Monday, July 12, 2010

Do you want nuclear waste on the Great Lakes?

We might not have much choice, it could happen as early as this fall as the first of two shipments of decommissioned steam generators weighing 110 tonnes a piece, 16 each shipment for a total of 32, are due to go overland from Bruce Power in Kincardane to Owen Sound, then around and through Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario, up the St. Lawrence and out to ocean to a facility in Sweden.

Okay, so it's going to a friendly country so maybe there's a bit of relief there.   But who knows how radioactive the metal is?   Has anyone done an assessment as to what could happen if there is a terrorist attack enroute?   Will there be no go zones for traffic while it goes through canals or will it be BAU (business as usual) with the obligatory figures crossed?

Another and possibly bigger concern is once reprocessed the materials cannot be traced on the after market.   There are huge worries about depleted uranium used as armour plating in battlefields particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan -- worries from active personnel and "embeds".   What if a paramilitary group gets its hands on the stuff?

I thought they were looking at abandoned mines in Nevada and Saskatchewan.   Whatever happened to that idea?   Oh, yeah, they have problems of their own ... Guess when we did the impossible by splitting the atom, we created new problems that can't be solved.

And now Ontario want to spend another $5 billion (read $20 billion) to build more reactors.   Yikes.   Who thinks these things through?   And the worst part is they get ex-politicians to run the generating stations rather than actual nuclear scientists.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

No comments: