:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee.
My name is Gordon Edwards. I have a PhD in mathematics. I graduated originally with a gold medal in mathematics and physics from the University of Toronto. I have been involved for over 30 years as president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and also as a consultant to both governmental and non-governmental bodies on nuclear issues, on issues related to nuclear safety and radioactive materials.
Before it is used in a nuclear reactor, uranium fuel can be safely handled using only a pair of gloves. Inside the reactor, however, hundreds of new radioactive substances are created, called fission products. These are literally the broken pieces of uranium atoms, which are split in order to produce energy.
The fission products are millions of times more radioactive than the fresh uranium fuel. Immediately after discharge from a reactor, a single CANDU fuel bundle can deliver a lethal dose of penetrating radiation in just 20 seconds to any unprotected person standing one metre away. Indeed, the irradiated fuel is so radioactive that is has to be cooled under 14 feet of circulating water for at least 7 to 10 years or it will spontaneously overheat, experience self-inflicted damage, and release radioactive gases and vapours into the surrounding atmosphere.
Inside the core of a reactor, even after the fission process has been completely terminated, the radioactivity of the fission products is so intense that the core continues to generate 7% of full power heat. That's an awful lot of heat, and if adequate cooling is not provided, even after complete shutdown of the reactor itself, the residual heat is more than enough to melt the core of the reactor at a temperature of 5,000°F.
When the fuel melts, large quantities of fission products are released as gases, vapours, and ashes. I have provided the committee members with excerpts from four official Canadian documents. These excerpts confirm the fact that core melting accidents are possible and even probable in Canada, if Canada chooses to build a large fleet of nuclear reactors.
Unfortunately, committee members, I neglected to bring the bag that has those exhibits in them. I'm going to deliver it later today to the clerk, and you will be getting copies of these. They are available in both French and English.
The official bodies that produced these statements, which I have prepared for you, are the Ontario Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning, the Atomic Energy Control Board, the federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, and the Select Committee on Ontario Hydro Affairs.
As a participant in the deliberations of both the Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning and the Select Committee on Ontario Hydro Affairs, I can assure the committee members that the rationale for this bill, , is based on the potential damages of fuel melting accidents. Without fuel melting, it is not possible for a nuclear accident to have off-site property damage exceeding $10 million.
However, the consequences of core melting accidents can typically run into the tens of billions of dollars or even hundreds of billions of dollars and can make large regions of land uninhabitable for a considerable period of time.
In the case of such a catastrophe, limits the liability of nuclear operators to a very modest amount. It eliminates all liability for nuclear equipment suppliers, even if they supplied defective equipment that caused the accident, yet it does not address any important measures that would limit the overall financial liability to the Canadian taxpayer or the social liability of any affected population.
The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility feels that it is important for the elected representatives of the people to ensure that the nuclear industry is held publicly accountable and to ensure that the best interests of Canadians are not compromised in order to serve the interest of the nuclear industry.
We believe the figure of $650 million cited in the act has no sound scientific or financial basis, and this arbitrary amount merely serves to distract the committee from much more important questions. For instance, just how great might the total damage be in case a core melt accident occurs here in Canada? Have these studies been carried out? Have they been given to the committee members? Have they been discussed in Parliament? What if such an accident occurred at the Pickering site? How much of the Toronto population would have to be evacuated and for how long? How far would the radioactive contamination spread?
It is sobering to realize that even today, 20 years after the Chernobyl accident in the Ukraine, some sheep farmers in northern England and Wales still cannot sell their mutton because of radioactive contamination of the meat, caused by radioactive cesium-137 given off by the Chernobyl reactor.
Will farmers in the Ottawa Valley and Quebec have to curtail their agricultural practices following a nuclear accident near Toronto, such as those envisaged in this bill? Is the Canadian Parliament expected to pass this Bill to limit the liability of the nuclear industry without giving any careful thought to the question of limiting the ultimate financial liability to the crown?
