Nuclear Phaseout

TORONTO - Ontario has no emergency plan for a Fukushima-level nuclear disaster and shouldn’t go ahead with its planned Darlington refurbishment until it does, environmental groups charged Thursday.

“Premier (Dalton) McGuinty and the federal government must ensure nuclear emergency plans can cope with large scale radioactive releases post Fukushima. By restricting nuclear emergency planning to scenarios that are easily anticipated and controlled, the federal and provincial governments are failing to fully protect the citizens of Durham Region and beyond,” Jeff Brackett, of Durham Nuclear Awareness, said in a news release.

DNA, Greenpeace Canada and the Canadian Environmental Law Association made the call at a press conference in Durham, host to both the aging Pickering and the newer Darlington nuclear plants.
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Quebec, July 11, 2012 - Two voluminous reports from Japan and France draw important lessons from the Fukushima nuclear disaster that go against the proposed extended operation of nuclear power plants at Gentilly-2 in Quebec, and at Point Lepreau in New Brunswick.

In Japan, an independent special commission on Fukushima, established by the Japanese parliament, issued a condensed 88-page report on 5 July 2012 (the complete report in Japanese has 630 pages). It is a thorough analysis of the context in which a series of nuclear accidents began in Japan on 11 March 2011.

Unlike the nuclear industry which attributed the cause of the Fukushima nuclear disaster to the devastating tsunami triggered by an earthquake of magnitude 9, the commission sees the root cause of the catastrophe in the poor organization of the nuclear establishment where "collusion" between the industry, the regulator and the government, is dominant.
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Decaying concrete at nuclear power plants is the latest concern for nuclear safety authorities.

At Quebec’s sole atomic power station, Gentilly-2, eroding concrete has prompted federal licensing officials to suggest that any provincial attempt to refurbish and re-license the 30-year-old plant must satisfy federal concerns over the aging concrete’s ability to stand up to another two or three decades of service.

The move comes as economic pressures force nuclear utilities to consider refurbishing their nuclear plants and operating them well past their 25- to 30-year initial lives.

With Gentilly-2 at the end of its service life, the Quebec government is under pressure to decide soon whether to order a refit or shut down the plant permanently.

Refurbishment estimates range from $2 billion to $3 billion. A shutdown is pegged at $1.6 billion.
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