D.1. Is nuclear-generated electricity inevitable? Just a matter of time?
D.2. Are the alternatives to nuclear power feasible?
D.3. Is uranium and nuclear power accepted in Australia? In the World?
D.4. To what extent has Australia invested in uranium and nuclear power?
D.5. To what extent has Australia intervened in the uranium market?
D.6. What is Australia's present status in the international uranium market?
D.7. Why is uranium mining expanding in Australia?
D.1. Is nuclear-generated electricity inevitable? Just a matter of time? Nuclear proponents claim that the only substitutes for our rapidly diminishing oil supplies are coal and uranium. Since coal is such a dirty fuel, they say that nuclear power will be needed. But others disagree, maintaining that nuclear plants can't replace oil because they are too slow and too expensive to build. Besides, nuclear plants only supply electricity; yet 85 percent of our energy needs are non-electrical.
Numerous studies around the world -- such as Energy Future (the Harvard Business School Task Force Report on Energy) and 2025: Soft Energy Futures for Canada -- have argued that we can live quite affluently without requiring more nuclear power, oil or coal, by investing in energy efficiency, energy conservation, and renewable forms of energy. According to these studies, our best hope for the future lies with technologies such as solar heating, biologically renewable fuels (methane or fuel alcohols), solar electricity, wind power, geothermal energy, ocean thermal energy, wave power, etc.
D.2. Are the alternatives to nuclear power feasible? Through efficiency improvements alone, according to these alternative studies, we can free up more energy than is currently produced by nuclear plants. Moreover, such efficiency measures are less costly than nuclear power, and create more jobs. They reduce acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions faster than nuclear power can. They allow us to provide the same energy services (heat, light, transportation) while using far less energy to do so. The energy saved can then be used for other purposes.
These charts are taken from Amory Lovins' brilliant book, "Soft Energy Paths", which contrasts two radically different energy policies -- two competing strategies for providing essentially the same energy services, in the form of heat, light, transportation, drive power, telecommunications, etc.
According to these studies, once demand has been trimmed by efficiency (doing more with less) and conservation (eliminating wasteful uses), renewable energy sources can meet most if not all of our diminished energy needs. In general, these alternative supply technologies are portrayed as no more expensive than nuclear power, yet they are faster, cleaner, more easily sustainable, and they create more jobs. There are also cleaner coal-burning technologies that can be used during the relatively short transition period to a sustainable society powered by renewable forms of energy.
D.3. Is uranium and nuclear power accepted in Canada? in the World? The population of Canada and of the world is sharply divided on the merits of uranium and nuclear technology. Most Canadians and Americans oppose nuclear power because of the unsolved waste problems and the links to nuclear weapons.
Since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, there hasn't been a single nuclear reactor sold in all of North America as of September 1990. Since the Chernobyl accident in 1986, millions of European and Soviet citizens have turned against nuclear power. Sweden, Austria, Italy and the Phillippines are among the countries which have decided to phase out nuclear power.
When Margaret Thatcher privatized the British electricity industry in 1989, she was unable to persuade any private investors to buy the nuclear plants. The buyers balked when they learned how much money it will cost to dispose of radioactive wastes and to dismantle the radioactive structures when the reactors outlive their usefulness.
Unlike most other countries, France is expanding its nuclear power program -- but the French refuse to separate their civilian nuclear program from their nuclear weapons program.
D.4. To what extent has Canada invested in uranium and nuclear power? During World War II, Canada spent more on the nuclear weapons program than on all other scientific research and development activities. After the war, Ottawa decided to pursue the civilian possibilities of nuclear technology. According to a study prepared for the Economic Council of Canada, close to 18 billions of dollars (in 1990 currency) were spent in developing the nuclear power option.
Federal subsidies continue unabated to the present day. Research funding has consistently been far greater for nuclear power than for all other energy options combined (oil, coal, gas, hydro, energy conservation, and renewable forms of energy), even though nuclear power contributes only 3.3 percent of Canada's delivered energy.
D.5. To what extent has Canada intervened in the uranium market?
In the early 1970's, the Trudeau cabinet was instrumental in establishing an international uranium price-fixing cartel in collaboration with South Africa, Australia, France and the British mining conglomerate Rio Tinto Zinc. The cartel used secret quotas and phony bidding to boost world prices in apparent violation of Canadian and international laws. When prices soared, Canada financed an ambitious uranium reconnaissance program to help mining companies locate and exploit economically recoverable reserves. Meanwhile, Ottawa continued to own and operate the largest uranium refinery in the world (at Port Hope), through Eldorado Nuclear Limited.
Critics of the nuclear industry maintain that the Canadian public would have been better served if the tax money and political will that has been poured into uranium and nuclear power had been channelled into alternative energy technologies instead.
D.6. What is Canada's present status in the international uranium market? The first country ever to mine and refine uranium on a large scale, Canada remains the undisputed world leader in uranium exports.
For about 25 years, beginning in the mid-1950s, the U.S. led the world in production, while Canada led in exports. During the 1980s, Canada has become the world's leading producer, largely because of the extraordinarily rich uranium deposits found in northern Saskatchewan. These ores are much less costly to mine than traditional ores.
The price of uranium has been falling steadily since the late 1970s, just a few years after the dissolution of the uranium cartel. In fact, uranium prices reached an all-time low in 1990. Uranium producers in the U.S.A. and elsewhere, including Elliot Lake, have been forced to shut down, unable to compete with cheap Saskatchewan uranium.
D.7. Why is uranium mining expanding in Canada? It is unclear why Canada is expanding uranium mining activities when the price of uranium is so low and the market is glutted. The investors in Canada's uranium resources are mostly large foreign corporations who are interested in stockpiling Canadian uranium at bargain prices. In the meantime, no money is being put aside to deal with the serious environmental damage done by past uranium mining operations, or to dispose of some hundred million tonnes of radioactive waste left over from abandoned uranium mines and mills.
Special thanks to Dr Gordon Edwards, CCNR (http://ccnr.org/)
for permission to adapt this discussion guide from his original version.