Ontario Municipal Election 2022

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Background Information:

The total radioactivity of the nuclear wastes stored at the Bruce, Darlington and Pickering Nuclear Stations is 700 times greater than the total radiation released to the atmosphere by the Fukushima accident in 2011.

The International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Water Quality Board is calling for Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) nuclear waste storage facilities to be “hardened” and located away from shorelines to avoid them being compromised by flooding and erosion.

According to a report prepared for OPG, the total capital cost of building above-ground, attack-resistant, reinforced concrete vaults at the Bruce, Darlington and Pickering Nuclear Stations would be approximately $1 billion. This safer interim solution can be fully paid for by OPG’s nuclear waste storage fund, which has a market value of $11.3 billion.

In Germany, six nuclear stations have hardened storage facilities. The concrete walls and roofs of these facilities are 1.2 to 1.3 metres thick.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is still decades away from having an operational long-term storage site for high-level radioactive waste, and its plans are opposed by many Indigenous communities and organizations in the areas it is considering. This means that safer interim storage solutions are needed for the waste that is stored at our nuclear stations.

For more information, please read our report: A Safer Interim Storage Solution for Ontario’s Nuclear Wastes.