Volume One -

1980-1984-

Originally published in paperback as "Getting

The Shaft, The Radioactive Waste Controversy in Manitoba."

Volume Two -

update: 1984-1988-

The growing prospect of nuclear waste dumps on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border intensifies the controversy

Volume Three -

update:1988-1998

Federal Environmental Panel concludes that Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s permanent underground nuclear waste burial concept lacks public acceptability.

Volume Four -

update:1998-2008

Mixed Oxide plutonium transport and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization and

nuclear waste issue grinds on

Nuclear Waste Saga

In 1988, an intergovernmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed under United Nations auspices to study the impact of human intervention on the climate, and by 1997, the nuclear establishment was pushing the global warming envelope to new heights.

According to writer Jeffrey St. Clair,co-editor of the political newsletter Counterpunch, the very well-heeled Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) distributed a packet to the Kyoto convention participants promoting the benefits of nuclear energy to the environment and especially to the global warming issue. Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and other environmental groups have been working to block the nuclear establishment’s efforts “...to use the pollution trading credit scheme in the Kyoto climate change agreement to offset nuclear energy’s oppressive construction costs.”

While most environmentalists involved in the Kyoto process did not embrace nuclear as a “green” technology, others actually slipped into the nuclear camp, such as Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. I find it disheartening that any environmentalist would advocate nuclear energy as solution to anything, but, unhappily, some have.   But the battle goes on. During the December 2008 United Nations Framework Convention in Poznań, Poland some church and women’s groups admirably continued the fight to prevent the labeling of nuclear energy as clean and green.

One of the most hawkish friends of the nuclear establishment’s future and, especially, its environmental role, is global warming guru, former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore.

Jeffery St. Clair describes the aggressive nuclear establishment lobbying effort directed at the U.S. government noting  “...a long and profitable relationship with both Clinton and Gore.” He goes on to say that “...Al Gore, who wrote of the potential green virtues of nuclear power in his book Earth in the Balance, earned his stripes as a congressman protecting the interests of two of the nuclear industry's most problematic enterprises, the TVA and the Oak Ridge Labs.”

In October, 2000, NIRS pointed out that “unfortunately, the Clinton/Gore Administration is not only willing to include nuclear power in the Kyoto process, but to allow it equal status and credits with renewable energy”

Although, currently, the former Vice President tends to understate the future role of nuclear energy in dealing with the climate change-global warming issue, I seriously doubt that his true allegiance to the future of nuclear power has been diminished..

During my tenure with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, I heard much about the influence and efforts of the political Gore family to promote and develop nuclear energy, especially on their Tennessee home turf at the Oak Ridge facility.

“Kyoto targets are reachable now with nuclear energy,” is but one of the many article titles found on the Canadian Nuclear Association web site related to the climate issue.  Its reading list is replete with such literature, even to the point of pushing electric car development, (another hoped for nuclear energy sinecure).

The nuclear establishment is pulling out all the stops and is spending a fortune (much of which is taxpayers’ dollars) to tout its energy source as the cure for global warming. And the strategy seems to be paying off, with a significant increase in activity and identification of potential new reactor projects around the world, including North America.

But I do not see references in the nuclear energy propaganda  to the fact that large quantities of greenhouse gasses are emitted in the processes of uranium mining, refining and milling required to produce the fuel rods for the reactors.  Furthermore, little is said about the irradiated nuclear fuel waste for which no acceptable solution exists.   

The big question now, however,  is how governments,  faced with a severe and deepening economic downturn, will deal with the very expensive nuclear expansion issue.

Unable to stand on its own two feet financially, will the nuclear establishment be able to count on continuing life support from governments, many of which are now committed to the global warming movement?  It is too early to answer that question fully, but one sad  indication was recently provided by NIRS that “...the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee late on the night of January 27 (2009) snuck in a provision to President Obama's economic stimulus package that would allow as much as $50 BILLION of your dollars to be used as loan guarantees for construction of new nuclear reactors. This would be on top of the $18.5 billion taxpayer dollars already authorized by Congress during the Bush administration.”

Also, many countries have been bamboozled by the nuclear establishment’s lies about its potential to deal with climate change and the world’s energy requirements.  With the exception of Germany which still plans to phase out nuclear energy by 2021, a number of European and Asian countries, are in the process of planning a nuclear future.

However, I would not be surprised to see most of these potential projects succumb to a likely long-term economic meltdown and a massive reduction of energy consumption throughout the developed world. After all, these large nuclear projects are extraordinarily expensive, subject to substantial cost overruns and take at least a decade to complete.

In the meanwhile, even without  the obscene level of subsidies granted to nuclear  from governments, sustainable alternative green energy could still create a paradigm shift in many parts of the world.  Hopefully, governments will come to their senses and begin to provide the kind of support needed to really stimulate the green alternatives to nuclear.

So, what about this phenomenon called ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change.’  I have already expressed my concerns about the role of the nuclear establishment as a likely “instigator” of the concept.

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Spring-Summer 2010