WATCH: More nuclear reactors (SMRs) for New Brunswick?

[Oscar]

WATCH: More nuclear reactors (SMRs) for New Brunswick? [video]

[ https://nbmediacoop.org/2021/01/16/more ... ick-video/ ]

January 14, 2021

The province and NB Power are promoting two more nuclear reactors (SMRs), to be built next to the existing reactor at Point Lepreau on the Bay of Fundy.

On Jan. 14, the New Brunswick Environmental Network (NBEN) invited me to share information about the proposed nuclear reactors during their online workshop. The workshop featured the NBEN Risks and Benefits Calculator [ https://nben.ca/en/risks-and-benefits ] and allowed participants to make up their own minds about the proposed reactors.

The workshop was co-hosted by the NB Media Co-op and the RAVEN project [ https://raven-research.org/ ] that I lead at the University of New Brunswick. RAVEN (Rural Action and Voices for the Environment) supports rural and environmental media and activism.

In the 31-minute video below, I give an overview of the proposed nuclear reactors, their links to climate action, the financial risks involved, and radioactive waste.

In particular, I challenge the claim made by NB Power and the government that one of the nuclear reactors will “recycle” the existing deadly (high-level) radioactive waste that Lepreau is making.

Coincidentally, the morning after my presentation, the CBC published an interview with one of the experts on nuclear waste that I cited. The CBC article challenges the “recycling” claim, explaining there is no scientific proof it will work. [ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brun ... -1.5873542 ]

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Susan O’Donnell is the lead investigator of the RAVEN project at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.

[Oscar]

Former U.S. regulator questions small nuclear reactor technology

[ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brun ... -1.5873542 ]

Business case for small reactors 'doesn't fly,' says expert on nuclear waste

Jacques Poitras · CBC News · Posted: January 15, 2021

Allison Macfarlane, director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, says she has a lot of unanswered questions about molten-salt technology. (University of British Columbia)

A former head of the United States' nuclear regulator is raising questions about the molten-salt technology that would be used in one model of proposed New Brunswick-made nuclear reactors.

The technology pitched by Saint John's Moltex Energy is key to its business case because, the company argues, it would reuse some of the nuclear waste from Point Lepreau and lower the long-term cost and radioactivity of storing the remainder.

But Allison Macfarlane, the former chairperson of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a specialist in the storage of nuclear waste, said no one has yet proven that it's possible or viable to reprocess nuclear waste and lower the cost and risks of storage.

"Nobody knows what the numbers are, and anybody who gives you numbers is selling you a bridge to nowhere because they don't know," said Macfarlane, now the director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia.

"Nobody's really doing this right now. … Nobody has ever set up a molten salt reactor and used it to produce electricity."

Macfarlane said she couldn't comment specifically on Moltex, calling information about the company's technology "very vague."

But she said the general selling point for molten-salt technology is dubious.

"Nobody's been able to answer my questions yet on what all these wastes are and how much of them there are, and how heat-producing they are and what their compositions are," she said.

"My sense is that all of these reactor folks have not really paid a lot of attention to the back end of these fuel cycles," she said, referring to the long-term risks and costs of securely storing nuclear waste.

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