A group of US non-proliferation experts warned the Canadian government that their investment in starting a small nuclear reactor program could spark an arms race and threaten the environment.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week, the experts wrote that they understand the government’s motivation to support nuclear energy and reduce fossil fuel consumption. “Saving the world from a climate catastrophe does not have to contradict saving nuclear weapons, however.”
The warning comes after New Brunswick startup Moltex Clean Energy received $ 50.5 million from the Canadian government to expand its plans for a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) – reactors rated at 300 megawatts or less – To move forward, which would double as the spent fuel reprocessing facility. (Spent fuel is the bundle of fuel that can no longer sustain fission in a nuclear reactor.)
Frank H. von Hippel, senior research physicist and professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University, told Glacier Media that given its non-proliferation obligations, the government would support SMR flies.
These commitments date back to the 1970s when a joint Canadian, US, and Indian nuclear technology deal accidentally kicked off the subcontinent’s nuclear weapons program.
The concern, said von Hippel, is that other countries will witness how Canada will reprocess spent fuel and see this as the green light to follow suit. That could lay the foundation for a new nuclear weapons race.
“People have forgotten after all these years,” said von Hippel, referring to similar projects in the USA. “It would be really heartbreaking if these two countries tear it down for no good reason.”
RADIOACTIVE WASTE
In their letter, the US experts refute Moltex’s claim that removing plutonium and other elements from spent fuel would reduce the long-term risk of burying radioactive material deep underground.
“This claim has been repeatedly discredited,” they write, adding that radioisotopes with a half-life of 17 million years, like iodine-129, would remain in radioactive waste “if they were not released into the environment during reprocessing.”
In an email to Glacier Media, a spokesman for Moltex Clean Energy said the company is “open and transparent” and will take expert reviews of safeguards and safety seriously when it comes to testing and deploying its nuclear reactor.
“We disagree that Canada should be pushed in any particular direction by foreign nations or individuals,” the spokesman wrote. “The current proposals are consistent with all international protocols. Civil reprocessing must be assessed and carried out by each country, if so desired, provided it is under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “
The spokesman added that the anti-proliferation experts are unaware of the company’s WAste To Stable Salt process as few details have been released. “It was developed without the ability to make weapons grade material,” she wrote.
This process would convert high-level radioactive waste into carbon-free energy instead of dumping it in the ground, the spokesman said.
In the end, she stated that if the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission “agrees it is safe and licenses us, we will provide a means to significantly reduce the volume and radioactivity of high-grade nuclear waste in Canada. We will also help mitigate the effects of climate change and support the pursuit of net zero by generating low-cost, zero-emission energy. “
THE RISE OF SMALL NUCLEAR REACTORS
The push to develop small modular nuclear reactors has gained momentum in recent years.
Von Hippel, who also served as the U.S. director of national security assistance during the Clinton administration, said he emerged from two waves of industry advocating a nuclear renaissance. The first of those looking for sales to companies that build reactors for submarines and aircraft carriers; the second from companies like Moltex, who pledged to solve the government’s plutonium disposal problem.
In Canada, around 15 percent of the country’s electricity comes from nuclear power. That is around 14 percent less than in 1993.
When the Ontario nuclear power plants Bruce and Darlington made proposals to extend the life of several of their traditional reactors, the price was $ 26 billion. Meanwhile, plans to build several new reactors in Ontario, New Brunswick and Alberta have either been postponed or have become obsolete.
“The research and development community looked around and said,” The reactors currently for sale are not selling, “von Hippel said.
At current closure rates, the world would lose nearly a quarter of its nuclear capacity by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Most of these closings are planned in G-20 countries, where countries like China and India, desperately trying to increase energy capacity and reduce air pollution, are swallowing the cost upfront.
In countries like Canada and the United States, these prohibitive up-front costs have led industries to set up small reactors, von Hippel said.
MV Ramana, a nuclear power expert and professor in the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy, said, “It’s the only type of nuclear reactor that could actually be built. You will have no hope in hell of building a bigger reactor. “
IS NUCLEAR AN ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT TO FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE?
Companies like Moltex have made some other attractive promises.
When the government announced it would support Moltex’s plan, Minister for Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, said the small nuclear reactor “will play a vital role in combating climate change and promoting Canada’s post-pandemic economic stabilization” .
It is a vision that coincides with some of the most influential voices in the world when it comes to energy.
Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency released the landmark report Net Zero by 2050, which paved the way for a net carbon-free future.
According to the report, most of the world’s energy would have to come from renewable sources like wind and sun within 30 years if the planet had any hope of preventing warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius – the threshold scientists say would the climate of the word lead to an irreversible change.
However, the agency, which has advised governments around the world since its inception after the 1973 oil crisis, also said nuclear power would play a big role, nearly doubling its energy production between 2020 and 2050.
That kind of thinking led Alberta to join Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan as signatories to a Memorandum of Understanding on SMRs in April.
“Alberta has always advocated clean, affordable energy,” said then-Prime Minister of Alberta Jason Kenney in a written statement. “Small modular reactors are an exciting new technology that could be used in the future to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for example by generating electricity for Canadian oil and sand producers.”
LITTLE NUCLEAR A WAY TO ‘GREENWASH’ DIRTY OIL?
Not everyone agrees with Kenney’s vision of a nuclear future.
“The claim is that they will power these SMRs to do tar sands extraction,” said Ramana, UBC’s nuclear power expert.
“It’s just one way to wash what they do in the tar sands green.”
Ramana said expanding nuclear power was not a viable way of reducing emissions. IEA predictions about future energy costs had previously failed.
“In the earlier years of the atomic age, it was expected that energy could decline in the future,” he said. “It has become clear that the cost (of nuclear power) is getting expensive.”
“Small nuclear reactors won’t change that,” he added.
It’s not just rising energy costs per unit of nuclear power that worries experts like Ramana.
It can take decades to plan, approve, and build a nuclear power plant. A small nuclear reactor proposed for Idaho in 2003 is not expected to be operational until at least 2030.
Put simply, critics say averting the worst effects of climate change can’t wait that long, and that doesn’t even take into account the environmental and human impact if a fire or earthquake hits a nuclear facility.
“A nuclear reactor is just a very complicated way of boiling water,” Ramana said. “Sun and wind just make a lot of sense. In economic terms, they are the most justified thing. “
Stefan Labbé is a solutions journalist. That is, it covers how people react to problems related to climate change – from housing to energy to everything in between. Do you have an idea for a story? Get in touch. Email [email protected].
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