LETTER

Reject new nuclear reactors as a climate change solution

Citizens groups marched in Ottawa, November 6, urging the Government of Canada to reject new subsidies for nuclear energy and instead to prioritize funding for renewables, efficiency and conservation in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In early October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) called for rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented efforts worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to prevent what scientists now call a near-term risk of dangerous to catastrophic levels of global warming.

“Nuclear technology is too slow to develop and investing in nuclear now would take money away from the real solutions that we know can work,”  said Elizabeth May, Green Party of Canada leader.

On Wednesday November 7th the federal government unveiled a “roadmap” towards development and deployment of a new fleet of “small modular” nuclear reactors, which it claims will “make the most of our ongoing transition to a low-carbon economy.”  The roadmap targets “off-grid” applications of these reactors, such as remote and northern communities.  

A recent report by the Deloitte Centre for Energy Solutions concludes that  “Solar and wind power recently crossed a new threshold, moving from mainstream to preferred energy sources across much of the globe.” The old argument against wind and solar, their intermittency, has become irrelevant owing to advances in storage technology.

Canada cannot afford to waste time and billions of dollars on new small nuclear reactors. We should look to the City of Seoul whose ten million citizens recently eliminated the need for a large nuclear generating station in 2.5 years with renewables, efficiency and conservation.

In a petition to the Auditor General, the citizens’ group argues that investments in new nuclear technology at this time would reduce Canada’s ability to respond to the IPCC call for rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes by tying up funds that could otherwise quickly and effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Lynn Jones, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area 

Johanna Echlin, Fort William, Pontiac