuclear testing anyway.”

Environmentalists also expressed concern over whether the Canadian reactors would be safely operated once they are up and running at Qinshan, about 125 km south of Shanghai. During the construction phase, AECL will be in charge, and the agency will train Chinese reactor operators in Canada. But once the operational CANDUs are in Chinese hands – probably by 2003 – Canada will have no say in how they are run. Federal officials insisted that there is no reason to doubt Chinese competence, since two French-built PWR reactors have been operating for two years at Daya Bay, 70 km northeast of Hong Kong, and a Chinese-built reactor is running at Qinshan. “The Chinese,” noted AECL spokesman Rhea Cohen, “have considerable experience.” Still, local Chinese in Hong Kong have long expressed fears about safety at Daya Bay. The Hong Kong government will test its emergency response plan this month, but says it will not release results because “it may cause panic.”

The sale brings to 12 the number of CANDUs sold overseas since the mid-1970s. That is a badly needed boost to the flagging fortunes of the AECL, which – like reactor builders in other Western nations – has seen domestic sales dry up in the wake of the disastrous 1986 nuclear meltdown at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl installation. Though Ottawa promotes the CANDU as the cleanest nuclear reactor in the world, environmental critics note that its efficiency and safety records have declined in recent years. After several mishaps at Ontario Hydro’s nuclear complex in Pickering, Ont., the watchdog ATOMIC ENERGY CONTROL BOARD of Canada was expected to renew Pickering’s operating licence for only six months instead of the customary two years. “This inherently unsafe technology can be run only under conditions of intense public scrutiny,” said Norm Rubin, a spokesman for the Toronto-based environmental organization Energy Probe. “Imagine trying to run it in a country like China where the public is not entitled to ask any questions at all.”

Despite the CANDU uproar, Canadian firms are certain to go on looking for opportunities in China – and elsewhere among the fast-industrializing nations of Southeast Asia. In a surprising development last week, Quebec officials said that Premier Lucien Bouchard planned to reverse the policy of his predecessor, Jacques Parizeau, and take part in a trade mission Chrétien is scheduled to lead to South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand in January. But Quebec deputy premier Bernard Landry added that it would be Bouchard’s “duty” to talk about Quebec sovereignty to foreign leaders. In Tokyo, Chrétien downplayed that potentially disruptive element, saying that the premiers on Team Canada trips leave domestic differences behind.

Meanwhile, buoyed by their initial success, AECL officials are trying to persuade the Chinese to buy two more CANDUs. That may be an uphill battle – China prefers not to give too much business to a single supplier. And further sales would only reignite the debate over whether Canada should be selling nuclear technology in China at all. Michael Duke, a veteran China-watcher at the University of British Columbia, does not buy the argument that economic sanctions by industrialized nations will increase pressures for reform inside China. “Even Chinese dissidents want Western countries to continue trading with China,” said Duke, “on the grounds that more trade will produce openness in the long run.” That is clearly a view the Chrétien government will cling to as it defends its controversial sale.

Posted in Energy Probe News, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Proliferation, Nuclear Safety | Leave a comment

Statement by Bill Blaikie in the House of Commons

Posted on November 26, 1996 by energyprbe

November 26, 1996

Statement by Bill Blaikie in the House of Commons November 26, 1996 re: CANDU sale to China. CANDU REACTOR November 26, 1996

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Sierra Club and Energy Probe for taking the government to task and to court for the way the government exempted the sale of the CANDU nuclear reactor to China from all its environmental assessment procedures. The government has shown a certain form of arrogance and even authoritarianism in exempting this project from environmental assessment.

We have come a long way since the Brundtland commission when governments of the day continually talked about how they were going to assess everything for environmental consequences. Recently we have seen rail abandonments and all kinds of other policies being implemented without environmental assessment, but this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

We have a government that has exempted this project and by so doing has set a terrible precedent. We can only wish that the Sierra Club and Energy Probe succeed in taking this government successfully to court and in having this decision overturned.

* * * LES RÉACTEURS CANDU 26 novembre 1996

M. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona, NPD): Monsieur le Président, je félicite le Sierra Club et Energy Probe d’avoir pris à partie le gouvernement et d’avoir intenté des poursuites contre lui parce qu’il a soustrait à l’évaluation environnementale la vente de réacteurs CANDU à la Chine. Le gouvernement a manifesté une certaine arrogance et même de l’autoritarisme en soustrayant ce projet à l’évaluation environnementale.