One way of limiting public liability would be to require that any new reactors be sited far away from large population centres. Observers both inside and outside of the nuclear industry have commented that the Pickering reactors are among the worst-sited reactors in the world because of the catastrophe potential, so close to such a large and vital city. Such a catastrophe could be realized in the event not only of a severe industrial accident, but also as the result of external causes, such as a large earthquake, causing multiple pipe breaks in the reactor core area, or an act of deliberate sabotage or terrorism, which can no longer be discounted as fanciful.
I was one of the fortunate few to attend a 1977 conference of the nuclear fuel cycle, sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, held in Salzburg, Austria. At that conference, one of the leading American nuclear scientists, Alvin Weinberg, spoke for an hour to an audience of about 300 nuclear scientists from every corner of the world. His message was stark. He said:
We nuclear scientists have not faced up to the full consequences of complete success. If we succeed in building tens of thousands of nuclear reactors around the world, which we must do to make any noticeable dent in the world's use of petroleum, we can expect to have a core meltdown approximately every four years. The lesson is clear. W e must stop building these reactors near large cities.
I was very impressed by the sincerity of Mr. Weinberg's proposal. In fact, he recommended that large tracts of land should be set aside specifically for nuclear reactors and nothing else. As he put it, if the reactors are going to melt down, let them do so there, far away from the population centres.
Alvin Weinberg's proposals may strike some of us as extreme. But perhaps it is only because we have not taken the time and trouble to educate ourselves about the science behind core melting and the possible consequences of such events. In 1978, one full year before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, the Ontario Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning spent several months on the question and found that if there were 100 reactors operating in Canada at some future date, then under the worst assumptions of probability, there could be a core meltdown here in Canada once every 40 years.
In his report, Arthur Porter, a professor of engineering from the University of Toronto, wrote that serious consideration should be given to building any new nuclear reactors underground, so that the radioactive releases from an uncontained core meltdown could be largely trapped in subterranean caverns and prevented from spreading over vast land areas.
Another way of limiting the nuclear liability of the crown and of the Canadian population is to invest in other energy technologies that can reduce greenhouse gases faster and more efficiently than nuclear power can possibly do, without posing the same risks of catastrophic impact, requiring bills such as this Bill , which is available for no other industry that I am aware of.
According to a report issued in May 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nuclear power currently provides about 16% of the world's electricity, which amounts to about 2.7% of total energy use. In the next quarter century, the IPCC estimates that nuclear power could increase its contribution from 16% to 18% of electricity supply. This is far from solving the climate change problem.
Meanwhile, the same IPCC report states that renewable electricity currently accounts for 18% of electricity worldwide—that's the target in 25 years for nuclear—and that in the next 25 years renewable electricity could account for 35% of all electricity. That's twice as much as nuclear can provide in the same timeframe. Evidently, renewables are a much better bet than nuclear, at least for the next 25 years, in the opinion of this estimable panel.
Germany decided about 10 years ago to phase out of nuclear power. They have shut down two of their seventeen reactors already and will soon shut down a third one. In that same 10-year period Germany has installed 20,000 megawatts of wind power. That's more than the entire Canadian nuclear program. Meanwhile, Germany is leading all other European countries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
So perhaps instead of just passing , the committee members should be refusing to pass it and recommending that a comprehensive inquiry into the risks and benefits of nuclear energy, in comparison with other energy technologies, be undertaken. In the public interest such an inquiry is long overdue. It would be a shame for this committee to approve a piece of legislation that is so peripheral to the larger issues.
Ultimately, is based on much misinformation, and perhaps even a profound misunderstanding of the nature of the energy choices that we all must confront. I am concerned about the marginalization of our democratic institutions. I am concerned about the problem of governance of this industry. I do not believe, if we are going to embark upon an enlargement of this industry, it is responsible to continue to allow it to operate outside of public scrutiny, outside of responsible accounting, and I would hope this committee would do something about that.
