The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) loves to brag about how it ensures “world class” safety oversight for the nuclear industry. But what it really excels in is world-class usage of rubber stamps: It has approved every single application that is has received from a Canadian nuclear electricity utility!
And once again, the CNSC has put the nuclear industry’s interests ahead of that of the public by approving Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG’s) dangerous plan for storing the Darlington Nuclear Station’s deadly wastes in conventional warehouses right beside Lake Ontario.
The CNSC was so intent on slamming down its favourite “approved” stamp on OPG’s completely inadequate plans, it demanded only one change from the nuclear giant: Refusing to allow the utility to change the name of its “Darlington Waste Management Facility” to “Nuclear Sustainability Services – Darlington”.
It would be like something out of a Monty Python sketch if the consequences of the CNSC’s frivolous response was not so consequential for our health and safety.
The CNSC blithely ignored the call from the International Joint Commission’s (IJC) Great Lakes Water Quality Board to move radioactive waste away from the lake to prevent it from being compromised by flooding and erosion, and into hardened storage to protect it from potential terrorist attacks. Unlike the CNSC, the IJC’s experts live in a real world where climate change and malevolent actors exist and require proactive responses, not putting your hands over your eyes – again.
It’s important to remember that the more than 300,000 spent nuclear fuel bundles at the Darlington Nuclear Station that OPG now has permission to move even closer to the lake are going to be there for a long time. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), owned by the big nuclear utilities, is essentially going around in circles trying to find an off-site place to permanently dump this deadly waste.
It has once again delayed sticking a pin in a map because it knows it is facing adamant opposition from First Nations communities who don’t want radioactive dumps on their territories and furious opposition from many northern residents who don’t see why they should be the host for the next million years for deadly waste created to serve the needs of southern Ontario.
This is not some hair-splitting issue that can be quickly swept under the rug as the CNSC is trying to do. This waste is a serious threat to safety, and while it remains at the Darlington Nuclear Station, it should be more securely stored in above-ground, attack-resistant, reinforced concrete vaults – the international best practice that has been adopted by six German nuclear stations. But that would cost OPG money that it doesn’t want to spend on nuclear safety. OPG would rather spend public money subsidizing the development of GE-Hitachi’s high-cost experimental BWRX-300 nuclear reactor – a nice handout for a giant American-Japanese conglomerate, though not such a great deal for the people of Ontario left with the bills and the waste.
It is time for the CNSC’s real boss, Prime Minister Trudeau, to tell the CNSC to put away the rubber stamps and bring out its reading glasses. Prime Minister Trudeau has recently mused about nuclear being part of an energy decarbonization strategy but has never explained what we are going to do with the radioactive waste it creates. Until our government has a realistic, community-approved answer for that – and not just a spiffy power point presentation – further expansion of nuclear power should be stopped.