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Preamble
Nuclear power is one of the lowest-carbon sources of electricity, as recognized by IPCC and United Nations ECE. A majority of Canadians support using nuclear energy to generate electricity.
Proposal text
Green Party of Canada WILL CEASE BLANKET-OPPOSITION TO NUCLEAR POWER AS A SOURCE OF LOW-CARBON ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION.
Type of Proposal
Public policy that the party would represent.
Objective / Benefit
This resolution is intended to withdraw existing GPC policies which oppose Canada's use of nuclear technologies for non-military purposes. GPC policies which impede nuclear by calling for "renewable" energy shall be updated to replace "renewable" with "clean".
If your proposal replaces an existing policy or policies, which one does it replace?
1996 Foreign Aid - repeal
G06-p11 Enhanced Nuclear Policy - repeal
1998 - Peace and Security - repeal
G08-p012 Nuclear Power - repeal
G10-p31 Carbon Free National Feed-in Tariff - Amend: remove "non-nuclear,"
G08-136 Energy Transition Plan - Amend: change "renewable energy" to "clean energy"
G08-p137 Support of Distributed Electrical Power Grid Research - Amend: change "renewable energy" to "clean energy"
List any supporting evidence for your proposal
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe issued a report comparing not just lifecycle carbon emissions for various electricity sources, but overall impact on the environment and human health. Nuclear power was the single lowest CO2eq /kWh electricity source studied. The single lowest impact on ecosystems. And among the very lowest impact on human health. (CO2: Page 8. Ecosystems: Page 57. Human health: Page 58.) https://unece.org/sed/documents/2021/10/reports/life-cycle-assessment-electricity-generation-options
Our World In Data summarizes a modern assessment of various electricity system's safety and cleanliness. While not as in-depth or recent as UN ECE's study, Our World In Data clearly positioned nuclear in 2020 as one of humanity's safest and cleanest energy sources. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
Despite his continued opposition to nuclear power, Dr. Gordon Edwards acknowledges "Low-carbon emitting technologies include solar, wind, hydro and nuclear" in a 2021 briefing paper. https://www.ourcommons.ca/content/Committee/441/ENVI/WebDoc/WD11891319/11891319/RamanaMV-1-e.pdf
In GPC's "Roundtable on Canada's Nuclear Policy" Dr. Gordon Edward observes that splitting atoms for energy does not release carbon. (Excerpt with my commentary:) https://youtu.be/HKIcnbMMdO0?t=24 (Original video:) https://www.facebook.com/GreenPartyofCanada/videos/934857067289154/
The nuclear supply chain for CANDU refurbishments is 98% Canadian. https://www.opg.com/documents/2021-ontario-nuclear-collaboration-report/
This can be contrasted with other low (but not as low as nuclear) carbon energy sources where components are not domestically produced, such as wind turbines: https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/79fdad93-9025-49ad-ba16-c26d718cc070
Nuclear's domestic, Canadian, supply chain still achieves a cost /kWh only beaten by hydropower. https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-20211022.pdf
On April 23, 2023, Dr. Chris Keefer debated Dr. Gordon Edwards on the subject of nuclear power in Canada. This was the "Roundtable on Canada's Nuclear Policy" that GPC members might have experienced, if a single pro-nuclear voice had been allowed to participate. https://youtu.be/LvMC8TK025w
Angus Reid Institute finds increasing support from Canadians for nuclear power. In June 2021, 51% of Canadians said they would like to see further development of nuclear power generation. Now 57% say the same. https://angusreid.org/canada-energy-nuclear-power-oil-and-gas-wind-solar/
This 57% of Canadians supporting nuclear matches a similar trend in the United States, where also now 57% support nuclear power. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-share-of-americans-favor-more-nuclear-power/
Germany serves as a cautionary tale that renewables have not replaced their nuclear fleet. This video details use on online grid monitoring tools to evaluate Elizabeth May's statement (made during COP28) that shutting down nuclear power has "freed up" the grid to accept renewable energy, while not also noting that German grid remains high-carbon, and Germany immediately transitioned (upon the closure of their last nuclear power plants) from being net-exporter of electricity to net-importer of electricity. https://youtu.be/8rcMwmGuGSo
Does this proposal affect any particular group and what efforts have been made to consult with the group or groups?
