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CITIZENS ADVOCATING THE USE OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY (CAUSE) is a Calgary-based grassroots movement opposing plans for nuclear development in Alberta. CAUSE's goal is to inform the public about the safety, environmental, health and economic risks of nuclear power. We support energy conservation, and renewable energies, such as wind, solar and geothermal, as safer, less expensive and more environmentally friendly energy alternatives. CAUSE is a member of the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Alberta, a province-wide alliance of groups committed to keeping Alberta nuclear free (see Links for list of groups and contact information.)
What You Need to Know
Bruce Power, a nuclear operator from Ontario, proposes the following:
- To launch the plan for a nuclear Alberta with four large nuclear reactors expected to produce 4000 megawatts of electricity and cost $30 billion dollars to build.
- To use this northern location as just a “start to looking at broader opportunities in Alberta.” The province’s “Upgrader Alley” may turn into a “Nuclear Alley.”
- One of Bruce Power’s partners, TransCanada, is planning to build a transmission line to deliver electricity from northern Alberta to California.
Nuclear Power is not safe
- Pressure tubes in existing CANDUs, such as those managed by Bruce Power, have corroded, leading to safety concerns and millions of dollars needed for repair and replacement.
- The proposed ACR-1000’s: Albertans are being asked to serve as guinea pigs for these experimental, hybrid reactors.
- The vacuum building, a safety feature present in Ontario CANDU reactors, has been eliminated to save costs.
Nuclear Waste – an unsolved problem
- When a fuel rod is removed from a nuclear reactor, it is so radioactive that an individual standing one meter away will die in seconds.
- No community has been willing to store this highly radioactive waste that remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.
- The ACR-1000 reactor proposed for Alberta has the option to burn spent fuel from light water reactors, the type of reactor present in the United States.
- Reusing spent fuel does not eliminate the waste. Norm Rubin from Energy Probe explains that “the reprocessed fuel is far more dangerous….you end up with a corrosive liquid that contains all of the nastiness that you were thinking of disposing of in the first place.”
- Albertans will incur the risk of an accident during transportation of this high-level radioactive waste.
Increasing the Terrorist Risk
“Nuclear power plants are obvious targets for terrorists,
inviting assault by plane, truck bombs, armed attack or covert intrusion into
the reactor’s control room.” --Dr. Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power is not the
Answer
“We should strike petroleum interests in all areas which
supply the United States….like Canada.” --al-Quaeda Calgary Herald, Feb. 14, 2007
Economic Risks
- The prototype ACR-1000 nuclear reactor will undoubtedly have huge cost overruns during construction. Taxpayers will be the ones to pay.
- Average annual government subsidy to the nuclear industry (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited), 1952 to 2002: $350 million dollars.
Nuclear is neither Green nor Clean
- In one year the proposed reactors will need more than four times the water used in New York City and 40 times as much water as is used by the City of Calgary.
- The international community at Kyoto rejected nuclear as a solution to global warming.
Geological Risks
- Massive extraction of bitumen increases earthquake risk and can cause damage to a nuclear plant and radiation to leak into the environment.
- The proposed nuclear site at Lac Cardinal is located in an active fault complex on the Peace River Arch.