Les choses ont bien changé depuis la Commission Brundtland. À l’époque, les gouvernements disaient sans cesse qu’ils allaient évaluer les répercussions d’à peu près tout sur l’environnement. Récemment, des lignes de chemins de fer ont été abandonnées et toutes sortes de politiques ont été appliquées sans la moindre évaluation environnementale. Cette fois, c’est la goutte d’eau qui fait déborder le vase.

Le gouvernement a soustrait ce projet à l’évaluation environnementale et ainsi créé un redoutable précédent. Nous ne pouvons que souhaiter que le Sierra Club et Energy Probe auront gain de cause devant les tribunaux et que la décision sera renversée.

Posted in Nuclear Economics, Nuclear Plant Security, Nuclear Power, Towards Shutdown | Tagged | Leave a comment

Energy Probe’s Oral Presentation to the Nuclear Fuel Waste Environmental Assessment Panel, Phase 2 extension

Posted on November 21, 1996 by energyprbe

Norman Rubin
Energy Probe
November 21, 1996

In my last presentation, I addressed the issue of the “burden of proof” for the safety of this concept, and I have since added a few more sentences on the record, based largely on the important contribution of Rod Northey last Monday evening.

In short: the governments of Canada and Ontario, after painful experience with an approach that began by investigating possible sites, decided that no potential site would be considered or selected until the concept had been assessed and proven safe and acceptable. This Panel may advise the federal government that that decision was misguided, or that it has outlived its usefulness; but it cannot unilaterally reverse that policy decision.

Instead, you may be tempted, as the SRG was, to adopt unique and ad hoc definitions of “safety” or of “proof”, or to reverse the normal burden of proof. Here is SRG’s “bottom line” conclusion (November 18, last slide):
The concept could, in principle, be implemented safely and effectively.

The AECL post-closure performance assessment methodology is unreliable . . .

This does not mean that the . . . concept is unsafe. [NB burden of proof!] Safety will have to be demonstrated for each specific site.

As helpful as SRG’s input has been to this process, they have not answered the EARP Guidelines Order’s question about the safety of the concept, as you the Panel must.

But whatever beliefs the technical community may share about the state-of-the-art of engineering, geology, and computer modeling, and their adequacy to produce a safe result, parties like SRG and AECB and TAC should not be allowed to use the word “acceptable” in their statements of approval. For “acceptability” clearly means something different from “safety”, and this panel is expressly charged with judging the Concept on both.
What, then, constitutes proof of acceptability, and has it been presented to the Panel? In this context, I would submit that before a concept is proved acceptable it must reflect the values of the Canadian public, and it must be very likely to produce a result that will be widely judged to be acceptable. On both tests, this concept must be rejected as unacceptable, regardless of whether the Panel judges it safe or not. If the case for safety is incomplete and flawed, the case for acceptability, in our view, has actually been disproven on the evidence.

Indeed, you have heard clear evidence — hard, factual, historical evidence, from Port Hope, Meadow Lake Tribal Council, Germany, and elsewhere — that this concept is very likely to produce a result that will be judged unacceptable, divisive, and painful, even if more research resolves the important technical concerns of the SRG and AECB and others. The likelihood of just such a result prompted an earlier Panel under the EARP Guidelines Order to reject a uranium refinery at Warman, Saskatchewan as unacceptable.

Some of the concerns that undermine the acceptability of the concept are partly technical, while others are more philosophical, moral, or political. AECL’s and Ontario Hydro’s research has indicated a strong public desire — shared by Energy Probe and many other public-interest critics at these hearings — to avoid permanent disposal unless meaningful monitoring is incorporated. And AECL has indicated that its technical ability to deliver that monitoring in their planned repository is extremely limited, to be charitable. And with all due respect to AECL’s attempts to prove otherwise, real post-closure retrievability (another apparent requirement for acceptability) seems also to exceed the feasible state of the art. Incidentally, we attribute part of the blame for these unacceptable features (the lack of retrievability and long-term monitoring) to the dominance of AECB’s Regulatory Document R-104 in the development of the concept — a regulation which was developed with only a handful of written comments outside AECB, almost all of them from government and industry, and which clearly does not reflect the values of the Canadian public.
Several of the less technical barriers to this concept’s acceptability are items outside this Panel’s mandate. For example, many intervenors have told you that pursuing nuclear waste disposal while continuing to produce more nuclear waste is unacceptable. Indeed, I recall that Dr. Claes Thegerstrom from SKB in Sweden said so clearly on the first day of Phase One, “The life of SKB would be easier if there was a firm sign that nuclear would be phased out.” He also indicated that the issue of foreign importation of nuclear waste was an important one despite Swedish legislation forbidding it. Canada, of course, has no such legislation or policy. Of course, it is outside your mandate to tell government whether or not Canada should phase out nuclear power, or whether or not Canada should accept nuclear waste from China, or Thailand, or anywhere else. But it is squarely within your mandate to tell government whether or not the concept of deep geological disposal of nuclear wastes is acceptable and, if not, why not.

