Radioactive Waste

TORONTO —Environmental groups have asked a federal court to stop government agencies from approving construction of new nuclear reactors at Darlington until an environmental assessment is fully completed and shows the project won’t negatively impact the environment or human health as required by law.

“The Fukushima nuclear disaster has been a global wake-up call on the risks posed by nuclear power, but here in Canada our authorities have pretended these risks don’t exist.  In light of Fukushima, Canadian environmental protection laws must be respected before the next Ontario government can proceed with new reactors," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil, a nuclear analyst with Greenpeace.  ... Read more »

Where does all that nuclear waste go? Unlike in the 1980's when nuclear waste was dumped into oceans, now the preferred method is to bury it somewhere deep. The problem that is no community wants it in their neighbourhood.

One option that has been ignored by goverment and the nuclear industry is above-ground Monitored Retrievable Storage. Instead, the cheapest method - burying the waste deep in old mines - seems to be the only method considered. Not surprisingly, this method saves nuclear companies billions of dollars, not to mention "out of sight, out the mind". ... Read more »

FUKUSHIMA, Japan — The day after a giant tsunami set off the continuing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, thousands of residents at the nearby town of Namie gathered to evacuate.

Given no guidance from Tokyo, town officials led the residents north, believing that winter winds would be blowing south and carrying away any radioactive emissions. For three nights, while hydrogen explosions at four of the reactors spewed radiation into the air, they stayed in a district called Tsushima where the children played outside and some parents used water from a mountain stream to prepare rice.

The winds, in fact, had been blowing directly toward Tsushima — and town officials would learn two months later that a government computer system designed to predict the spread of radioactive releases had been showing just that.... Read more »

After Japan’s Fukushima catastrophe, Canadian government officials reassured jittery Canadians that the radioactive plume billowing from the destroyed nuclear reactors posed zero health risks in this country.

In fact, there was reason to worry. Health Canada detected massive amounts of radioactive material from Fukushima in Canadian air in March and April at monitoring stations across the country.

The level of radioactive iodine spiked above the federal maximum allowed limit in the air at four of the five sites where Health Canada monitors levels of specific radioisotopes.

On March 18, seven days after an earthquake and tsunami triggered eventual nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, the first radioactive material wafted over the Victoria suburb of Sidney on Vancouver Island.... Read more »