Today: Tell the feds Nuclear Energy is NOT Clean and doesn't belong in a Sustainable Development Plan

Tue Apr 2 12:02:57 EDT 2019

Action Alert: Nuclear Power is not clean 
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Today is the deadline to comment on the federal Sustainable Development Strategy. 
Take a minute to use the online form to tell them they have it wrong: nuclear power is NOT sustainable. While the sections on Clean Energy have lots of good stuff - renewable energy, increasing efficiency, reducing greenhouse gasses - it falls down in two important points - including nuclear power in the definition of "clean energy" andsupport for "exploring the potential for small modular reactors". 

Nuclear power is not "clean"and it is not sustainable. 
There is no place for nuclear power in a sustainable development strategy for Canada. 
ACTION ALERT FROM THE CONCERNED CITIZENS OF RENFREW COUNTY AND AREA 

The government of Canada is asking for comments on its “sustainable development” strategy. The deadline for comments is Tuesday April 2, 2019.

In its glossary of terms, the strategy includes the following definition:
“Clean energy: Renewable, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage technologies, as well as demand reduction through energy efficiency”

Can you help get the message across to our government that nuclear energy is not clean? It only takes a minute to send a comment using the comment box on this page: http://fsds-sfdd.ca/index.html#/en/detail/all/goal:G05

If you prefer, you can submit your comment by email to this address: ec.bdd-sdo.ec at canada.ca

Nuclear energy produces hazardous radioactive waste that must be isolated from the biosphere for hundreds of thousands of years. This is the main reason, we don’t think it should be called “clean”. See below for further information on why we think it is wrong to include nuclear in the definition of “clean energy”.

If you agree with us, please consider sending a simple message in the comment box (access through the link above). You should first enter “clean energy” the subject line and then add your comment for example, “Please remove “nuclear” from the definition of “clean energy” in your glossary of terms”. or “I object to the inclusion on “nuclear” in the definition of clean energy in your glossary of terms in the sustainable development strategy”. Of course you could say much more if you have time. 
LINKS

Draft Sustainable Development Strategy HERE

Clean Energy Goals HERE

Comment form HERE

Email Comments HERE

Stop-SMRs web site HERE 

LEARN MORE ABOUT SMALL MODULAR REACTORS

Stop-SMRs web site HERE

March 2019 webinar with Dr. M.V. Ramana HERE

Articles, Reports
Small nuclear power reactors: Future or folly? M.V. Ramana in "The Conversation", July 24, 2017 7.18pm EDT

SMRS: the Second Make Believe Nuclear Renaissance, by Dr. Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility 

See environmental petition 419 to the Auditor General of Canada for background on why nuclear energy is not clean. Here is a link to the petition:https://tinyurl.com/AG-petition-419

Excepts from Environmental Petition 419 
Nuclear reactors release a wide variety of air and water pollutants. Nuclear reactors routinely emit radioactive gases to the atmosphere during operation. These include fission and activation products such as tritium (the radioactive form of hydrogen); radioactive carbon-14; radioactive noble gases such as argon, krypton and xenon; radioactive halogens such as iodine-131; and a wide variety of radioactive aerosols. Fuel reprocessing facilities, spent fuel storage facilities and other radioactive waste facilities also release radioactive gases. (7) (8)
The principal radionuclide in liquid effluents from nuclear reactors is tritium. Other liquid reactor effluents include radioactive isotopes of carbon, sulfur, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, zinc, strontium, zirconium, niobium and cesium. Radioactive effluents from fuel reprocessing facilities, spent fuel storage facilities and other radioactive waste facilities can greatly exceed those from nuclear reactors during normal operation. 
Liquid and gaseous effluents from nuclear reactors contain a wide variety of radioactive substances thatpose health risks to people living near reactors. These risks vary according to ingestion and absorption pathways, sites of accumulation in the body, and residence times for different radioactive substances.
Radioactive wastes (spent fuel, resins, filters, chemical sludges, fuel cladding, contaminated metal and concrete reactor components, etc.) steadily accumulate during reactor operations. Most reactor wastes cannot be reused or recycled. Artificial radioactive substances produced by nuclear reactors can have half-lives of thousands to millions of years. Health risks associated with exposure to these substances may impose serious burdens upon future generations if these risks are not promptly addressed by the present generation that benefits from nuclear power.

Northwatch is a regional coalition of environmental and community groups in northeastern Ontario. Contact us via email northwatch at northwatch.org, by phone at 705 497 0373, visit our website at www.northwatch.org or follow us on Facebook.

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