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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.
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