| The debate over nuclear power is heating up in Alberta with some noted environmentalists supporting a nuclear reactor as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other activists arguing that nuclear energy is never an acceptable option.
Energy Alberta Corporation, a Calgary-based company formed in 2006, and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. plan to build two 1,100 megawatt ACR-1000 reactors that will generate electricity in northern Alberta. Both Whitecourt and Peace River have expressed interest in the reactors, which will cost $6.2 billion, being located in their communities. Guy Huntingford, spokesperson for Energy Alberta Corporation, says his company has met with town councils and the media in both communities and plans to apply to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in a couple months. He says the regulatory process usually takes at least three years and includes an environmental impact assessment and public hearings. Huntingford says various oilsands companies, as well as utilities companies, have expressed interest in using electricity from the reactor
A new activist group called Citizens Advocating the Use of Sustainable Energy (CAUSE) has formed in Calgary to lobby against the nuclear reactor being built anywhere in Alberta. The group is concerned about disposal of radioactive waste from the reactor, transporting radioactive material through the province, the potential increased risk of a terrorist attack if Alberta has a reactor, water usage and the possibility that Alberta taxpayers would have to foot the bill if there is a nuclear accident. Member Kitty Dunn says the group is hoping to "educate the public and get them to spend some time thinking about this or else it’s going to happen."
Member Susan Stratton says Alberta needs to think long-term, not just panic about rising greenhouse gas emissions in the short term and ignore the downsides of nuclear, such as where to dispose of the radioactive waste.
"It takes a really long time to get a nuclear power plant up and running. If we would just get on with geothermal and wind and solar and conservation, which seems to be the last choice on the government’s list, we wouldn’t have to mess around with nuclear power," she says.
Stratton opposes the rapid pace of oilsands production and says the province should slow it down. This would make the nuclear debate less pressing. "The demand for (oilsands) is not going to go away. It’s not going to get any less valuable. Why are we in such a hurry to tear up all of northern Alberta, making a moonscape out of it and risk the unknowns of nuclear power?"
However, co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, is fully in support of the nuclear reactor. He says Albertans have to acknowledge that, per capita, Alberta produces the highest amount of carbon dioxide emissions in the country due to coal-fired power plants and oilsands production and this needs to change.
"There are some members of the environmental community in complete denial about the fact that nuclear power… reduces carbon dioxide emissions dramatically and addresses their concerns about climate change. If they’re going ‘well, climate change may be the end of the world, but we don’t care because we don’t want nuclear’ I don’t get that," says Moore.
Moore also says nuclear reactors have been extremely safe, with the exception of Chernobyl, which he says used technology that never would have been allowed in other countries.
"Environmentalists have been going on and on about how much natural gas the oilsands are using and now somebody comes up with a solution and they don’t like that either. Let’s come on. This is an improvement. People in Alberta need to realize that Ontario is getting 50 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power and they’re not all glowing in the dark," he says.
Huntingford says when it comes to the issue of radioactive waste the company would plan to store it on-site for as long as it could. He says the federal government has set up a new commission that is studying how to safely store radioactive waste. He says other countries are recycling spent fuel, but it’s currently very expensive to take that route. Huntingford adds that the nuclear sector is the most highly regulated industry in the country, and no Canadian has been harmed in the 40 years that the country has had nuclear power plants. |
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