Sierra Club of Canada Media Release

Ottawa – Questions remain to be answered about the exact cause of the power imbalance and cascading blackout that pulled the plug on 50 million people on Thursday, August 14th. But environmentalists are pointing to fundamental flaws in the generating system as the root cause of the disaster.

Sierra Club of Canada Policy Advisor David H. Martin stated, “Any electricity grid fed by large centralized nuclear and coal plants will always be vulnerable to large-scale blackouts. Increased efficiency and decentralized green energy sources make the system more resilient, flexible and sustainable.”

“Ontarians know intuitively that we need to reduce our electricity consumption and stop wasting billions of dollars on nuclear plants. Their intuition is bang on the money.”

“Long shutdown and restart times for nuclear plants have made the crisis much worse, and will be the direct cause of any rolling blackouts that take place.”

Shawn-Patrick Stensil, Atmosphere and Energy Campaigner for the Sierra Club of Canada, stated, “Exorbitant costs for nuclear rehabilitation have drained investment from the upkeep of the electricity grid and forestalled green energy. With conservation and distributed green energy, we don’t need to fry or freeze in the dark.”

Future blackouts can be prevented only by increasing efficiency and changing our generating technology. Ontario’s first priority should be conservation programs and prices that reflect the real cost of electricity. On the supply side, existing nuclear and coal capacity needs to be replaced with smaller, decentralized generating plants closer to the sources of demand (“distributed generation”). 75% of Ontario Power Generation’s electricity capacity is supplied by only three nuclear stations (45%) and five coal stations (30%), resulting in a ‘brittle’ generating system that is highly vulnerable to plant shutdowns and grid failures.

The Sierra Club of Canada is calling for phase-out of nuclear and coal plants, and an end to the vast expenditures on the refurbishment nuclear plants. The attempted restart of four old reactors at the Pickering A station is expected to cost at least $2.5 billion dollars. Despite refurbishment projects at the Pickering A and Bruce A nuclear stations, old age will force Ontario’s reactors to close by 2020 without an additional expenditure of at least $20 billion.

The blackout resulted in shutdown of all 12 reactors in Ontario and 9 reactors in the United States. As of Tuesday August 19, 12:00 hrs (five days after the blackout) only 7 reactors are operating -- 3 at the Bruce B station, and 4 at the Darlington station.

The immediate cause of the August 14, 2003 blackout was a power imbalance and a resulting cascade of blackouts as grid safeguards failed to contain the problem. Questions must be answered about why the grid failed. This may lead to upgrades of the transmission network — particularly in the “Lake Erie Loop”, including sections in Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. However, without a fundamental change in our electrical systems, history will be repeated, just the great blackout of 1965 was repeated in 2003.

Regardless of whether the electricity sector is privately or publicly owned, future blackouts can be prevented only by changing our generating technology and increasing efficiency. Ontario’s first priority should be implementing conservation programs and prices that reflect the real cost of electricity. Ontario Power Generation does not have any major conservation programs and the Eves government worsened the situation by subsidizing electricity rates at 4.3 cents/kilowatt hour in November 2002.

On the supply side, existing nuclear and coal capacity should be replaced with smaller, decentralized generating plants closer to the sources of demand (‘distributed generation’). About 75% of Ontario Power Generation’s electricity capacity of 30,819 megawatts is supplied by only three nuclear stations (45%) and five coal stations (30%), resulting in a fragile and ‘brittle’ generating system that is highly vulnerable to accidental plant shutdowns and grid failures like August 14.

.

ONTARIO’S NUCLEAR STATIONS
(13,864 megawatts)

Bruce A and B
Pickering A and B
Darlington

ONTARIO’S FOSSIL STATIONS*
(9,700 megawatts)

Lambton
Nanticoke
Lakeview
Lennox
Thunder Bay
Atikokan
(*all coal except for Lennox)

.

Distributed generation will also have environmental benefits. A government policy decision for early phaseout of nuclear and coal plants will mobilize both the private and public sector to build wind, solar, small hydro and high-efficiency gas cogeneration plants. Cogeneration is the simultaneous use of both heat and electricity from the generating process, thereby achieving very high energy efficiency.

NUCLEAR POWER — THE BLACKOUT PROBLEM

Nuclear power has been a particular problem in the blackout of August 14 because nuclear plants require long periods of time to restart after full shutdown — typically 40 hours or more.

In Ontario, there were 12 reactors were in normal operation at the time of the blackout on Thursday August 14 at 16:00 hrs. This included four reactors at each of the Pickering B, Bruce B and Darlington nuclear stations. One additional reactor — Unit 4 at Pickering A was at 15% power in the initial stage of restart commissioning after being shut down since December 1997. Three more reactors at the Pickering A station and two reactors at the Bruce A station remain out of service indefinitely since being shut down in 1997 for safety and performance upgrades. Bruce Power (lessee of the Bruce nuclear stations from Ontario Power Generation) is trying to restart two reactors (units 3 & 4) at the Bruce A station, but has experienced delays.