Another barrier to acceptability is the lack of any successful demonstration of AECL’s stated principles of voluntarism in the history of the Canadian nuclear industry, including, of course, the low-level waste siting task force’s failed attempt to apply those principles. AECL’s pledge of allegiance to voluntarism and openness (in the EIS) is no more a proof of concept acceptability than a pledge of allegiance to the principles of risk reduction would be a proof of concept safety. Acceptability, like safety, must be proven. We doubt that AECL has proven safety, but we must admit that they have tried, and tried very hard. We cannot say the same about acceptability.

In this context, we note two bits of hard evidence that we believe prove the unacceptability of the concept’s approach to voluntarism: (1) Natural Resources Canada, in its new Discussion Paper on Institutional and Financial Arrangements for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste in Canada, has shown in two ways that 1996 is much too soon for Canada to begin an acceptable, voluntary, and open process: (a) The document was apparently circulated for comment to parties within the nuclear industry, but not to public-interest groups with a long-standing interest in the subject; and (b) The document itself enshrines such one-sided “consultation” on an ongoing basis: “[Waste disposal plans, and financial arrangements] should be reviewed and approved by the federal oversight body [i.e., Natural Resources Canada] and the AECB. The review and approval mechanism will need to be carried out in an inegrated manner and be transparent and straightforward to waste producers and owners. [p. 16]”
The second bit of hard evidence concerns AECL’s cavalier treatment of this Panel’s requirements in general, and specifically in the area of explicit exclusion criteria: Many intervenors, and the SRG, have pointed out the desirability of explicit exclusion criteria since the Scoping and Guidelines Phase of this Hearing, and the Panel included several items related to them in their Guidelines document. But AECL has steadfastly and consistently refused to adopt any. Not only could good exclusion criteria help to eliminate the possibility of the concept producing unsafe outcomes (a possibility which has not been developed in this process because of AECL’s blanket refusal to open the discussion); good exclusion criteria are also an essential step, in our view, toward creating acceptability. In this context, AECL’s presentation of the second reference case (in an attempt to prove widespread applicability) has seriously undermined the acceptability of their concept, by openly raising the possibility that the concept could produce a result that virtually all parties consider unacceptable, but which passes R-104, the one regulatory hurdle that AECL has consistently followed, even in preference to this Panel’s requirements.

The second reference case, while proving that AECL could easily satisfy AECB’s R-104 — and thereby satisfy AECL’s own circular, legalistic definition of “safety”! — also further undermines the definition of the concept (something we already found vague enough). Specifically, we are no longer sure what AECL means by “multi-barrier”. We had taken it to mean something like its reactor-safety analogue, “defense in depth”. But in reactor safety, the concept of defense in depth is almost always used to describe the simultaneous provision of redundant safety features, each of which could ensure safety in the absence of the other. But even if “safe” is defined as “meeting regulatory requirements”, the only way the two test cases could pretend to prove safety with this kind of defense in depth is if the concept insisted on the extremely low-permeability geosphere from the first test case and the extremely long-lived container from the second. Clearly that is not the concept this Hearing is being asked to approve, nor would “optimisation” by AECL, or Hydro, likely produce such a result.

[Finally] we want to call the Panel’s attention again to the past, present, and future issue of inertia. I believe we all know that twenty years and $500 million of assuming that the object was irretrievable, unmonitored disposal have created an impressive reality, as have seven years of concept review. In addition to the obvious appeals to “keep the team together”, it is also tempting for all parties to look at that pool of “sunk capital” and to retroactively invent as much meaning for it as possible. The research program simply can’t have been pursuing the wrong goals; the environnmental assessment can’t have been trying to answer an impossible question, or the wrong question, or one that isn’t as meaningful as it seamed to be. These things can’t be true, can they?