Thank you.
:
Okay, I just wanted to make sure.
I find that in formulating this new , there are two important aspects. One of them is compensation for damages suffered, and the other is the expansion of nuclear power.
The nuclear power industry has been saying that they need this bill in order to meet international conventions, and also to perhaps reassure the public that if there were an accident, there would be proper compensation.
As you all know, the city that is most threatened by a major accident is Toronto. In the Toronto area, $650 million would come to a compensation of about $200 per person or house. Many people feel that this is not very much. In the United States, the figure that is thrown about is $9 billion for a major accident at one nuclear reactor site. That would come to $3,000 per person or house.
The Pembina Institute in Canada has estimated that an accident in the Toronto area would cause damages of about $1 trillion. That would come to $300,000 per person or house. In my opinion, that would not be a desirable event and sufficient compensation, even at that high figure.
The second aspect is expansion of nuclear power because of the climate change question.
The first aspect I address in the short resumé I sent you is that there is room for liability coverage in the case of nuclear reactors, because if you read the AECL documentation, which I do every year, and also the CNSC documentation, you find that all of these people in the nuclear industry are terribly worried about a major accident. It's a nightmare, and they have confessed it, even in public.
So a major accident is possible, and in the resumé I sent around, I quote AECL in 2002, where they addressed the question of the positive nuclear coolant void reactivity coefficient. In the existing CANDUs, if you have a loss of cooling water, or bubbles, or anything that diminishes the density of water trying to cool the reactor, the nuclear reactions increase in their intensity. This is called a positive feedback, and this feature has been recognized by AECL as being undesirable.
It makes the old CANDU reactor illegal in England or in the United States. It does not meet the security standards of England or the United States. So in their effort to develop a new reactor, AECL has insisted on having a negative coolant void reactivity problem, but as far as I know, it still has not been solved completely.
That makes the old CANDU reactors very dangerous. I'm upset by the fact that instead of building new reactors, which are far safer, they retube a design that was made in the 1970s.
In the last four decades, there has been tremendous progress in all areas of technology, including nuclear power, so I find it very upsetting that they're proud of doing retubing contracts here and there, in New Brunswick, at Bruce around Toronto, and now they want to do Gentilly in Quebec. It's just going back to a design of the 1970s, a design that does not meet the security standards of England or the United States, the first two nuclear countries in history.
Regarding expansion, I work in the field of renewable energy, and I was at a convention on wind power about a month ago. What's amazing about wind power is that it has been increasing by 25% a year for the last decade. Canada is positioning itself in this area. Ontario already has 400 megawatts of installed power. Quebec has about 500 megawatts. B.C. has a big project to have 350 megawatts near Prince Rupert, with further expansion to 15,000 megawatts in the coming years.
In Europe, the European Union passed a law in September that calls for the production of 20% of electrical power in the European Union by renewable energy by 2020.
In the United States, people are talking about having 25% renewable electricity by the year 2025.
If you look at the wind energy maps and the solar energy maps that are available online, you will find that Canada is blessed with tremendous wind and solar resources.
The main point I want to make to the Minister of Natural Resources is that if we manage—if you manage with us correctly—our natural resources, which include wind and power and geothermal, we could easily increase government income by a tremendous amount and lower the income taxes.
I will stop here.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the witnesses for appearing. I found it very interesting. Thanks for your explanation of how a meltdown occurs. Being from B.C. and nowhere near a nuclear facility, I had never had that explained before. I've read things, but the technical stuff can be a little hard to understand.
I also really want to thank you for your comments on our responsibility. The members of Parliament were elected to protect the public interest—the environment, the social interests, and economic interests of our communities, and so on. I think that's very important in the consideration of this bill.
