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In Alberta's Peace Country, residents mull the prospect of going nuclear

DEAN BENNETT

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Latest comment posted at 8:28 PM EDT 11/05/08

Bruce Power has optioned land to build a $10-billion plant on Lac Cardinal's northwestern edge, 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton ...Read the full article

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  1. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: '... said the 72-year-old farmer and engineer: 'I think a nuclear power plant is an atomic bomb under control. You lose control of it, you have an atomic bomb.''

    And this guy claims to be an engineer?

    It just goes to show how widespread ignorance really is.
  2. Roop Misir from Toronto, Canada writes:
    Oil-and-gas rich Alberta going nuclear?

    Ask Iran!
  3. D F from Regina, Canada writes: Ignorance notwithstanding, the fact always remains that the waste from the nuclear industry will be radioactive for the next million years, and we have no way as of yet to make them less radioactive, and no container or storage vessel that can hold something like that for a million years till its safe. So instead of coal and fossil fuel pollution, which at least has a relatively quick karmic payback to the creators of the pollution, we should create waste thats dangerous for a million years!! Such ARROGANCE!! Nuclear power, and the waste it creates are a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, and here in Sask we should close those mines forever. Wind, solar, and biofuel from algae are great, permanently sustainable alternatives, if only our government would focus on those a bit.
  4. Joe V from Canada writes: 'worry that in a decade they'll have to raise their wheat and canola in the shadow of monster nuclear cooling towers'

    Maybe someone forgot to tell the author that they stopped building plants with behemoth cooling towers 50 years ago. Oh well, all the anti-nuclear kooks will be out in force. I mean, obviously a modern safe nuclear plant, with less radiation and heat output than an equivalent coal or oil plant, is much more harmful than the oilsands, in which there are now hundreds of square kilometers of lakes filled with toxic waste.

    I suppose they probably want to shut down both projects. Who needs electricity, after all? We can heat our houses with wood and ride our bikes across the province. Wait, no, we can't cut down any trees for fuel. Well, we can freeze in our houses. And the bikes can't be shipped from China. Or made from metal dug from mines. Or from wood from trees that were cut down. In fact, we should probably just walk everywhere. But then walking takes energy from food, and imagine all the little animals that die from farming. Or even worse, imagine the fields of geemos. Geemos being grown everywhere. With pesticides sprayed on top! That's like so bad that it it reeks of super badness. So no food to appease our kook friends.

    In fact, hey, let's make the hippy kooks really happy. Why don't we all just die?
  5. Joe V from Canada writes: D F from Regina, Canada writes: 'the fact always remains that the waste from the nuclear industry will be radioactive for the next million years'

    Guess what? The uranium was radioactive before we dug it out of the ground too. We would be able to eliminate much of the most dangerous waste if it were not so politically unacceptable to build breeder reactors.

    'Wind, solar, and biofuel from algae are great'

    And incredibly expensive in terms of raw materials, construction, and initial energy investment. We will never be able to use them to supply more than a small fraction of our current energy consumption.

    Shall we just die then?
  6. Brendan Caron from vancouver, Canada writes: Well, much to the chagrin of many westerners, Toronto has not gone up in a nuclear blast. Build the plants in the proper places and the only thing that you will have to worry about is the left-over spent fuel. Got a million years to get rid of it. Saving the environment while utilizing its resources is the only way to go. Using nuclear technology to extract the resources in the region is a good thing. Let the bozos and boneheads choke themselves with carbon based extraction. Pathetic. Welcome, Peace River.
  7. Flat Earth from Canada writes: It is unfortunate that the 72 year old engineer made a statement implying that a nuclear power plant is like an atom bomb under control and if you lose control then it is an atom bomb.

    That is absolutely incorrect and these statements need to be challenged. There will never be a nuclear (thermonuclear blast) explosion from any nuclear power station operating in canada or elsewhere. The physics of the core can not allow this to happen.

    This is just scaremongering and it is dissapointing to see an alleged professional engineer singing from this songbook. Shane on him.
  8. K St-Pierre from toronto, Canada writes: Joe V- '...to supply a small fraction...'- The same goes with nuclear power. Although I do agree it is a good short term solution for taking some of the pressure off, we need long term answers. Those other options, sustainable ones, are our best path. It may cost alot now but certainly we have the smarts to make it more efficient/cost less. To swith from one non-renewable resource to another is not an answer, just shelves the problem for someone else to deal with.
  9. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: Roop Misir from Toronto, Canada writes: 'Ask Iran!'

    The issue with Iran is one of their wanting to run U235 enrichment instead of just getting easily available fuel enriched by others.

    No one thinks Iran shouldn't have nuclear power plants.

    Canada IS, however, considering enriching our own uranium before selling it, but only to the necessary fuel level. For the Advanced CANDU Reactor that's about 3% U235. For light water reactors, it's at least double that.

    I would think a better option would be to use other countries' spent fuel, since the plutonium content is generally high enough to use in even the ACR.
  10. Sweeney Todd from Canada writes: OK then - no nukes. We'll build more coal-fired power stations. We've got LOTS of coal. What? Don't like coal either? Bummer, dude. There are only two realistic choices for the large scale, reliable, economical generation of electricity. Coal or nuke. Choose one, or choose a combination. Choosing 'neither' is not an option - unless you pine to live on the family farm, 'circa 1900'. If that sounds romantic, you should really check out the reality of the backbreaking manual labour that left most people dead before they were 50.
  11. Joe V from Canada writes: K St-Pierre from toronto, Canada writes: 'Joe V- '...to supply a small fraction...'- The same goes with nuclear power.'