That inertia is a major challenge for us today. But if this Panel approves this concept by stamping it “safe and acceptable” — even with volumes of reservations and qualifications — the inertia will grow enormously, and so will the challenge.

[claims of “incredible”containment success, immediately below]
[Background radiation, below]
[ICRP and non-fatal cancers, below]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For many years in the nuclear debate, the discussion about nuclear wastes has boiled down to a simple “dialogue of the deaf”. Nuclear opponents claimed that the enormous toxicity of nuclear waste, and the extremely long life expectancies of some of their components, meant that their containment had to be incredibly perfect for incredibly long periods of time — and that confident claims of success were not credible. Supporters of nuclear energy countered by saying that technology was available or could be developed to achieve the needed containment and confidently demonstrate success. Twenty years and half a billion dollars later, we have learned a great deal about many things, but the fundamental disagreement persists, e.g.:

Vol. 5 (Radiological Assessment), Table 8, p. 80: AECL’s models, including those in the Second Reference Test Case, contain tonnes of inventory of each hazardous radionuclide, allowing only a few grams into the entire biosphere, even after 100,000 years. In other words, we are told to believe that over 99.998% of the remaining radioactive inventory of the high-level waste will still be effectively contained after 100,000 years, even in the second test case, which only marginally meets the AECB risk criterion in the average of the scenario runs. Containment in the original, EIS test case is generally even better. (Believe that, and you believe that the disposal is pretty successful, safe, etc.)

For example, Iodine 129, the dominant contributor to dose rate in the EIS case study, has an extremely long half-life (1.57 x 107 yrs). Furthermore, “about 8% of its total inventory is instantly released from the irradiated UO2 fuel. It has a high solubility and is one of the most mobile radionuclides, generally exhibiting no sorption or weak sorption on the engineered and natural barriers, except for overburden and lake sediment. . . iodine is not significantly delayed in the geosphere. [Vol. 5, p. 83]” Its initial inventory is 3.1 x 104 moles, i.e., 129g x 3.1 x 104 = 400 x 104 g, or 4 tonnes. But despite its rapid transfer through the geosphere, and its near-total lack of radioactive decay, the total amount released to the biosphere in the first 100,000 years is 7 x 10-1 mols, x 129g = 90.3 grams, or about 3 ounces. (That is because almost none of it is predicted to escape from the canisters.) Put another way, only a little over 22 millionths of the initial inventory makes it to the biosphere by the end of 100,000 years! Believe that with confidence, and you also believe that deep geological disposal is pretty successful, safe, etc.; doubt it, and you doubt it.

Vol. 5 (Radiological Assessment), p. 86 and Figure 27 (p. 87) present the Radiological Risk per year, vs. time, for the Second Reference Test Case, “using two different risk conversion factors that differ in their definition of ‘serious health effects’. In 1987, the AECB specified a value of 0.02, where serious health effects are fatal cancers or serious genetic effects occurring to an individual or his or her descendants who would be exposed to the greatest risks (AECB 1987 [R-104]). More recently, the ICRP has recommended a value of 0.073 where serious health effects are fatal and nonfatal cancers or severe hereditary effects (ICRP 1991a [“ICRP-60″]).” The note to Figure 27 explains that the curves “plot the conditional radiological risk, or probability of a serious health effect per year, but use different risk conversion factors. [italics added]”

What AECL does not mention here is that the ICRP risk conversion factor does not actually estimate the “probability of” “fatal and nonfatal cancers or severe hereditary effects”. Rather, the 0.073 is ICRP’s suggested coefficient (after dividing the “best-fit curve” by 2 for DDREF) for fatal cancers and serious genetic effects and only a fraction of serious non-fatal cancers. Including all serious non-fatal cancers (i.e. all but the relatively trivial basal cell carcinoma), as is generally done for the risks of chemical carcinogens, would increase the ICRP’s coefficient to approximately 0.1, or 10% per Sv. (Of course, leaving out the unproven and non-conservative assumption of a DDREF would double either of these coefficients. See Energy Probe’s fourth submission to this Panel, especially the discussion at pp. 7-10, and endnotes 17, 19, and 33.)

