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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 2016-04-13, Page 1The Luck www.lucknowsentinel.com n 150 HST included PM40064683R07656 ow Sentinel Wednesday, April 13, 2016 1.3u1.5.1E.1d2hani a>ah 0+7. PkYicbt-rant Fk,orra .1. ti4t-.h huh,uri Frtamk Siis(I A rendering of the NWMO's proposed underground used nuclear fuel facility, of which the municipalities of Huron -Kinloss, South Bruce and Central Huron have offered themselves as candidates for research and evaluation in the coming years. Used nuclear fuel an ethical responsibility for Canada to manage Darryl Coote Reporter With an updated project description for its under- ground used nuclear fuel facility, Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organi- zation (NWMO) is working on the ethical dilemma nuclear disposal poses to the country. "From a volume perspec- tive it is not something that is a big problem," said NWMO communications manager Mike Krizanc. "... We have an ethical responsi- bility to deal with the waste we have produced:' Each year Canada's nuclear power plants pro- duce 90,000 used nuclear fuel bundles in the process of creating nuclear -based electricity. Once depleted of usable energy, these uranium fuel bundles, which remain highly radioactive for mil- lions of years, are cooled in pools for a decade before being procedurally packed in dry storage canisters. These canisters are then lined in warehouses, vaults or silos at the nation's CANDU reactor sites located in Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec. At the Bruce nuclear site, which houses 60 per cent of Canada's used nuclear fuel bundles at Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) Western Waste Management Facility (WWMF), the warehouse is expected to reach capacity by 2020. However, more ware- houses can be erected, Kri- zanc said. "There's no way anybody is running out of any kind of room to keep these," Krizanc said, explaining that the entirety of the nation's nuclear fuel bundles stacked like cordwood would fill only seven hockey rinks to the top of the boards. The problem, Krizanc said, is not one of space, but of ethics and it is the respon- sibility of the generation that reaps the benefits of nuclear power to cover the costs. In 1998 after years of study, the federal govern- ment approved a plan to bury all 4.4 million used nuclear fuel bundles that Canada's power plants will produce during their life expectancy hundreds of meters underground. Though studies have shown the repository to be technically safe, low public acceptance of the plan had prevented it from moving forward causing the federal government to found the NWMO in 2002. Since then, the NWMO has been working to find a suitable host community for the used fuel through public consultations. Nine sites including Huron -Kinloss, South Bruce and Central Huron are cur- rently being sized for the NWMO's deep geological repository for used nuclear fuel. This number was whittled down from an original 21 interested cities. Some anti-nuclear activ- ists and environmentalists criticize the project as unsafe and unethical. However, the NWMO rejects this attitude as obstructionist, stating the nuclear waste that already exists must be dealt with professionally and responsibly. Leaving the bundles on the Earth's surface, Krizanc said, "is basically driven by people who are opposed to nuclear power who want to be able to argue there is no plan for the waste." "[The NWMO] is not here to promote or penalize nuclear power," he said. ':.. We're here because the used fuel exists and regardless of the decisions that are made it has to be managed." Over breakfast April 4, the NWMO's vice president of design and construction Derek Wilson told Kincar- dine News that they have recently released an updated project description. First published and publi- cized in 2011, the project was modeled primarily from Swedish and Finnish designs. The latest plan has been tailored to Canada's CANDU reactors, which use fuel bun- dles three-quarters the size and weight of the Scandina- vian bundles. "So what we've looked at is optimizing our container design for CANDU [used nuclear] fuel," he said. And this container of steel and copper has "greatly influenced" the project's entire design, he said, caus- ing Wilson and his team to model a multi -layered bar- rier system to contain the dangerous bundles. CONTINUED > PAGE 2