This December Quebec will shut down its only nuclear reactor, Gentilly-2. This should give Ontarians pause for thought. As Quebec shutters Gentilly-2, Ontario is looking to spend billions to resuscitate the aging Darlington nuclear station. Like our provincial neighbour and other countries, we should divert those billions into renewable, cleaner and healthier energy sources.
There are many valid reasons for phasing out nuclear power -- it is expensive (every nuclear project has gone massively over budget and undergone significant delays), environmentally destructive (from radioactive tailings ponds from uranium mining at Elliott Lake to radioactive contamination of Port Hope to pollution of Lake Ontario) and so far has created over 40,000 tonnes of highly radioactive toxic waste that we'll need to manage for a million years.
But health risks of the nuclear industry go very much under the radar of governments, policy-makers, and the public. The Ontario government has marketed nuclear energy as "clean" and the answer to climate change, falling for the nuclear industry's promotional literature which tactfully glosses over health concerns. As physicians, it is our duty to serve our communities by treating our patients and by advocating for illness prevention. For these reasons, we have taken the time to understand the implications of nuclear energy from a health perspective. We see nuclear power as a serious threat to public health.
Each stage of nuclear power generation, from uranium mining, refining and day-to-day activity of nuclear reactors, releases small amounts of radioactivity into the environment on an ongoing basis. The nuclear industry claims that these releases are too small to cause any health concerns, but research indicates otherwise.
Since the early 1980s, numerous studies done in North America and Europe on the health impacts of nuclear plants have shown an elevated risk of a number of illnesses in nearby populations, particularly childhood leukemia. In 2008 a well-designed study done by the German government showed that children under 5 years old living within a 5 km radius of all 16 of the country's nuclear plants had an elevated risk of developing leukemia. A similar French study showed children under 15 years old living within 5 km of all 19 of France's reactors had an elevated risk of leukemia.
These studies demonstrate that even during routine reactor operation, nearby populations are exposed to unsafe levels of radiation that are causing serious illnesses.
What does this mean for Canada? It seems government authorities don't want to know. There is not a single large scale case-control study looking at health effects of low level radioactive emissions from Canada's nuclear reactors. So would Canadian children be less at risk than children in Germany and France? Without the appropriate studies, it is reasonable to assume that our reactors are causing illness in Canada.
This is a significant concern. Unlike other countries who build their reactors in rural areas, Ontario's reactors are located in the most populous region of the country -- Toronto. Over 450,000 people live within 20 km of the Darlington nuclear station and over one million around Pickering.
And then there's the Fukushima disaster. While Canadian reactor operators assure us the risk of an accident is insignificant, the world is witnessing a major nuclear accident about once a decade somewhere in the world. Given the massive impact that such an accident would have on our economy, environment and human health, this is no insignificant risk.
The potential enormity of a Fukushima-like accident makes it crucial that we explore and develop alternatives to spending billions to rebuild the Darlington reactors. This is what other countries are doing. Since Fukushima, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Japan have all decided to phase out nuclear power and invest massively in green energy. These countries are eliminating the risk of nuclear accident, protecting human health, and building a modern energy system.
Meanwhile in Ontario, the government has refused to even consider alternatives to Darlington nuclear station. This is a mistake.
As physicians, it is our duty to advocate preventive medicine to protect human health. In this case, preventive medicine starts with following Quebec's lead, closing Darlington and developing clean energy alternatives.
Dr. Cathy Vakil is a family doctor in Kingston Ontario, and an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Queen's University. She is an active board member of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and of Physicians for Global Survival.
Dr. Éric Notebaert is an adjunct professor at the School of Medicine, University of Montréal. He is a Science Ambassador for the David Suzuki Foundation and serves on the board of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.
It really is an ingenious plan by the Oil and Gas industry. They can install gas under the guise of wind/solar and all the Green's are blissfully ignorant to the fact.
"These studies demonstrate that even during routine reactor operation, nearby populations are exposed to unsafe levels of radiation that are causing serious illnesses."
and that,
"Without the appropriate studies, it is reasonable to assume that our reactors are causing illness in Canada"
they should have some credible data demonstrating that reactors are exceeding strict emissions limits set by NRC and CNSC.
Reactors are extremely well regulated with exposure limits to general population set to 25 mrem / year in the US. This is TEN TIMES SMALLER that what the average North American will receive from natural sources, mostly carbon-14 in the air (from cosmic rays interacting with the upper atmosphere) and potassium-40 (a naturally occuring radioisotope of potassium). Some areas in the north-east receive 1700 mrem/year from natural sources. That means reactors would have to expose local populations by 10 - 70 times legal limits just to equal what the population receives anyway from natural background! Science shows that below 10,000 mrem / year, there is no discernible health risk.