I asked the question of a previous witness from Port Hope who talked about the amount—I think per person or household, I can't remember—being around $8,000 out of the $650 million. You talked about $200 per household in Toronto, of course a much bigger city. Really, when you think of the value of property in those areas, it's nothing. So it's understandable that the liability should be increased tremendously.
The other thing you said that I think is important is that we're not asking an honest question here. I felt that. This bill, if passed, would enable the expansion of nuclear facilities in Canada, and I believe that's what this bill is all about. So I thank you for that comment.
I just want to know if there is any way to amend this bill that would improve it so that we are looking after the public interest in a better way, and without it being a carte blanche for the industry to just build nuclear reactors as they want to in the oil sands, and things like that.
:
In an ideal world, I would think, any bill that is going to give such a benefit to the nuclear industry in limiting the burden of liability on their shoulders....
It is in fact a piddling amount. I mean, $650 million is not even the cost of a modest retubing of a nuclear reactor. So this is a relatively small amount.
If we're going to give them this enormous benefit on behalf of the people of Canada, then surely we can strike a bargain and say, “If you're going to build new reactors, you darn well better build them in such a way as to limit the liability to the Canadian population and to Canada.”
For example, why not build them underground? Why not build them in remote areas far from cities? Why are there not considerations in this bill to limit the damage rather than to just limit the financial responsibilities of certain corporations? Why is it the public purse is considered to be bottomless?
There's no consideration given to how much money might have to be paid out of the public purse as a result of an accident that was none of the government's or public's doing.
I think it would be the responsibility of serious legislators to ensure that a piece of legislation was designed to do what the elected representatives of the people are primarily there to do, which is to protect the best interests of the people and not of the nuclear industry. I am concerned about this governance issue. I do believe that while this committee is asked to basically rubber-stamp a technical document, , which is going to allow them to meet certain conventions internationally, it's going to be interpreted as more or less a rubber stamp of the nuclear industry also.
It basically is a green light that says, “Go ahead, build them wherever you want. We'll limit your liability, and you don't have to worry about it.” I think that's a very sad state of affairs in a country as proud and democratic as Canada, and such a leader on the world stage in terms of our institutions. It's a sad comment on the state of Canadian politics that the House of Commons and the elected representatives of the people do not have a more important say on matters of much greater import than protecting the liability of the operators of nuclear reactors.
Just recently, for example, within the last year, we've had the government, without consulting Parliament at all, approve a plan by the nuclear industry, under which it is going to cost $25 billion minimum to centralize nuclear waste at some central location in Canada. Why was this not brought in the form of a bill to the House of Commons to be debated and to be considered and deliberated upon? Those decisions are made without any deliberation, and you are asked as a committee to simply rubber-stamp this relatively insignificant bill.
Believe me, if such an accident were to happen, a Chernobyl-type accident, it would be very small comfort to know that the Government of Canada was going to establish a tribunal to adjudicate claims.
I appreciate your thing of looking towards the future, but by my count, we have six major installations in Canada: Bruce Power A, Bruce Power B, Darlington, Pickering A and B, Hydro-Québec's site, and New Brunswick Power at Point Lepreau.
If we don't pass this bill, we're just leaving the liability at $75 million. There's no way that this $650 million will cover a core major disaster. I mean, it's $3,000, $800, whatever per person. It's not even going to come close.
So the insurance here is basically to cover up, if we can use the term, a small accident, a Three Mile Island that doesn't completely wipe out New York City or wherever it would be here. If we just leave this at $75 million and something small does happen, we end up picking up that gap between $75 million and $650 million.
Is there a different number? Is there a different interim measure that we should take for these smaller types of incidents?
:
I don't know of any such study.
I would like to apologize to the committee if there's any edginess to my remarks. I think the edginess is basically a reflection of frustration that the committee does not have available to it the tools that would be necessary to do a really good job. That's my concern.
