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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 Esther Fyk
I will vote against this motion. The En-Roads Climate Simulator, developed by over 3,500 scientists from all over the globe at MIT, indicates that there is NO EFFECT of having nuclear power on the global temperature. https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=24.1.0
Add to that the nuclear waster disposal problem, also mentioned in the 'three dots' of this slider, and I will go with the science that indicates this is not a viable solution.
Esther, I worked with the En-Roads Climate Simulator for a while and was shocked that nuclear had no effect. Then I realized that the model builders built in a very interesting assumption: only a very few nuclear plants could be built. This WAS in line with the conventional view when the model was being built:
People were still shaken by Fukushima (in contrast, at the recent COP more than 20 countries from four continents launched the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy. )
The Japanese had taken their plants off line (They are bringing them back online now),
The IEA had published a maximum estimate of nuclear capacity that was very low (Remember how they undersestimate solar and wind?)
the German economy had not collapsed yet from closing its nuclear plants
Ontario had not committed to new builds and additional refurbishments
Poland had not announced its plans for six 1-1.5 GWe units (not 3 as the IEA list shows. Poland has now added plans for 24 new small modular reactors.)
prices of wind installations had not risen sharply with increase interest rates and materials costs
In any case, the limit built into the En-Roads Climate Simulator is now out of date. The model is really quite good, but it is impossible to use it to test how much effect nuclear can have. You need a correct estimate of the maximum amount of nuclear power that could be brought online. That number is almost entirely a political decision, not a technical one.
Hi Esther,
If you slide the slider to the right on nuclear it does indeed decrease global temperature. The issue with it being that you can only add so much nuclear. If the slider was wider you could add more.
Here in Ontario we kicked coal to the curb mostly because of nuclear power. It would be nice now to kick natural gas as well which is what we hope to accomplish.
I'm happy that you support scientists.
Here is the latest IPCC report written by scientists where they include nuclear in their climate change mitigation.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf
And here is their page on who the IPCC are
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2021/07/AR6_FS_What_is_IPCC.pdf
And I noticed that you mentioned MIT. A very well respected university. Here is a new article about a report from MIT and Stanford on why Diablo Canyon should not be shut down.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/01/diablo-canyon-open-could-save-21-billion-mit-stanford-scientists.html
Hm, yes, I notice that the tool's maximum possible nuclear power is below 10%, and the tool is almost entirely unable to conceive of a scenario in which there is more nuclear power than fossil fuels. Even with nuclear power maxed out, it still typically plans 2x as much fossil fuels as nuclear power. And even with less than 10% nuclear power, this is described as "highly subsidized".
I suppose the people who made the tool are unaware of history. The United States increased its nuclear supply from 1% to 19% in the 20 years from 1970 to 1990.[1] If the U.S. did this in 20 years, why can't this tool imagine a scenario with even 10% nuclear on an 80-year timeline?
If nuclear power were inherently unaffordable, how did that nuclear power buildout happen? And why did licenses for new plants stop getting issued before 1980? Well: in the 1960s and 1970s, nuclear was affordable, and from 1980 to 2020 it was not. This is the complete opposite of almost every other industry. In most industries, goods get more affordable over time. I would urge people to study the history of this to understand what changed[2].
[1] https://decarbonization.visualcapitalist.com/animated-70-years-of-u-s-electricity-generation-by-source/
[2] Yes, this is a history written by a pro-nuclear guy, but who else has attempted to explain why nuclear is virtually the only industry on Earth where the more they build, the more expensive they get? https://rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flop
Also, another discussion of this history can be found in the late Bernard Cohen's book, in Chapter 9. The Poll of Radiation Health Scientists in Chapter 5 is also enlightening. http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/
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