Collaborative Proposal Creation
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Proposal text
Be it resolved that the Green Party of Canada long conflicted between the horror of nuclear weapons and the need to support reliable and clean nuclear power,
• will adopt a view of nuclear power that is consistent with the best scientific knowledge and practices, and
• will advocate for the continued development of nuclear power technologies, extraction technologies, nuclear waste disposal, and alternative nuclear fuels.
Type of Proposal
Public policy that the party would represent
Objective / Benefit
The GPC has a longstanding public position of preferring renewable power generation instead of nuclear power generation. Yet not one policy currently addresses the beneficial effects of nuclear power. All policy references to nuclear are to the prevention and control of nuclear weapons.
The objective of this policy is to establish a new policy that addresses the benefits of the use of nuclear power generation in a changing environment that urgently needs reliable power generation.
- Whereas the policies of the Green Party of Canada are to be based on scientific principles, and
- Whereas we now know how to build nuclear power plants that are far safer than our current operational designs, and
- Whereas nuclear power generation can be demonstrated,
- to be the least polluting of all electricity generation technologies, in terms of CO2 production per MW of capacity,
- to have the smallest footprint in terms of station size, acres per MW of installed capacity,
- to have the lowest volume of waste production in terms of tons per MW,
- to require the least input of scarce resources in terms of tons per MW,
- to have the best safety record of all generation facilities in terms of loss of human life per MW of installed capacity, and
- Whereas we do know what to do with spent nuclear fuel to ensure safety.
This policy will complement and expand the policies of the Green Party of Canada, making them more appropriate in an intellectually honest way.
If your proposal replaces an existing policy or policies, which one does it replace?
This is new policy. All existing policy addresses various aspects of the undesirability of nuclear weapons. It does not in any way reduce the relevance of those policies.
List any supporting evidence for your proposal
1. Jack Devanney, The Two Lies that killed nuclear:
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-two-lies-that-killed-nuclear
2. Jack Devanney, Why Nuclear Power Has Been a Flop:
3. Cleo Abram, The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzQ3gFRj0Bc
4. Burning Nuclear waste:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u44skO-nMo
5. IEA on Nuclear Power:
https://www.iea.org/energy-system/electricity/nuclear-power
6. Our World in Data, Death Toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima:
https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima
7. Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, LNT:
https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/health/linear-non-threshold-model/index.cfm
8. Original text of this proposal: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/j5bvh4dagagllrhus59h9/GPC-Nuclear.docx?rlkey=8ozj24vcajsvofrtgtpy9pt85&st=uvmsga8g&dl=0
Does this proposal affect any particular group and what efforts have been made to consult with the group or groups?
There are many in the party and outside, who consider Nuclear Power to be so dangerous as to be categorically denied as a solution to our future power needs. This policy reverses that perception of Nuclear Power. It is likely to alienate such people in their support of the party.
There is also likely to be an adverse reaction from the Global Greens, which would need to be carefully managed, though it is to be hoped that this motion will start a greens-wide reassessment of their positions on nuclear power.
Jurisdiction: Is this proposal under federal jurisdiction?
Yes
Please indicate the language the proposal is being submitted in.
English
This proposal is being evaluated
Posted on the Continuous Motion Development Vote tab for member review prior to the all-member vote.
Amendments (3)
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Created at
24/05/2024 -
- 0
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Created at
05/07/2024 -
- 0
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Created at
10/07/2024 -
- 2
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Conversation with Bill William McConnell
Nuclear energy, as well as fusion and carbon capture, are being promoted by some as magic solutions that will make other climate mitigation actions unnecessary. At best, it might be a small part of the solution.
There is still no solution for safe storage of nuclear waste. It is surprising that no terrorist group has yet deployed a dirty bomb, or blown up or robbed a storage facility.
The Green Party should not promote the construction of nuclear power stations, although it might be a mistake to adamantly oppose all research in the topic.
The resources required to build a nuclear power plant would be better used to build sources of renewable energy, or better yet, to develop methods to reduce energy consumption.
What happens when we go outside of the tribe for a view of this issue?
Climate scientist James Hansen: ‘The opposition to nuclear power is truly insane’
The young climate activists who run our Dear Greenpeace campaign are not the first to point out that nuclear power should be accepted by environmentalists as a crucial part of any climate policy.
James Hansen, the renowned climate scientist, has been advocating nuclear for many years.
‘All these fears – about radiation, about waste, about accidents – have no basis in science. This aversion is quasi-religious and irrational.’ – James Hansen, climate scientist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl3VVrggKz4
Bill, and James, earlier,
No one is proposing nuclear as a magic solution. It is not. Neither is solar or other renewable technologies. None are renewable since they depend heavily on mining for the materials used, and the delivery infrastructure. Even hydro is not renewable since it destroys riverine systems. So does nuclear of course.