Especially if we are going to have a nuclear renaissance and build more reactors, then I think it's very necessary for legislators to have much more knowledge and resources available to them to weigh these problems. I sympathize with members of the committee, who are given very little to go on other than a piece of legislation that has been written without much deliberation of the deeper issues surrounding that. So that's really the basis of my frustration.
The accountability problem is, I think, a serious one, and one that Parliament must take seriously for the future, because right now the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission answers to the same minister that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited answers to, which is the Minister of Natural Resources. This means there's only one voice at the cabinet table speaking on nuclear issues. Even the CNSC itself, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, although it is responsible for the health and environment, it has no health department. It does not have a staff of independent health scientists. Most of its staff are drawn, in fact, from the very industry that it is regulating, and the minister it is reporting to is the minister who is promoting that very industry.
Now, this poses serious governance problems for the future. I would like to see, at some point, some aspect of the House of Commons, or some aspect of our parliamentary system, that stands up and doesn't take the first offer that's put on the table.
Where's the negotiation? If we're representing the public interest, should we just take the industry's offer of $650 million and say, “Thank you, thank you, we'll take it, we'll pay all the rest”? Or should we say, “Wait a minute now. You're asking the Government of Canada, asking the taxpayers, to assume an enormous financial liability, and you're limiting yourself to $650 million? Let's negotiate. Let's talk about this.”
I don't see any negotiation taking place. The question remains, where is the accountability?
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Duguay.
You studied a lot. You are university professors. The evidence you gave is therefore credible. We must take it just as seriously as that of all the other witnesses we heard.
I listened to your presentations and as a citizen and a member of Parliament I am of the opinion it would be irresponsible to maintain the coverage at only $75 million dollars. One must be consistent and recognize that governments, both liberal and conservative, neglected to do the catch-up that was required. The result is that today we must jump from $75 million to $650 million dollars. There are also the premiums that the nuclear power operators have to pay and the pressure they are under as a consequence. Their concern is understandable. For years, there has been this neglect on the part of the governments in power in Canada.
I agree with you, $650 million dollars is far from enough. Just imagine if an accident were to happen in Pickering. The industries and the municipal infrastructures of cities like Oshawa and Toronto would be completely destroyed. We know that just one accident in the history of Canada, in any nuclear plant, would cause damage well in excess of 650 million dollars.
The witnesses we heard before you told us that it is difficult at the present time to find insurers offering coverage beyond $650 million dollars. In Europe, some countries have asked for one billion dollars protection. The amendment of the Paris Convention is presently delayed because there are not enough funds to pay for such a coverage.
As you say, we the members of Parliament are more or less stuck, as you say. We lack tools and information.
If we increase coverage and if operators are liable for 100% of all the damage caused, would the insurance, the cash and coverage be available everywhere in the world? This is my big question.
I agree with you, we should not promote nuclear energy. We should not encourage this form of energy, however we have nuclear plants operating at the present time. We must look at how we will be able to compensate municipalities or Canadians should an accident occur.
What do you say about the fact that no one, no insurance company, will cover the operators? What can we do in this regard?
:
We will carry on as scheduled, with the clause-by-clause, then. We're back to that. We only have half an hour.
As I explained, then, we will go through, clause by clause. We will vote on each clause once the discussion and debate has ended.
It is normal to stay the first clause, which is the title.
Is it agreed that we stay the first clause and deal with that at the end? Usually, it's one of the last things we do in the process.
It is in the Standing Orders, actually, so we don't have to vote on it. I guess it is in the Standing Orders.
(On clause 2—Definitions)
The Chair: Clause 2 is the section that deals with the definitions that are used throughout the bill. There is no standard procedure for this.
I'm suggesting that we stay this clause till after we've gone through the other clauses, because these definitions, of course, apply to those clauses, and there may be need for some change if something changes in some of the clauses. This is the way that seems to work fairly well on some occasions.
I'm suggesting that. Is it the will of the committee that we do that and proceed with clause 3?
Madame DeBellefeuille, you have a question or a point of order.