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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 -
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Created at
27/02/2024 -
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Created at
05/07/2024 -
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Conversation with Susan O'Donnell
Let's put a little science into this discussion, here's two:
1) Sarah Froese, Nadja C. Kunz, and M. V. Ramana, “Too small to be viable? The potential market for small modular reactors in mining and remote communities in Canada,” Energy Policy (2020).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142152030327X
Abstract: The analysis shows that the potential market for SMRs in Canada is currently too small to justify investment in manufacturing facilities for SMR construction and the cost of generating electricity using SMRs is significantly higher than the corresponding costs of electricity generation using diesel, wind, solar, or some combination thereof. These results suggest that SMRs will be too expensive for these proposed first-mover markets for SMRs in Canada and that there will not be a sufficient market to justify investing in manufacturing facilities for SMRs.
2) M. V. Ramana, “Small Modular and Advanced Nuclear Reactors: A Reality Check,” IEEE Access (2021).
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9374057
Abstract:
Nuclear power has been declining in importance over the last quarter century, with its share of global electrical energy generation decreasing from 17.5 percent in 1996 to around 10 percent in 2019. Small modular and advanced nuclear reactors have been proposed as potential ways of dealing with the problems-specifically economic competitiveness, risk of accidents, link to proliferation and production of waste-confronting nuclear power technology. This perspective article examines whether these new designs can indeed solve these problems, with a particular focus on the economic challenges. It briefly discusses the technical challenges confronting advanced reactor designs and the many decades it might take for these to be commercialized, if ever. The article explains why the higher construction and operational costs per unit of electricity generation capacity will make electricity from small modular reactors more expensive than electricity from large nuclear power plants, which are themselves not competitive in today's electricity markets. Next, it examines the potential savings from learning and modular construction, and explains why the historical record suggests that these savings will be inadequate to compensate for the economic challenges resulting from the lower generation capacity. It then critically examines arguments offered by advocates of these technologies about job creation and other potential uses of energy generated from these plants to justify subsidizing and constructing these kinds of nuclear plants. It concludes with an assessment of the markets for these technologies, suggesting that these are inadequate to justify constructing the necessary manufacturing facilities.
[Part 4]
...that's paywalled, but here's the article's graph of USA solar jobs since 2010...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FJwkAZQFdJGzipVDLWMMNTQk16KJ3vZC/view?usp=share_link
...you can see while deployment of solar in USA ramped up, manufacturing did not. We all know where the solar panels came from, right?
https://www.brusselstimes.com/627123/solar-industry-supply-chains-tainted-by-uyghur-slave-labour-new-study-shows
An honest look at energy jobs would distinguish between low-paying deployment of imported hardware, vs Canadians deploying Canadian manufactured hardware.
Canadians mine Canadian uranium. Canadians are paid a lot of money to build the reactors. Canadians are paid a lot of money to operate the reactors.
Will we pay Canadians less money to operate SMRs? That seems to be one valid point Ramana raises in regards to SMR... that they could potentially run without an operator, or very few operators. Maybe... it completely depends on the SMR in question.
But I would say, that's then inexpensive energy which can be used to power our economy. If we can finally roll something off an assembly line which produces power but needs no supervision or maintenance... and produces no carbon emissions... can we just NOT pay Canadians to operate SMRs, and instead pay Canadians to build more instead and export them?
Susan - since you cross-posted, I will too. The article you mention "shows that the potential market for SMRs in Canada is currently too small to justify investment in manufacturing facilities"
Let me translate: a very small part of the potential world market is too small to justify investment in manufacturing facilities."
I am an economist and I would call that a trivial result that will not affect the decisions of any potential SMR producer. It is a bit like saying the Canadian market is too small to justify the construction of a factory to produce 747s!
The second paper you mention pivots on an observation: "Little nuclear was built over the last 25 years, so its share in power output declined." That is so nearly tautological as to be embarrassing. It is not logically a justification for deciding the technology cannot expand in the future.
It is very useful that you brought forward these silly papers. Both suffer from elementary logical flaws. That might remind some people at least how weak the anti-nuke "research" often is.
[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
...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
[Part 2]
In many respects refurb is harder than a new build. USA's Crystal River Nuclear Plant was destroyed during a refurb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_River_Nuclear_Plant#Refueling_outage,_containment_repairs_and_closure
Those are my first 2 criticisms of Ramana's "Too small to be viable" ... he's talking about SMR being expensive but not comparing decarbonized firmed microgrids. And he's ignoring that learning requires a consistent design, which SMR will have.
My 3rd criticism is that Ramana frames these SMR products as only being built for a domestic remote-community and mining market. Our domestic market would supposedly be too small to drive an SMR learning curve.
There is a world market for SMR. Poland (for example) is looking to deploy up to 79 BWRX-300.
https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Canadian-and-Polish-regulators-announce-SMR-collab
How very smart of us to be building the first 4 in Canada! The first one will be very expensive. Hopefully, the 4th one will not.
This is how Canada tackles climate change for the entire world... by solving the manufacturing and deployment challenges for a new piece of technology here at home, and then exporting that technology.
Susan, [Part 1]
M. V. Ramana is one of those names that jumps out as anti-nuclear. Is like coming across a paper on lifecycle emissions by Sovacool.
Report: Too small to be viable? The potential market for small modular reactors in mining and remote communities in Canada (M. V. Ramana)
"This paper examines the size of this potential market for SMRs by quantifying the electricity demand for remote mining projects..."
Susan, SMR are uniquely positioned to power remote communities in that many SMR are designed to operate 20 years without refuelling. The "pitch" is they would deliver power 365 days a year.
While intermittency is mentioned in the report, there's NO FIRMING COST.
Of course the LCOE will be lower for solar and wind... firming costs are the killer.
Ramana says storage costs are coming down. Ramana says we can still burn diesel or gas and just use solar/wind to burn less of it. If Ramana asserts nuclear is "too expensive" then why not also show an apples-to-apples comparison for a decarbonized micro-grid? (Ramana's report says: The LCOE numbers listed here are not an ‘apples to apples’ comparison because wind and solar do not generate electricity all the time.)
"Too small to be viable" also contains the following assertion:
"In both the United States and France, the two countries with the highest numbers of nuclear plants, costs went up, not down, with construction experience"
...actually, any replication of CONSISTENT REACTOR DESIGN has seen costs go down.
https://progress.institute/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/
CTRL-F: multiple reactors using an unchanging design
We see the overall-increasing cost of France's fleet by each reactor design... costs keep going up because France kept switching designs, yet we also see each unchanged design became cheaper. France kept switching designs instead of letting the reactors continue to get cheaper! (Maybe it wasn't clear how it was impacting costs at the time, and is only clear in retrospect?)
Unlike Canada, USA was incredibly inconsistent with every reactor deployment. Every nuclear power plant in USA is like a special snowflake. Vogtle 3 and Vogtle 4 will offer an example of learning-by-doing and we'll see if somehow costs went up and not down as 2 identical reactors are built one-after-the-other.
Southern Company Notice of Annual Meeting of Stockholders & Proxy Statement 2023:"Our experiences through the construction, testing and start-up of Unit 3 have contributed significantly to improved processes and productivity as we work to bring Unit 4 into service."
For a report on Canadian commercial viability of SMR... why does Ramana cite USA and France to argue there's no learning-by-doing? Canada has an ongoing refurb operation which is clearly showing acceleration as it goes.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-darlington-nuclear-generating-station-refurbishment/
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