Nuclear energy vital to lessening carbon's impact
The StarPhoenix February 10, 2009
Sweden has been the poster child of the anti-nuke faction for more than two decades.
A northern country with a social conscience, Sweden long ago decided to eschew nuclear power and turn its efforts to renewable sources of energy. Thus it has led the world in renewable power technology: It has captured the wind, tamed the rivers and the seas, increased insulation, stolen energy from the sun and even tapped the Earth for its thermal power.
But last week, the Swedish government conceded the futility of trying to run a modern nation on a dream. It turned back a policy set out in 1980 to decommission all its nuclear power plants, and embarked on a new age of the atom.
This is hardly an event to be cheered. If Sweden could have found the secret of easy, cheap and renewable energy, it could have offered hope to an energy-starved world. But for most of the time of the Swedish experiment, scientists warned that it would be impossible to maintain a modern economy -- particularly in more heavily populated nations -- without some alternative sources of energy.
The campaign against nuclear power mostly served to secure a place for oil and even for coal, because people would demand always to be able to turn on their lights, cool and heat their homes, and run their computers and televisions.
Sweden's recognition of reality must be seen in context, however. Its nearly three-decade long experiment didn't prove the inadequacy of renewable power. It only served to demonstrate the need for a more comprehensive mix of power generation sources -- one that inevitably must include nuclear power if the world is to wean itself of carbon.
And the Sweden example shouldn't be used to remove the suspicion from the nuclear industry. Although relatively easy to collect and contain, the waste from nuclear plants remains highly toxic and situations, such as the recent revelations of a leak in December of radioactive material from AECL's National Research Universal reactor at Chalk River, Ont., and the delayed admission from the company about what had happened, does little to build support for the industry or foster confidence in it.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited now says fewer than 47 litres of heavy water leaked into the Ottawa River and the amount is too small to be harmful, but it doesn't help AECL's cause that it took media reports before the incident became public.
But scientists have known for years that the hysteria over the use of nuclear technology is greatly overblown. In more than six decades of peaceful use of the atom to generate carbon-free electricity, there really has been only one serious incident, and the damage from Chernobyl was exacerbated by old and no-longer-used technology, combined with serious human error.
The much-criticized Three Mile Island incident resulted in no loss of life. A small amount of contaminant was released and the safety system proved itself effective. Yet so many in the anti-nuke movement not only use these incidents to try to stampede the public against the industry, but they also overlook the death rate from other energy sources.
Last month, two scientific reports suggested that the devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province in China, which left 80,000 people dead or missing, was triggered by the weight of 320 million tons of water in the four-year-old Zipingpu Reservoir. Built next to a well-known fault line, the purpose of the reservoir was to generate electricity.
No one would suggest that, given this link, hydroelectric projects shouldn't be considered because they are costly to construct, damaging to the natural environment and often politically and socially disruptive.
Similarly, even though the coal-fired plants claim thousands of deaths each year, from the mining of the coal to the effect from its pollution, this energy source continues to be considered viable even in Germany, the only European country still proposing to end its dependence on nuclear power.
It is in this light one must assess the proposal by Bruce Power to consider a nuclear power plant in Saskatchewan. To the company's credit, its proposal suggests nuclear power would be one part only of a mixed profile that would include renewable energy such as wind, solar, hydro and biomass.
If a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, as members of President Barack Obama's cabinet have suggested, Saskatchewan and Canada must take advantage of this global economic crisis to become a major world player.
As many have advocated for years, energy is the arena in which to make this stand. Saskatchewan already has a diverse portfolio and if North America will invest in smart electrical grids and a modern non-carbon economy, this province could power the next economic boom.
In an age of electric cars, computers and robotics, it won't be the place with the cheapest labour that will control production -- it will be the one with the cleanest and cheapest energy.
It is that message, and the Swedish lesson, one hopes Prime Minister Stephen Harper will remind Mr. Obama about on Feb. 19.
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