To the editor,
When it comes to a DGR (deep geological repository), let’s follow the “precautionary principle.”
The recent ‘Willing to Listen’ newsletter sent to the South Bruce residents, admits there are “uncertainties” with the concept of a DGR. Her reference to the quote “uncertainty does not mean something is unsafe”’ can also be interpreted as “uncertainty does not mean it is safe.” What it does mean is that there are unknowns and uncertainties and consequent risks associated with the concept.
Common industrial and engineering practice is that if you are uncertain about something in your design you should follow the “precautionary principle” and err on the side of certainty and safety.
The newsletter claims to be supportive of the process being followed by the South Bruce municipality. That process was developed by the NWMO to deliver a willing host community as its only objective. To ensure that their nine-step process is being strictly followed, which includes developing the “36 Guiding Principles,” the NWMO has provided funding to the municipalities to achieve their desired outcome.
So, don’t be fooled. Obviously, it is the NWMO, not the community, which has set the agenda. Clearly, contrary to the NWMO’s claims, this is not a community-driven process.
The newsletter’s declaration that all scientists agree DGRs are safe is misleading because only those connected to the nuclear industry seem to support this position. A great many other geologists, physicists, and chemists do not support it.
One cannot compare a DGR to the natural geological phenomena cited in the newsletter. The NWMO’s renderings and graphics record displays a veritable latticework of unnatural engineered tunnels, shafts, and chambers including venting shafts to the surface. This extensive network of cavities would compromise the stability of the host rock while facilitating the ingress of water.
Note: Canada has experience – AECL’s first experimental DGR shafts at the Whiteshell lab in Manitoba decades ago identified premature water inflow as a serious problem. Also, based on an EIS report by AECL in 1994 high-level waste will generate heat in the DGR for up to 50,000 years, which has the potential to fracture the rock facilitating the entry of water into the cavities. According to NWMO, the time of placement of the spent fuel in a DGR is controlled to ensure the temperature within the cavity does not exceed 100 degrees Celsius. But this unnatural introduced heat would further compromise the stability of the host rock of a DGR.
Currently, NWMO scientists are using computer modelling to determine if the implementation of a DGR will be environmentally sound and safe for tens of thousands of years. However, computer modelling is not science. It is not even math. It is prognostication or projection using selected inputs arranged to strengthen one’s subjective assumptions and hopes.
About that, below is a quote from the 2011 booklet by Green Clean Saskatchewan, titled Saskatchewan is being targeted as a high-level radioactive waste dump:
“The computer models used by the NWMO cannot be demonstrated to have the validity and predictive values that they should have over long timescales. They cannot predict the relevant complex coupled processes including the effects of heat, mechanical deformation, microbes, and coupled gas and water flow through fractured crystalline rocks or clay. The fundamental unresolvable difficulty is that science simply cannot make such extremely complex long-range predictions.”
Any project with built-in risks or uncertainties at the outset has a high chance of those risks increasing with time. With the DGR project, we are passing these risks, and the costs to correct future problems, onto future generations. We do not believe that expediency today by the NWMO at the expense of future generations is fair.
A DGR concept is a novel, modern-day engineering challenge. Let Finland experiment with their prototype DGR for 20 or more years to see what else we need to learn about the DGR concept before we plunge ahead with a risky first-time engineering undertaking in Canada.
It might be instructive, in a precautionary way, to compare it with other novel engineered designs of the modern era which, while appearing promising on paper, failed catastrophically in real life. The failures were most often as a result of hubris or some overlooked design flaw. There are dozens of examples on YouTube.
No proponent has anything more than computer modelling based merely on assumptions and unknowns. Even according to nuclear industry scientists, high level nuclear waste is managed safely where it is currently stored today securely on site at Canadian nuclear stations, and will be for many decades to come.
Apply the precautionary principle, that it is better to be certain and safe, than uncertain and sorry.
We ask the question, “Why the rush?”
Dave Geary, Saskatchewan
Bill Noll, Ontario
