LETTER

 

------    No nuclear pollution in fed's Clean Power Fund!

 

Citizen and environmental groups urge the federal government not to fund polluting nuclear technologies and to instead invest in clean and renewable energy solutions across the country.

The federal government recently handed $70.5 million to private companies in Ontario and New Brunswick to develop new nuclear reactors.  Critics are demanding that the federal government ban polluting small modular reactor (SMR) technology from its Clean Energy Fund. 

In classic greenwashing, the federal government is working with the nuclear industry and the provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan to rebrand nuclear power as “clean.”  Uranium fuel has left radioactive poisons in First Nations and small communities across Canada. 

Nuclear reactors create numerous radioactive materials that remain hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years.  The nuclear industry's “recycling” means merely transferring these radioactive materials to other waste streams. 

There is no place on the planet that is licensed to safely store these “forever” pollutants. 

More than  100 public interest, Indigenous and civil society organizations have endorsed a public statement against federal funds for new nuclear energy and an end to generating more radioactive waste.

New reactor designs could cost up to $2 billion to develop.  The proposals are based on unproven technologies, requiring a decade or more to develop, with no guarantee that they can be commercialized.. They will not be ready in time to help meet Canada’s climate targets.

Canada’s Green Budget Coalition (25 environmental organizations) states that indirect subsidies for the nuclear industry – such as protection from accident liability, and sharing waste responsibilities with the private sector – also do not belong in the federal budget.

The 2020 World Nuclear Industry Status Report  found that investing in new nuclear energy is too slow to address the climate crisis, compared to investing in proven renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Kerrie Blaise, Northern Legal Counsel, CELA;  

Susan O’Donnell, Coalition for Responsible Energy Development, NB; 

and Eva Schacherl, Ottawa