NUCLEAR WASTE IS PLENTIFUL
Re: Nuclear waste compares favourably to alternatives. (letter,
March 24). Jeremy Whitlock failed to mention that used nuclear fuel is
only a fraction of the radioactive waste resulting from nuclear power.
If we include the waste from uranium mining, we'd be talking about
radioactive uranium mill tailings in Ontario alone that could fill 60,000
hockey rinks to the top of the boards.
The mines in Elliot Lake have closed, but the tailings remain on the
landscape, blowing in the wind and eroding into the Serpent River
watershed. Now there's a uranium boom in Saskatchewan, and that landscape
is also being polluted by mill tailings.
Let's not overlook the routine pollution from reactors, which includes
cancer-causing radioactive hydrogen, called tritium, as well as
radioactive carbon-14.
The nuclear station operators intentionally dump radioactive waste into
the air and water as part of normal operations. There's a double standard
for the control of radioactive pollution that allows 350 times the level
of hazard when compared to other non-radioactive hazardous materials.
Nuclear fuel waste management is a real dilemma, since it is lethal on
exposure and remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of
years. The container that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited has said it
could use to bury used fuel bundles in the Canadian Shield could begin
leaking after just 500 years. Future generations wouldn't know what hit
them.
Nuclear power is not the solution to climate change, it's part of the
problem. Aside from radioactive waste and pollution, there is the
ever-increasing risk of catastrophic reactor accidents as the nuclear
stations age. Nuclear and coal stations need to be phased out in favour
of energy-efficiency measures and green energy options like wind and solar.
Irene Kock
Nuclear Awareness Project
Uxbridge
|