I support the DGR

I would like to express my support for NWMO’s proposal to manage Canada’s used nuclear fuel in a deep geological repository.

In a world of growing concerns around climate change and the significant damage to our environment as a result of carbon, it is crucial that we have electrical sources that are generated in as clean a manner as possible.  On a per capita basis, the science of nuclear power is undeniable:  it produces a great deal of power with a relatively low carbon footprint.  This is born out by nuclear power’s rating of 5 co2eq/kwh.  The next closest is wind, at 11 and wind of course, is intermittent.  Solar, at 45 has a significantly higher number and is, like wind, intermittent.  

Nuclear power, until something else is available, is one of the best methods of producing power, from a carbon perspective.  Therefore, as our province continues to move forward and grow, we will only need to further increase our nuclear power generation.

However, nothing comes without a cost and nuclear has a great cost, in the form of highly radioactive spent fuel.  There can be no doubt that the proper management of this used fuel, for the next several hundred years is crucial and the failure to manage it, is a huge failure on the part of our society and an abrogation of our responsibility to our children and their children.  

Through a decades long process, the NWMO has navigated a process to find a willing host community, in a region of our country, to properly store this used fuel.  I was part of the process for several years and the complaints of those opposed notwithstanding, it was a process that sought answers and looked for consensus.  Furthermore, the DGR concept is one that has had a great deal of science behind it, not only in Canada but in other jurisdictions in the world who have spent fuel.

In this life, there is nothing that is certain.  Science itself, readily admits that 100% is not something that one can guarantee.  It is because of this, not despite this, that the NWMO scientists have created a mult-layer barrier system, to engineer as many redundancies as possible, to have a back-up plan in the event that one barrier, for whatever reason, fails.  This system also recognizes that fact that future scientific discoveries related to spent nuclear fuel may allow it to once again become useable and as such, is retrievable.  

The system also takes into account, possible social changes in the lifespan of the fuel, allowing for stewardship of the used fuel even through significantly changed social conditions, which is essentially a multi-barrier system in a social lens.  

In closing, I will reiterate that nothing is perfect and nothing is 100%.  Used fuel is dangerous and must be dealt with accordingly.  As it stands now, more than 50 years of spent fuel is stored, above ground in facilities that are far less secure than the proposed DGR.  This is neither sustainable, nor is it good stewardship.  Even moderate physical disturbances like an earthquake, or massive storm, threaten the safety of this material.  Placing it in a multi-barrier storage system, 500-700 M below ground, in solid, unmoving rock, even with the challenges of shipping, is at this point, the most responsible manner to deal with the spent nuclear fuel.