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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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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