URGENT CALL TO ACTION – FEBRUARY 4TH DEADLINE

PUBLIC COMMENTS NEEDED ON NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP PROPOSAL.

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Nuclear Energy is Not a Solution to Climate Change

Click Here to Open: Nuclear Energy No Panacea

An Op-Ed in the Free Press published December 18, 2025

Click Here to Open: "Nuclear in Manitoba"

A Powerpoint presentation by Anne Lindsey

What's the problem with Nuclear energy?

its high cost relative to renewables
the inability to replace fossil fuels in time to mitigate the crisis
pollution is created during all stages of the nuclear cycle
the problem of nuclear waste management and links to nuclear weapons proliferation.

Nuclear is quite simply the slowest, dirtiest and most expensive response to the climate crisis.

Nuclear is expensive

Nuclear energy is one of the most costly methods of generating electricity and relies heavily on government investment (World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024, 369-371).
Worldwide, the nuclear industry has historically been plagued by massive cost overruns for new builds and plant operations (WNISR 2024, 58-64).
Here in Canada, Ontario taxpayers have been saddled with the debt retirement of the last big nuclear investment, resulting in significantly higher electricity rates than neighbouring Manitoba and Quebec that don’t use nuclear energy.
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance shows that renewable sources like wind and solar power are far less expensive (options2024-april.pdf).

Nuclear is slow

Nuclear plants take years or sometimes decades to be licensed and built.
They can not be brought online soon enough to meet our critical greenhouse gas reduction targets required by 2030.
In contrast, solar panels and wind turbines are ready-to-go technologies, taking weeks or months to deploy.
In tandem with energy efficiency measures, storage and smart grid technology, renewable sources of energy are the smart and timely investment.
See Nuclear is a recipe for failure by Ontario Clean Air Alliance for more information.

Nuclear is not GREEN

In contrast to industry claims, nuclear energy is not clean, nor is it emissions free. Nuclear energy requires uranium as a fuel – its mining, processing and transportation all create carbon emissions and pollution.
At all stages of the nuclear fuel chain even during routine operations, toxic and carcinogenic elements are emitted into air and water.
Nuclear power produces radioactive waste that requires complex containment in perpetuity.
See an October 2024 joint application to the Competition Bureau for more information.
Catastrophic accidents, such as at Fukushima or Chernobyl, render huge swaths of land uninhabitable.

Radioactive waste is a dangerous legacy

Since the 1940s, nuclear waste has been temporarily stored close to reactor sites. It must be shielded and isolated from the environment forever. The industry’s favoured proposed solution, which is still untested, is to bury the waste deep in bedrock, back-fill the excavation, monitor for a period, then effectively abandon it.
One proposed site is between Ignace and Dryden in NW Ontario, on watersheds that drain into Lake of the Woods and Lake Winnipeg.
When the waste containers inevitably break down and release radioactive isotopes into the groundwater, it’s only a matter of time before the connected surface water becomes contaminated.
A transportation accident, or a spill at the surface of the proposed site will hasten the contamination risk.
With 132,000 thousand tonnes currently in storage, new nuclear will only add to this toxic legacy.
See The Nuclear Waste Abandonment Issue in Northwestern Ontario by We the Nuclear Free North.

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are not the answer

SMRs (or new generation reactors) are being heavily promoted by some governments and industry as a solution to climate change, especially for remote communities and heavy industry.
To date, they are concepts, and not in commercial use anywhere.
SMRs will be costlier than large reactors per unit of energy generated, and many of the models being proposed would use new fuels and create novel forms of nuclear waste.
No strategies are in place for management of these wastes, yet they are being touted as an export possibility for Canada.
See Ramana and Makhijani, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2021.

There are direct links to nuclear weapons proliferation

Civilian nuclear power was developed as an offshoot of the weapons production that started in WW2. Civilian and military applications worldwide are still widely interconnected through supply chains, investment and infrastructure.
Nuclear weapons require fissile material, such as the plutonium created by CANDU nuclear reactors and highly enriched uranium.
Until recently, Canada has implicitly frowned on plutonium separation technology as a weapons proliferation risk. With some SMR designs calling for nuclear fuel reprocessing to separate plutonium, and others requiring enrichment of uranium, these risks are seriously increased.
See Uranium_&_Plutonium_2022.pdf and Nuclear industry wants Canada to lift ban on reprocessing plutonium, despite proliferation risks - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

A Bit of History

What is High-Level nuclear waste?

“High level nuclear waste” consists mainly of the fuel rods that are removed from nuclear reactors once they are so radioactive as to be no longer useful for generating energy. They contain a wide range of radioactive elements, some of which do not occur in nature, and some of which remain radioactive for literally millennia. They are also extremely hot and will kill an exposed human in minutes.

These properties mean they must be isolated from the environment, shielded and cooled in water for at least 10 years at the reactor sites before they can be moved into “dry” storage. Currently, there are some 3.3 million fuel rod bundles stored in cooling pools or in temporary dry storage in Canada (mostly in Southern Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec). And this number grows every day a nuclear reactor keeps running.

