On nuclear testing

One of the obvious questions facing Saskatchewan voters in the lead up to this fall's election is that of how much credit (if any) Brad Wall and his government should be able to claim for economic gains based mostly on favourable resource prices. So let's take a look at a couple of ways of testing whether the Sask Party has had anything at all to do with Saskatchewan's success.

For now, let's consider how Wall has done when it comes to the single industry that his government has made its top priority from day one.

In its 2007 platform, the Sask Party singled out uranium development as its most-touted industry. It followed that up by paying $3 million to have the sector develop a wish list as to how the province could hand it money and resources. And after public consultations pointed out plenty of concerns with those plans, it extended a middle finger to the citizens who disagreed with the push for nuclear development.

So has that willingness to ignore public opinion in favour of what business wants translated into economic gains?

Well, uranium exploration and development...is down by half from the level it reached under the NDP (and in the final year before the Sask Party's Uranium Development Partnership started defining the industry's future).

The Sask Party was reluctantly forced to put off nuclear power for now - though I'm sure we can count on a second term seeing some effort to dust off Bruce Power's proposal to contract out another chunk of Saskatchewan's power needs. And its efforts to lobby the Harper Cons for an isotope reactor were soundly rejected.

So after four years under Brad Wall's watch, the industry he singled out for its private-sector growth potential has seen somewhere between zero and negative progress - at least other than a smattering of publicly-funded research projects.

Which should make it glaringly clear that what's going right for Saskatchewan at the moment has precious little to do with anything the Sask Party has done.

Update: See also (via Jaime Garcia).

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Andrew Jackson points out and sums up a Statistics Canada study showing how much possible revenue is lost to the underground economy:

Statscan have produced interesting and important new estimates of the upper bound size of the “underground” or “non observed” economy, putting it at a seemingly modest 2.2% of GDP in 2008. (Some of this is already included in GDP which is adjusted to take into account some hidden and unreported economic activity.)
...
Overall, Statscan estimates that corporations made as much as $17 Billion on underground activity in 2008, about half of which was in the construction sector.

Unincorporated businesses make up a much smaller share of the economy but are much more likely to skim and not report income. The estimated maximum is $10 Billion, about one half of which comes from skimming. Underground construction and contraband sales of alcohol and tobacco also loom large for this sector.

Not to make too one-sided a moral story of it, consumers are clearly complicit in a great deal of underground economy activity, getting goods and services at lower prices than in the formal, taxed economy. The underground economy is strongest in construction and in sales of tobacco, alcohol, and domestic and child care services.

Still, you can’t help but think that more stringent auditing of businesses by the tax authorities could turn up quite a useful amount of extra revenue if there is up to $27 Billion of under and unreported business income sitting on the table.

- Greg Weston sums up the Cons' AECL giveaway:

The federal government's long-awaited deal to sell off its money-losing nuclear reactor business is more like a perpetual partnership than a sale, leaving Canadian taxpayers stuck with the fiscal fall-out for years to come.

The government-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. has announced it has finally reached a tentative deal to sell its commercial reactor development and repair division to Quebec-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.

The Montreal-based company was the only suitor in the world left at the negotiating table, a fact that helps to explain why the government is effectively paying SNC-Lavalin to take over the Crown corporation.

Under the deal, SNC will pay a paltry $15 million for AECL's nuclear reactor division, plus some as yet undisclosed "royalties" on future reactor sales.

In return, the government will give SNC up to $75 million toward the development of the next generation of AECL's once internationally successful Candu reactors.

In other words, Canadian taxpayers are giving the Quebec company $60 million to take AECL off their hands.
...
Most of AECL's massive past liabilities and a lot of the financial risks going forward will remain exactly where they have always been — on taxpayers.

For instance, SNC-Lavalin will complete the current refurbishments of four reactor projects, but only "through subcontract service agreements with the government of Canada."

Translation: SNC-Lavalin will get paid for doing the work, but taxpayers will likely be on the hook for massive cost overruns and potential lawsuits that could run into the billions of dollars.
...
AECL's commercial partner in (the Chalk River) snafu, MDS Nordion, is now suing the federal agency for $1.6 billion in damages.