N/A
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
05/07/2024 -
- 6
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Created at
27/02/2024 -
- 0
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Created at
05/07/2024 -
- 0
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Conversation with David Robinson
A major advantage of nuclear power is the potential for very rapidly ramping up output. Ontario built its 22 reactors in 22 years. France took only 20 years to add 400000 GWH/year. Japan built over 60 reactors in 40 years with a median construction time of 3.8 years.
David, here is a link to Nuclear reactors in Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Canada Check both the active and inactive. I haven't done the calculations on median construction time but since there is only one that took less than 5 years I question your figure. Also note that as the construction start date moved closer towards the 2000's the construction time crept up...looks like an average of 9 years. To the best of my knowledge construction time does not include environmental assessments or planning time. EA's will take 2 years for even a simple project so I suspect that unless the project is to be built in Ontario under a Ford government we would be looking at 5 years. Planning time would be what, 2 years? So a total of ~16years start to operation?
Thanks for the note. I think there is some confusion about how long it takes to produce one reactor and how fast one can build reactors.
Hydro PLANNED to build 20 reactors in 20 years. (the rounding error is irrelevant). It did that. That is one reactor a year.
Hydro could have planned to build 2 per year or 4 per year, but one per year was going to meet expected demand and an overlapping schedule meant that only one complete specialist construction team was needed.
so your remarks do not in any way undermine the observation I made: "A major advantage of nuclear power is the potential for very rapidly ramping up output."
But let's go on to the specific issues you raise.
1) I gave you the median times for Japanese construction. Notice that if Japanese plats took on average 3.5 years and they built 60 , by your reasoning it would have taken them 210 years. Why didn't it?
2) Why did Ontario's rate of production slow down? In Ontario at the end of the construction sequence it began to look like demand was growing more slowly than expected - there was a recession underway. Hydro considered canceling. Interest rates went sky high. The Cabinet decided to cancel, then changed its mind. New regulations for the already approved projects were introduced and plans had to be revised and re-approved. These say a lot about how politics can introduce delays and run up costs by interfering but not much about how long it really takes to build a nuclear plant.
3) Environmental Assessments are important. The thing I think you need to notice is that you could do ten at a time if you wanted to start ten reactors in 2 years. It just depends on having staff. (There is a genuine problem ramping up capacity at the beginning of parallel processes.)
The time to produce one plant is basically irrelevant. Making dinner take an hour. Nonetheless, everyone on my street eats at the same time. How? - Parallel production.
IOt is a bit like building homes. Every house needs a set of permits and the permits all take time, but we build thousands of houses at a time. How? we start thousands of permit application before we finish the last set of buildings. we have thousands of cres, and hundreds of suppliers producing interchangable parts.
OK. You are probably right that getting the first reactor built would take 10 years. The excerptions would be building new CANDUs using existing approved designs or BWRw using the already approved design on existing sites.
But then you could be popping out 10 giggawat sized plants a year for 20 years. That would, roughly, double current production.
My hunch is we will need more. Decarbonizing a province the size of Ontario is a massive project. That suggests to me we also need to expand hydro to increase peaking capacity and store some of that nuclear power. We might be able to increase hydro capacity by 50 % but it is questionable. We could increase both wind and solar by a factor of 10. That would get us close to three times current electricity and near current total energy consumption for the province.
Hi David I see the confusion. What I was pointing out was that it takes from 5 to 10 years for construction of a Nuclear power plant. Of course the powers that be who hand out our tax dollars could arrange for 1 or 100 plants to be built at the same time. Regardless it will take at least 10 years to plan, get through environmental assessments and construction to get the plant up. That's all I was getting at. It is not possible to build a reactor in two years unless you have a Conservative Government....and be prepared for an ever increasing endless debt repayment charge to be added to your electricity bill.
All of those reactors were constructed in the 20th century. Nuclear is a technology of the past century and there still isn't a permanent disposal site for the toxic radioactive waste.
Renewables are breaking the records for speed, cost, and clean in the 21st century.
Renewables can break records for deployment. But only HYDRO is on-par with nuclear for speed of DECARBONIZATION.
Sweden's Wind is the best non-hydro-renewables have to show, and that's in 10th place behind hydro and nuclear.
https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1613149590492008449
"All of those reactors were constructed in the 20th century. "
They DO keep running for an amazingly long time when properly maintained and refurbished.
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