Canada

Drop in global nuclear output. Nuclear power plants provided 2601 billion kWh during 2008. This lowest figure for five years drops its contribution to world electricity supplies to an estimated 4%.

No new reactors started operation in 2008, but, according to the World Nuclear Association, construction did begin on ten units: China (six units), Russia (two) and South Korea (two).

World Nuclear Association, 29 May 2009

Sellafield – a lost cause..

In February, in an embarrassing case of remembering ‘where but not what’, operators of the Low Level Waste repository near Drigg had to resort to place an ad in a local newspaper asking past employees if they could remember what items of nuclear waste they had tumble-tipped into the site’s open trenches way back in the 1960’s & ‘70’s. Now, in an equally embarrassing reversal of misfortune – a case of ‘what but not where’, Sellafield operators admit that whilst they can describe two items of waste listed on their books at Sellafield - they can’t remember where they put it. Sellafield’s in-house Newsletter of April 29, reports that a routine stock take had identified that two storage cans containing a small quantity of legacy material were missing from their expected location. A detailed and extensive search was underway and  the incident had been classified at Level 1 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).

Whilst the May 8, edition of the Sellafield Newsletter makes no further mention of the loss, the local Whitehaven News newspaper helpfully reveals that the radioactively ‘hot’ storage cans, capable of giving off a high dose of radiation, are still missing and the search for them could take several more weeks. The cans, described as being the size of thermos flasks, can only be handled by remote control robotic equipment and were listed as being stored in a sealed cave within the Windscale Active Handling Facility which analyses old reactor fuel and where human entry is forbidden because of the high radiation levels.

Though Sellafield Ltd is clinging to the hope that the lost cans, described only as containing historic or legacy waste, have been moved to another secure facility on the site, they have so far offered no explanation as to how remotely controlled robots could have effected such a removal service unobserved by managers and workers alike, or by the site’s alert security services. The Regulators have been informed.

CORE Briefing, 8 May 2009

EDF calls for support for nuclear industry. New nuclear power stations will not be built in Britain unless the government provides financial support for the industry. According to the Financial Times, Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of the UK subsidiary of EDF, said that a “level playing field” had to be created that would allow the nuclear industry to compete with other low-emission electricity sources such as wind power.

However, Mr de Rivaz said the company still needed to assure its investors, which include the French government with an 85 per cent stake, that the investment made commercial sense. “We have a final investment decision to make in 2011 and, for that decision to give the go-ahead, the conditions need to be right,” he said. Mr de Rivaz suggested that the best way to support the nuclear industry would be to make sure penalties paid by rival fossil fuel power generators under the European Union’s emissions trading scheme were kept high enough to make nuclear investment attractive. Since the emissions trading scheme began operating in 2005, however, the price of the permits has proved highly volatile and has fallen sharply in the past year.

His comments call into question the government’s plans for a new generation of nuclear power stations, which ministers have insisted can be delivered without any additional subsidy.

Financial Times, 26 May 2009

German nuclear waste storage site developed illegally?

The salt dome at the Gorleben nuclear waste depot in north Germany was developed illegally into a permanent storage facility claims a newspaper, citing an internal assessment by the government agency that runs the depot. After first refusing to say whether the internal assessment exists, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) now denies that the salt deposit has already been made a final repository. And it also emerged that Angela Merkel, now German prime minister, in 1996 ignored scientific warnings by the environment ministry she then headed that keeping nuclear waste in the Gorleben salt was likely to contaminate regional drinking water supplies. Since work began on the underground facility in the 1980s, only permission for ‘exploration’ has been granted.

The May 28 edition of the daily Frankfurter Rundschau alleged that without official authorization, the costs of assessing the salt dome’s suitability were high because ’the construction of the permanent storage depot was begun parallel to the investigation’.  Although not wanting to confirm the existence of the document, the paper said, the agency did admit that costs had been higher than necessary. Some 1.5 billion Euro (US$ 2.13 billion) has been invested in the site.

Work on the Gorleben mine has been suspended since 2000, when the government decided to wait until 2010 to resume the controversial project.  The appearance of the documents has confirmed the doubts of nuclear energy opponents, who all along have alleged that Gorleben was earmarked as final repository before the safety of the salt was adequately investigated.

Diet Simon, Email 29 May 2009

U.S.: Obama signs US-UAE nuclear deal.