    Wrong. Fission power can supply all of our current energy needs. But only for 50 years. Is it a long term solution? No. But it buys us time to develop fusion energy, which is the only real answer.
  12. K St-Pierre from toronto, Canada writes: Joe V- Perhaps. But not everything runs on electricity, so it would only be a fraction for the time being. It might be nit picking, but the point is we need a solid long term concrete energy proposal which will most likely involve alot of infrastructure/way of life changes. We can't just sit back and point to a tech that might not pan out, but hey the short term we are good. This type of mentality in the 70's has led us to be here.
  13. Joe V from Canada writes: 'It may cost alot now but certainly we have the smarts to make it more efficient/cost less.'

    I forgot to address this. The cost of energy, expertise, and resources required to built wind turbines and infrastructure will probably stay constant over time. The cost of building solar will likely increase over time, due to shortages of rare elements. Water can't supply enough power. What else do you propose?
  14. Carbon Blob from Sector 7G, Canada writes: D F from Regina, Canada writes: 'the fact always remains that the waste from the nuclear industry will be radioactive for the next million years, and we have no way as of yet to make them less radioactive, and no container or storage vessel that can hold something like that for a million years till its safe.'

    I'm sorry DF, used fuel taken from the reactor and stored for about 500 years will have fallen in radioactivity so much that you could keep a bundle in your living room and not exceed your annual dose rate (the equivalent of about 10 trips in a jet from Vancouver to Toronto).

    Is it an issue? Yes. Is it manageable? Absolutely.
  15. Bill G from Calgary, Canada writes: Here's an FAQ site.

    http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/
  16. Carbon Blob from Sector 7G, Canada writes: D F from Regina, Canada writes:'Wind, solar, and biofuel from algae are great'…

    The only problems are that it would take about 10,000 windmills of 1.5 megawatt capacity, each 300 to 400 feet high, to replace Darlington nuclear station East of Toronto because of their low capacity factors. Also, count on rebuilding or replacing them every 20 yrs or so.

    As for solar, it takes about $35,000 worth of solar panels to produce $900 worth of electricity. Only massive public subsidies will allow this technology to grow in our northern geography.

    Also, the big problem with these renewable sources is that you cannot store electricity easily without huge efficiency penalties, and the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine when you need it to.
  17. John Deriso from Edmonton, Canada writes: It does seem that there really isn't such a thing as a safe and clean form of energy, and all of the protests against nuclear power make no logical sense when you consider that oil and coal plants aren't drawing nearly as much ire.

    It will be built, though. Alberta has never said no to energy money yet.
  18. D F from Regina, Canada writes: The 1million year figure for waste to be safe was reported by Canadian Geographic, and here is a quote from Nuclear Information and resource service on half lives. These half lives are verigfiable anywhere are scientifics FACTS!

    'Among the radioactive elements commonly found in nuclear reactor 'low-level' waste are: Tritium, with a half-life of 12 years and a hazardous life of 120-240 years; Iodine-131, half-life of 8 days, hazardous life of 80-160 days; Strontium-90, half life of 28 years, hazardous life of 280-560 years; Nickel-59, half life of 76,000 years, hazardous life of 760,000-1,520,000 years, and Iodine-129, half-life of sixteen million years, hazardous life of160-320 million years.'

    Carbon Blob, The kind of lies you are helping propagate are shameful. Why don't you arrange to put a barrel of 500 year old waste in a room of your descendants and help out with the process of natural selection.

    UNBELIEVABLE the ignorance on the pro side. These are facts blob, not incredibly short sighted pro B.S.
  19. Dick Garneau from Canada writes: We, as a Province, should move ahead with a fission reactor for the short term and fund research into a fusion reactor for the longer term. We will need the energy for those electric cars and electric heated houses.
  20. D F from Regina, Canada writes:
    ' hazardous life of 760,000-1,520,000 years, and Iodine-129, half-life of sixteen million years, hazardous life of 160-320 million years.'

    This is why nuclear power is a crime against HUMANITY!

    Just say NO Alberta!!
  21. Paul Wallnutz from Ontario, Canada writes: So D F from Regina: I gather from your rants above that you are opposed to nuclear power generation.

    I have read and studied this topic extensively, including the thoughts of both the renowned environmentalists Dr. Patrick Moore & Dr. James Lovelock. I know that there have been technical problems; however it seems that the latest generation of reactor technology has overcome many of the earlier problems and are even inherently safe. I think that the waste fuel problem has been overblown and is not a large technical challenge.

    As a long term environmentalist I'm also a realist. Nuclear power does make sense and needs to be pursued by Canada if we are to reduce our fossil fuel dependence. The biggest problem now seems to be in public perception and the technophobia of too many people in the environmental movement.

    I for one don’t believe for one minute that the average Canadian will be willing to live in a cold, dark cave. The energy output of the renewable technologies that you have mentioned such as wind and solar are weak, intermittent, or not suitable to our climate. What then are your solutions to the problem of energy production?
  22. Sweeney Todd from Oilberta, Canada writes: D F from Regina, Canada writes: 'Wind, solar, and biofuel from algae are great, permanently sustainable alternatives, if only our government would focus on those a bit.'

