The federal government is engaging with interested provinces on small modular reactors (SMRs) for possible development and deployment across Canada. This image shows the Pickering Nuclear Generating Plant as seen from Lake Ontario.(ID 146384282 © Anjelagr/Dreamstime)

By Glenn Hicks

nuclear future

Saskatchewan’s plan for small nuclear reactors sees local fallout

Dec 3, 2019 | 5:11 PM

Environmental advocates are railing against plans announced by the Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick governments to further explore the development of small modular nuclear reactors or SMRs.

While Premiers Moe, Ford and Higgs touted the weekend announcement as a collaborative way to combat climate change, others see it very differently, while the opposition New Democrats called it a “photo op.”

Green opposition

“However it is whitewashed, there’s no real safe way in my opinion that you can store nuclear waste for thousands of years,” Richard Jack, the interim leader of the Green Party of Saskatchewan told paNOW. “There has been no real change in how to deal with the waste problem in recent years.”

Jack said the government should be investing more in renewable energy such as solar, wind and geo-thermal to address its energy needs.

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“The government has talked many times in the past about researching dry and abandoned oil wells for geo-thermal, and I think it’s time they pursued these other alternatives,” he said.

The mere talk of nuclear in Saskatchewan conjures serious concerns from environmentalists, especially in the North where there have been previous tentative proposals for both a plant and waste storage.

Community backlash

Candyce Paul lives on the English River First Nation out of Beauval. She is with the Committee For Future Generations activist group who, in 2011, helped thwart a proposal for nuclear waste energy storage that considered her area as well as Pinehouse and Creighton as possible sites. She sees the move to further explore small nuclear reactors as a way of propping up the province’s recessed uranium sector.

“They’ve jumped on the climate change concerns as a means they can use to pitch their industry,” Paul told paNOW. “Already [the investment in nuclear] has impacted the solar industry that was starting to grow and become popular in this province. They nixed that to put their funds into nuclear.”

Paul said solar and wind were cheaply and readily available for use in energy projects “within months” whereas governments wanted to keep pouring billions of dollars and years into nuclear energy.

Cameco, which has laid off over 600 workers at its northern mines because of the major slowdown in the world uranium market following the Fukushima disaster, supports the announcement.

In an email to paNOW, the company said it “looks forward to more discussions on the suitability of SMRs for the province’s electricity needs going forward. While we are certainly interested in providing uranium fuel for power generation down the road, Cameco isn’t directly involved in any SMR development projects.”

Future global needs

Premier Scott Moe has said nuclear power needs to be deployed in a big way around the world to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and this province was well-positioned to help with its large reserves of high-grade uranium.

The potential for fully developing the technology needed to advance SMRs is still likely decades away. The minister responsible for SaskEnergy was eager to highlight while nuclear could be part of the electricity mix in future, it was still some way off.

“It’s at a pretty high-level scenario that could be part of our mix going forward but right now the plan is natural gas with renewables,” Dustin Duncan said. “I would say [the agreement] is really the first step to a full-scale investigation on whether nuclear is part of Saskatchewan’s future on the electricity side.”

Case for immediate renewables

Meanwhile, NDP leader Ryan Meili called the agreement with the other two premiers “interesting for not being very interesting… and looks like another photo op with Doug Ford.”

Meili said the announcement lacked details and costs and while SMRs should be explored in this province, nationally and internationally, the new agreement “adds nothing to the conversation.”

Meili suggested the government should be investing in today’s ready technologies.

“We saw this government shut down the solar energy industry in a heartbeat. We have the best environment in the country to produce power from solar. Today, we should be making investments … to get us up to renewables much more quickly.”

With files from The Canadian Press and CJME

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glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow