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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Hi Sarah, nice to hear from you.
I agree that the release of radioactive material that you can absorb into your body is a concern. But we also have to draw lines on where we think issues appear. For example all of us eat food, and a lot of food contains Potassium-40 which is radioactive.
Here is a list of foods and how much Potassium 40 they have.
https://www.philrutherford.com/perspectives/K-40.pdf
My understanding is that tritium has a half life of 12 years. As it's a different version of hydrogen it behaves just just like hydrogen. So it has the same bio accumulation as water in the body. It basically goes in and out. For example we can compare tritium to potassium 40. If you had a banana smoothie you would need to drink 15 liters of Fukushima tritiated water and get the same amount of radiation.
https://ionactive.co.uk/resource-hub/blog/a-banana-smoothie-or-a-glass-of-tritiated-wastewater-from-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plant
At very low radiation levels we really don't have a full understanding of what's going on. There are currently experiments trying to determine what happens to yeast at various types of radiation levels to try and understand this. Right now it looks like eliminating all sources of radiation would be bad for us. But I do believe that study hasn't released their findings yet.
For putting fuel into another reactor. It looks like the DUPIC fuel process is indeed that. They do need to take apart the fuel assembly and build a new one for a CANDU reactor. But it looks like they don't seperate any fissile material
https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/521401
"The DUPIC fuel cycle concept is characterized by burning spent PWR fuel again in CANDU, without separating any fissile material, taking advantage of high neutron economy of heavy water reactors"
I wish these comments had longer character limits because I would like to talk more than just throw talking points at you. But yes, Plutonium does occur naturally. It was found at Oklo in a naturally occuring nuclear reactor. It's a fascinating place because it lets us study how fission products and nuclear elements move in rocks.
I'm also not following. Can you please explain to me how the Moltex waste burner reactor is a nuclear weapons prolifferation nightmare? I'm not sure I'm understanding the point you're trying to make. Please elaborate.
I don't think anyone here is going to be a pro "turning lakes into radioative wasteland". It's a bit gruesome but if there is health issues being caused by nuclear it's usually pretty easy to discover. It stands out when doing statistical analysis. Seeing as you're into fact based opinions I'm sure you would agree. For example in Chernobyl they found thyroid diseases pretty easily. If true statistics should backup these health claims easily.
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