    Sorry, D F, but anyone who says that really doesn't understand the technical realities & limitations of power generation.
  23. E. Biggs from Canada writes: With France getting much of its power from nuclear and China having approx 39 facilities on the drawing board and that has not been any real issues with nuclear generation for many years and the technology is new and proven what is the issue, here except some people don't like it.

    They don't like coal fired plants, they don't like hydro damns, they don't like nuclear some now don't like wind as it kills thousands of migrating birds so we are left with solar, tidal, geothermal none of which have the capacity to do the job.

    When you get cold enough in the dark you will probably change your minds that is assuming you have one.

    To all you Ontario people who live near the nuclear facility to hear the environuts tell it you should all be glowing in the dark.
  24. Ruth Walker from Edmonton, Canada writes: I generally support nuclear power, but I have not faith in AECL, the safety-second folks who brought us the NRU & Maple screw ups.

    Can AECL make the ACR-1000 work reliably??? Who knows. The last time AECL made something work was more than a generation ago.

    I would prefer that there was a proper competition on these projects, and that the more mature European EPR was in the running.

    Nuclear is right for Alberta, I am just doubting that AECL is right as well.
  25. dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: Paul Wallnuts....you say the waste issue is overblown. Could you provide more details? I am correct in assuming that nuclear waste is still radioactive for about 250,000 years right?
  26. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes:'... nuclear waste is still radioactive for about 250,000 years right?'

    But that doesn't mean it's particularly dangerous.

    Some of the short half life volatiles you need to watch out for, but if you just don't breathe them in you're fine.

    The stuff remaining in spent fuel ready for storage is non volatile and quite stable. As long as you refrain from eating it, I suppose.

    In contrast, lead is toxic forever, and not merely thousand of years, but we don't go about burying old houses to make sure no one is poisoned by it.
  27. D F from Canada writes: So the majority of bloggers here seem to think that its ok to generate nuclear waste that is still dangerous after 1,000,000 to 300 MILLION YEARS? Give your head a shake!! Coal can be burned cleanly once the price of energy rises high enough to make it viable, which won't be long. The algae biofuel generators are claiming 100,000 gallons per acre year using city sewage and garbage for algae food. Once developed this could spin generators with no million year liability from the waste, which incidentally, is never included in the 'cost' or 'safety' of nuclear power.
    Ask yourself what engineer can design a storage facility, and what government can guarantee its safety, and the safety of the people around the storage site FOR A MILLION YEARS?? Not any that I know. So, one more time, in case your thick, say it with me people!
    NUCLEAR POWER IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, with far far longer negative implications than greenhouse gases and fossil fuels.
  28. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: D F from Canada writes: '... generate nuclear waste that is still dangerous after...'

    Lead is toxic forever, yet you don't seem to care much about it.

    And coal burning emits far more radionuclides than nuclear power plants do.
  29. Cognitively Cogitative from The Far, Far East, Canada writes: The article says this power would go to power the tar sands. The people in this region don't need this power. Its only there to power an unsustainaBLE INDUSTRY. What a toxic $hithole Alberta already is and they want to ad more toxic crap to their festering carcinogenic wound of a province? The water in Alberta is already being poisened by the nasty, lying petrol industry and this will just cause even more birth defects and cancer. I guess that doesn't matter to those who can't see two centimeters past the next almighty f***ing dollar.
  30. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: D F from Canada writes: '... design a storage facility, and what government can guarantee its safety, and the safety of the people around the storage site FOR A MILLION YEARS??'

    Sheesh; anyone with the technology to go down and reopen a deep mineshaft will either have the smarts to handle the radionuclides with care, or the very few people who do mess with it will get sick and the rest of the people will decline to follow their example.

    It's no big deal.
  31. Ruth Walker from Edmonton, Canada writes: D F, coal-fired plants in Alberta emit huge amounts of radioactive material, not to mention mercury by the tonne.

    Before the coal-fired plants arrived, you could actually eat fish from Alberta lakes. Now you have to check for advisories first.

    Nuclear waste is compact, and can be sequestered in the hard rock of the Canadian shield. Even so, we should be looking for the cleanest fuel cycle we can get. BTW that will not be found over at AECL.
  32. Free Thinker from Halifax, Canada writes: Nuclear power is a bad choice. But not because of waste or radioactivity.

    Nuclear power is unsustainable. Uranium is a finite resource. There is already a shortage. The price has jumped five-fold since 2000 and continues to rise. Demand is already outstripping supply for the worlds 440 existing reactors.

    Google 'uranium shortage' and take a look for yourself...

    We must stop thinking that 'Progress' is Growth. We must move towards a sustainable (steady-state) economy. Otherwise every natural resource we use will eventually be completely depleted. Without natural resources we will slide backwards into a permanent Stone Age.

    Peak oil and the subsequent steep (5% to 10%) decline in oil production will stop growth dead and cause world economies to contract dramatically. The decline will likely start within in the next five years. It takes 10 years to build a nuclear power plant. So it is too late too do anything now. But even if we had time on our side:

    A 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor replaces only 40,000 barrels of oil per day. We are currently consuming 84,000,000 barrels of oil per day. That is the equivalent to 2100 reactors. We will run out of uranium long before we have built that many reactors.

