Canada's 175-year-long underground burial program for nuclear waste is about to reach a critical juncture, with two communities in Ontario deciding whether or not to accept it.
Source: CTV
By the end of next year, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) plans to siting sites for Canada's deep geological disposal, where millions of spent nuclear fuel will be placed in a network of rooms connected by cave tunnels at depths comparable to the height of the CN Tower – if the process goes as planned.
The two sites are located in Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation-Ignace in northwestern Ontario and Sokin in southern Ontario, respectively. Saugeen Ojibway Nation-South Bruce. Municipalities and First Nations are planning next year's vote, a pivotal moment in a years-long information-gathering process that local residents say has created serious divisions within their communities.
Source: nwmo.ca
Canada has been advancing deep geological repositories for more than 20 years. The NWMO was established by legislation in 2002 and is funded by companies that produce nuclear power and nuclear waste, such as Ontario Power and Hydro-Québec.
Although government officials say they believe at least one community will agree, two vetoes would be a major setback for the $26 billion project.
Lise Morton, vice president of site selection, said, "Eventually, if both regions refuse, then we have to restart site selection throughout Canada. ”
"At that point, we're going to really push this issue to the next generation as a national project. ”
Before NWMO can proceed, both municipalities and Indigenous people in the area where the proposed site is located must confirm their willingness to host the repository.
In South Blues, they plan to hold a referendum at the end of next year. Mayor Mark Goetz believes that if the repository is located there, there is great potential for direct and indirect job creation.
"This is a place where we've been a little bit left out of Ontario's major boom so far," Goetz said. We've seen it spread from Toronto to our west, to the Great Lakes, and we've seen it spread from Toronto to our east...... But we haven't really benefited much from it yet. ”
South Bruce already has a strong nuclear energy base, and the Bruce Power Plant is nearby. Goetz said a renovation project will be phased out around the start of the warehouse project, which will provide opportunities for business people.
But many in the community disagree with the appeal, with Goetz estimating that about 20 percent support the main opposition group, Protection Our Waterways, which has caused "considerable friction."
Source: nwmo.ca
South Bruce was also affected by Walkton, Ontario, where in 2000 seven people died and thousands became ill from drinking contaminated water. Bill Noll, vice president of Protect Our Waterways, said concerns about drinking water lingered long after the tragedy.
Water pollution is also a cause for the residents of Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation to consider carefully. In the '60s, 9,000 kilograms of mercury were dumped at a factory in Dryden as they witnessed members of another Northwest Ontario First Tribe battling generations of mercury poisoning in the English-Wabigoon river system.
Clayton Wetelainen, National Chief of Lake Wabigun Ojibwe, said: "This is evidence that the industry is currently misguided or poorly regulated by the government. ”
Source: nwmo.ca
Ulf Stahmer, senior transport engineer at NWMO, said that inside the planned repository, the radioactive material would be protected by multiple layers and that "everything would have to fail" if contamination were to occur. He doesn't think that's going to happen.
The outermost protective layer is the rock itself, and the reservoir is located in a rock formation about 500 meters underground, chosen for its low permeability. Then there are bentonite blocks, which wrap more layers in it. Stahmer says the clay forms a good seal that naturally attracts radioactive material, so if any radioactive material were to migrate to the other layers below, they would find it difficult to get through the clay. Bentonite also swells, creating pressure that inhibits microbial corrosion.
Bentonite contains a container made of carbon steel and coated with copper to prevent corrosion. Stahmer said the containers have been tested with extrusion of rocks weighing 500 to 700 meters plus two kilometers of ice, designed to simulate future ice ages.
"This container can stay in the repository for a long, long time...... Basically forever," he said.
The used nuclear fuel container will contain a fuel bundle or fuel rod made of a corrosion-resistant zirconium alloy. These packs contain actual fuel particles and look a bit like thick watch batteries. They are made of uranium dioxide powder and baked into ceramics that are not easily soluble in water.
But all the experimentation, planning and modelling have done nothing to alleviate the concerns of critics of the project, whether it's Protection Our Waterways in southern Ontario or We the Nuclear Free North.
"The whole thing was a big experiment," says Brennain Lloyd of the Northern Group.
"There is not a deep geological repository anywhere in the world...... in operation. The NWMO likes to say, 'Well, that's best international practice,' but practice means it's been done before. And without any practice, it means that no one has done it before. ”
Source: nwmo.ca
There are a number of other projects underway internationally, with Finland being one of the furthest. The NWMO recently sent officials and community members to Finland from two possible locations in Ontario to see the repository in person.
NWMO is currently in the process of entering into escrow agreements with affected communities so that people can review the terms before making a decision. The agreements will include mechanisms to change the scope of the project, as the Ontario government aggressively pushes plans for new large nuclear power plants and small modular reactors.
Canada's existing reactors will produce about 5.5 million spent fuel bundles, of which about 3.2 million are already in wet or dry storage at the plant site. Once the spent fuel rods come out of the reactor, they are cooled in a pool for about 10 years before being stored in a thick, concrete-walled vessel lined with steel plates on the outside.
These containers are designed to last for 50 years, so they are not considered a long-term solution.
Douglas Culbert joined the South-Blues Council as a community member 13 years ago and said he has seen a slow shift in support of the repository.
"Some people ask more detailed questions, and some people only think about the security aspect," Culbert says. So now the waste is stored near Lake Huron (Bruce Power Station), so if you put it in the DGR, it will stay away from the lake. Others are thinking about future employment opportunities for children, others are looking at (economic) by-products. ”
Once the location is selected by the end of 2024, this is really just the beginning. The NWMO estimates that it will take about 10 years for regulatory approval and about 10 years for construction. The spent fuel will be loaded over a period of about 50 to 60 years, and then it will enter the "extended monitoring" phase, which will last about 70 years.