Nuclear Power Options

I was trained as a Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, Defence Officer while I was in the Canadian Armed Forces. This has given me a little more knowledge than perhaps the average citizen might have about these things. At one point in my career, I was asked to be on a select team pitched to work on the Deep Storage Initiative for long term storage of spent nuclear fuel in Canada. This storage facility’s scope would extend longer than all of recorded history.

Apparently, Alberta Premier Ralph Kline once asked if Saskatchewan would develop a nuclear power plant near La Loche to provide power for the oil sands production facilities. That would mean they would heat the sand to release the oil with electricity instead of burning natural gas. This is a secondary business case in my view if we are going to do this for our own local reasons.

Currently, we are using natural gas to generate electricity and this has to stop. We have an extreme climate – few people really realize how extreme our climate actually is here. We can have temperatures that reach from -50C to a high past +40C. Very few general locations in all of North America might have even close to that 90C seasonal temperature variation. We have large power demands in seasonal extremes that all known forms of renewable energy cannot currently address.

I want a proper long-term storage plan in place before we start anything further. The need is for storage of these consumed materials for thousands of years to come without doing harm. I believe we can do this. Lots of work has already been done on this so we don’t have to start all over with endless long consultations. I object to long-term storage of spent fuel in above ground containers meant to be temporary.

One time I was at a technical meeting at Cameco’s head office in Saskatoon. While in their waiting room, I noted the display they had there. In a little container, it had what looked like three small pink pencil eraser ends. The caption read, as I remember it, “If all your energy needs for an entire year were provided by nuclear power, this would be the amount of nuclear waste requiring long-term storage”. In another box, a small black biscuit smaller than an English muffin was there and, as I remember the caption, said “If all your energy needs for your entire lifetime were provided by nuclear power, this would be the amount of nuclear waste requiring long-term storage”. Around the same time, a nuclear expert told me that all the spent nuclear fuel in Canada would fit in one Olympic sized swimming pool. Nuclear power is currently the major source of power for large swaths of densely populated eastern Canada.

Any system designed should follow the minimum of the CANDU reactor principle which relies on radioactive material that is not as enriched as many nuclear facilities around the world require. This would include what Chernobyl and Fukushima used in their processes. I was told that fuel needed for a CANDU reactor cannot be used for weapon development on its own without further enriching. But any radioactive fuel can still be incorporated into a ‘dirty’ bomb and this still concerns me greatly. So, distinct site isolation and intensive multi tier security would be needed for my approval. Also, I was told by a very senior nuclear engineer that the CANDU reactor cannot overheat and run away in a melt down. He described how the CANDU system requires water for the reaction to even take place. Take away the water and then the reaction cannot be sustained and it halts on its own.

Whether a larger nuclear power facility or an SMR (Small Modular Reactor) is proposed, the things I mentioned above would still apply for my agreement to be given.

Saskatoon and Saskatchewan are home to world class experts in uranium and nuclear technologies. We should start to make a plan to capitalize on what we already indirectly benefit from.