Nuclear Power Resources

Please note: This is not an IPPNWC position statement, but rather an information piece on issues surrounding nuclear power. It includes many additional links and is suitable for those seeking more information on this subject.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The following letter was written for members of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment NS, in response to questions which arose shortly after the Nova Scotia government produced its Energy Reform (2024) Bill. This Bill eliminated Nova Scotia's prohibition on nuclear power plant construction, which had been in place since 1992. Since the prohibition was achieved through significant public input more than 30 years ago, and was suddenly removed without public consultation, many questions arose.

Dear All,

Thank you for your comments following our urgent request for action triggered by changes proposed to the Energy Reform Act (2024). The fact that the long-standing prohibition on building nuclear power plants in Nova Scotia is in jeopardy — without time for public education or hearings — is truly shocking.

In response, I have added some thoughts of my own and offer a few links, the first being "Why nuclear energy has no future", which contains many additional embedded links: Why Nuclear Energy Has No Future

The Nuclear Industry and Deception

Uncomfortable as this thought may be, the nuclear power industry is falsely promoting itself. It appears to be following similar patterns of deception used by both the tobacco and fossil fuel industries.

Nuclear Cannot Solve the Climate Crisis

Building a new nuclear plant takes a minimum of 10 years, often more — the climate emergency cannot wait. Proven alternatives exist and are cheaper and quicker to build: solar, wind, storage, energy conservation and efficiency. Grid changes would be needed but can be done.

Nuclear power, like sun and wind, also shuts off. Currently Point Lepreau NB is on a 100-day shutdown for repairs.

Medical Isotopes

Medical isotopes do not need to be made in large nuclear power reactors. Cyclotrons and small research reactors can produce the much smaller doses required. Medical Isotopes Fact Sheet

Public Funding and Insurance

Private money rarely builds nuclear power plants — instead, governments promote and fund them with taxpayer money. The government is also the de facto insurer, as insurance companies will not insure nuclear events.

Radiation Standards and Gender

Permitted or "safe" levels of radioactivity are based on "Reference Man" and were mostly devised from data on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bomb survivors. However, children and women are more sensitive, and most guidelines ignore these gendered differences. Gender and Radiation

The following link summarizes articles on the effects of low-level ionizing radiation on children, written from a UK perspective: Radiation Risks and Cancer in Children

Radioactive Waste

Radioactive wastes have been accumulating for nearly 100 years since the dawn of the nuclear age. To date, there is no satisfactory solution to deal with these wastes, despite claims to the contrary by the nuclear industry. High-level wastes (spent fuel) are many times more radioactive than the original mined material. Wastes from proposed small modular reactors may be worse yet, as they may be in a chemically reactive form, making them harder to contain than CANDU waste. PNAS Study on Nuclear Waste

Because the radioactivity in these wastes will last for millennia, they must be separated from the biosphere for longer than our civilization has existed.

At the present time, two Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario are being courted by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to accept high-level nuclear waste (spent fuel) from across Canada. The Indigenous leaders of neither community want it, and the communities along the transport routes are worried.

Intermediate and low-level radioactive waste includes materials such as cement, steel, and other items used in a plant. These substances become "activated" by stray neutrons and contaminated by leaked fission products from the fuel. When a plant is decommissioned, the industry is supposed to take responsibility — however, nobody really knows how to deal with such waste as it cannot be recycled. Occasionally, radioactive steel is blended with fresh steel and shows up in commercial products such as utensils or toys.

The Federal Government is attempting to deal with its legacy waste from the Chalk River site by building a mound near the Ottawa River — a highly controversial move

In New Brunswick, cleaning up nuclear sites will no doubt become the province's responsibility. If Nova Scotia were to build nuclear power, the province would likely face radioactively contaminated sites decades from now.

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)

A small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) is not actually small — the building is estimated to have the footprint of a football field. If plans to build SMRs in Cape Breton at Point Aconi and Lingan materialize, the following economic reality might result:

Nova Scotia taxpayer money — which could immediately be used for wind, solar, grid updates, long-term storage, or energy efficiency — would instead be diverted, likely to New Brunswick's experimental SMR developers Moltex and Arc, operating out of Point Lepreau. Both are foreign-owned start-up companies that have come to Canada to take advantage of supportive regulators and lax environmental regulations.

No company, including Moltex or Arc, has produced a commercially viable SMR. Their plans remain "PowerPoint plans." Both companies have obtained millions of dollars from the Federal Government and the province of New Brunswick.

Is this really how Nova Scotians want provincial money spent? Nuclear power is considered dirty and dangerous — today and for the future.

Protect our environment and citizens, and leave the prohibition on nuclear power intact.

Nancy Covington BSc Physics, MDBoard Member, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada