Current technology insufficient for uranium mining, says critic

BY BRENT FOX

bfox@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

We have to be careful when it comes to mining, handling and using uranium.

Nuclear critic Dr. Gordon Edwards spoke to eastern Valley members of the Council of Canadians in Wolfville Wednesday evening, June 18.

A Vanier College math professor, Edwards is also a co-founder and the president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. He has assisted in getting uranium exploration moratoria in a number of jurisdictions, including Nova Scotia.

The province’s uranium exploration moratorium -- which is actually only a government policy, not legislation -- has been in effect since the early 1980s. Meanwhile, areas of Hants and Kings counties have been cited as potential uranium sources.

Edwards noted the importance of getting the current moratorium into law. He pointed out that for every pound of uranium recovered, it leaves a ton of tailings. As well, 85 per cent of the radiation remains in those crushed rock tailings, which have to be stored safely. At the same time, one has to be mindful that the half-life of uranium radiation is 76,000 years. At the same time, other radioactive waste is also involved.

‘Tricky stuff’

Those other products can wind up in the water table, he said. “It’s tricky stuff, and our technology is not really up to it.” Despite technology and methods improving, it’s not enough. “We’re not in control as much as we think we are.”

The required tailing ponds are elaborate, they take up space and they are likely to be abandoned before the half-life is over.

Canada remains a top uranium exporter, though none of the product has gone toward weapons since 1965.

As for using nuclear energy as a way to reduce global arming, Edwards urged caution. Fear can lead people to make mistakes. “Fear stampedes you into acting without reflecting on the consequences.”

He said there are safer alternative for power generation: solar, wind and tidal, and, there is more efficient use of electrical power.

Used for nuclear energy, uranium fuel rods are handleable with care when it first goes into a reactor, but become extremely dangerous when they come out.

It also means that the fuel has to be cooled for several years or there would be a meltdown.

Accidents happen

Candu reactors don’t leak, he noted, but that doesn’t preclude accidents and accidental events like at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania three decades ago.

So why build them? Edwards noted that the application to build plants in Alberta is against the will of the oil companies and the Alberta government. But the companies building the reactors want them so they can sell others in the Third World.

Opposition Natural Resources critic Charlie Parker told the crowd that his party, the NDP, has been attempting to get the moratorium into law through legislation.

As well, he noted, the party has attempted to eliminate the moratorium’s provisions that all exploration ceases if uranium turns up at a drill site for something else.

“We want to ensure that other kinds of mining aren’t impeded by the moratorium,” he said. He also made it clear that the NDP is opposed to uranium mining, but not to other mining. “We’re not opposed to responsible mining,” he said, “responsible environmentally.”

Parker pointed out that mining is important to employment and the economy of rural Nova Scotia. The other parties declined to send representatives to the event.

West Hants Warden Richard Dauphinee told a Voluntary Planning input session last May that his municipality would not support uranium mining.

Natural Resources Minister David Morse had suggested earlier this year that it could be time to revisit the matter of the moratorium with an open mind.