The clear advantage of nuclear is in its low carbon dioxide emissions. Far better than any other electricity technology. In addition nuclear has a very low footprint, saving and preserving lands for other uses, and above all it is dispatchable. Solar and wind are not. If you factor in the environmental cost of battery storage, you negate any advantage solar and wind might have in the first place.
I'm not arguing for not using solar or wind or hydro, but rather that nuclear must be included in the mix, if for no other reason that it already is there, and ignoring it makes no sense.
I realize That Green Party members do not promote any solution as being a "magic solution". People who do so are needing an excuse to do nothing. I should have made that clear in my comment.
Ignoring nuclear certainly would make no sense. But it might better to use our limited resources of capital and labour to install renewables.
Before I support pushing ahead with new nuclear plants, I would have to see some good numbers in its favor, as well as a good plan to deal with spent fuel.
Gordon. You are talking about how to throw away heat into the earth at the same time as the geothermal people are talking about how to capture energy in the earth. Are we missing an opportunity here?
I should clarify my "9 hockey rinks" is NOT proposed density for Ontario's geological storage. That's the density of used fuel bundles in cooling pools.
Used CANDU fuel COULD be permanently disposed at that density, if a different approach was taken, and the current dry-cask step was skipped entirely.
Move used-fuel (still having spent 5 years in a cooling pool) from cooling pool, into a underground cooling pool designed to transition directly from water-cooling to conduction-cooling in the repository pool itself. It is a pool which gets buried, as the water is only needed while fuel bundles are being added.
The used fuel would be transported with water shielding. (That's how they're moved into dry casks now.) This is a province-by-province approach, not a national approach. I don't want to transport non-dry-cask used fuel across Canada.
In such a scenario (the lowest cost scenario which no one is yet pursuing) the waste COULD NOT be retrieved and recycled. It would be buried, in a process designed to maximize heat dissipation directly into the geology.
Rock will conduct heat away from used fuel. Air is a pretty good insulator (if not circulating), and adding multiple layers of "protection" actually is counter productive from a decay heat perspective. Appropriate geology negates the need for extra layers, and extra cost.
I wouldn't vertically stack the 9 hockey rinks one on top of the other... let decay heat dissipate both up and down. Unlike natural circulation, the movement of heat thru a solid spreads with equal efficiency downwards. This will dissipate heat better than dry casks do in our current storage facilities. (Not that it matters once the fuel is buried, but the fuel won't melt.)
I've explored whether this would result in a human created geothermal resource. It does not. There just isn't enough decay heat from used-fuel bundles once they've spent 5 years in a cooling pool by their respective reactors.
Sarah, you state:
"Used CANDU fuel, known as HLW must not be "packed together" as they emit heat and radioactivity that can set off chain reactions long after the fuel bundles have been removed from their 10 years in heavy water pools."
They CAN be "packed together" at the density I'm claiming for 9 hockey rinks. I'm not stating strictly volume, I'm stating safe-for-storage volume. It would be less space if residual decay heat was not being considered.
IF we ignored decay heat, and packed them tighter... and this is with safety margins so really MUCH tighter... then the materials WOULD heat up.
You'd see the containment of the fuel rod bundles degrade faster. Fission Products would be released faster. Perhaps faster than their decay time, so an actual dangerous substance being released from the fuel bundles into... rock. Into rock.
Those fission products may or may-not be trapped in that rock, depending on the geology. If it literally WAS a hockey rink where we ignored the spacing needed for residual decay heat, then we'd be endangering people.
But underground? That depends on the repository and the rock. It is entirely feasible to disregard the cladding and let Fission Products be released and use geology to contain the fission products. It just depends on how the geological storage facility is cited and designed.
But what WILL NOT HAPPEN is there WILL NOT be a "CHAIN REACTION" as you state. I don't know if you're kind of being loose with that term, but if you're implying that fission will start up... like a nuclear chain reaction will take place... NO. That is just not a thing.
I won't belabour that point unless you contest it, but we're looking at hazardous substances first trapped in fuel- bundle cladding, then containment, then rock. There's no other chain-reaction factor. This stuff might get hot, but there's NO amount of heat that actually triggers anything nuclear. Heat can only degrade containment, NOT trigger a chain reaction in any sense.
And I'm trying to brainstorm what you might be referring to beyond a fission chain reaction, and I'm jus not seeing what you could possibly mean.
Sarah,
The post you cite, "The WIPP problem, and what it means for defense nuclear waste disposal" is a 2014 FUD post about a 2014 event. As of 2023 we know it was a nothingburger.
"More than a month after the fire, WIPP remains closed, and what happened underground remains unclear. "
I bet, in 2014, anti-nuclear TheBulletin was hand-wringing about what was going on.
Can you explain why civilian nuclear waste can't be stored at The WIPP? Because TheBulletin post doesn't touch on that.
