Nuclear industry grasps at anti-global warming mantle

Climate change spin the latest survival gambit of desperate nuclear industry

By: Suzanne Elston

  With prospects for nuclear power in deep trouble, industry spin doctors are aggressively promoting a new PR theme. Nuclear power - the CANDU reactor in particular - is the answer to global warming, they say. Despite repeated public relations setbacks, including a lobby effort so ill-conceived it caused the opposite reaction to that intended, the industry's flacks continue to attract more than their share of media attention.
  Public opinion is critical to the survival of Canada's nuclear industry, which is subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer to the tune of $100 million annually. Yes, despite massive subsidies, there have been no new nuclear plants ordered in Canada since 1974.
 

Within a few years, the nuclear debate will be how fast old reactors should be shut down, not whether new reactors should be built

  The nuclear industry appears to have a bleak future. "Within the next two years nuclear power will reach its world-wide historical peak of production," says nuclear researcher David Martin of the Sierra Club of Canada. "The nuclear debate will no longer be whether new reactors should be built, but how fast old reactors should be shut down."
  The last of four reactors at the Darlington facility in Ontario began operation in 1993, and international sales have dwindled to a trickle. In the United Sates, the last reactor that was successfully completed was ordered in 1973.
  Public support for nuclear power, which was tenuous at best, took a nosedive after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Each report out of the Ukraine about long-term health effects and dramatic increases in cancer rates has further eroded public confidence in nuclear power. In Ontario, shutdowns at the Bruce and Pickering nuclear stations and related safety concerns have driven public opinion to an all-time low.
  Costs provided yet more embarrassment. Before it was dismantled last year, Ontario Hydro had an estimated debt of $38.5 billion. Much of that were blamed on cost overruns and repairs at the province's 20 nuclear reactors. Some energy critics say that the entire move toward de-regulation and restructuring of Ontario utility sector was a thinly veiled attempt to rescue the province from Hydro's debt.
  The nuclear industry has been fighting back to try to regain public support and with it, more funding. Last year the Canadian Nuclear Association moved its head office to Ottawa last year, hoping to facilitate the association's government lobbying activities, according to its former president Tom Gorman.
  The move backfired. Backlash was immediate. Natural Resources Canada and the Department of Foreign Affairs withdrew their memberships from the organization. Both departments had maintained memberships in the CNA to ensure that they had ready access to information about the industry ( - ) not to be part of a lobby group.
 

To suggest nuclear power is the only solution to global warming is like going on heroin to treat a nicotine addiction

  Down but not out, the nuclear industry has attempted to position itself as the only viable alternative to coal- and oil-powered generation, two major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. When asked about the new positioning, Colin Hunt, policy director for the Canadian Nuclear Association - the nuclear industry's lobby group - said "Our industry and our association does not take a position on the science of global warming." He couldn't seem to avoid adding his standard sales pitch though: "If you want to avoid carbon dioxide emissions, we have a technology that can avoid them."
  In recent months, nuclear lobbyists have paid visits to editorial boards of Canada's major papers, resulting in positive editorials and columns such as an op ed in the Globe and Mail by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited engineer Donald Jones. "It's interesting that the environmentalists worry about the hypothetical impact of plutonium on future generations thousands of years from now," he wrote, "when we may not even make it through the next few hundred years if we don't get started on greenhouse gas mitigation."
  David Martin dismisses Jones' comments. "The nuclear industry would like to pretend nuclear power is a form of sustainable energy development, but it's not." Martin cites problems with radioactive waste and pollution as examples of why nuclear power isn't an option.
  Paul Gunter, Director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for the U.S. Nuclear Information Resources Service agrees. "To suggest that nuclear power is the only solution to global warming is like to going to your doctor for a nicotine addiction and being prescribed heroin as an alternative."
  The international community isn't buying the global warming argument either. In 1999, federal Environment Minister David Anderson was soundly criticized by other environment ministers for suggesting that Canada should get credit for selling nuclear power plants to developing countries because they don't produce any greenhouse gases. Despite the international nuclear establishment's lobbying, nuclear power was rejected by conference president Jan Pronk at the climate change talks in The Hague in November 2000.
  Perhaps the issue is credibility. "The clean air myth is yet another propaganda ploy from an industry that has repeatedly lied to us over the decades," said Gunter. He says that the public has long ago lost confidence in an industry that promised "...power too cheap to meter."

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