What are Deep Geological Repositories?

The final storage solution for high level nuclear waste has been the subject of debate worldwide since the dawn of the nuclear industry in the 1940s. No country has yet developed and implemented a safe and socially acceptable solution, though many, including Canada, are focussed on developing so-called “Deep Geological Repositories” (DGRs). DGRs are essentially envisaged by the nuclear industry as very deep holes and lateral tunnels like a mine drilled in bedrock. Specially designed waste-holding canisters would be placed in the tunnels and when the excavation is full, the hole would be filled with buffer materials and grout. After a period of monitoring, the site would be closed up and shut down.

What are the risks to water?

Research has focused on how to isolate the canisters and their contents from the inevitable ingress of groundwater into the cavern for enough time to prevent radioactive contamination of ground and connected surface waters.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, or NWMO, (consisting of the major players in Canada’s nuclear industry) is communicating that a DGR will be a safe solution. NWMO has an interest in implementing a DGR as it will help to clear out the at-reactor temporary storage areas which are at, or nearing capacity, to allow for the production of more high-level waste.

Others including some nuclear scientists and engineers are not so sure and point to the risk of contamination of entire watersheds if radioactive water escapes the repository. If radioactive contamination is detected in the future, there will be no way to contain it, and no way to retrieve the thousands of buried canisters to rectify the problem.

Leakage from a repository is not the only way that radiation could enter the environment. The transportation of millions of canisters, and the “repackaging” of waste canisters to burial canisters at the DGR site are also potential accident and exposure points.

How was site selection carried out?

NWMO announced its preferred site for Canada’s future DGR on November 28, 2024 - the Revell area of Northwest Ontario – between the towns of Ignace and Dryden. The township of Ignace is considered to be the potential “host community” for the Revell site, and on July 10, 2024, Ignace Council voted in favour of being a “willing host” for this massive storage hole in the ground and the accompanying transfer facility.

NWMO provided Ignace a half million dollar signing bonus, in addition to many donations and monetary contributions to local initiatives leading up to the vote.

Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation (WLON), the closest First Nation community to Revell Lake, held a community wide referendum just days before the NWMO announcement. The referendum question was not made public, but WLON reported that the majority of their members voted in favour of continuing studies of the Revell site. They were clear that the vote did not constitute “consent” to the DGR Project. Any financial arrangements between WLON and NWMO are not public. NWMO’s publicly declared process indicated that site selection would only be made after a “compelling demonstration of willingness” from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous host communities. To date that compelling demonstration has not been secured.

What are the problems with the NW Ontario site?

Problems abound with the NWMO announcement, not the least of which is that the site in question is not even in Ignace Township, or in the same watershed. The Revell batholith site, 45 kilometres west of Ignace, lies on the watersheds of both the Rainy River which flows into Lake of the Woods, and thence to the Winnipeg River and Lake Winnipeg, and the English/Wabigoon River system which flows north through Lac Seul and into Lake Winnipeg.

To reach northwestern Ontario, the waste will have to be transported to Revell - several massive shipments daily for 40 years for the existing waste - along the often-treacherous route skirting Lake Superior. It must then be “repackaged” in a surface facility. Little is publicly known about what this entails, but any accidents and even routine cleaning will result in radioactive pollution to the surrounding waters. No downstream or transportation route communities have expressed approval of the Revell site. Many have passed resolutions against it.

Are there First Nation concerns?

First Nations along the downstream routes have expressed their opposition to this project. Chief Rudy Turtle of Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows) was clear in his letter to the CEO of NWMO: “The water from that site flows past our reserve and into the waters where we fish, drink, and swim. The material that you want to store there will be dangerous for longer than Canada has existed, longer than Europeans have been on Turtle Island, and longer than anything that human beings have ever built has lasted. How can you reliably claim that this extremely dangerous waste will safely be contained for hundreds of thousands of years?”

His views are echoed by neighbouring chiefs, and other Treaty 3 First Nations have rejected nuclear waste transportation and abandonment through and in their territories.

Has there been past opposition?

In 1986, a citizens group in the Eastern Townships of Quebec successfully lobbied politicians on both sides of the border to reject a US proposal for a massive nuclear waste repository in Vermont, on a watershed flowing into Canada.

Around the same time, Manitoba citizens convinced our government to oppose another proposed US nuclear waste site – with potential for drainage to the Red River. And eventually, the NDP government of Howard Pawley passed Manitoba’s High-Level Radioactive Waste Act, banning nuclear waste disposal in this province.

What is the Manitoba government’s position?

We do not know where Manitoba stands today, even though the Revell site is not far from Manitoba and the water is flowing this way. No single town or community should be making decisions with such profound risks to all of our health and futures. People who depend on Manitoba rivers and lakes (including Winnipeggers, via our water supply from Shoal Lake) should be part of this decision.