President Barack Obama gave official backing to the agreement allowing the U.S. to share nuclear technology with the United Arab Emirates. Obama at first planned to sign the deal in April but a number of lawmakers voiced concern, particularly following the airing on U.S. television networks of a video showing an Abu Dhabi sheikh brutally beating an Afghan businessman (see Nuclear monitor 688, 'InBrief'). Some lawmakers argued Abu Dhabi doesn't have enough legal safeguards against leakage of nuclear technologies. U.S. officials said they viewed the nuclear agreement and video as separate issues. The Obama administration has praised the legal infrastructure Abu Dhabi is developing in support of its nuclear program as well its close cooperation with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA. The U.A.E. has renounced its right to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium, which, according to U.S. officials, minimizes the risk of nuclear materials being diverted for military purposes. Once the State Department submits the U.A.E. legislation to Congress, lawmakers will have 90 days to amend or seek to kill it. Some U.S. representatives, including Republican vice chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have said they will fight it. Some say the deal could spark a nuclear arms race across the Mideast.

Wall Street Journal, 21 May 2009

Alberta, Canada: Pro-nuclear vandals strike.

The nuclear debate in Peace River is no longer peaceful. Pro-nuclear vandals attacked a trailer used by nuclear opponents to get their message out. The pro-nuclear vandals painted a swastika and profanity on the side of the trailer. They also threw Molotov cocktails to further destroy the sign. The damage to the sign was bad enough but the situation could have been much worse. They cut the farmer's fence along highway 743 to get into the trailer. The horses in the field could have easily got on the highway and been involved in a collision with a vehicle. It was fortunate that the flames from the Molotov cocktail did not ignite the surrounding dry grass as the ensuing fire could have easily travelled to the farmer's home which was only 200 feet (70 meters) away. The fire could have spread a long way before anyone noticed as the vandals attacked during the middle of the night. This attack on our message came a day after two nuclear opponents received a death threat because of letters they wrote to the newspapers voicing their concerns about the impact the nuclear reactors will have on their farms. The police are investigating both occurrences.

Bruce Power announced they have set aside Can$50 million (US$45m, 32m Euro) to promote the construction of a nuclear reactor at Peace River. Grass-roots organizations and community residents have virtually no resources to publicize the nuclear information that Bruce Power doesn't want the public to know about. The trailer that was attacked by "pro-nuclear vandals" used up the majority of our resources.

Peace River residents are being asked to be the nuclear sacrifice zone for Alberta yet the local, provincial and national media have provided scant coverage of our concerns. This week, it was vandalism and death threats. Will someone have to be hurt or killed before our struggle becomes newsworthy?

Email: 10 May 2009, Pat McNamara, entwork@hotmail.com

Chernobyl still contaminating British sheep.

It exploded 23 years ago today more than 2,250 km away, but Chernobyl is still contaminating sheep in the United Kingdom. According to the government's Food Standards Agency (FSA), the number of farms and animals still under movement restrictions in the UK has hardly changed over the past year. New figures given in the House of Commons late April show there are still 190,000 sheep subject to restriction orders on 369 farms or holdings. The details are: Wales 355 farms 180,000 sheep; England 9 farms 3,000 sheep; Scotland 5 farms and 3,000 sheep.

Peat and grass in upland areas were polluted with radioactive caesium-137 released by the accident and brought to ground by rain. This is eaten by sheep and has persisted much longer than originally anticipated. The restrictions apply where concentrations of caesium-137 in sheep exceed 1,000 Becquerel of radioactivity per kilogram. Farmers have to mark the radioactive animals with indelible paint, and can't have them slaughtered for food until they fall below the limit.

N-Base briefing 611, 29 April 2009 / Sunday Herald, 26 April 2009

FirstEnergy finds hole in containment wall at rusty Pennsylvania reactor.

During a recent visual inspection inside the Beaver Valley Unit 1 reactor containment building, a rusty discolored bubble was discovered under the protective paint coating on the inside wall of the steel liner to the thick concrete containment. When the unbroken paint bubble was removed for further inspection, First Energy Nuclear Corporation (FENOC) found a corrosion hole had eaten through from the outside of the 3/8 inch (0.95 cm) thick steel containment liner wall. Inspectors could see the concrete wall on the other side. The containment's steel liner is a principle safety barrier designed to be leak tight to contain the radioactive gas generated under normal operations and accident conditions. FENOC says that a small piece of wet wood, trapped during the original construction and left in contact with the outside steel liner wall, was the cause of the severe corrosion. The plan is to weld a steel patch over the hole. With the reactor nearing approval of an unchallenged 20-year license extension application, the severity of the previously unnoticed corrosion caught Nuclear Regulatory Commission and company officials by surprise. The Beaver Valley reactor is located northwest of Pittsburgh.

