Collaborative Proposal Creation
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On Nuclear Power
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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[Part 3]
The 2nd report you cite, Ramana's "Small Modular and Advanced Nuclear Reactors: A Reality Check" has take on job creation:
"Although there is no data on jobs from SMRs - because SMRs have not been deployed at any meaningful level to measure employment - the literature is clear that nuclear power generates fewer jobs than renewables like solar and wind energy per unit of energy generated"
Per unit of energy generated. Right: solar+wind don't generate a lot of energy. And Ramana wants to talk about the number of jobs, not how much money is being paid to workers. Not the quality of those jobs, or the amount of money injected into the communities operating them. There is such a thing as unionized coal workers transitioning to becoming unionized nuclear power plant workers. In Canada.
https://twitter.com/gordonmcdowell/status/1570853489907236867
The citations Ramana provides are:
[84] Z. Kis, N. Pandya, and R. H. E. M. Koppelaar, ``Electricity generation technologies: Comparison of materials use, energy return on investment, jobs creation and CO2 emissions reduction,'' Energy Policy, vol. 120, pp. 144 157, Sep. 2018, doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2018.05.033.
[85] M.Wei, S. Patadia, and D. M. Kammen, ``Putting renewables and energy ef ciency to work: How many jobs can the clean energy industry generate in the US?'' Energy Policy, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 919 931, Feb. 2010, doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2009.10.044.
Let's look at [84]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421518303239?via%3Dihub
Abstract: "The results suggest energetic-economic infeasibility of electricity generation networks with substantial shares of: i) liquefied natural gas transport, ii) long distance transport based hard and brown coal and pipeline natural gas, and iii) low-load factor solar-photovoltaic, concentrated solar power, onshore and offshore wind."
Let's look at [85]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421509007915?via%3Dihub
That's a 2010 study... specifically about USA job creation in renewables sector. Canada has dabbled in wind turbine production and solar panel production, but those are not deep Canadian supply chains.
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 with a 98% Canadian supply chain.
https://www.opg.com/documents/2021-ontario-nuclear-collaboration-report/
Here's where the solar manufacturing jobs have gone since 2010...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-04/solar-jobs-2021-how-china-beat-u-s-to-become-world-s-solar-champion?embedded-checkout=true
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