The risk curve in Figure 27 on p. 87 peaks at a level a factor of ten below the AECB’s risk limit. Any reasonable combination of the following reasonable corrections would raise the risk curve in Figure 27 on p. 87 over the line of acceptability:
Lower the “acceptable” risk from 1 x 10-6 per year to 1 x 10-6 per lifetime, in line with modern regulations for known or suspected carcinogens. (This change is “worth” a factor of about 76, at today’s life expectancies.)

Reject ICRP’s discounted concept of “detriment” and include all serious non-fatal cancers as “serious health effects”, in line with modern regulations for known or suspected carcinogens. (This change is “worth” a factor of about 1.3, compared to the ICRP curve.)
Reject ICRP’s unproven and non-conservative assumption of a DDREF of 2 for cancer effects, and use at least the “best-fit” coefficient: 0.1 per Sv for fatal cancers alone. (This change is “worth” a factor of 2, compared to the ICRP curve.) Modern regulations for known or suspected carcinogens go one step farther, by choosing a risk coefficient from the “conservative” or “high” end of the 95% confidence interval of the data.
This risk is based on the average scenario. (Cf. Figure 17 on p. 56: the curve that approximates the risk curve on p. 87 is the average.)It is essential that we have a high level of confidence that our maximum risk criteria will not be exceeded, and not just a linear, 50-50 expectation.
Figure 17(a) on p. 56 shows percentile bands for the dose rate to the Critical Group from fission products. Across the top is a horizontal line, explained as follows: “The horizontal line at 3 x 10-3 Sv/a is representative of dose rates from natural background.” This is misleading in a number of ways:
The doses from this facility are all predicted to be in addition to the dose rates the Critical Group will get from natural background radiation.
Showing the dose rate that corresponds to an annual risk of 1 x 10-6 per annum of “serious health effects” — about 1.4 x 10-5 Sv/a at ICRP’s 0.073/Sv, lower at higher coefficients — would clearly indicate that the highest observed value goes above that line at 100 years and stays there until 1,000,000 years. It seems to be AECL’s unspoken policy never to present any horizontal line on any graph which any curves cross!
The figure for natural background radiation is certainly higher than the Canadian average for total natural background radiation, which has been estimated at 2 x 10-3 Sv/a — see, e.g., TAPNS Report #93-V, (16 March 1994), which included AECL’s D.K. Myers as a co-author, and which cites Health Canada as a source.
Since the primary route of exposure to radiation from the facility is via “whole-body” irradiation by internal deposition of radionuclides, it would seem that a more meaningful comparison would exclude the dose from radon gas. The non-Radon dose seems to be more in the order of 1 x 10-3 Sv/a — see TAPNS 1994 for both the estimate and a discussion about the meaningful comparison.

The dose rate from C-14 has dropped from the EIS because of new assumptions about initial inventory and instant release fraction, both based on new experimental data from “Johnson et al 1996” which seems to mean v. 2 of this study. Cf. vol. 5, p. 82.

Posted in Nuclear Power, Nuclear Safety, Power Generation in Ontario | Leave a comment

CANDU export to China imminent

Posted on November 11, 1996 by energyprbe

November 11, 1996

 

The Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP) is expecting the Chrétien government to announce the conclusion of the sale of two CANDU reactors to China at the end of this month.

A special cabinet meeting was held on November 6th to pass a regulation undermining the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and its application to projects outside Canada. The impetus for this new regulation was to avoid a full environmental assessment of Canada’s CANDU exports to China. However, the regulation is not specific to CANDU exports and has gutted the environmental assessment process for all time.

We urge you to send your message now (fax and/or telephone) opposing the export of CANDUs to China to Prime Minister Chrétien; Lloyd Axworthy, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Art Eggleton, Minister for International Trade. You can use the enclosed model letter or you can write your own. Please send your message before November 21st and forward a copy to CNP.

On November 6th, CNP released a new study entitled Exporting Disaster: The Cost of Selling CANDU Reactors. This study opposes CANDU exports on economic grounds; points out the connection between CANDU exports and nuclear proliferation; and raises serious concerns about human rights violations and corruption in CANDU client countries. The Executive Summary of the report is enclosed. You can order the full 70 page study from CNP for $10.

Thanks for your help.