Considering all the other debris pitched into the containment's concrete pours there is very likely more corrosion than can be found with visual inspection. Beyond Nuclear expects that NRC will issue a detailed information notice but fall short of its regulatory responsibility by not requiring industry action. In fact, NRC should require a prompt and thorough technical assessment of Beaver Valley's containment integrity in order to rule out the likely possibility that more unseen corrosion is still eating its way into the containment structure. Using state-of-the-art ultrasonic testing equipment, this could be done before the plant goes back on line and certainly before the agency approves the reactor's 20-year extension. Similarly, since debris was likely thrown into many more containment pours around the country, NRC should require an industry-wide scan of all the aging containment liners. Remember, FirstEnergy is the same company that operated its corroded Davis-Besse reactor with the hole in the head. And NRC is the same agency with its head in a hole that favored getting Davis-Besse back on line quickly despite graphic photos of severe corrosion that warned otherwise. In both cases, the NRC gambling of safety margins for production margins corrodes public confidence and increases the risks from nuclear accidents.

Beyond Nuclear Bulletin, 1 may 2009

UK: Wind farm demolished for nuclear power plant?

One of the oldest and most efficient wind farms in Britain is to be dismantled and replaced by a nuclear power station under plans drawn up by the German-owned power group RWE. The site at Kirksanton in Cumbria – home to the Haverigg turbines - has just been approved by the government for potential atomic newbuild in a move that has infuriated the wind power industry. Colin Palmer, founder of the Windcluster company, which owns part of the Haverigg wind farm, said he was horrified that such a plan could be considered at a time when Britain risks missing its green energy targets and after reassurance from ministers that nuclear and renewables were not incompatible.

The Haverigg site, on the fringes of the Lake District, was commissioned in 1992 and is believed to be one of only two of its type in this country. The scheme has been praised by Friends of the Lake District as a fine example of appropriate wind energy development and the turbines were financed by a pioneering group of ethical investors (now called the Triodos Bank). The site was subsequently expanded to a total of eight turbines. Haverigg was still one of the most efficient wind farms with a 35% "capacity factor" - or efficiency - compared with an average of 30%, said Palmer. It is a historically important wind farm for the UK, which played a key role in inspiring others.  

Meanwhile, a new report by the independent think-tank, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), has found that the UK Government's "obsession" with nuclear power is hindering development of sustainable energy alternatives which were better and cheaper. The report, 'The British Nuclear Industry - Status and Prospects', written by Dr. Ian Davis, states: "The Government's obsession with nuclear power is undermining and marginalizing more efficient and safer technologies - the real energy solutions." Renewable energy, greater energy efficient and other technologies could fill the gap when existing reactors became redundant.

The Guardian (UK), 28 April 2009 / N-Base Briefing, 29 April 2009

Kazakhstan: proposal to host fuel-bank sparks anti-nuclear protest.

On April 14, police in Almaty the capital of Kazakhstan, have prevented a small protest by opponents of a Kazak government proposal to host a “nuclear fuel bank” that would provide a secure supply to power stations across the world. It was never going to be a big demonstration, just 30 or so like-minded representatives of non-government groups involved in human rights and similar areas. But it did not even get off the ground. As they were setting out from their office for Almaty’s main square, three activists from the human rights group Ar.Ruh.Hak were detained by police. Seven members of the opposition party Azat and two journalists were picked up separately. All 12 were taken to a police station and released after making statements. In a statement, the seven NGOs which planned the protest meeting said the lack of government transparency on issues like the nuclear one should raise concerns. For opponents of the plan, the legacy of Semipalatinsk (a testing ground where over 450 atom bombs were set off by the Soviet authorities between 1949 and 1989) plus the risk that the fuel bank will not be secure, constitute serious objections. Kazakhstan is a major producer of uranium – it has about 20 per cent of the world's ore reserves.

The Fuel-Bank, which would be supervised by the IAEA would provide ‘a secure and controlled source of fissile material for peaceful use’ as the Agency likes to put it. Countries would no longer have ‘an excuse’ to develop uranium enrichment programs, which carry the risk of being uses for ‘non-peaceful meanings’. Countries would simply buy fuel from the bank when they needed it. After the IAEA first came up with the idea in 2005, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an agreement with the agency to look at setting up a storage facility in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, which has a uranium enrichment plant. Now Kazakhstan has offered its own facilities. President Nursultan Nazarbaev revealed the proposal when Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the capital Astana on April 6 that prompted Kazak NGOs into action.

