Nuclear Power Rant

"Wow, doesn't Point Lepreau look beautiful in the Spring-time?"
More like Silent Spring......
~~

The Ontario Power Authority has just released a 1000 page report noting that the province will not be able to provide enough power to residents by 2013, and must focus on creating renewable forms of energy. They also recommended shutting down the remaining coal-fire generating stations by 2009. Sounds great, right?

What do you suppose the Ontario government's idea of "safe, clean and reliable energy" is? (Energy Minister Donna Cansfield quote).

Nuclear power of course. That old refrain of cleanliness which I heard repeated again and again last year, while Lord whined that the Feds hadn't promised enough money for NB's clean and efficient Point Lepreau refurbishment projet, is once again the main reason given for using nuclear power. Is everyone really that short-sighted? How can any energy commission claim nuclear energy is clean, safe, efficient, and good for the environment?

Helloooo! Just because a nuclear power plant does not pump pollutants into the air, or dump slag into a local pristine stream, does NOT mean it's a clean renewable source!! Does the commission not know how nuclear power is generated? Do they not realize that the by-product of depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years? (a little less than that, power plant uranium is 60% as radioactive as the naturally occuring uranium to which the half-life refers).

Why does no one consider the problem of disposing of radioactive waste? For the government waste doesn't qualify as a pollutant because the current politcal trend dictates that we only focus on emissions that contribute to climate change. What one-trick ponies. No polyphonic vision here; the ministers, commissions, premiers, and Prime Minister apparently all have tunnel vision and can only focus on one aspect of one problem at a time.

Further, no one mentions how Canada's CANDU reactors use Heavy Water so that we do not need to import enriched uranium. NO one is thinking about the amount of water that will need to be processed and used (all of which is currently being done by Bruce Co. in Ontario).... We're already entering a water crisis....

I've already written letters to my MLA and MP about this. I did it last year during the kerfluffle over Lepreau in New Brunswick. It seems every province is now going to be engaging in the same monologue. Get out your pens and keyboards!!! Force a dialogue!

Asked to support nuclear power in your province? Sorry, no CANDU.