A Commentary by Doug Draper
Here’s an idea I’ve been tossing around that may get me in trouble – not that I am already in enough trouble – with a few more people.
Melting nukes in Japan - once considered one of world's most secure nuclear power facilities.
Maybe, just maybe, some of those residents’ groups in Niagara and other parts of Ontario and New York State who are so opposed to solar energy and wind farms should be among the first to have their communities targeted for a brand new nuclear power plant. Or at the very least, let them host a warehouse for storing the spent radioactive waste.
How about that for an energy alternative? Well, all of that power we consume has to come from somewhere.
You know what? I bet you if the power authorities actually had the guts to do that, most of these same people would be packing their community centres, protesting against the nuclear power plant too. And I’d probably be out there with them. The only thing that gets me is that many of the same people who are against wind generators and solar panels, wouldn’t speak out nearly as loudly about building another nuclear power plant, just so long as it goes somewhere else.
Not to get too tangential, but it would be kind of nice if the federal government decided to build any new prison in the neighbourhood of people support the belief of Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Niagara Falls Conservative MP and justice minister Rob Nicholson is that one of the best ways of fighting crime in this country is to slam more people in jail. If the government did that, I’d bet what’s left of my wits that you’d be watching the ‘not-in-my-backyard syndrome’ played out in overdrive.
‘Gee,’ I can hear them saying, “I support more prisons, but I thought you were going to put them way up north where no one lives, except for maybe a couple of Eskimos.”
That’s what bothers me about some of these folks who would rather build new nuclear power facilities than have wind farms, or would rather build new prisons than pursue other ways of addressing the complex issues around some people falling out of line with the law in some other way. They’ll go along with a new nuclear plant or prison – and they might just as well go along with constructing a new mid-peninsula highway through the heart of rural Niagara – just so long as they go in someone else’s backyard.
But let’s get back to nuclear power plants and remember that aside from the New Democratic Party in Ontario, the province’s Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty and the Conservatives’ Tim Hudak, favour expanding nuclear energy generation. In New York, the state’s new governor, Andrew Cuomo, has recently discussed shutting down an old nuclear plant along the Hudson River and not too far from New York City. But it is not all that clear what his overall agenda may be for nuclear power in a state where about a third of the electricity comes from nuclear facilities. Maybe some of our readers on the American side of the border can enlighten us on that.
From a Greenpeace call for no more nukes in Ontario. See link for Greenpeace website below.
In Ontario though, we have the two frontrunners for premier in next October’s provincial elections – McGuinty and Hudak – favouring more nuclear power facilities, although at least McGuinty seems more open to wind and other renewable energy alternatives than Hudak is.
Sadly, neither one of them has all that much to say about energy conservation, other than have a back-and-forth tiff over the installation of ‘smart metres’ on homes across the province. McGuinty has had more than seven years to launch a comprehensive plan for energy conservation and has not done so, and there is no detailed plan to date from Hudak.
What voters in this region and others across Ontario face, however, are two frontrunners that seem bound, bent and determined to invest billions of dollars of our tax money on more nuclear power facilities at a time when we can all see what is going on in Japan, where the nuclear power dice were rolled and came up snake eyes.
We the people, in Niagara, Ontario and New York and elsewhere have got to get more engaged in deciding our energy future, and not leave it to a hand full of people. And we should base our advocacy for energy options on what we would be willing to accept in our own backyards. If we would not want a nuclear power plant or a coal-fired plant down the road from us, then we should not be pushing it for someone else’s community.
In the days ahead, the Ontario Clean Air Alliance – a longstanding public interest group in this province – will be ramping up its campaign to press the province to choose energy efficiency and green power over more nukes, and will be hosting a special event in Toronto on March 30 that you can learn more about below.
Lessons from Japan – Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Events in Japan are both terrifying and heart wrenching. We know Canadians will do what they can to help during this crisis and our thoughts are with the Japanese people.
But while this tragedy is still unfolding, we can already glean some important lessons about reliance on nuclear power:
· · No system is failsafe: The Japanese are among the most prepared people on Earth for earthquakes and tsunamis, yet systems failed at all levels – from tsunami protection to backup power systems to containment buildings.
· · We think we are better prepared than we are: Backup generators were knocked out almost immediately and battery power was available for only eight hours – far too short a period to keep reactor cores cool. Double redundancy was not enough to stave off a serious emergency.
· · We need to rethink: Simply telling ourselves that “it can’t happen here” is a dangerous cop out. What Japan has shown is that it is very difficult to predict the exact series of events that can trigger a loss of control of the most dangerous energy system on Earth.
We don’t know what will happen next with Japan’s nuclear plants, but we do know this: New and existing nuclear plants are going to require a serious safety review, and safety standards and equipment are likely to require significant improvement. That means that already costly nuclear plants are going to become even more costly – and uncompetitive with energy efficiency, Made-in-Ontario green power, water power imports from Quebec and combined heat and power. Is it worth the risk when we have so many safer and more affordable alternatives? We don’t think so.
Feeling powerless? Come out to our Nuclear in the Spotlight event in Toronto on Wed. March 30th to help us turn Ontario away from nuclear and toward safer options. Check out our Facebook Event Page for more details. We will be dedicating some ticket funds and taking up a collection at the event for Japanese relief efforts.
Hope to see you there. And until then, our thoughts and prayers extend to the Japanese people and all those who will be affected by this disaster, now and into the future.
Greenpeace Site – Niagara At Large is also posting a link for a web page from Greenpeace you may find interesting. You can visit it at www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/recent/HudakMcGuinty-costly-nuclear-power-will-hurt-electricity-consumers/ .
(Share your comments on this issue below and visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
Where did all those windmills come from?
Recently we returned from a trip in the states and returned on Hwy. 401. From that vantage point if we looked in the direction of Lake Erie, the horizon was filled with hundreds of windmills from Windsor to London. I think I heard recently there are 700 of them. I don’t remember the Premier announcing this massive influx of newly built windmills.
Anyone know the story on this?
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They come with the Green Energy Act which introduced a Feed-In-Tariff [FIT and microFIT] programme 2009-Sep.
It’s another complicated mess for all of us to sweat, Pat – like health care in Ontario, let alone the hard work you’ve been doing for us in Niagara, eh?
Basically,
a/ Coal-powered electricity (25% of your lights) pollutes with mercury, acid rain, etc. causing health problems. Getting rid of it saves OHIP dollars.
b/ Nuclear-powered electricity (50% of your lights) is coming to it’s ‘Bad After’ date – for Pickering, etc. The estimate for repairing & replacing these plants has tripled from $26B to $87B. (Almost forgot, they haven’t found how/where to store the spent fuels rods and radioactive plants for ~10,000 years, but we Do have a safe-to-operate CANDU system.)
c/ The plan is to add more clean Renewable Energy (hydro, wind & solar), and to help us Conserve, in order to replace the Coal.
d/ The problem? COST. They’ve given higher FIT rates for the Wind & Solar part of FIT, which all hydro ratepayers pay, averaged into our monthly bills. McGuinty predicts hydro rates will rise ~50% by 2015, and ~50% again by ~2025(?). We now pay an average of ~$.07/kWhr before delivery, taxes, etc. (After delivery & taxes, it’s ~$.16/kWhr.)
If the Yanks keep burning Coal to make 75% of their electricity, and they continue to heavily subsidise their people to install Renewable Energy (~50% of the cost!), how will we compete with them if their energy costs are much cheaper than ours? More Ontario companies moving south …. 8={
At that point, FIT rates for Wind ($.135/kWhr) and microFIT Solar ($.802 for roof-mounted) will seem wonderfully low…especially after the new nuclear plants come in over-budget as they did to build Darlington….
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Last October, driving back from visiting relatives near Cooperstown N.Y., on Hwy 20, rather than the dreaded New York State Thruway, we saw windmills powering energy to rural upper NY state. It did not ruin the beauty of that drive, and knowing that Upper NY State is a Republican lock, I wondered if there had been NIMBYism involved. Made that drive many times.
Be that as it may, the rurals are receiving their power that way, and it is still a pretty drive. And my relatives, who live in a nearby hamlet to Fly Creek, have huge solar panels in their back forty, and nary a cow, pig, chicken or local friends have complained at all..
So there you go. I dunno. It’s an option. I dunno.
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The bit about windmills that I know, the windmill technology of todays windmills are far more advanced than the early version of 20 years ago,a small mountain town in Italy has had one and replaced it with a new one, being far from the source of electricity,they own their own windmill, and their needs are fully met and they are making money , from selling the excess power to the energy company. there is far more radiation danger from cell phones than windmills, pancreatic cancer has been blamed for keeping the cell phones in ones pocket. another source of power is the fission mini plants no larger than a hot tub useing Thorium not uraniun can be put underground and supply a Town of thirty thousand ( the size of Fort Erie) for ten years, this system does not need the expensive rewiring of the Provincial grid,to accomadate to work. I feel the huge systems are passe.
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George: a contrary opinion about Thorium [cross-posted]:
“Norm Rubin: Thorium not the miracle solution nuclear advocates claim”
Posted on March 29, 2011 by energyprbe
(March 29, 2011) Energy Probe director of nuclear research Norm Rubin in the Toronto Star and The Week discussing why thorium is not the solution to the high costs of nuclear energy.
Thorium pitches are really just “appeals for public funding,” he says: “Thorium reactors are only one of a significant number of long-term dreams to plant soybeans in Antarctica with the help of nuclear sun lamps. There is almost no limit to the dreams you can have with an endless, too-cheap-to-meter source of clean, benign, what-could-possibly-go-wrong energy.”
Needless to say, Rubin is not impressed. Not just with LFTRs, but with nuclear power plants in general.
“Thorium doesn’t eliminate the problems,” he contends. “If the nuclear industry’s problem was affording uranium, then switching to thorium might solve their problem. But that’s not their problem. The fuel cost in today’s reactors is a tiny fraction of the total cost. That’s not what is giving the Ontario government sticker shock about the next two reactors at Darlington. They’re solving a non-problem by substituting a cheaper fuel for uranium. Unless they solve the big problems, they’ve got a curiosity there instead of a practical solution to anybody’s problems.”
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Dunno Doug. How about everything in one shot? A mid-peninsula highway starting near the proposed Fort Erie auto racetrack, then a whole slew of these mini plants that George Jardine is talking about, together with windmills lining the highway. This would quickly evolve into a ribbon of industry with accompanying housing for the workers yet have all the electrical power needed within a short walk. Sleep well, my friend.
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Of course, we already have a nuclear waste storage site in Lewiston NY as an aftermath of the Manhattan project and bomb-building. And another one in West Valley. Their safety, security and long term future represent a major concern. So we have the waste, but not the energy. Environmental justice says enough; burden another community.
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Ah yes people want electricity, or criminals locked up, or garbage stored away or fast highways etc. etc. but they don’t want them near them or their friends. It is the extension of the NIMBY concept to
BANANA – Build Anything Nowhere Anywhere Near Anyone
I supply services to the power generation business and I often see BANANA in play for siting or other issues.
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