ICUCEC expert raises questions

[Oscar]

“What we’re seeing is a well-orchestrated international public relations campaign by a very desperate nuclear industry … I think it is really important to realize that there is an element of stampeding the herd in the direction of nuclear power, when in fact it may be a cliff we are heading to, not a bridge to the future.” - Dr. Gordon Edwards, CCNR

ICUCEC expert raises questions

For the Prairie Messenger, Published March 5, 2008
Written by Kiply Lukan Yaworski, Communications, RC Diocese of Saskatoon

SASKATOON – It’s time to step back and take a look at how the environmental impact of projects is addressed, according to Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.

A physicist and mathematics professor at Montreal’s Vanier College, Edwards was in Saskatoon Feb. 18 speaking on behalf of the Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Cooperative (ICUCEC) as part of an intervention related to a uranium mine proposal known as the Midwest Project. The proposal by AREVA Resources Canada involves draining a section of a lake to permit open-pit mining of a uranium deposit located in the Athabasca basin in northern Saskatchewan.

Environmental impact assessments are intended to serve a larger purpose than “business-as-usual,” Edwards asserted.

“The industry naturally sees this as just another aspect of doing business. I’m not saying they don’t have a conscience, but first and foremost, corporations, being what they are, want to get the operation underway, and this Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is just one more hurdle they have to jump,” he said.

And over time, the process has become a bureaucratic routine for the government agencies concerned, he asserted. “They may be arm’s length, but they aren’t very visionary. Things tend to become a bureaucratic matter of simply having a checklist, and when all things have been checked off, then, okay, it’s approved.”

There is a need for such government agencies to demand that environmental assessments be more in depth, with all potential problems addressed clearly and accurately, and an attempt made to explain the underlying science, said Edwards. “Problems must not be avoided, ignored or misrepresented just because they have not yet found a fully satisfactory solution.”

Assessments should spell out the risks of even low doses of radiation; as well as fully explaining the effects of all forms of radiation produced in the process of mining uranium – including alpha and beta radiation – and provide information about the “radioactive decay chain” created when uranium is mined and milled, according to Edwards. In addition, the staggering problem of keeping radioactive wastes out of the environment for the required hundreds of thousands of years is still unresolved and should not be left out of the discussion, he said. “At the very least, there has to be a meaningful acknowledgment of the problem.”

Environmental departments didn’t even exist until citizens became alarmed about the environment and pressure came from the grassroots, noted Edwards. “It was as a result of the 1960s environmental movement that environment departments were first created,” he said. The driving concept behind the creation of these departments was that “protection of the environment has to supersede just the question of making profits, or just the question of doing business, or just the question of regulatory approval on a kind of rubber stamp basis. We need to try and get back to that vision of why do we have environmental departments.”

Centering environmental assessments and questions upon questions of the common good is particularly vital right now, as discussion emerges about a “global nuclear renaissance,” Edwards said. “If there was ever a time to stop and think about what this means, now is the time.”

Rationales for new uranium mining projects include the prospect of supplying new nuclear reactors, which haven’t been built yet, but which are being discussed as a way to generate power with fewer greenhouse gas emissions, he said. “What we’re seeing is a well-orchestrated international public relations campaign by a very desperate nuclear industry … I think it is really important to realize that there is an element of stampeding the herd in the direction of nuclear power, when in fact it may be a cliff we are heading to, not a bridge to the future.”

Edwards said that past experience and projections show that nuclear power is not a sustainable or cost effective means of answering the world’s need for electrical power. It is also far from being environmentally friendly, he said.

It is misleading to speak about nuclear energy as a way to reduce greenhouse gases or prevent global warming, he asserted. “When people look at realistic scenarios, implementable scenarios, scenarios which can produce both short term results and long term results in reducing greenhouse gasses – there are just so many strategies that are a lot more attractive than nuclear.”

He pointed to Germany as an example of a government committed to phasing out nuclear energy. “They have shut down two nuclear reactors and are in the process of shutting down a third. And in that period of time, in 10 years, they have built 20,000 megawatts of wind power – more than that produced by the entire nuclear program in Canada, if all the reactors in Canada were working at capacity.”

Other alternatives should be considered before nuclear power, Edwards said, pointing to an enormous untapped potential for reducing greenhouse gasses by addressing energy efficiency in areas such as housing, which represent a much larger “slice of the energy pie” than does nuclear energy.

He maintained that there is a growing realization that nuclear energy can only make a marginal contribution to the world’s energy, and at tremendous monetary costs – in starting up, in maintenance and operation, and in de-comissioning and cleaning up at the end of the reactor’s life ­– as well as the continuing unsolved question about how to handle dangerous nuclear waste.

Another aspect of the question that is seldom talked about is how an increase in nuclear power plants is related to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the potential for nuclear weapons to fall into the wrong hands, Edwards said.

The fuel for nuclear power reactors – enriched uranium and plutonium – are also the materials need to make atomic bombs, he noted. “Are we just going to flood the market with this technology, which is going to proliferate the very factories and multiply the materials which are essential to the manufacture of nuclear weapons and we’ll just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best?”

The spectre of nuclear terrorism was raised recently by Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Other experts, such as Henry Kissinger are recognizing the need to totally abolish all nuclear weapons, including those stockpiled by long-standing nuclear powers, Edwards said. “We have got to go down to zero. If the powers that be do not show the sincerity or conviction in terms of living up to their legal and moral obligations to get rid of nuclear arsenals, then there’s really no hope that all the parties are ever going to take it seriously for very long.”

“I think people don’t realize the stakes that are involved when you talk about a nuclear renaissance. They think it’s just a question of energy and jobs. It’s not.”

People are now aware of climate change, and are frightened about global warming, he noted. “They want to grab something: and the biggest, glossiest shiniest thing around right now is nuclear … but it’s out of the carbon frying pan and into the nuclear fire. It’s not really solving the problem, it’s just putting you into a hotter place.”

Mobilizing the new concern for the environment into workable and sustainable solutions is the challenge – particularly in the face of huge public relations campaigns presenting nuclear as a solution, he said. However Edwards added that he is hopeful that increased consciousness about the issues involved will make the difference. “We’ve come a long way. People certainly don’t question the fundamental importance of dealing with these environmental problems.”

The Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Cooperative (ICUCEC) has its origins in the hearings held in the late 1970s about a proposed uranium refinery at Warman, Saskatchewan. After that project was rejected, a group of people decided to establish ICUCEC within the framework of the churches that had been involved in the Warman inquiry, to address uranium mining in the province. Committee member Dr. Jim Penna said that another reason that the group formed was to continue the work of church leaders who had created a committee to work with people in the north to provide resources, information and help in preparing for hearings about the Cluff Lake uranium mine.

“Its origins come out of the desire of the churches to help the people in the north, particularly the aboriginal people, have their voices heard,” Penna explained. Some 18 volumes of transcripts were gathered from the northern communities at that time, and the final report did not reflect their concerns, he added.

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