I was lucky enough to attend (and capture on video) Dr. James Conca's talk about nuclear waste in USA, and why The WIPP could/should receive the entire nation's civilian nuclear power used fuel stockpile. (Or, at least whatever portion of that stockpile they don't want to recycle into fresh nuclear fuel.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6no0FmPk84
Please let me know if you watch Dr. James Conca's presentation. I know that is a lot to ask... it is 35 minutes long. That IS long. But it moves fast. I think you'd really find James's perspective interesting, even if you don't agree with it or believe it.
Where he is "coming from" is where I am "coming from". I do not see how geological storage is hard, unless we decide to make it hard.
Sarah, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, that you refer to is the world's third deep geological repository, licensed to store transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years. The plant started operation in 1999.
The storage rooms at the WIPP are 2,150 feet (660 m) underground in a salt formation of the Delaware Basin.
WIPP is not an example of an "operating" nuclear waste storage facility. https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/the-wipp-problem-and-what-it-means-for-defense-nuclear-waste-disposal/. There is no long-term nuclear waste management facility on this planet that is adequately designed to safeguard nuclear materials for the hundreds of thousands of years required.
https://nuclear-news.net/2023/10/13/2-b1-ten-reasons-why-nuclear-power-has-no-future/
Used CANDU fuel, known as HLW must not be "packed together" as they emit heat and radioactivity that can set off chain reactions long after the fuel bundles have been removed from their 10 years in heavy water pools.
"Recycling" is a misnomer used by the industry to greenwash experimental new nuclear proposals. It's called reprocessing and was banned internationally, by Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jimmy Carter, after India attained the bomb back in the 1970's. Now, Pierre's son aims to open that Pandora's Box via approval of and funding of experimental designs and funding the experiments at Chalk River (upriver from Ottawa). Reprocessing requires liquification of currently solid CANDU HLW, a process that will create at least 7 new waste streams for which there is no safe storage solution. Opening up reprocessing for plutonium extraction is the single greatest threat for a potential new plutonium economy on our planet. Here are some experts (advisors to the past 6 USA Presidents) warning about this in an open letter to our Prime Minister: https://ccnr.org/Open_Letter_to_Trudeau_2021.pdf
Brent, money spent of advancing nuclear tech, and our ability to deploy it, is something we can export around the world. We did do that quite successfully with CANDU until Harper sold the IP to SNC, with SNC seemingly having no interest (until recently) in new builds.
But whether it is CANDU tech, or an SMR, this is something we can export, and that can deliver low-carbon energy pretty much anywhere on the planet.
I don't see solar or wind playing to Canada's strengths... we can't compete with China for low-cost PV manufacturing. In theory we should be able to export wind turbines, but it doesn't look like it is happening.
So when we spend money on solar and wind, we're typically importing.
I can't find a database of solar farms that includes manufacturers, but I have checked out a database of wind-turbine manufacturers who supplied Canadian wind farms...
https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/79fdad93-9025-49ad-ba16-c26d718cc070 (External link)
...my Google Sheet of the data...
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1smheiigesR_DFYhErVQrGW3rZFoFMKHQUGwmUP9QeEU/edit?usp=sharing
...what's your take on that? vs CANDU refurbs have 98% Canadian supply chain? (See page 4.)
https://www.opg.com/documents/2021-ontario-nuclear-collaboration-report/
The only other energy tech I see as having such potential is advanced geothermal. And I think we know the role that fracking played in developing that tech. If Canada had a blanket-ban on fracking the way GPC does on nuclear, we wouldn't have any expertise or IP with which to pursue advanced geothermal.
It is very difficult to project where these various technologies will lead. Nuclear power is VERY wide in scope. Colin mentioned it in passing in his proposal, but Thorium as a fuel has some advantages over Uranium. In Canada, with CANDU tech, we can leverage advanced fuels that combine Thorium and Uranium, and are fissioned in CANDU. That's going to be commercialized in 2026. Thorium fuel in CANDU. That is exportable, to India, in their existing (and expanding) fleet of heavy-water (CANDU-like) reactors. That sort of nuclear advancement is how Canadians can make a dent in worldwide emissions. (The fuel also provides 7x the energy for the same amount of used-fuel volume.)
Now that advanced fuel might not be as easy to recycle... it will probably be stored as-is in a geological repository. (It is sort of like pre-recycled fuel.) But we can certainly recycle our existing spent fuel. Only 5% of the energy potential has been harnessed in CANDU used fuel bundles.
We can either take our 8-hockey-rinks worth of used fuel, (if it was all packed together), and continue storing it above ground. Which I think is fine, as it makes future recycling easier.
OR we can store it in a geological repository. This is not hard to do, and The WIPP in USA is an operating example of nuclear waste storage.
OR we can recycle it with Moltex SSR-W. Into low-carbon energy.
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