    Fusion is the only solution. But it is still 50 years away and may never be possible.

    So we should be resigned at this point to lowering our energy consumption in the future and develop wind, solar, hydro and tidal power as quickly as possible since these technologies require oil fueled machines to build.

    ===
  33. dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: GlynnMohr...so, you are saying that its no big deal huh? The proponents of nuclear npower are going to denigrate that question anyhow, because its the 800 pound gorrilla in the room when it comes to nuclear power.

    Relatively safe is quite vague though. Like I asked Paul Wallnuts, how do you know its 'relatively safe'?

    While I am not as hyperbolic as DF, I am afraid I have to agree with him. Keeping more and more waste for a quarter of a million years seems like it would create more problems than it would solve.
  34. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: Free Thinker from Halifax, Canada writes: 'Nuclear power is unsustainable. Uranium is a finite resource.'

    There is a shortage of fissionable U235, which makes up about one percent of the uranium.

    The remaining 99% can be converted to plutonium for fule, and then there's the thorium cycle, and thorium is much more common than uranium.

    While ALL resources are at some level finite, there is enough material to run fission reactors for several centuries at least.
  35. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: 'Keeping more and more waste for a quarter of a million years seems like it would create more problems than it would solve.'

    What problems?

    I can think of none that would be so likely and so troublesome that there would be a serious issue. Spent fuel is not like the radionuclides poured into the atmosphere by burning coal, after all. They're already sequestered in solid form and can be stabilized even further. Nor are they particularly mobile even if they do somehow start to deteriorate.
  36. martha stewart from Canada writes: Finally.
  37. Paul Wallnutz from Ontario, Canada writes: dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: Paul Wallnuts....you say the waste issue is overblown. Could you provide more details? I am correct in assuming that nuclear waste is still radioactive for about 250,000 years right?

    Dan: Obviously you and several other posters are against nuclear power, yet realistic alternatives are rarely provided. Yes nuclear fuel waste elements with a long half-life, however there are many places on the Earth where there are high concentrations of radioactivity, including from natural fission reactors. As correctly pointed out above by others, this waste rapidly drops off in potency, is held in a chemically stable ceramic, encapsulated in several layers of corrosion resistant alloys (e.g., zirconium and copper), backfilled with impermeable clays, and buried in stable geologic formations. There is a sound technologic fix for this issue.

    The best that DF from Regina can come up with is 'clean' coal; give me a break.
  38. dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: Glynnmohr....the fact is, that even a proponent like you doesn't know whats going to happen with this waste. We are talking about a quarter of a billion years. Surely you are not so full of yourself to be able to accurately predict that far into the future?

    They want to put it deep in the ground, in old mines.

    But who's to say what happens to whatever containment, however much ity is 'stabilized'. You can't. To say you know it'll be safe in a quarter of a billion years is just hubris.

    Its dangerous too. Surely there are better ways to get power. Solar...geothermal etc, are not only feasible, they are the correct way to go.

    All it takes is a government with the will to invest on a grand scale. A government with vision.

    Nuclear is just the easy way out. Doesn't mean its the right way.
  39. Paul Wallnutz from Ontario, Canada writes: Free Thinker from Halifax: I generally agree with your post above, however I don't think that you have fully considered the energy potential of the nuclear 'waste' itself using further processing and fuel cycles.

    Unfortunately too many posters, politicians, and Canadians in general simply do not understand basics physics and the fundamental concepts of energy. Ask just about any politician to explain in their own words the difference between energy and power. If they can't answer that correctly then they certainly are not qualified to be making crucial decisions on the matter of energy policy.

    Unfortunately too many of the posters above are scientifically illiterate and would rather rant than read about issues, however I suppose that is part of human nature and the fundamental reason that humanity is doomed.
  40. dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: Paul...how about Tidal? How about Solar? Not on some experimental scale, but a grand one. Solar is obviously better than Nuclear. The tech is improving all the time, making panels that create more and more electricity per square inch. It is viable now, if some government could get off their addiction to oil.

    Look nuclear is a good solution. But not the right one. No matter what you say about how the waste is stored, and how stable that geological formation is, we are talking 250,000 years. That is too long for you, or anyone, to predict into the future.

    Besides, man and governments have cut corners ever since their has been governments. So, the 'correct' way would probably be vunerable to the same with crooked politicians of the future,, along with unpredictable phenomena.

    Solar on a grand scale is just as effective, and there is no radioactive byproducts.
  41. Joe V from Canada writes: 'Ask yourself what engineer can design a storage facility, and what government can guarantee its safety, and the safety of the people around the storage site FOR A MILLION YEARS??'

    That would be the U.S. government. We just have to pay them, and they'll handle ours too.
  42. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: 'Glynnmohr: To say you know it'll be safe in a quarter of a billion years is just hubris.'

    I CAN say that it'll be much safer than your car, for example, or your house.

    And what more would one want?

    Why all this angst over low probability and low damage events?
  43. dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: Sure Paul...see, that attitude of yours is exactly why none of us want to trust the government on this issue.

    Obviously, you have some knowledge on this issue.