Institute For War And Peace Reporting,  17 April 2009

Nuclear safety in Canada.

Unlike the governments of other developed nations, the Canadian government and Parliament can now directly control the start-up and operation of nuclear reactors. This is the result of a recent Federal Court ruling that allows the government to remove the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) without cause. Unless the Supreme Court overturns this decision or parliamentarians pass legislation to remove this power from the government, protection from nuclear mishaps in Canada could depend on the political whims of sitting governments and Parliament.

The Federal Court ruled earlier in April that the Harper government had the right to remove without cause the then-president of the CNSC, Linda Keen. This means that the CNSC head serves at the pleasure of the government rather than until the end of an appointed term, subject only to good behavior. The incident that precipitated the court case was Keen's refusal, despite pressure from the Prime Minister and natural resources minister, to restart a reactor to alleviate a shortage of medical isotopes. Keen said the reactor did not met its licensing requirements. The government removed Keen as head of the CNSC, and Parliament voted to restart the reactor.

Toronto Star (Canada), 21 April 2009

IAEA Inspectors Asked to Leave DPRK.

On April 14, IAEA issued a statement on the situation in North-Korea: "The Democratic People´s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has today informed IAEA inspectors in the Yongbyon facility that it is immediately ceasing all cooperation with the IAEA. It has requested the removal of all containment and surveillance equipment, following which, IAEA inspectors will no longer be provided access to the facility. The inspectors have also been asked to leave the DPRK at the earliest possible time.
The DPRK also informed the IAEA that it has decided to reactivate all facilities and go ahead with the reprocessing of spent fuel." IAEA inspectors removed all IAEA seals and switched off surveillance cameras on April 15. They left the country the following day.

IAEA inspectors returned to monitor and verify the shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities in the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea, after a report outlining the modalities reached between the Agency and the DPRK were approved by the IAEA on 9 July 2007.

The latest move by DPRK is a reaction on an April 13 statement by the United Nations' Security Council denouncing the North’s rocket launching as a violation of a resolution after the North’s first nuclear test in 2006 that banned the country from nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The Council called for tightening sanctions.

On April 29, North Korea said that it would start a uranium enrichment program, declaring for the first time that it intended to pursue a second project unless the United Nations lifted sanctions.

IAEA Press Release, 14 April 2009 / New York Times, 29 April 2009/  IAEA Staff report, 9 July 2007

Trouble for UAE-US nuclear agreement.

The president of the U.S.-UAE Business Council, Danny Sebright, expected U.S. president Barack Obama to issue a presidential determination that the nuclear agreement with the United Arab Emirates, signed in January, in the last days of the administration of former President George W. Bush, is in the best interests of the United States.  That would set the stage for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to formally notify Congress of the United States' intention to enter into the nuclear energy cooperation deal with one of Iran's neighbors, giving lawmakers 90 days to vote down the pact if they choose.

Under the "123 deal," similar to the one the United States signed last year with India, Washington would share nuclear technology, expertise and fuel. In exchange, the UAE commits to abide by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The small oil-rich Gulf nation (the world's third largest oil exporter in 2007) promises not to enrich uranium or to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear bombs. The deal is part of a major UAE investment in nuclear, and it has already signed deals to build several nuclear power plants. The United States already has similar nuclear cooperation agreements with Egypt and Morocco, and U.S. officials said Washington is working on similar pacts with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan.

Lobby for the project is ongoing: a May 5, report on the economic benefits of US-UAE 123 Agreement said the UAE nuclear program would generate contracts worth more than US$41billion benefiting American companies that could participate as suppliers or as central leaders in consortiums bidding on projects. The sky is the limit.

However, opposition about the deal is growing rapidly after footage was made public in the U.S. On the tape, an Afghan grain dealer is seen being tortured by a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, one of the UAE's seven emirates. The ratification of the deal has been postponed.

Meanwhile, the UAE last year surpassed Israel as the United States' largest export market in the Middle East. Furthermore, the small country has become the third-biggest arms importer worldwide, SIPRI announced earlier in April. The figures from the UAE reflected what the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) described as a "worrying" regional trend of increased arms imports into the Middle East. The country accounted for 6.0 percent of the world's arms imports between 2004 and 2008, according to the new report from the (SIPRI) -- the same proportion as South Korea. Only China with 11 percent and India with 7.0 percent, had a larger share of the market, said the report. The UAE's position was all the more striking because in the previous study, covering the period 1999-2003, the UAE was only the 16th biggest importer of military equipment worldwide.