If not backed up by proof of extreme radiation leaks, this is nothing but outrageous fear mongering. When considering our desperate need for zero carbon energy, such fear mongering is also irresponsible.
These Dr.'s are correct, nuclear capital costs are far higher than wind or solar. However, operating costs are small and energy output is large. Nuclear is much cheaper than wind/solar in Ontario even without factoring in the necessity to install natural gas generators to supplement wind/solar's average 20% capacity factor: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/03/22/ontario-wind-solar-electricity-rates.html
The leukemia study referenced here was debunked. The Dr.'s should not be pushing non-peer reviewed science, they should know better: http://www.comare.org.uk/press_releases/documents/COMARE14report.pdf
Regarding Fukushima, there's yet to be a single radiation induced fatality or injury. Credible studies puts the probably amount of cancer caused deaths by the accident at 130, total. This is assuming nobody evacuated the exclusion zone which, of course, everybody did. This statistically insignificant number begs the question, was it worth evacuation? http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/TenHoeveEES12.pdf
The consequences of pushing expensive, non-CO2 reducing energy sources like wind and solar will be worse than any Fukushima (zero deaths). Pushing for this expensive energy source will insure that the 2 billion people living without electricity in the world will never get it.
The work presented here by DrVakil and DrNotebaert is nothing more than nuclear FUD. Their argument relies on emotion without facts. Congratulations on joining the ranks of fellow FUD spreaders such as Helen Caldicott.
I would like to rebut some of the unsubstantiated claims in the piece:
Re: Nuclear is expensive, environmentally destructive, and pollution creation.:
Nuclear power is substantially cheaper than wind or solar in Ontario. It is a waste to compare nameplate capacity of nuclear plants to wind and solar as nuclear plants typically are available to produce their full capacity 90% of the time where else wind and solar will likely hover around 20% availability. For wind and solar to make up for the rest of the 80% they require backup fossil fuel generators, never mentioned in the cost of solar and wind. Do you ever wonder why fossil fuel companies don't hesitate to push wind or solar? It is because they know that what that really means is natural gas or coal (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... ).
The amount of nuclear waste accumulated in Canada over 40 years of operation amounts to a volume that could fill 2 hockey rinks up to the boards. That is from 40 years of carbon free electricity. This "waste" is not really waste at all either. There is still 90% of recoverable energy in this spent fuel. Reprocessing the fuel and "burning" the long lived transuranics will reduce the dangerously radioactive lifetime of the spent fuel to under 1000 years. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/ki... )
#1: "There are many valid reasons for phasing out nuclear power -- it is expensive"
The current cost of nuclear in the USA is 1.87 cents/kWh. This is the cost of fuel, maintenance, decommmissioning and waste fee. New plants have amortized capital costs included. According to OECD electricity generating cost projections for year 2010 on - 5% discount rate, c/kWh: USA = 4.9, Korea = 3.3, China = 3.0 - 3.6. Ontario's wind Feed-In-Tarriff is 13.5 cents alone!!
#2: "environmentally destructive"
According to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in a recent statement that:Metal mining effluent data reported to Environment Canada demonstrates that uranium mining operations from 2007 to 2010 was 100% compliant with federal release limits for all seven types of contaminants. Uranium mining operations were the only type of metal mine to have 100% compliance during this period.
#3: "...nearby populations are exposed to unsafe levels of radiation that are causing serious illnesses"
The US federal limit for annual radiation dose to the public from nuclear plant operations is 25 millirem. The average actual dose to the public is about 2 millirem. Natural radioactive materials, e.g. C14 in the air from cosmic rays, potassium-40 in our food (esp. bananas), give each and every one of us about 300 mrem / year. We are to expected to believe N-plant emissions less than a few % of natural background is a threat?
All sources of power are environmentally destructive, hydro electric which is considered a renewable clean source of power is the most environmentally destructive of all sources. Millions of hectares of land are flooded in their creation, people & wildlife are displaced, many plant & animal species perish during the flooding.
Wind & solar power are a close second to hydro electric. Wind turbines & solar panels like uranium result in the destruction of lakes, rivers & streams through the mining for materials. The tailings ponds from those mines leach into water sources killing fish, wildlife & people in a radius of hundreds of miles.
While nuclear may release radiation we are also hit by far more radiation from the sun than we ever will be by any day to day radiation from nuclear power plants. As for those studies that attempt to suggest doom & gloom, take them with a grain of salt. Studies always focus on a very limited & fixed set of variables to reach their results. Making study results extraordinarily bias & not very factual. Studies exclude a large percentage of factors relevant to what's being studied, which if included would completely alter the studies findings.