Invisible but highly dangerous, the emanations start from a seemingly benign source but if uncontrolled can spread, undetected and unchecked, until serious damage has been done. Truly, nuclear hysteria is an insidious menace.
And "hysteria" appears to be the only suitable term for the ill-informed opposition to plans to send 16 worn-out steam generators from an Ontario nuclear plant off by ship to Sweden, via the St. Lawrence Seaway, for recycling. Careful consideration of the question reveals fairly quickly that the much-trumpeted dangers of sending these devices by ship have been enormously over-stated.
Considering all aspects of the global energy conundrum, we believe that nuclear plants should, and inevitably will, provide a growing share of power, even in hydro-rich Canada. Before that can happen, however, many Canadians -including, apparently, the band council at Kahnawake -will have to learn a little physics, not to say a little common sense.
To be sure, the potential of nuclear power brings with it grave safety concerns. Early prosyletizers for civilian nuclear energy promised us "power too cheap to meter," but in fact, reactor engineering is a costly business, largely because safety must be paramount. Disappointingly high costs have naturally slowed exploitation of this technology, and accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island utterly extinguished public enthusiasm for nuclear energy.
A big-picture assessment of the need for a nuclear revival will have to await consideration another day. For now, we would settle for a calm assessment of this shipping plan.
The generators, from the Bruce Power plant, each contain in their 100-tonne bulk some four grams of radioactive material. No less an expert than Ramzi Jammal, the chief regulatory officer of the Canadian Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told reporters last week that "there would be no impact on the health and safety of the public or the environment," in the shipping plan. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission issues about 150 licences a year like the one Bruce Power Inc. is seeking; all that's different is that this one involves the Seaway.
David Shoesmith, a University of Western Ontario expert, told QMI news agency that said the shipments are "perfectly safe in transmission." That didn't stop the Kahnawake band council from voting to ban them. Fortunately for the whole Great Lakes basin, however, the band council has no say in what gets shipped down the Seaway.
The council's supposed concern about a ship sinking is hard to take seriously. About 10 ships transit the channel daily; there have been no sinkings so far. As for the safety of the whole operation, consider that the ultimate destination of the shipments is a recycling facility in Sweden. Are the Europeans so slapdash about nuclear safety that they foolishly permit not only shipment but actual reprocessing of such used nuclear equipment? Or could it be, just possibly, that some people in this country are over-reacting?
The reality is that nuclear shipments of all kinds, large and small, are on the move in different parts of the world every day. Like all things nuclear, these shipments each need relentless prudence, expert supervision, and high security. What they emphatically do not need is hysteria.
? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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