Middle East Online, 17 April 2009 / Reuters, 29 April 2009 / CNN, 29 April 2009 / Business24-7.ae, 5 May 2009

‘Near Miss’ at Sellafield’s High Level Waste Storage Tank Complex.

On April 2, an incident at Sellafield’s High Level Waste (HLW) Storage Tank Complex occurred, involving a loss of coolant water to all the storage tanks following the incorrect re-instatement of one of a number of control valves that had been isolated for maintenance. Because some of the storage tanks have a higher heat loading (the liquid HLW is physically hot as well as being highly radioactive) than others, efforts to re-instate the cooling water supply were directed first at the three tanks with the highest heat loading. Cooling was restored to the first of these after 75 minutes, and to all three tanks after 3 hours. Reporting today on the incident, Sellafield’s in-house Newsletter states that cooling was restored to all tanks within 8 hours. This is perilously close to the timescale of 10.5 hours catered for in the Sellafield site’s emergency plan (REPPIR).

Since the closure of Sellafield’s Calder Hall reactors in 2003, an accident involving the loss of coolant to the HLW tanks is designated as the ‘Reference Accident’ (worst credible accident) for Sellafield’s Emergency Plans under the Radiation and Emergency Preparedness and Public Information Regulations (REPPIR). The Reference Accident is described as being ‘a failure of the entire cooling water distribution system to the High Level Radioactive Waste Store following a single flange failure or leak from a length of pipe. The accident scenario assumes a failure to reinstate the cooling system within a period of 10.5 hours and that it has not been possible to isolate the failed section of pipe’.

The existing tanks, holding a significantly larger inventory of radioactive materials than were released during the Chernobyl accident, were commissioned between 1955 and 1990. They have long been subject of concern by the NII through the increasing failure of cooling components. Plans to construct and install new, smaller tanks are currently being assessed by Sellafield and the regulators.`

CORE Press release, 9 April 2009

IAEA: Still no successor for ElBaradei.

A total of five candidates have put themselves foward to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The five come from Belgium, Spain, Slovenia, Japan and South Africa. The Japanese Ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna, Yukiya Amano, as well as South Africa's representative, Abdul Samad Minty, have reentered the contest after failing to win a majority in a first voting session among IAEA governing board members in March. The other three are:

* Jean-Pol Poncelet, a former Belgian Deputy Prime Minister who currently serves as a senior vice president at the French nuclear group Areva (responsible for sustainable development and the improvement of quality processes).

* Spanish nuclear expert Luis Echavarri, the head of the Paris-based Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

* The fifth potential successor is the Slovenian Ernest Petric, a former ambassador in Vienna who currently serves as a judge on his country's constitutional court.

In a first session of voting among the 35 countries on the IAEA board, Amano narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority, while Minty had the support of only 15 countries.

The U.S. and European countries supported Amano, as they saw him as a nuclear-policy expert who is considered to be less politically outspoken than Minty or ElBaradei.

A new date for voting at the IAEA board has yet to be fixed. IAEA Board Chairperson Ms. Feroukhi is soon to initiate informal consultations on the nominations receive.

Dr. ElBaradei, who is to retire on November 30, is the IAEA´s fourth Director General since 1957. He was first appointed to the office effective December 1997. He follows Hans Blix, IAEA Director General from 1981 to 1997; Sigvard Eklund, IAEA Director General from 1961 to 1981; and Sterling Cole, IAEA Director General from 1957 to 1961.

EarthTimes, 27 April 2009 / IAEA Staff Report, 29 April 2009

China: warnings from within.

According to China's director of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, Li Ganjie, the quick expansion of China's nuclear energy production is far outpacing the regulation of its nuclear reactors. "At the current stage, if we are not fully aware of the sector's over-rapid expansions, it will threaten construction quality and operation safety of nuclear power plants," Li Ganjie told an International Ministerial Conference on nuclear energy.

The Communist Party newspaper Renmin Ribao on April 21 reported Ganjie saying in unusually strong terms that China has insufficient capacity to handle nuclear waste. Li said the storage of past nuclear waste was 'not entirely under control'. In a report presented to the IAEA-sponsored international conference on the future of nuclear power Li stated that nuclear safeguards in China are weak and insufficient to keep up with the country's need to develop nuclear energy and technology: there is a dearth of personnel, technical equipment, financing and investment.

