[URBAN NOTE] "Make Toronto a nuke-free zone"

[rfmcdonald]

I strongly disagree with the sentiments of Angela Bischoff's article in NOW Toronto. Among other things, it is hardly as if hydroelectricity does not itself have significant costs, in drowned lands and carbon dioxide emissions.

Just to the east of Toronto on the Pickering waterfront sits one of the world's largest and oldest nuclear plants. Living in the shadow of its eight reactors are more people - 2.2 million within 30 kilometres - than live near any other nuclear plant in North America. Way more.

[. . .]

In the 45 years since the Pickering station was built (it was designed to last 30), it has been completely surrounded by homes, schools and shopping malls. But rather than feeling a sense of urgency to remove what is clearly a less than desirable neighbour, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is seeking permission to operate the plant until 2028. Its current licence expires in 2018.

Pickering is essentially the Atari of nuclear plants. Its "first-generation" design features weak safety systems and has been prone to breakdowns and serious safety infractions characterized as "incidents." An OPG study found that Pickering has the highest operating costs of any nuclear plant on the continent, in part because it ranks at the bottom of the pack in performance.

Even more to the point, we have no need for the power that Pickering produces, partly because our demand has decreased 17 per cent in the past decade, thanks to conservation efforts, and partly because of other power sources. Last year, Ontario exported more power than Pickering generated, then sold it on the spot market at a massive loss.

Meanwhile, the costs of renewable sources like solar and wind continue to drop. By 2018, the price of wind power in Ontario will officially be less than Pickering's fuel and operating costs - and that's not counting the massive debt rung up for reactor repairs over the past 20 years or the cost of storing deadly radioactive waste for a few hundred thousand years.