Sincerely,

Kristen Ostling
Coordinator

Please send your message to:

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien: fax (613) 941-6900 tel (613) 992-4211
Lloyd Axworthy, Minister of Foreign Affairs: fax: (613) 995-9926 tel:(613) 995-0153
Art Eggleton, Minister of International Trade: fax: (613) 996-8924 tel: (613) 941-6339

Model Letter

November 1996

Dear _______________________

Canada is currently preparing to finalize the sale of two CANDU nuclear power reactors to China. The export of CANDU reactors to China places the Government of Canada in an indefensible economic, political, ethical and environmental position:

– China’s documented disregard for the environment, raises serious concerns about what China will do with the nuclear waste it generates, which will remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. A special cabinet meeting was held on November 6th to pass a regulation undermining the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and its application to projects outside Canada. The impetus for this new regulation was to avoid a full environmental assessment of Canada’s nuclear exports to China. However, the regulation is not specific to CANDU exports. Therefore, the Chrétien cabinet has gutted the environmental assessment process in order to promote the interests of the Canadian nuclear industry.

– All nuclear reactors produce plutonium which can be used to make bombs. The United States refuses to sell nuclear reactors to China due to China’s history of nuclear assistance to countries with clandestine nuclear weapons programs, such as Pakistan.

Thus, by selling reactors to China, the Chrétien government is sending the world a message that Canada cares more about selling reactors than it cares about preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

– China’s human rights violations are extensive and well-documented not only at home but also in Tibet where China admits to dumping nuclear waste from its own nuclear weapons program. It is unethical for the Canadian government to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of the Li Peng régime in order to conclude a sale on behalf of the Canadian nuclear industry. Moreover, if China will not abide by its UN obligations to respect human rights, there is no reason to believe it will abide by its nuclear safeguard obligations. Both sets of obligations are unenforceable, depending entirely on good faith.

– $1.5 billion of the CANDU deal with China will be financed by the Export Development Corporation (EDC) and backed by the Canadian government. Thus, the Canadian government will be using Canadian taxpayer money to lend to China. Should China default on this financial obligation, as it has refused to honour other debts, Canadian taxpayers will have to pay off the loan.

I urge you to take steps to ensure that Canada immediately withdraws from all arrangements concerning financial and technical assistance to China for nuclear reactor technology. In addition, I call upon you to ensure that the Government of Canada does not finance or subsidize the sale of CANDU reactors to China, or any other country. CANDU exports are irresponsible given the environmental and economic concerns related to nuclear power.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Signature: _____________________________
Name: _____________________________
Address: __________________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________

Action Alert – French
le 11 novembre, 1996

URGENT APPEL Ë L’ACTION

VENTE IMMINENTE DE CANDU Ë LA CHINE

Chers amis,

La Campagne contre l’expansion du nuclaire (CCEN) a appris que le Premier ministre Jean Chrétien sera de passage en Chine dans une dizaine de jours pour la signature officielle d’un contrat de vente de deux racteurs CANDU. Dans ce contexte, une runion spciale du Cabinet a eu lieu le 6 novembre dans le but d’adopter un rglement qui minerait la Loi canadienne sur l’valuation environnementale et l’application de celle-ci aux projets hors-frontires. Cette nouvelle rglementation arrive prcisment au moment o l’exportation des racteurs CANDU vers la Chine doit tre soumise une tude d’impact sur l’environnement en bonne et due forme. Le rglement n’est pas spcifique l’exportation des racteurs CANDU et vient donc saboter le processus d’valuation environnementale tout jamais.

Nous vous encourageons fortement adresser ds maintenant un message (par tlphone ou tlcopieur) au Premier ministre Jean Chrétien, au ministre des Affaires extrieures, Lloyd Axworthy et au ministre du Commerce international, Art Eggleton, afin de leur faire part de votre opposition cette vente de racteurs la Chine. Utilisez cette fin le modle de lettre en annexe, ou mieux encore, crivez votre propre lettre. Nous vous prions de transmettre votre message avant le 21 novembre et de nous en envoyer une copie.

Le 6 novembre, la CCEN lanait une tude indite intitule ÇExporter un chec: les cots lis la vente des racteurs CANDUÈ. L’auteur s’oppose a la vente des CANDU la Chine pour des raisons d’ordre conomique; il fait aussi tat de l’indissociable rapport entre l’exportation des CANDU et la prolifration des armes nuclaires et soulve d’importantes proccupations concernant les droits humains et la corruption dans les pays acheteurs de CANDU. Vous trouverez en annexe le sommaire de cette tude. Pour obtenir une copie del’tude de 70 pages (en anglais), faites parvenir un chque de 10$ la CCEN.

Merci de votre collaboration.

Kristen Ostling
Coordonnatrice

P.S. Adressez votre message:

Jean Chrétien, Premier ministre: tlcopieur (613) 941-6900 ; tlphone (613) 992-4211
Lloyd Axworthy, ministre des Affaires extrieures : tlcopieur (613) 995-9926; tlphone (613) 995-0153
Art Eggleton, ministre du Commerce International: tlcopieur (613) 996-8924; tlphone (613) 941-6339

 

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Campaign for nuclear phaseout

Posted on November 6, 1996 by energyprbe

Nuclear Power – CANDU Exports – China
November 6, 1996

Canada Is “Exporting Disaster”
New study critical of imminent CANDU export deal to China

Ottawa — A study released today by the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP) says CANDU exports have no economic benefits and high moral costs. It is expected that Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) will announce the sale of two CANDU reactors to China sometime this month.

The new study, Exporting Disaster: The Cost of Selling CANDU Reactors, by David H. Martin of Nuclear Awareness Project, states that domestic reactor sales in Canada have dried up, and in the case of China, export sales are being made on a break-even basis at best. Sales cannot possibly hope to recoup the $13 billion subsidy already given to AECL by Canadian taxpayers.

Elizabeth May, Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada, demands “full disclosure on the financing and terms of the CANDU sale to China.” She adds, “AECL is a crown corporation and the Canadian government is backing a rumoured $1.5 billion loan to China. Since Canadian taxpayers will be holding the bag if China defaults, the Canadian public deserves to know the truth.”

The study finds that regardless of non-proliferation agreements, CANDU reactor sales carry the potential to aid in the production of nuclear weapons. China has repeatedly given aid to states on the brink of building the bomb. “Even the United States does not allow its nuclear companies to sell reactors to China because China is selling nuclear technology to Pakistan „ a ‘threshold’ state, known to be building the bomb,” says Marc Chénier of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.

CNP’s study also reveals that the ethical cost of CANDU sales is too high. Pursuing such exports has effectively led to the abandonment of a meaningful human rights policy. “Potential CANDU customers such as China, Indonesia, and Turkey are among the worst human rights violators in the world. Canada should not be selling them nuclear reactors,” says Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout’s coordinator, Kristen Ostling.

CANDU exports have also repeatedly involved bribery, as has been documented by the Auditor General of Canada. According to Dave Martin, “Corruption and CANDU go together like plague and pestilence. This industry needs to be cleaned up, and the first step is public disclosure about the terms of CANDU deals, and all expenses for marketing and agent fees.”

The study concludes that in order to sell CANDU reactors, Canada looks the other way when it comes to economics, human rights violations and nuclear weapons proliferation.

– 30 –

 

For more information, contact:

Kristen Ostling, Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (613) 789-3634
Elizabeth May, Sierra Club of Canada (613) 241-4611
David H. Martin, Nuclear Awareness Project (905) 852-0571
Marc Chénier, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (514) 527-2712

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CANDU exports study to be released

Posted on November 4, 1996 by energyprbe

Media advisory
November 4, 1996

Document critical of imminent CANDU export deal to China

Ottawa ~ The Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP) will release a new study entitled “Exporting Disaster: The Cost of Selling CANDU Reactors” at a news conference on November 6, 1996. The news conference will be held at 10:00 AM in the Charles Lynch Press Conference Room (130S Centre Block, House of Commons, Ottawa).

The release of “Exporting Disaster” anticipates the conclusion in November of a deal to sell two CANDU reactors to China. AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., a federal crown corporation) has been negotiating with the Peoples Republic of China for two years.

“Exporting Disaster” argues that the sale of reactors to China cannot be justified on financial or ethical grounds, and looks at AECL’s CANDU marketing campaigns around the world. The study examines Canadian financing and subsidies of reactor exports, as well as questions of human rights, corruption and nuclear weapons proliferation.

“Exporting Disaster” addresses a number of important questions, including:

– Is Canadian financing of the reactor sale to China a straight “commercial” deal, as claimed by Natural Resources Minister Anne McLellan?

– Why doesn’t the United States allow its nuclear companies to sell reactors to China?

– How many millions of dollars has AECL paid in bribes to secure past CANDU sales?

– How many CANDU customers have initiated nuclear weapons programs in addition to their “peaceful” nuclear power programs?

 

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