Planetark, 21 April 2009 / www.monsterandcritics.com, 21 April 2009

U.K.: Faslane leaks.

The revelation that there have been a series of radioactive leaks into the Firth of Clyde from the Ministry of Defence's Faslane nuclear submarine base has once again focused attention on the lack of regulation for military facilities. Documents released to Channel 4 News under Freedom of Information show there have been over 40 leaks in the last three decades and at least eight in the past 10 years. Military facilities have immunity from regulation and operate under 'letters of agreement' with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and their equivalent regulators in England and Wales.

SEPA is so concerned at the leaks and general waste management at Faslane that it would have considered closing the facility down if it had the power. A Ministry of Defence report said failure to abide by safety procedures at Faslane was a "recurring theme" and was a cultural issue that must be addressed. The report also accepted Faslane failed to use the 'best practicable means' to control waste, there was poor design of holding tanks, weld defects in piping, a lack of accurate drawings of the plant and low staffing levels.

N-Base Briefing, 29 April 2009

Under pressure from the Canadian Government there have been some internal changes and administrative reorganization at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). This will mean that new nuclear projects may not have to undergo public scrutiny in environmental assessments (EA). This, coupled with the Canadian Government’s changes in the Federal Environmental Protection Act, will limit or even eliminate environmental assessments, eliminate public participation, and speed up the licensing process.

These changes were made by the Federal Government likely because of pressure by the nuclear industry to shorten the time in obtaining licenses. There was no due process or public input before these changes were made. This does not bode well for effective oversight of the nuclear industry in Canada.

There has been an explosion in uranium exploration in Northern Saskatchewan. However due to the economic slowdown and falling uranium prices there has been a suspension of work at new sites. Areva has stated that it is not economical at the present time to mine these ore bodies. The company has requested authorization to include the ongoing care and maintenance activities at the Midwest Project site, currently authorized under a separate license, under the existing McLean license. Areva is also requesting the revocation of its Uranium Mine Site Preparation License for the Midwest Project.

Although verbal assurance has been given by a CNSC official that once Areva applies to mine the Midwest site this will trigger an EA, it will not be known until it actually happens. A lot will depend on how the new regulations are applied. Also, Areva has recently announced the layoff of 100 workers at the Caribou deposit at its McClean Lake site.

In order for Cameco to pursue its plan to recycle wastes from its Blind River refinery and Port Hope conversion plant to the Key Lake site, CNSC has ordered Cameco to upgrade its milling process to stop or minimize the release of selenium and molybdenum which has caused contamination as far as ten kilometers down stream from the site. These high levels of release coupled with faulty tailings management facilities at Key Lake is also forcing Cameco to recycle the contents and lining of its tailing pits and rebuild them by 2013. These are the tailings management facilities that are supposed to last forever!

A new Saskatchewan Government Industrial Reclamation Act sets out the procedure for old mine sites to be returned to provincial jurisdiction. At the present time a number of smaller uranium mine sites have become the responsibility of the province. However, many mines around Uranium City are still not cleaned up. A study is underway to establish the best approach for dealing with the abandoned Gunnar mines, closed in 1964, which have become the responsibility of the Province of Saskatchewan. Some mitigation measure will likely be taken, however, given the careless manner of mining and the length of time that these sites have been left alone, it will be impossible to make the sites safe. Beaverlodge, which is still being decommissioned by Cameco, is reported to be continually contaminating nearby water bodies and the land with dangerous radioactive materials. According to a CNSC report, radium 226 has been contaminating the environment for 56 years and will continue to do so for the next 100 years! Areva is presently decommissioning the Cluff Lake mining site in preparation for returning the site to provincial jurisdiction.

The right wing Saskatchewan Government has clearly stated its desire to proceed with value added nuclear activities in the province. This includes almost every link of the nuclear chain and perhaps military nuclear research. The Saskatchewan Provincial Government recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with INL (Idaho National Laboratories in the USA) which is engaged in military nuclear research.

A Uranium Development Partnership Panel was appointed by the Saskatchewan Government to make recommendations on value added uranium projects in the province. The twelve-member committee includes the CEO’s of Areva, Cameco, and Bruce Power. Also the so-called environmentalist is none other than Patrick Moore! (See Nuclear Monitor 655: "Moore nuclear spin") They could not find an environmentalist from Saskatchewan that would sit on this stacked panel! This panel was granted three million Canadian dollars to prepare their report.

