On Nuclear Safety,lets think the unthinkable

Porter: On nuclear safety, let's think the unthinkable
Published On Wed Mar 23 2011

The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station stands in the background as children play on the beach in Pickering, Ont. on March 16, 2011.
Darren Calabrese/THE CANADIAN PRESS

By Catherine Porter Columnist
There are moments in life that demand deep reflection.
When your vibrant, healthy, 35-year-old friend is diagnosed with breast cancer, for instance. When a river is so polluted, it catches on fire. And when a nuclear reactor in a modern, earthquake-fearing country bursts into flames and puffs out radioactive clouds that contaminate food across the province and water 200 kilometres away.
What is unravelling in Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is a distant alarm. The world’s axis has tilted slightly again. What we take for granted might not be just so.
The Europeans and Asians were jolted awake. The Italian and German governments, already wary of nuclear power, mothballed plans to build new plants or refurbish existing ones. China halted the construction of more than 20 reactors.
But here in Canada, we charge on, marching to the nuclear lobby’s jaunty refrain: It can’t happen here. We are safer. We are cleaner than coal.
“Ontario families can rest assured that our units are safe and operate at the highest standards, above international standards,” Ontario Energy Minister Brad Duguid told the Star’s John Spears. His action: to demand the operators of the province’s three nuclear plants study the lessons from Japan. Presumably, he wants them to act on them too. But I’m betting he doubts there will be any. We don’t live on a fault line. We don’t live on the ocean.
He lacks imagination, born of reflection.
The Daiichi plant was hit by something fastidious planners did not expect. What unexpected accidents — natural or man-made — could befall the planned new Darlington reactors? Are we ready for them?
“Everyone has an Achilles heel,” says Mark Mattson of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. “They have tsunamis and earthquakes. What’s ours?”
We don’t want to ponder it.
Canada’s first environmental assessment over a new nuclear power plant in decades started this week in Courtice, Ont., just east of Oshawa. The quasi-judicial panel is hearing expert testimony regarding two proposed new nuclear reactors the Ontario Power Generation wants to build in nearby Darlington. After March 11, many environmental groups — including Mattson’s — pressed the panel to postpone the hearing. They asked that it consider both lessons from Japan and the prospect of other serious accidents that might befall Darlington. The panel refused. Chair Alan Graham said lessons could be incorporated later on, at the licensing hearing.
By then, we will be one expensive step closer to building more nuclear plants.
Decidedly not on the public hearing’s agenda is whether or not we want nuclear power at all. We have made our beds. We will lie in them.
The smoking Daiichi plant has reignited a long-simmering debate among environmentalists. Campaigning journalist George Monbiot, who has written extensively about climate change, says that in light of the Daiichi disaster, he now supports nuclear power as the only viable replacement for carbon-spewing coal plants. “As far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation,” he wrote this week in The Guardian.
His American counterpart, Bill McKibben, took the opposite position — that if we can’t replace electricity from coal-fired plants with renewable sources, we should just do without that power. “The other possibility is to try to build down a little: to focus on resilience, on safety . . . instead of focusing on growth.”
These are not just practical but philosophical questions that, in light of the bans on spinach exports and tap water warnings in Japan, demand thoughtful consideration.
We have a lot at stake.
I drive by the Pickering nuclear plant every so often. I have even thought its giant white smokestack was pretty, gleaming in the sun. I’ve never pondered how it sits on Lake Ontario, our drinking water source. Nor have I looked on a map at how close it is to my home. If the United States recommended an 80-kilometre evacuation zone around Darlington, my house would sit on a ghost street.
Just think, a month ago the Ontario government called off all plans to build offshore windmills so experts could study their effects on the environment. A case study on the possible effects of a nuclear plant on the environment is ongoing in Japan. Why wouldn’t we want to reflect on it?
Should you want to attend, the hearing will continue until April 8 at Hope Fellowship Church, 1685 Bloor Street in Courtice.
Catherine Porter’s column usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. She can be reached at cporter@thestar.ca