To the editor,
Is nuclear waste a liability or a valuable asset that can be recycled for next-generation small module reactors?
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has from day one told us here in South Bruce that the only option to dispose of nuclear waste was to dig mining shafts, transport the waste from all over Canada, and bury it. On that basis, they claim that the deciding factor in choosing a host site was the geological makeup below the site. Such was the reasoning for the costly core sampling carried out near Teeswater. Sampling, I would point out, almost identical to what was found near Kincardine at the Bruce Power industrial lands.
The NWMO’s argument for the deep geological repository (DGR) concept is 10 years old and it would appear that technology has overtaken them. In a recent letter to the Toronto Star, (“Noncarbon resource too valuable to bury,” Jan. 30) Peter Ottensmeyer, PHD FRSC, argues: “The Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Canada plan for used nuclear fuel management by permanent geological disposal is an affront to scientific nuclear know-how, indeed to human intelligence.”
Ottensmeyer goes on to point out that currently work is underway funded by our federal government in New Brunswick to extract 99 per cent of the energy from spent fuel to be used, not in CANDU reactors such as at Bruce Power, but in small fast-spectrum reactors being developed by NB Power.
Should the recycling of nuclear waste, as noted by Ottensmeyer, prove feasible it would render the DGR concept obsolete both on technical terms and cost efficiency. As such, would it still be appropriate to rezone 1,100 acres of viable farmland near Teeswater to an industrial site to carry on such work? In the coming year, South Bruce will hold a vote as to whether we are a willing host to NWMO’s DGR concept. However, South Bruce council adamantly insists that before such a vote we must be informed on all aspects of the venture. I would suggest that alternatives to waste burial be one such aspect regardless of whether it is a dissenting view to the NWMO’s plan. Furthermore, I would suggest that our local Community Liaison Committee invite Ottensmeyer to further speak to our community on the issue at a publicly accessible meeting.
David Wood
Mildmay
