An Ontario Power Generation update to Kincardine Council Wednesday night confirms the cost and danger of transporting radioactive waste off site from Bruce Power is too high to consider any other sites for a Deep Geologic Repository.
The Environment Minister had asked OPG to look at alternate sites before she would rule on plans to build a Deep Geologic Repository for low and medium level nuclear waste at the Bruce Power site.
“We found that moving it (DGR) to another site would involve additional environmental impacts, additional costs up to $2.5-billion and it would change the timeline so we’re looking at decades longer,” says Kevin Powers, OPG’s director of nuclear public affairs.
As for the possibility of two DGR’s, Powers says there are a number of reasons behind that.
“The main reason is that as a result of regulation, the Federal Government is responsible for all used (nuclear) fuel across Canada while producers of electricity are responsible for the low and intermediate level (nuclear) waste that they produce,” adds Powers.
He says they are on track with three studies requested by the Federal Government in February, including an update of the cumulative effects analysis of having two DGR’s within the same region.
“We found that having two sites within the same geographic area that there would actually be no cumulative effects,” notes Powers.
In the meantime, Nuclear Waste Management has plans to transport the high level nuclear fuel currently stored in Kincardine off site to a second Deep Geologic Repository location that has yet to be selected.
OPG Manager, Corporate Relations and Communications , Bruce County, Fred Kuntz, says there is a false impression that OPG proposes to bury "buckets and mops" in a DGR. He says the OPG does not store such items in the medium term right now. He explaines while such waste from Ontario's nuclear plants is classified as "low and intermediate level waste" (L&ILW), items such as "buckets and mops" or gloves and work clothes are actually incinerated to significantly reduce the volume. What remains is ash, and that is what is stored in the longer term. Besides incinerator ash, other types of L&ILW include spent filters, resins and metallic components. Meanwhile, high-level waste (which would not go into the OPG DGR) consists of spent fuel.
~ With files from Craig Power