The media routinely runs stories of how a dirty bomb would immediately cause hundreds or even thousands of deaths. This is simply not true. A number of radiological accidents have demonstrated that a dirty bomb will not cause this type of death toll. Indeed, the panic generated by a dirty bomb attack could very well result in more immediate deaths than the detonation of the device itself. Unfortunately, media stories hyping the threat of these devices may foster such panic, thus increasing the death toll.

To better gauge the threat, physicist Fred Harper and colleagues at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, conducted a series of blasts to determine how certain materials behave during an explosion. In one set of tests, Harper and Canadian defense scientists exploded various devices thought to be similar to terrorist bombs a few meters off the ground. Those tests suggested the kinds of fragments that could lead to acute radiological sickness tend to travel less far than feared. Other tests, simulating urban ground environments such as sand, dirt, and concrete, suggested that dirt or grit from the area tended to create larger fragments during the blast, lowering their distance.

Thus, unless a dirty bomb contains a large amount of very strong radioactive material, the effects of the device are not likely to be immediate and dramatic. In fact, the explosive effect of the device has a greater chance of killing people than the device’s radiological effects. This need for a large quantity of a radioisotope not only creates the challenge of obtaining that much radioactive material, it also means that such a device would be large and unwieldy — and therefore difficult to smuggle into a target such as a subway or stadium.

However, having said this, there is still absolutely no excuse for the cavalier attitude that has seen these radioisotopes wind up in scrap heaps, or in the hands of those unaware of their dangers. To me given the endless handwringing over weapons grade material finding its way into a terrorist bomb, the attitudes of regulators in most of the world towards these sources is hypocritical at the very least.

Though the ostensible message is for efficiency, conservation and unreliable renewables like wind and solar, I suspect that the authors know that most people will not give up the conveniences that reliable electricity provide. That means that if people can be convinced that nuclear is too expensive and slow, the market will default to natural gas.

That will make the gas suppliers huge profits and ensure that they keep supporting reports that minimize the value of nuclear energy.

Whenever anyone says that nuclear is just too slow, point to the construction rate achieved in the US during the period from 1963-1983 and the quantity of CO2 that was displaced as nuclear energy captured market share.

When they talk about the speed with which renewable energy sources like wind and solar collection systems move down the learning curves and reduce costs, ask them why Cape Wind wants to charge $207 per megawatt-hour with a 3.5% annual rate of increase guaranteed for 15 years AND still collect about $21 per megawatt hour in federal subsidies plus another $20-30 per megawatt-hour in state subsidies.

Also ask how much improvement the technology demonstrated during its first 10,000 years of human knowledge that it existed. People have known about solar and wind energy for millennia, but we have just begun learning about fission within the past 60 years.

It could be argued, Canada doesn’t need a high neutron flux research reactor like NRU. The biggest customers have always been American corporations. And, all the major material advances, that are in the past, wont disappear when NRU is gone.

Besides, what obligation does our small country produce the have to producing the world’s supply of isotopes?

The life/death need for NRU to keep operating is often overstated - its impact dramatized: Scientists and engineers wont give up their profession when its shutdown.

End of NRU is not end of nuclear in Canada; there are still 20 CANDU reactors, SLOWPOKE reasearch reactors and (hospital isotope generating) particle accelerators.

Indeed, the real problem is federal government disdain for funding science R&D in general, lack of foresight/planning and naive shortsighted view of privitization as a universal solution.

Your car, regardless if a GM or even the almighty Honda Civic, will eventually break down, and reach its end of life. Disposing of it in a junkyard is obvious and simple. But, without backup alternative how will you get around?

Otherwise, without planning and spending, you eventually end up with everything in the junkyard and - nothing.

1) Is it the case that no research reactor will be built? Or is it the case that just no reactor for medical isotope production shall be built?

2) Why the complete press silence?

3) Why is AECL silent? Should they make a statement clarifying what the government plans for chalk river will mean to them?

4) How was NRU used in reactor design? Could a reactor be designed in Canada without a facility like NRU?