Bruce Power, partly owned by Cameco, has been aggressively promoting nuclear power plants both in Northern Alberta and in Saskatchewan along the North Saskatchewan River any where from Lloydminster through North Battleford to Prince Albert. Folks living in communities along the river are alarmed and organizing to oppose any such development. Several meetings in Paradise Hill, Shellbrook, and North Battleford attracted over 800 people to hear Dr. Jim Harding, the author of Canada’s Deadly Secret, Saskatchewan uranium and the global nuclear system, 2007. In Paradise Hill a group was formed called S.O.S. - Save Our Saskatchewan. There is a growing movement of grass roots organizations and individuals known as the Coalition for a Clean Green Saskatchewan (www.cleangreensask.ca) to not only oppose nuclear reactors in Saskatchewan but also to oppose any and all so called value added nuclear industries in the province.

Source: Dr. Jim Penna / WISE Uranium Project website
Contact: Dr. Jim Penna, Inter Church Uranium Committee Educational Co-operative (ICUCEC), Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Web: www.icucec.org

U-mining ban in British Columbia. Meanwhile, in another Canadian province, the British Columbia government has issued a retroactive cabinet order to ban permits for uranium and thorium exploration and development in the province. On March 13, the B.C. Lieutenant-Governor signed a March 11, cabinet decision giving the Chief Mines Inspector of B.C. the legal authority to not issue exploration and development permits for uranium and thorium in British Columbia.

This new law prevents comes from an Amendment to the Environment & Land Use Act and strengthens the April 2008 B.C. exploration "Reserve" which had a loophole grand fathering one of the most likely uranium deposits to be developed near Kelowna. “Protesting did work for us as the government did not want us rallying at ski resorts etc, especially this year with the Winter Olympics at Vancouver next February!”

Source: e-mail: Peter Chataway, Uranium Free B.C. Coalition

Federal funding for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. has tripled since the Conservative government of Stephen Harper came to power in 2006. Figures provided to The Canadian Press by Natural Resources Canada show that taxpayers will pour more than Can$1.2 billion into the Crown corporation during the fiscal year just ending and the one set to begin April 1. The total includes $658 million in 2008-09 and another Can$574 million for 2009-10.

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is the federal crown corporation that designs and markets CANDU reactors. In 2002, on AECL’s 50th anniversary President Robert Van Adel ranted in the propaganda style of the 1950s about the “unending promise of nuclear power”. Fact is that AECL is a financial basket case that in 2002 had received Can$17.5 billion in subsidies already. (1 Can$ is 0.79 USD and 0.60 Euro).

Since the Conservatives came to power in January 2006, the annual government stipend for AECL has averaged out to Can$433 million a year. In the seven preceding years under former Liberal governments, taxpayer subsidies to AECL averaged Can$158 million a year. Adjusting for inflation, AECL subsidies are now back up to where they were when they last peaked in the mid 1980s.

Some of the funding increase relates to the production of medical isotopes and AECL's aging research reactor at Chalk River. Some is for decommissioning of the failed MAPLE reactors at Chalk River and still more is for environmental cleanup. Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt acknowledged that a significant part of the increased funding is targeted to help AECL develop its next-generation reactor, the ACR 1000. Ottawa provided more than Can$100 million last year and another Can$135 million for 2009-10 as AECL races to complete the design that it hopes to sell to the Ontario government. "It is the vehicle on which we're bidding in the Ontario procurement competition that's going on right now," said the minister. If Ontario should choose a rival reactor design, that taxpayer investment "would have been wasted," says Bryne Purchase, a former Ontario deputy energy minister.

But Ottawa appears to be betting the ACR 1000 can win the Ontario bid and then be sold to other provincial jurisdictions, including Alberta and Saskatchewan, and possibly abroad. In that case, the conservatives think, not only will AECL's market value have been enhanced but also the industrial spin-off benefits to Canada will be significant. "We've a very good history in Canada with respect to nuclear power," said Raitt. But skeptics point to AECL's recent fiasco over the MAPLE reactors and say increasing subsidies for another untried reactor are "ridiculous and outrageous."

The Conservative government is also sitting on a study it commissioned that reportedly recommends selling off a majority stake in AECL's commercial reactor and refurbishment business to the private sector. Critics say the Conservatives are spending good money after bad, considering AECL's uncertain future. "Life support can be expensive, but if you're about to put the bullet in the head of the organization you have to ask yourself: Why are we doing this?" said Shawn Patrick Stensil, energy campaigner for Greenpeace Canada. Stensil and others say Ottawa is pumping up the commercial value of AECL in order to sell off the profitable parts. "I don't know if I take it as a criticism," countered Raitt.

