Greenpeace shuts down Darlington nuclear hearing

Courtice, Ontario — Greenpeace activists today shut down environmental assessment hearings on a proposal to build new reactors at Darlington in response to the Joint Review Panel’s refusal to suspend the hearings until lessons are learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

Four Greenpeace activists, with a banner reading “No nukes are safe Stop Darlington,”are locked down at the front of the hearing preventing the Panel from continuing. Other activists are in the audience with a similar banner and wearing tape on their lips, symbolically bearing witness to a flawed hearing process.

“These hearings should not be allowed to promote building new reactors while downplaying the nuclear disaster at Fukushima,” said Shawn-Patrick Stensil, Greenpeace nuclear analyst. “The proposal to build new reactors is Dalton McGuinty’s proposal: he needs to take responsibility for the costs, the accident risks and for not suspending the hearings.”

Yesterday, about 40 individuals and groups participating in the three-week hearing called on the Joint Review Panel to suspend them until further analysis of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima is available for consideration. The Panel refused.
The environmental assessment proposal for building new reactors at Darlington has serious flaws, including:

• No reactor technology has been chosen for the environmental assessment,
• The environmental assessment has excluded discussion of a Fukushima-scale disaster, and
• No opportunity is provided to discuss alternatives to nuclear, such as clean
  energy sources,

“The rush forward to build unnecessary and expensive new reactors will expose hundreds of thousands of people and generations of Ontarians to the risks of a
Fukushima-scale nuclear accident,” said Stensil. “The proposal will create more radioactive waste that will be dangerous for millions of years. New reactors at Darlington can’t be permitted to proceed when the impacts and alternatives haven’t been considered.”

Go green to avoid soaring nuclear costs

Shawn-Patrick Stensil Nuclear analyst, Greenpeace Canada

Ontario needs a frank and public debate on how to protect electricity consumers from the rising costs of the McGuinty government’s nuclear plans.

The government’s decision to restrict public consultation on revisions to its long-term electricity plan to a web-based survey simply dodges any meaningful public debate. This will end up costing the ratepayer and the environment.

We were told in 2007 it would cost $26 billion to keep nuclear at 50 per cent of electricity supply. That would repair 12 operating reactors and build two new ones. Since then, we’ve learned that building just two new reactors would cost $26 billion — sucking up the entire 20-year nuclear spending plan.

It takes 10 years to build new reactors and up to five to repair old ones, so the full cost of the government’s nuclear plan hasn’t hit our bills yet. But painful price hikes are coming unless the Ontario government reins in its nuclear plans.