When the blackout occurred, all 13 operating reactors were shut down either due to loss of off- site power, or due to the grid disturbance. However, CANDU reactors can be shut down in several ways. In a complete shutdown, the amount of the radioactive isotope Iodine-135 (a fission product) climbs in the uranium fuel. After a relatively short half-life of 6.7 hours, Iodine-135 decays into another radioisotope known as Xenon-135 (half-life 9.2 hours). After shutdown, levels of Xenon nearly quadruple, and only decay to low levels about 40 hours later. Xenon has the very problematic characteristic of absorbing large quantities of slow neutrons, which shuts down the fission process in the reactor, also known as ‘poisoning out’. Thus, CANDU reactors that have gone into a complete shutdown take at least 40 hours to restart, assuming that there are no additional equipment problems.

However, in the event of unanticipated shutdowns (‘forced outages’), CANDU reactor operators attempt to put the reactor in a “poison prevent” condition. The reactors have neutron absorbers called adjuster rods that stay in the reactor core during normal operation, and can be withdrawn to increase reactivity. Their main function is produce a more uniform flux in the reactor, and are positioned particularly in order to depress neutron flux in the central region of the reactor core. They are sometimes used when fuelling machines are unavailable (i.e. to compensate for lower reactivity from older fuel). However, the adjuster rods are also occasionally used to override xenon poisoning during shutdowns.

Careful removal of the adjuster rods from the reactor provides enough excess reactivity to allow the reactor to be restarted within thirty minutes of shutdown, and this is known as ‘poison prevent’. If the reactor operators do not achieve ‘poison prevent’ within thirty minutes, the reactors take at least 40 hours to restart because of the half-life of the Xenon in the reactor fuel — roughly one and a half days. Removal of the adjuster rods is a delicate operation, since it affects the neutron flux of the reactor, and a mistake lead to a “transient” which could result in loss of control of the reactor — in the worst case resulting in a catastrophic melt-down.

At the time of the blackout, operators at the Pickering B station were unable to achieve poison- prevent, and all four reactors went into complete shutdown. Authorities have so far not provided any detailed information about events at Pickering.

At the Bruce B station, three reactors achieved ‘poison prevent’. However, at a fourth reactor, operators were unable to remove an adjuster rod after it jammed, and the reactor went into automatic complete shutdown.

At the Darlington nuclear station, operators took a more conservative approach, only one reactor was put into ‘poison -prevent’ and 3 were completely shut down. Reactor #4 at Pickering A was completely shut down.

Information on nuclear operations from Ontario Power Generation, the Independent Electricity Market Operator (IMO), and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has been extremely limited. As of Tuesday August 19, 12:00 hrs (five days after the blackout) only 7 reactors are operating — 3 at the Bruce B station, and 4 at the Darlington station. Premier Eves has suggested that 2 more reactors at Pickering B may be operating by late Thursday, August 21, and one more by Sunday, August 24.

If rolling blackouts are implemented this week in Ontario, the necessary delays in restarting Ontario’s nuclear plants will be directly responsible. There are also potential safety concerns about equipment damage at the nuclear plants, with possible damage to valves, pumps and seal due to the effects of the sudden jolt from full power into shutdown.

THE CONSERVATION IMPERATIVE: A FEW THINGS THAT YOU CAN DO

The Ontario Government needs to drop its cap on electricity prices, and allow prices to reflect the real cost of production. Even if electricity rates go up, overall bills can be kept low by conserving on electricity use. We need large-scale conservation programs from Ontario Power Generation, but there are many actions that can be taken by individual consumers. Here are a few.

Replace your normal incandescent light bulbs. Buy compact fluorescent bulbs which use only about a third of the electricity. The cost of these bulbs has come down dramatically. Although the purchase cost is higher, you save money in the long run because they use less electricity and last 5 to 10 years on average.
If you do use incandescent or halogen bulbs, install a light dimmer. Dimming lights reduces electricity use and will also save money by extending the life of your bulbs.
Once you have upgraded your inside lighting, install a motion-detector on your outside lights. This will solve the problem of leaving lights on all night long for no good reason.
If you have plug-in ‘garden lights’, replace them with solar lights. These have become affordable, and solve the ‘buried wires’ problem.
Replace your old appliances with more efficient models. You can conserve electricity and save money on your bills. Call Natural Resources Canada to obtain a copy of the “Energuide Appliance Directory” and the “Consumer’s Guide to Buying and Using Energy-efficient Appliances”. Toll- free: 1-800-387-2000.
If you have electric space or water heating, replace them with some form of direct heat. In Ontario, even with higher natural gas prices, electricity is the most expensive (and most polluting) form of heating.
Have an ‘un-plugged’ Christmas this year. Use non-electric seasonal decorations.

SCC > National > Media > News Release