Madam Speaker, it is fitting that today of all days we are talking about Bill C-27. The legislation calls for the nuclear utilities to form a waste management organization that would manage and co-ordinate a full range of activities relating to the long term management and disposal of nuclear waste fuel. Discussions are still in progress with the key parties.
Today is also the last sitting day for the premier of Ontario, and we wish him well. He guided the legislation. He brought Ontario back from the precipice of financial ruin to become one of Canada's economic provincial engines. It was due in part to the extra revenues generated that we were able to continue to discuss power and energy generation in Canada.
The use of Candu technology to date has avoided the emissions of more than 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, 11 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 2.5 million tonnes of nitrogen oxide. In addition, no particulates were released and that decreased the amount of smog production.
Candu reactors have proven to be a key part of the clean air solution. Canada's greenhouse gas reduction targets and the public demands for clean air would be impossible to achieve without them. For example, the air quality in the southern regions of Ontario would suffer the greenhouse gas and acid rain emissions without Candu reactors. Emissions would increase by 15% to 20% without the use of nuclear reactors.
Bill C-27 talks about nuclear waste. I will begin by sharing with members how I was introduced to nuclear waste in high school. Our grade 11 teacher brought in a black and white film entitled War Games . This film was our first introduction to nuclear energy. It began with a mushroom cloud and thousands of people suffering from a nuclear blast. Then came the aftermath, the fallout and the radiation. It depicted bodies lining the sidewalks with their necks hanging over the curb. The film was produced in Great Britain and was a re-enactment of a nuclear blast that was used for training purposes during the world wars.
The film showed people suffering from burns and radiation sickness. They were barely alive. A policeman would go from person to person gently lifting them and putting a bullet through their heads. When the film ended the teacher told us how that was caused by waste from nuclear reactors. That was the myth I was introduced to as a high school student.
I want to dispel that myth because it is likely many other people share the same background or vision of what is done with nuclear energy and nuclear waste. After graduating from high school I took chemistry at the University of Western Ontario. One of my former professors, Dr. Puddephatt, was presented with the Governor General's award. Taking chemistry and learning about nuclear technology and nuclear chemistry was informative and eliminated the ignorance around nuclear energy as a whole. I had an advantage that not everybody else had.
Canada has never used nuclear science to create weapons. The spent fuel is disposed of safely in large pools resembling swimming pools. We are currently looking at different technologies to get rid of and to store nuclear waste safely for all time. It has been advantageous to Canadians, since Canada entered the nuclear age.
I would like to clarify the myths and untruths surrounding MOX fuel. MOX is mixed oxide. That is the reason why terrorists would not want to use this form of spent fuel to create a bomb.
It was an honour for Canada to be chosen to do MOX fuel testing. The Chalk River Laboratories in my riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke have tested MOX fuel for years. MOX fuel came from Russia to Canada for test purposes to see whether or not the mixed oxide fuel could be used for positive purposes in Candu reactors.
The spent fuel taken from sites in Russia was put in powder form and made into pellets that would not be conducive to building any type of weaponry. It would be far too expensive for a terrorist to go through the process of putting it back into the form a weapons grade material.
Canada was chosen because of its superb background and insight into nuclear fuel and energy, and because it was a peaceful country. Equal parts of MOX fuel came from both Russia and the United States. The idea was that for every gram of MOX fuel from Russia, a gram of fuel would be taken from the United States. We did not hear too much about that. People got all riled up over the idea of weapons material coming to Canada.
The fuel was brought to Canada under armed guard. The pellets were put into protective coverings and cases which in turn were placed into concrete drums and chained to the trucks.
For Canadians to become exposed, a truck would have to be involved in some kind of collision, the barrels would have to come unchained and break open, the concrete cracked and the rods holding the pellets sawed through. Then somehow they would have to be ground to dust. Even then the level of radiation would be innocuous. For people to suffer exposure to MOX fuel, they would have to crawl on their belly and either lick it up or inhale it. The fears were unfounded. It was the special interest groups that tried to prevent the transportation of this fuel.
The fact that Russia and the United States are transforming their weapons grade material to an innocuous form, possibly for positive use in the form of energy, is a success.
It is a victory. It is a sign of victory for the disarmament of the two major nuclear powers.
Another scare myth that the detractors of nuclear energy like to use is the accident that occurred at Three Mile Island. The accident at Three Mile Island was a result of a water pump failure. The people at Three Mile Island used regular water to cool their fuel, unlike our Candu reactors which use deuterium. We have heavy water coolant encased in pressure tubes so there are many more protective coverings.
