In fact, it is because there are no intermediate level waste storage facilities that we are forced to pour concrete over the old NPD plant and Canada's first CANDU nuclear reactor. Not only is there no place to store the waste, but there are no plans to even create such storage facilities.
Canada has been using nuclear power for 75 years, but it has no permanent storage facility, not for low-level waste, not for intermediate-level waste, and not for high-level waste. Storage is always temporary. The lack of solutions means that we have to delay the dismantling of the plants, the dismantling of the facilities.
Changes to definitions were also discussed. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission have been saying all along that the future waste management facility near the surface of Chalk River will be used to store intermediate level waste. In fact, 98% of the radioactivity in this waste mound comes from cobalt‑60. This radioactive material certainly does not fall into the low-level waste category.
The definitions have been completely changed along the way. As several speakers have mentioned, cobalt‑60 is wonderful. Cobalt‑60 kills microbes, sterilizes laboratory instruments and destroys cancer cells. However, it is also very dangerous because it is highly radioactive. It only takes two kilos of cobalt‑60 to produce 98% of the radioactivity in the dump. There will be about 1,500,000 tonnes of radioactive waste. So this is highly radioactive waste.
They say there's only going to be low-level waste, but the public is being lied to. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has a legal responsibility to provide Canadians with credible and unbiased information, but it is complicit in this false information.