Q & A: Scope of the Environmental Impact Statement for New Nuclear Power Plants at the Bruce Site in Ontario: Assessment of Accidents and Malfunctions

Why has Greenpeace commissioned this report?

Greenpeace opposes nuclear power because it is risky, too costly, unsafe and unnecessary. The report by Dr. Gordon Thompson documents the unacceptable risks of building new nuclear stations in Canada.

What does the report examine?

The Greenpeace report addresses five of the most important questions governments must look at when determining whether a nuclear power plants is safe. Answering the following questions shows clearly why building new reactors is unsafe:

• What standards are used to assess the safety and security of new plants?
• Are these standards adequate?
• What are the safety and design weaknesses of reactor designs under consideration in Canada?
• Is Canada's nuclear regulatory regime adequate?
• What impacts does the nuclear industry's culture of secrecy have on nuclear safety and on society?

Who is the author of the report?

Dr. Gordon Thompson is an expert on the risks of nuclear plants. He is the executive Director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies and a professor at Clark University. He has conducted numerous studies on the environmental and security impacts of nuclear facilities, and on options for reducing those impacts. For example, Dr. Thompson prepared a report in 2000 for the Standing Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources of the Canadian Senate, discussing the accident risk posed by the Pickering ‘A' nuclear station.

What reactor designs are being considered in Ontario?

Three reactor designs are being considered for construction in Ontario. All these reactors contain serious design flaws dating back to when nuclear plants were first introduced in the 1960s.

Those designs are: Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's (AECL's) Advanced CANDU, AREVA's Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor (EPR) and Westinghouse's AP-1000 design.

What are the report's principal findings on the reactor designs being proposed in Ontario?

All contain fundamental design flaws that leave them vulnerable to catastrophic radiation releases following an accident or terrorist attack.

There is only an incremental increase in safety from the last generation of reactors designed in the 1960s, and not enough of an improvement to qualify these designs as safe.

Do Canadian and international nuclear safety standards guarantee that an accident will not cause a catastrophic release of radiation?

No. Under the weak Canadian standards, old reactors cannot withstand a terrorist attacks. New reactors won't protect from terrorist attacks either.

In addition, under the weak standards, old and new designs have significant design flaws that make them liable to a catastrophic accident that would put millions of people at serious risk.

What's wrong with nuclear safety standards?

Nuclear safety standards should ensure that Canadians are protected from any possible nuclear accident. What's wrong with Canadian standards is that they pretend that certain types of accidents probably won't happen.

Why do they pretend that such accidents can't happen?

The nuclear industry and its regulators said that Three Mile Island and Chernobyl would not occur.

Once these accidents happened, nuclear regulators sought to minimize the risk of such accidents happening again. They did not, however, require the redesigning of existing plants to withstand a full range of accidents that could occur.

Worse, proposed standards for new reactors still don't require complete protection from a full range of realistic accidents.

The nuclear industry says there are certain types "beyond-design-basis" accidents that we don't need to worry about happening. Is this correct?

No. What the nuclear industry is actually saying is that they don't want to redesign their reactors to protect Canadians from the full range of real threats posed by those reactors. Thus, they pretend that such threats are so unlikely that they don't merit attention. This is false.

The report says the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has weakened its nuclear safety standards since the Harper government's firing of CNSC president Linda Keen. How so?

The industry and its regulators, such as the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, pretend certain accidents are so unlikely that they don't merit attention.

As the Greenpeace report highlights, the CNSC has weakened standards by first accepting this industry position that they can pretend certain accidents won't happen and, second, by bowing to industry demands to expand the range of accidents in this category.

This further watering down of already weak standards coincided with the period during which CNSC president Linda Keen was fired by the Harper government.

Greenpeace is concerned that the Harper government's political interference with the CNSC increases the risks to Canadians.

Are the reactor designs proposed for Ontario resistant to terrorist attacks?

No. Documents acquired by Greenpeace show that, seven years after September 11th, the CNSC has yet to even develop design requirements on what terrorist-type events reactors should be required to withstand.

The report shows that all three reactor designs under consideration are vulnerable to a range of possible terrorist attacks.

What type of regulatory rules should be in place?

Greenpeace feels that nuclear standards should protect Canadians from the full range of real accident and terrorist threats posed by nuclear power.

Instead of setting regulatory standards to accommodate design flaws of reactors built in the in 1960s and 1970s, safety standards should be set to ensure that reactors are designed to withstand all events that could plausibly cause a significant release of radiation.

Dr. Thompson's report provides a list of events and accidents nuclear reactors should be built to withstand.

But nuclear plants have operated in Ontario for decades. Why does Greenpeace constantly say nuclear power is risky?

Even the insurance industry thinks nuclear power is risky. Despite claims that nuclear power is "safe," the nuclear industry requires special financial liability protection in case of a major nuclear accident.

The current federal Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act limits the amount of financial liability any nuclear operator must be insured for to $ 650 million (up from a previous $75 million). This is a miniscule fraction of the likely actual cost of a nuclear disaster.

For instance, if a catastrophic accident occurred at the Pickering nuclear station, just 30 km from downtown Toronto, it would decimate Canada's largest city and displace millions of people. This would cost many billions of dollars.

Is the Canada's federal nuclear regulatory agency, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), an independent, trustworthy regulator?

No. According to an independent consultant's report, the CNSC "has in the past put more focus on communicating with licensees than with non-government organizations and the broader public."

In January 2008, The Harper government fired former CNSC president Linda Keen over her insistence that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) ensure that its NRU reactor meet nuclear safety standards and replaced her with their own political appointee.

What is Greenpeace doing with Dr. Thompson's the report?

The report is being submitted to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency as part of its consultation on the draft environmental assessment guidelines for Bruce Power's proposal to build new reactors at the Bruce site on Lake Huron.

Greenpeace is concerned that Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) will rely on the CNSC's inadequate safety goals to claim that no significant accidents releasing radiation will occur at new nuclear stations, and that such events can therefore be discounted from the proposed environmental review of new nuclear plants at the Bruce nuclear site on Lake Huron. This is the pretend-they-won't-happen-approach that could allow flawed reactor designs to be approved for construction in Ontario.