    But instead of passing it along, you hoard it, calling us to the blackboard so we can fail and you can giggle gleefully.

    Look, if you have the knowledge, share it.

    But don't just pat us all on the head and tell us that we shouldn't worry, and the 'smart' people will take care of it.

    The 'smart' people already got us into this mess by being human and succumbing to their greed over their ideals. There is nothing to stop those in the future doing the same. They are as human as I am, and as you are.

    So, help me to understand why there is 'no problem' with nuclear power, and that the waste issue is a non issue now.
  44. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: 'Glynnmohr: Surely there are better ways to get power. Solar...geothermal etc...'

    The first only works when the Sun shines, so it can't really do the job, and the second is very low quality. Unless you're living atop an old volcano, like in Iceland, generating enough electricity to power a city would require ten times the city's surface area.
  45. dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: Glyn Mohr...your idea of a low probability nad mine are two different things.

    Plus, we haven't even gotten into the whole idea of ghuman error in the running of all these new reactors.

    The laws of math and probability will tell us that there WILL be a mistake made in one of those control rooms.

    But hey, 'The China Syndrome' was just a movie right? Three Mile Island...well, its all these enviromentalists that have overblown the fact that the core almost breached.

    BTW...don't own a car. I do own a condo. I hope I remain safe in it!
  46. Sean Asper from Calgary, Canada writes: I think people need to face a simple reality. No matter how much solar or wind power you add to your grid, you need sources that can be switched on/off on command to match demand. In Alberta, on/off electricity is generated primarily by coal, and not 'clean' coal at that.

    'Clean' coal, isn't clean. You can filter out all sorts of nasty stuff before you burn coal, but then you have to find another way to dispose of the crud you filtered out. It's also possible to sequester CO2, but not even remotely economical at present. Finally, you still have to mine coal. Compare having a nuclear plant in your back yard to having a strip mine there! Coal is currently a very dirty source of energy, and that's not going to change much in the near future. Perhaps it will improve in the distant future, but what about in the meantime?

    Nuclear waste is a long-term problem, but that is its beauty. Pollution and CO2 from coal-burning are problems right now. By transitioning from coal to nuclear power, you are trading an immediate problem for one that you have time to solve. Millions of years, in fact. The solutions aren't as difficult as some would have you believe either. Contrary to popular belief, nothing is being done to those nuclear isotopes to make them more toxic. Fundamentally, they're just being concentrated. Heck, about 1.5 billion years ago there was a natural nuclear reactor in France. Mix your nuclear waste with dirt and stuff it back down the hole it came from and you have effectively put things back the way you found them. You could probably do better, however.

    In all honesty, given what coal producers in Alberta have to lose if the province goes nuclear, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the fuss is being manufactured by coal companies. It would probably pay dividends to exercise due diligence in distinguishing between environmentalists (however misguided they may be) and coal company schills.
  47. Kent Zehr from Fort McMurray, Canada writes: No other topic I know of produces such fantastical fear amongst people who seem to understand so little of what is being proposed. Yes, some radiactive isotopes have very long half lives, yea unto the millions. So, DF, have you ever determined just how much radioactive iodine is produced in a typical fuel bundle? And how many micrograms do you want to worry about? You might want to get your basement tested too, by the way, since most basements adjacent to the Canadian shield contain measureable amounts of radioactive radon gas, to the point where some in Winnipeg are unsafe for human habitation. Have a nice night, but don't sleep in a basement.
  48. Paul Wallnutz from Ontario, Canada writes: dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: 'Paul...how about Tidal? How about Solar? Not on some experimental scale, but a grand one. Solar is obviously better than Nuclear. The tech is improving all the time, making panels that create more and more electricity per square inch. It is viable now, if some government could get off their addiction to oil.'

    Read about the EROEI for these technologies --- we take dirty conventional energy to make a device that produces less energy than it took to create them. This is bad economics and poor physics and explains why we must subsidize these technologies so heavily.

    No, we have been living off of the rich stored solar energy contained in fossil fuels. Collecting and trying to concentrate dilute solar energy in the form of wind, tides, and light can never compete with the concentrations collected over the span of millions of years by nature in the form of coal, oil, and NG.

    Nuclear is the only non-solar energy source that I can see until fusion power can be harnessed. Therefore we need to 'use' energy MUCH more carefully, and modify our standard of living before it is too late.
  49. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: 'Solar on a grand scale is just as effective...'

    For half the day only. Then it shuts off completely.

    And in winter, when Canadians need energy the most, it's unavailable for even more than half the day.
  50. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: 'GlynnMohr: Three Mile Island...well, its all these enviromentalists that have overblown the fact that the core almost breached.'

    The core never came close to 'breaching'. The damage to the framework of the core (the zircalloy cladding and mesh supports) was almost entirely due to rapidly quenching it on the two occasions when they depressurized and then repressurized the reactor. The metal shattered like hot glass hitting water.

    And then the rubble dropped in a heap at the bottom.

    The core didn't melt down, start on its way to China, or any such thing.

    And as has been pointed out, more people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than in all the nuclear power reactors in North America.
  51. Paul Wallnutz from Ontario, Canada writes: dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: 'Sure Paul...see, that attitude of yours is exactly why none of us want to trust the government on this issue. Obviously, you have some knowledge on this issue. But instead of passing it along, you hoard it, calling us to the blackboard so we can fail and you can giggle gleefully.'