Some folks, who need not be mentioned, praise and glorify anything and everything “green”, naturally ignoring any and all criticism. Wind mills are perfect - its free energy.

Spinning of wind turbines has no effect on CO2 levels. Ofcourse there are no radioactive byproducts. In all the PR, they are blended with backround trees as if they were organic. And, they are white and prestine like angels.

But they are not “perfect”. They are manmade. Their production does require hydrocarbons. Their component (steel/concrete) material costs per MW are amongst the highest - higher than coal, gas, nuclear etc. Many farmers and tourist areas dont want them - either due to wooshing or because a visual distraction. They require maintanance, as does transmission infrastructure, so although there is no fuel, there IS an operating cost.

And they are only as useful as the wind patterns. And the biggest fallacy is that they work in any wind - whereas they only operate between a min (breezy) and max speed (not in storms).

But perhaps the bigger lie is that wind power isn’t given a chance - despite tens of thousands built. Nobody wants to acknowledge the cost of (CO2 producting) replacement power. And the rebuke of some future energy storage system is like waiting 50 years for fussion.

And if an “environmentalist” nods in approval of nuclear, but on the condition of waste storage, perhaps reply:

“Have you set up a decomissioning fund to tear down those towers and recycle those blades and motors when they’re worn out?”
Because nuclear industry has.

Maybe there’s hope yet, at least as far as the federal government is concerned. Ideologically, they would give Lovins as much time as they would give David Suzuki or anybody from the Pembina Institute—i.e., none, which is as much as they deserve.

crf, you are right. There is a paucity of energy related material prepared by distinguished organizations. There is however tons of material prepared by groups like Greenpeace, Suzuki, and Pembina.

On the whole, I thought the report was useful. It asked the right questions: it just didn’t go about answering them the right way. So the report is not “not even wrong”. It is at least criticisable and could be improved upon.

I get the impression that in Canada things like this report are emblematic of the material we have to move forward an intelligent energy/industrial policy. Scary: but that problem is not CIGI’s fault: it is the fault of decades of indifference by Canadian provincial and federal governments, and no focus on the issue from either private industry or academics.

Am I wrong that there is a paucity of policy-relevant material on energy being prepared by distinguished organisations? (I am just a layperson, I could well be wrong. Enlighten me.)

I am amazed to see this claim in a supposedly objective report. Nuclear offsets the emissions from the only other non-hydro baseload sources, gas and coal, to the tune of millions of tonnes per year. Renewable sources require massive backup from gas-fired generators (which come with 550 grams of CO2 for every kWh they generate). How the heck can they have superior carbon economics??

Moreover, the report points to successful conservation and efficiency efforts by pointing to the examples of California and Ontario (!!). Ontario’s baseload demand dropped in 2009 because of the convergence of (1) a deep recession, which hurt major power users like the nickel producers in Sudbury; and especially (2) a mild spring and summer! The author then goes on to assume (page 17) that Moore’s Law automatically applies to wind and solar generation; therefore their costs will fall.

Very disappointing to see these kinds of sloppy and unsubstantiated assertions in a supposedly credible report.

I heard an American nuclear industry guy say that a government doesn’t have to be anti-nuclear to kill a new build project. It just has to not support it. When the “experts” say things like the above, is it any surprise the federal and provincial governments feel no pressure to proceed with the Darlington project? This is the kind of thinking that produced the Samsung wind deal.

The issue of renewables’ place in a modern grid is absolutely central to the debate over how to proceed with investments in power generation. Renewables don’t just require problematic transmission redesigns, price subsidies, and pride of place on the grid. They also require parallel fleets of gas-fired generators. That is neither cheaper nor environmentally more benign than a combination of nuclear and coal.

I hope you are wrong: I hope policy makers do not take this report seriously. But you are probably right, they will take it seriously. And that is unfortunate.

How close is the APR to the AP 1000? Is its UAE generation cost similar to that which Westinghouse submitted in Ontario for the AP 1000?

But I can’t see a Korean deal working in Ontario if it is based on the APR.