SMRs in Saskatchewan

SMRs - Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

There has been a lot of hype about these. Full page ads that look like they are written by journalists. Federal and provincial governments have been investing in them when not even a prototype exists. Premier Moe has even selected the type of fantasy reactor it wants, a BWRX-300, a Boiling Water Reactor.

 

If it uses Saskatchewan uranium, the uranium will be shipped to an enrichment facility in Tennessee and then shipped back to us. The Canadian Nuclear Safety commission, supposed to protect the health of people and the environment, lobbied the federal government to waive an environmental assessment.

 

Moe says that we'll pay $5 billion in return for 300 MW of electricity. That is a lot. He also says that the SMR will be located close to elbow or to Estevan and will use their nearby lakes for coolant. The coolant wo't becoem radioactive but it will be returned to the lake significantly warmer. Of course, accidents can still happen. 

The absurdity of this begs the imagination. Where has Moe been all summer as headlines speak of France's dilemma - not only has the drought meant that their coolant wasn't available but the heat also meant that the water that was present was too warm to actually cool the reactors. When Saskatchewan has a drought, who will get the water? The people who drink, wask and play in it - or the nuclear power plant.

 

Nuclear power is not "green". It is not carbon-dioxide free from mining, milling, transporting, enriching, more transporting, construction and waste management.

 

"Recycling", "reprocessing" and "pyroprocessing" are misleading marketing. 

Nuclear waste is not "waste" in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a biological poison, a radioactive environmental pollutant with long term consequences, a boiling cauldron of tiny atomic explosions, the gift "that keeps on giving" as the decaying elements burn into another generation of decaying radioactive elements and so on for an estimated four billion years.

Many First Nations peoples speak of the need to consider seven generations. Who here is speaking for our granchildren?