    Your right! I'll post like the average Canadian from now on...

    Hey Dan ole buddy, did you see that Panasonic now has a 150' HD plasma TV. (It plugs into 220V, so I'm guessing that it will draw as much power as a small clothes dryer.) No problem you go get the beers and I'll just put up another windmill so that we can watch the big game...

    Hey, its not my fault that most Canadians are afraid of math, science, and technology.
  52. The Last Honest Conservative from Western, Canada writes:
    GlynnMhor of Skywall wrote:
    ............ said the 72-year-old farmer and engineer: 'I think a nuclear power plant is an atomic bomb under control. You lose control of it, you have an atomic bomb.'
    And this guy claims to be an engineer?
    It just goes to show how widespread ignorance really is.

    Yes GlynnMhor,
    If you don't know of Chernobyl you are very ignorant.

    The farmer/engineer is obviously more informed than you..........
  53. The Last Honest Conservative from Western, Canada writes:
    Alberta is the best place to store nuclear waste too.

    ............ it is by far the dirtiest province
  54. J Lee from North Vancouver, Canada writes: If Alberta is going nuclear I must ask why it wants the bomb? Did we in BC offend them so much by just thinking they are environmental hicks. My advice for Albertans is to reconsider before George Bush invokes his Iran agenda on them. After all aren't nuclear power plants just bomb factories like that farmer said.
  55. Harbinger from Out West from Prince George, Canada writes: All I know about nuclear power is what I've learned on The Simpsons over these many years. Works for me.
  56. Tony . from Waterloo, Canada writes:
    Alberta's has almost no hydro power sources, so it's choices for baseload electricity production are coal or nuclear.

    A massive U.N. study of the Chernobyl tragedy in the Ukraine suggested that, over the 100 year period following the accident, up to 4,000 people might die. Add to that at most 1,000 other people killed by all aspects of nuclear power (predominantly uranium mining accidents) and you've got about 5,000 people over 50 years of nuclear power.

    In the United States there are between 10,000 and 30,000 people killed from air pollution from coal plants every year. In China most estimates put the number at between 100,000 and 500,000 people killed by coal power every year. Worldwide there are probably about a million people killed per year from coal power.

    More people die from coal power in one week than in 50 years of nuclear power.

    So Alberta, coal or nuclear? This shouldn't exactly be a tough choice.
  57. Tony . from Waterloo, Canada writes: D F from Regina, Canada writes: 'Ignorance notwithstanding, the fact always remains that the waste from the nuclear industry will be radioactive for the next million years,'

    Ignorance indeed. Let's try some Radiation 101 here:

    Long half life = not decaying very fast = not very radioactive.
    Short half life = decays fast = radioactive = doesn't last very long.

    Things that are 'radioactive' for a million years are completely safe (radiation-wise at least)! YOU are radioactive, and in fact much more so then anything that is radioactive for a million years.

    With nuclear power there are a number of isotopes formed. Many have VERY short half lives, measured in weeks or less. These are very dangerous if leaked, but their short half-life means that after a few days weeks or months at most they're completely gone. 10 half-lives results in only 0.01% of the material remaining, ie it's gone.

    There are 3 isotopes of concern with regards to nuclear waste. Cs-137, Sr-90 and Pu-239. The first two are fairly radioactive and have half-lives of 30 and 29 years respectively. They need to be safely stored for roughly 300 years.

    The last has a very long half-life and therefore is NOT particularly radioactive, you could hold a block of it in your hand and be completely unharmed. However it is radiotoxic, ie it causes major problems if you eat the stuff. Here it's more a question of HOW you store it, not HOW LONG you store it. It's also a prime candidate for reprocessing as Pu-239 is excellent fuel for nuclear reactors.

    There is absolutely NOTHING in nuclear waste that needs to be stored for a million years. In only 300 years it would be damn near impossible to detect the waste.
  58. dan vanman from vancouver, Canada writes: Paul...didn't mean it that way. I just meant that if you have more knowledge than us ignorant savages, share it please! Paul...150'? No thanks!

    Tony from Waterloo left an excellent post that makes it a lot easier to understand. Not that it changed my mind, but it did make me think, and made me more amenable to the subject!
  59. E. Biggs from Canada writes: Dan from Vancouver And just how much money have you invested in the renewable sources of energy? I would bet damn little.

    I have money in several systems like run of the river here in BC, geothermal here in BC and Nevada and California and solar in California all of which are revewable and none of which adds much to the grid as of yet.

    You environuts need to put some money into what you say you believe instead of yapping. What is your solution to the power issues that will be real factors in the near future.

    I get e-mails from folks who don't like coal fired in Princton, run of the rivers here in BC, anything to do with nuclear, and even don't like the wind farms that kill thousands of migrating birds. While I hear plenty about what they don't like I get damn little on an alternative.

    Your expletive tells it all.
  60. Carbon Blob from Sector 7G, Canada writes: D F from Canada writes: 'NUCLEAR POWER IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY'

    Paul Wallnutz writes: 'Unfortunately too many of the posters above are scientifically illiterate and would rather rant than read about issues...'

    Well said Paul.

    ...and great posts Tony from Waterloo!
  61. E. Biggs from Canada writes: Thanks Tony for the information. Good stuff.

