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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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It is preferable that random GPC members share anti-nuclear conferences (where anywhere from 2 to 6 anti-nuclear activists share their thoughts on why nuclear power is bad), preferable over GPC holding such events itself.
If you click [Show Transcript] you can consume it faster.
Here's some of my notes:
14:33 Ralph Torrie citing France as an economic disaster for nuclear. France has one of the cleanest grids in Europe, and is now sustaining Germany with nuclear electricity exports. https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR
23:31 Ramana shows LCOE for nuclear in USA. The LCOE ends at 2021. Of course Lazard released LCOE+ in April 2023, and that shows a spike in the costs of renewables. It also shows firming costs for renewables. Better still, would be Canadian costs for nuclear, which according to Ontario Energy Board is the 2nd cheapest source of electricity after hydro.
26:04 Ramana talks about AP1000 cost over-runs. A closer analogy to a Canadian build-out would be all the CANDU units being refurbished in Ontario. Currently on-budget and ahead-of-schedule. (Hence OEB's calling nuclear the 2nd cheapest source of electricity.)
I wonder why Germany isn't mentioned once. I always CTRL-F through transcripts for GERMAN.
Wasn't that the poster-child for anti-nuclear conversations like this, just 5 years ago? They did what anti-nuclear activists wanted, shut down every single reactor. Oddly though, solar and wind and batteries somehow failed to provide reliable electricity...
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
...that is one high-carbon, dependent-on-imports, grid.
31:24 Ramana "learning makes nuclear more expensive" actually it is the changing of designs. USA was always changing designs. France had about 5 different designs in total, and you'd see costs drop until they switched to the next design and they shot back up. Maybe it is more obvious in retrospect, is why France kept doing that? AP1000 costs keep dropping in China (they keep building them). Even in USA, Southern Company says their 2nd AP1000 is costing less than the 1st (how could it not?) though they are absolutely not giving breakdown in costs between 1st and 2nd yet.
Ontario is going to build 4 BWRX-300. That's General Electric. Canada IS paying FOAK (First Of A Kind) costs for those first BWRX-300. Hopefully by the 4th we'll have enough experience to build them efficiently, because Poland is looking at ordering 79 of them. That would be a nice export. An ultra-low-carbon energy source rolling off Canadian assembly lines.
https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Polish-universities-launching-courses-ahead-of-rap
1:18:50 Ramana's proliferation concerns and waste concerns. He says only Pu from nuclear waste can be used as fuel unless a fast-spectrum reactor is used. Well New Brunswick will build a fast-spectrum MSR, SSR-W. Recycles the Uranium and the Plutonium into ultra-low-carbon energy. Says "proliferation" but the Pu is NOT weapons-grade.
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