But some industry watchers believe AECL required a cash infusion, whatever its future: "It's necessary whether they privatize it or if they don't." But Greenpeace reacts: "There's more money down the black hole, when we could actually be building energy sources that could lower greenhouse gas emissions and create jobs in the here and now."

Sources: The Canadian Press, 10 March 2009 / "Canadian Nuclear Subsidies, Fifty Years of Futile Funding" by David Martin, Campaign for Nuclear Phase out, available at: http://www.cnp.ca/resources/nuclear-subsidies-at-50.pdf

Contact:
Campaign for Nuclear Phase out.
412-1 Nicholas Street Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 7B7.
Tel: +1  613-789-3634
E-mail: info@cnp.ca
Web: www.cnp.ca

The Maple-fiasco.
In May 2008, AECL suffered an embarrassing setback when it scrapped the development of two 10 MW Maple isotope-producing reactors after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars (about Can$ 600 million) into the project. The federal crown corporation conducted tests on the reactors during the spring of 2008 and could not find a solution to a design flaw that would make the reactors more prone to a meltdown. The Maple reactors (construction started in 1992) were meant to secure Canada's dominant position in the market for medical isotopes. In the three years before the decision alone, AECL spent more than Can$200-million as it sought an answer to a vexing problem known as a positive power coefficient of reactivity (PCR). The reactor is supposed to have a negative coefficient of reactivity, meaning the nuclear reaction would slow down if the power in the core increased. Instead, the nuclear reaction increased with additional power, heightening the chances of a meltdown.

Globe and Mail (Can.), 16 May 2008

(April 6, 1990) In a victory for forces opposing the proposed Kiggavik uranium mine near Baker Lake (Northwest Territories, Canada), the Baker Lake Hamlet community voted a resounding "no" to the project.

(330.3300) WISE Amsterdam - The plebiscite on the Kiggavik question, promised in February by the Baker Lake Hamlet Council (see WISE News Communique 328.3283), was held Monday 26 March and 90% of the voters opposed the mine. Although this certainly is not an end to the fight, it is still a big success.

Meanwhile, though, the territorial government has refused to take a (public) stand, leaving those affected by the proposal with no support and a lot of anxiety. A motion seeking unequivocal opposition by the Territories' Legislative Assembly to the mine was left hanging in early March when the issue was put before the Assembly's Committee of the Whole for discussion. The motion, put forward by legislators Peter Ernerk and Don Morin, didn't even get past opening comments before Justice Minister Mike Ballantyne moved that it be referred to the Committee.

"Referring the motion to the committee for debate means it could be delayed until next fall," said Ernerk. Ernerk says he and Morin proposed the motion on behalf of the thousands of Inuit who live in "day-to-day fear" of the proposed mine. But, he added, "The government's tactics are clear. They (the cabinet) don't see relieving the great anxiety of the people as a priority."

Urangesellschaft Canada Ltd. has already sutmitted its Environmental Assessment Report on the proposed mine. The German-owned Urangesellschaft (UG) wants to spend CDN $150 to 175 million for the development of the mine and mill complex near the arctic circle. The total uranium contents of the deposit is estimated at 17,800 metric tons at an average grade of 0.48%. Although this will be the first uranium mine in an arctic area, environmental impacts are regarded as negligible by UG.

To date, opposition to the proposed mine has been clearly demonstrated by Keewatin residents by way of petitions (1,700 signatures) from five communities. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference has also offered its full support to the Inuit. And in addition to the Baker Lake community, the proposed mine is opposed by the Keewatin Inuit Association, the Keewatin Regional Council, the Keewatin Wildlife Federation, the Beverly Kaminuriak Caribou Management Board, the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut, a citizens' committee from nearby Rankin Inlet, the NWT Federation of Labour, Ecology North and Nuclear Free North.

Sources:

• Phone call from Jack Hicks(Canada), 28 Mar. 1990
• Nunatsiaq News (Canada), 9 Mar. 1990
• NuclearFuel (US), 5 Feb. 1990.

Contact: Keewatin Inuit Association, P0 Box 240, Rankin Inlet, NWT, Canada X0C OGO, tel: +1-819-645- 2800 or 2805, fax: 819-645-2348
The Kiggavik Uranium Mine Environmental Assessment Summary Report is available from Paul Scott, Executive Secretary, Kiggavik Uranium Mine Environmental Assessment Panel, Suite 510, 750 Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B 2P2, tel: +1-604-666-2431.