    My preference would still be geothermal but probably will be many many years before we have enough of that to do any good.

    We have a couple of companies that are bringing on moderate geothermal operations next year and they look decent. I have invested in them so sure hope they do something both for the grid and my pocket.
  62. Roger Gagne from Calgary, Canada writes: Brendan Caron from vancouver, Canada writes: 'Well, much to the chagrin of many westerners, Toronto has not gone up in a nuclear blast.' You're right, Brendan, Toronto still stands. And every man, woman, and child in Toronto and the rest of Ontario is in debt to the tune of thousands of dollars, thanks to nuclear power, some of their reactors are limping along while others are only waiting to be decommisioned. Given the extreme radioactivity of the reactor core (many times greater than natural uranium, Joe V. from Canada) this is another multi-billion dollar project in itself.
    I'm not quite ready to join in on the chorus of 'Electricity too cheap to meter.'
  63. Tony . from Waterloo, Canada writes: E. Biggs from Canada writes: 'My preference would still be geothermal but probably will be many many years before we have enough of that to do any good.'

    Geothermal is quite promising for heating and cooling (very important as well!), but for electricity generation it's fairly impractical.

    While my above posts might make it sound like I'm all 'nuke or nothing', in reality I'm more of an 'anti-coal' type than a 'pro-nuke' type. Nukes are hardly the ideal source of electricity, but they're often the best we've got.

    Wind power is a great technology, but unfortunately it can only manage about 10% of the electrical grid at most, beyond that you just can't keep it stable. Solar has very limited potential for specific cases where grid connections are fairly expensive and/or where most of your capital costs are sunk (ie putting solar shingles on your roof), but for bulk power generation it makes little sense, especially in Northerly climates like Canada, much of the U.S. and almost all of Europe.

    Hydro is great, but limited by geography, Quebec has it, Alberta doesn't. Tidal is interesting but tough to manage and even more limited by geography than regular hydro (Alberta's SOL here to). Natural gas is too expensive for baseload generating and has some health and environmental concerns but it's a good choice for peaking loads.

    So that leaves us with nukes or coal for everything else, with 'everything else' being about 80% of electricity generation (best case) for areas without significant hydro options.

    The choice between those two is easy.
  64. Roger Gagne from Calgary, Canada writes: Joe V. from Canada writes: 'Who needs electricity, after all? We can heat our houses with wood and ride our bikes across the province.'
    Before we leap to such extremes Joe, can we start with gathering the low hanging fruit through energy conservation and efficiency? Every day I see porch lights left on in broad daylight, computers at my workplace with their monitors and speakers left on for unused 14 hour stretches (or 84 hours on a long weekend); every day I see drivers stomping on the gas pedal as they race to the red light 50 metres ahead. Obviously, electricity, gas and brake pads are pretty cheap. Why do we oblige our energy companies to make money only by selling generated power, rather than allowing them to profit by harvesting wasted power? Why is GM building new plant in Ontario to churn out muscle cars, rather than fuel-efficient hybrids?
    Last November, energy experts at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company released a study showing that the U.S. could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 28%, at modest cost with only minor technological innovations. Existing technologies, like hybrid cars, can already get us most of the way there. So why don't we use them?

    The McKinsey study was done for environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as several companies including Honeywell, Pacific Gas & Electric, Shell, and DTE Energy.
  65. r b from Calgary, Canada writes: I would be very reluctant to see Alberta rely on such new and unproven power sources.

    Nowhere else on earth are nuclear reactors used for electricity generation. Alberta would be breaking new ground here: I fear for all of our futures.

    Let some other country take such a momentous risk. No way should Alberta be the first and only place on earth to rely on nuclear power.
  66. Common sense is BACK! from Canada writes: GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: '... said the 72-year-old farmer and engineer: 'I think a nuclear power plant is an atomic bomb under control. You lose control of it, you have an atomic bomb.''

    And this guy claims to be an engineer?

    It just goes to show how widespread ignorance really is.

    --------------------------------

    GlynnMhor, as your posts have shown us time and again, you fail to understand even the most basic of science. The engineer is trying to make an analogy. Clearly a nuclear power plant does not transform itself into an atomic bomb - however, to deny that when things go wrong at a nuclear power plant, they REALLY go wrong is naive and ignorant (you happen to be both). Just ask the good folks living downwind of Chernoble.
  67. Paul Jones from kitchener, Canada writes: To the warmongers who would have us invade Iran: Why does Alberta need Nuclear Energy with that much oil? They MUST be intending to make a bomb to hold the rest of Canada hostage to their whims.