As for the incident at Three Mile Island nothing in North America had ever quite occurred like that. They were not sure what the outcome or fallout would be. They took every major precaution but it was actually the overreaction to the incident that incited fear in people.
Once again, whenever the word nuclear or atomic is used, people see a mushroom cloud instead of clean, blue skies and clean water, which is really the ultimate result of this clean, efficient use of energy.
Another example the detractors of nuclear energy use is the accident at Chernobyl. Its reactors use carbon as a moderator as opposed to heavy water. Heavy water is just a regular water molecule with an extra neutron.
Scientists at Chernobyl were doing some experiments and were shutting down the safety mechanisms in order to see how far they could go in terms of not having any deleterious effects. If we contrast that to the Candu reactor, when the safety mechanisms are shut off, the entire nuclear reactor shuts down.
First, what happened in Chernobyl was in part a problem with the entire technology behind their reactors, it being carbon as opposed to something as innocuous as water. Second, scientists were experimenting with something they had no business experimenting with.
Nuclear technology is not used just for power generation. It is also used for health reasons, for scientific technology. Neutron scattering reveals the structures of the biological object such as cell membranes. It allows us to look at the cells in our body without changing any part of it, without having to take an x-ray which can damage the cells or without having to form it into a crystalline form. By using that we can examine how viruses work and develop cures and treatments for diseases that inundate society right now.
Part of the price we pay for progress in a society is an increasing variety of the waste generated by numerous industrial activities. Since many of these wastes have the potential of harming us and harming the environment, they must be carefully managed and controlled, which is the reason for Bill C-27.
The nuclear power generation stations produce wastes that are radioactive. Canada's nuclear industry has developed the technologies to safely manage, control and reduce the waste overall.
Two types of radioactive waste materials are produced in the day to day operation of Canada's nuclear reactors. There are the low level radioactive waste materials, such as mops, plastic sheeting and protective clothing which are compacted, stored and monitored in concrete trenches in or above concrete buildings. They only represent a small portion, maybe 1%, of the radioactive waste. The other 99% of the radioactive waste is in the form of the high level waste and it is the spent fuel.
What is radioactive used fuel? During the normal operation of a Canadian nuclear reactor, uranium fuel formed into bundles is used to create the nuclear reaction needed to generate the heat which produces the steam used to turn the turbines that generate electricity. Because the neutrons in the fuel rods travel so fast, we have to use a moderator to slow them down so that we can actually get the fission reaction. To get a fission reaction going is quite a feat of science.
After a period of about a year and a half in the reactor, the fuel bundles must be replaced with new ones containing a fresh supply of uranium. Upon removal from the nuclear reactor, the used fuel bundle is highly radioactive and therefore must be isolated from the environment. The used fuel bundles are removed from the nuclear reactor by special machines and are transferred to storage bays within the nuclear power station. These storage bays look very much like large swimming pools. The water in these pools cools the used fuel bundles and shields people from the radioactivity.
How much fuel is there? Through normal operation, an average 600 megawatt Candu nuclear reactor produces about 20 cubic metres of used fuel bundles per year. The bundles in storage in Canada at the end of 1990 for all nuclear generators for one year in Canada would fill one Olympic size swimming pool. All the used fuel is safely and economically stored on site. The bundles in storage for all time in Canada at the end of 1987 would have filled an ordinary skating rink.
How safe is the storage of used fuel? Radioactive used fuel has been stored in this way for more than 30 years, so it has been tested and can be safely stored this way for a much longer period. Radioactivity in the fuel bundle decreases with time. For example, used fuel is 100 times less radioactive after one year and 1,000 times less radioactive after five years. Most of this radioactivity is completely gone within 500 years.
After the used fuel bundles have been stored in water for five years, they no longer require as much cooling and can be transferred to dry storage. The Canadian designed, thick walled concrete storage canisters have been used in Canada for many years. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, our federal crown corporation, has established an underground research laboratory in the Canadian Shield where it studies and develops the technology required for the safe and permanent disposal of our radioactive waste.
Canada's nuclear industry takes its responsibility for the management of radioactive waste seriously. That is why it is in favour of taking responsibility by being an active participant in a waste management organization.
In addition to the clean use and helping to achieve Kyoto protocol goals, whether or not we sign on as active participants, to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions is still a goal we would attempt to achieve. We have the science involved behind the neutron scattering, a positive side asset to the nuclear power itself.
In addition to examining the cells of our body without interfering with or hurting them in any way, we are able to examine other materials as well. It is through the use of new technology and new science that we will be able to provide the next generation with high tech knowledge and many more jobs to come.