So, Saskatchewan is in kind of a pickle, at least as I can see it. Our provincial government has preemptively decided that we *need* more power and that the best solution to these electrical woes is nuclear energy. Rather than opening this question up to public debate (or even consulting with qualified, impartial experts), they convened a group called the Uranium Development Partnership (UDP) to prepare a report concerning various aspects of the “uranium value chain,” including “exploration and mining; upgrading; power generation; used fuel management; research, development and training.” This organization, whose membership consists of (among others) the CEOs of Bruce Power, Cameco and Areva (all uranium mining and/or nuclear energy companies), has no interest in looking into any other energy options; their commitment to the nuclear industry is totally (and unquestionably) transparent. The viability of other options (in particular, various renewable technologies) has been utterly ignored in our government’s headlong rush to turn Saskatchewan’s future over to nuclear power companies.
What’s funny is that their proposal is so objectively flawed, on so many levels.
Environmentally, the proposed power plant(s) will waste considerable amounts of water, will produce nuclear wastes (which will have to be stored somewhere in Saskatchewan), and, worst of all, will be used primarily to supply electricity to the Alberta tar sands! Though proponents are trying to use this final fact as a selling feature (i.e., since we will be generating extra power, our province will be able to sell it! It’s a new revenue stream for Saskatchewan!), anyone with any concern about the environment knows the devastating effect that the tar sands are having upon Canadian ecology… Do we really want to invest billions of dollars in order to become part of this problem?
Amusingly enough, the proposed plant is also dreadfully fiscally irreponsible. The UDP report talks about how the construction of a nuclear power plant will increase Saskatchewan’s economy by ten billion dollars during the course of its construction… This sounds very desirable, until you realize that this “increase” actually refers to governmental expenditures, which means that this ten billion dollars is going to be coming out of tax revenues… This is not difficult math. Our province is home to one million people; is the construction of a nuclear power plant really worth ten thousand dollars to every man, woman and child living here? Would it not at least make sense to look into other, cheaper options? Rather than tying ourselves to another non-renewable energy technology, wouldn’t it make sense to become innovators in renewable energy, especially at a point in history when such expertise could become *extremely* valuable? As manufacturing jobs flow out of the first world, we are thrust into what has been called a knowledge economy… why not focus our energies on developing knowledge that can be of broad practical use to the entire human race? Even if you don’t find this idealistic talk compelling, it remains the case that the nuclear technologies proposed are expensive, untested and unwieldy. Moreover, the ten billion dollar estimate is likely undershooting the mark by a fair margin, as it fails to account for the fact that we will likely need to replace or upgrade much of our power transmission infrastructure… As Sask Power notes,
The SaskPower system, as it currently exists, is not designed to cope with a large nuclear plant.
Once again, this is another reason that nuclear power doesn’t make sense for Saskatchewan: we have a decentralized population base. It would make far more sense to invest in a series of smaller scale (renewable) power sources distributed throughout the province, as that would not require the overhauling of our entire power transmission infrastructure.
The fact that there is neither a compelling economic nor financial rationale for this decision is truly galling. This is not a partisan issue; nuclear simply does not make sense for Saskatchewan (save, of course, for the members of the UDP (i.e., the CEOs of nuclear power companies)). If our government does succeed in selling off our future, I wonder how much it will cost? What is thirty pieces of silver in today’s currency, Mr. Wall?
Anyway, please join me tonight at 7pm @ the Travelodge, as today (Monday June 15th) is our chance to talk to members of the UDP and express our concerns. Though these meetings have received less-than-favorable reviews, with attendess claiming that those present were unable to respond adequately to relatively basic concerns and questions, I still think it is important to stand up and be heard. That way, if our elected government chooses to ignore its constituents, we will have the moral high-ground necessary to condemn them for their hypocrisy (not to mention their meretricious relations with the nuclear industry).
Homework (for extra credit): Dr. Bill Adamson’s report on the potential difficulties with this proposed project; the Saskatchewan Environmental Society’s report; and these three excellent blog posts.
52 high voltage switching stations and 182 distribution substations
– these stations help deliver the power to Saskatchewan homes
and businesses. SaskPower’s network serves a large geographic
area and widely-dispersed population. About three customers are
supplied per circuit kilometre, while most North American utilities
average about 12 customers over the same distance.