    Specious S.O.B.'s
  68. Nick B. from Canada writes: Anyone who makes the comparison of Chernobyl to model nuclear power plants is a fool. The Chernobyl Disaster was a culmination of massive design flaws (several), and inadequate control measures. It was caused by operators carrying out a test of low power stability without proper planning and preparation, in a reactor with no effective containment. The same thing could never happen in a modern, western nuclear power station of any design. As for the waste, yes, it's dangerous. However, proper storage can mitigate the risk substantially and many types of storage plans are in place. For all the waste produced by nuclear plants (which is not much, all the spent fuel from Canadian nuclear plants remains on site for all their years of operation), the comparison pales to the pollution spewed out by coal-fired generators. As for solar and wind power, totally impractical give the vast amount of wind turbines or solar panels that would be needed to replace the output of a nuclear power plant. A wind turbine might product 1 or 2 MWh of electricity. A nuclear reactor can produce 600-1000 times that. I live in shadow of Darlington Nuclear and work very close to Pickering Nuclear as well, with no concern whatsoever, because I know the facts, and there's nothing to fear. Building nuclear capacity in Alberta could be a benefit to the environment, help processing oil sands, and allow for coal power stations to be shut down.
  69. Nancy Wilson from N.Ontario, Canada writes: 'Clean' coal is an oxymoron,and solar/wind will never meet our neeeds.
    'Governments worldwide struggle for solutions to control green house gas emissions and produce affordable energy; nuclear power is the cleanest, least expensive and most secure source of electricity. There are currently 439 operational nuclear reactors world wide and that number is expected to grow significantly within the next decade. ' from-uranium miner website.
  70. Nick B. from Canada writes: r b What the heck are you smoking?
  71. B R from H2Oloo, Canada writes: K St-Pierre: For all intensive purposes, nuclear is sustainable. And when you can get alga and wind to produce 1000 MW for 60 years let me know... I would glady invest.


    It is frusterating to see the ignorance of some of the posters on this blog. Nuclear is essentially the only 'clean' choice for the next 50 yrs. Try and make the transition BACK to nuclear as easy as possible...
  72. B R from H2Oloo, Canada writes: Nick B:

    To add to your explaination of the Chernobyl accident. Prior to the disaster, one of the head research engineers was reported as comparing the reactor to 'a boiling kettle'.

    This statement, I think, highlights the lack of safety culture that was underlying in the russian nuclear power stations.

    PS: good description of the accident!
  73. Nick B. from Canada writes: That's quite an oversimplification of what happened, but in realistic terms the set up of the test they wanted to conduct involved introducing a number of variables into the reactor's operation that were innocuous on their own but combined to produce disaster. Once they realized what was happening and set about an emergency shutdown the design flaw kicked in - the control rods - the "brakes", all of which they had removed from the reactor to keep it running at such low power (lowered by adding in reactivity "poison" neutron absorbers) were tipped with a material which momentarily accelerated rather than slowing the reactor down - causing the massive steam explosion which blew the top off of Unit 4 at 1:23:44 am on April 26, 1986.
  74. B R from H2Oloo, Canada writes: Common sense is BACK: apparently common sense is back, but he is lacking any sense that is common. ha ha


    Things can go wrong in a power plant, true, but there are so many safety features that when it does go wrong, it doesn't get to the very wrong part. Thanks for looking into the engineering aspect in detail before running your mouth.
  75. B R from H2Oloo, Canada writes: r b from Calgary: WOW, that has to be the best comment on this wall. Holy c-rap.
  76. Nick B. from Canada writes: B R - what's always amazed me is the number of redundant safety features in most modern plants. Good friend of mine is an operator at Pickering and was explaining to me the myriad of things that would have to all go wrong simultaneously for there to be a real disaster. It's basically impossible.
  77. B R from H2Oloo, Canada writes: I worked for a division of OPG doing safety analysis. I have been over every one of the design basis accident sequences, as well as beyond accident sequences. Essentially, if everything fails (station blackout - worest possible case) containment stays intact, radiation release is well below acceptable standards and the end result is a useless generating station (basically destroys itself to prevent release).

    Couple this with the probability of a station blackout occuring (I can't remember the actual value but it's something along the lines of 1 in a million) and you have youself a safe source of energy.
  78. Rick C from Canada writes: D F from Regina, Canada writes:

    "Nuclear power, and the waste it creates are a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, and here in Sask we should close those mines forever. Wind, solar, and biofuel from algae are great, permanently sustainable alternatives, if only our government would focus on those a bit."

    Oh for God's sake spare everyone the drivel.

    Wind, solar and biofuel from algae do not even come close to supplying the energy capacity we need...not even close.
  79. E. Biggs from Canada writes: Tony Have a look at the Western Geothermal and Nevada Geothermal web sites these will be commercial operations supplying power to the grid not for homes.

    I don't know about Ontario where you live but around here volcanic action is not unusual, we live in the ring of fire all up and down the west coast of the continent which makes it more practical for geothermal.

    I am not suggesting that geothermal equates to nuclear but I think it is as practical as wind and solar.
  80. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: The Last Honest... writes: "GlynnMhor: If you don't know of Chernobyl you are very ignorant. The farmer/engineer is obviously more informed than you."

    Chernobyl was a steam explosion (two, actually) due to a power surge, followed by a fire that burned up all of the graphite moderator surrounding the fuel-coolant tubes.

    There was no atomic explosion, atomic bomb, runaway fission reaction, or anything remotely like that.

    The ex-engineer has no idea what he's talking about.
  81. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: Common... writes: "GlynnMhor: you fail to understand even the most basic of science. The engineer is trying to make an analogy."

    The engineer might have been trying an analogy if he had said it was LIKE a bomb, but he would have been wrong even at that.
  82. Nassar Ben Houdja from Canada writes: This proposed plant is a very good idea, would be nice if the media interviewed some of us who support the idea and live close to where it may be built. The demand for electricity is climbing, there is no realistic atlternative to nuclear.

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