Of course, if putting AECL under private-sector management successfully turns the nuclear reactor company into a commercial powerhouse, the federal government could ultimately reap a windfall in royalties from the sales of CANDU nukes the world over.

The fact the deal was announced by the government on the eve of summer doldrums suggests even the new owners of AECL aren't exactly overwhelmed with optimism.

- Dan runs the numbers on how a merged NDP/Liberal party might have affected this year's election - with the results showing that even under highly optimistic assumptions, the result would have been little different from the actual outcome. Which should offer reason for both parties to agree that they're best off using their time and energy to challenge the Cons, not to try to fuse two substantially different party formations.

- And finally: lest there was any doubt, no, a declaration that the Cons might eventually release notice of future regulations which could someday be adapted to apply to oil sands production isn't a departure from their usual plan to delay, distract and do nothing on climate change.

On selloffs

Sure, it takes some effort to pull a sweetheart deal out of the wreckage of AECL. But we probably shouldn't be surprised that the Cons seem to have pulled off the feat:

Versant Partners analyst Neil Linsdell told CBC News there's still a market for the existing reliable Candu technology in the developing world.

"SNC is really a great partner for [Ottawa] because of their international expertise in working with emerging economies," he said before the sale was officially announced. [Ed. note: no, this is not comforting.]

Even excluding any new sales, the servicing side of AECL's reactor business is profitable, Linsdell said. "The service business is going to be a good one," he said. "SNC is going to get a good deal out of this thing."

And all this while the Cons commit to spending five times more to support SNC Lavalin's newly-severed business than they'll recoup from the sale price.

Which of course raises the question: why in the world would the Cons be willing to take virtually nothing in exchange for a genuinely profitable part of AECL, while continuing to saddle the public with all of its liabilities?

Yes, that's a rhetorical question. And I suppose the more important one is: why are the Cons still in a position to hand out goodies to the corporate sector?

On insecure supplies

AECL CEO Hugh McDiarmid then:

“Returning the NRU to service to support the production of medical isotopes for Canadian patients and healthcare practitioners is our primary objective”, said AECL’s President and CEO Hugh MacDiarmid. “We have a dedicated team working around the clock to bring the NRU back to operation as quickly and as safely as possible. However, it is a complex task with many variables”, he said.

AECL CEO Hugh McDiarmid now:

Federal Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis, who is responsible for the nuclear file, referred questions to AECL, whose CEO acknowledged that there is no requirement that any of the medical isotopes produced at Chalk River be reserved for Canadian patients.

“There never has been” the requirement to supply Canadians with isotopes from the NRU, AECL chief executive Hugh MacDiarmid said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

The Sask Party Uranium Response: "We Don't Care What You Think"

I've posted previously about the Sask Party's latest declaration of its intention to push nuclear development regardless of what Saskatchewan's citizens might think. But it's worth looking in somewhat more detail at just how thoroughly the Wall government has rejected the public's input into nuclear policy. So let's compare the findings of Dan Perrins' consultation report to the Sask Party's response.

Here are Perrins' findings on uranium exploration and mining:

There were 519 responses that dealt specifically with the province’s approach to the exploration and mining of uranium. Nearly three-quarters (70%, n=364) were against the exploration and mining of uranium, while one-quarter (25%, n=128) were supportive (see Figure 44). An additional 5% (n=27) either did not know and wanted more information, or did not state whether they were opposed or supportive.
...
More specifically, in terms of those opposed to exploration and mining, most (41%, n=215) said that they were opposed to any further expansion of exploration and mining of uranium.

Which naturally leads to the following response from the Wall government on the subject:

The government’s general strategic direction on uranium includes...(a)ctively supporting uranium mining and exploration...

(The government) will examine its program incentives and competitiveness of its royalties, work with the federal government on a more thorough review of licence applications and on implementation of the recommendations of the federal competition policy review panel. It will work with industry on the infrastructure needed for new mine development.

So the public says "stop", the Sask Party's response is "barge ahead". Which of course looks to be a common theme when it comes to Wall's nuclear agenda.

Nuclear research and isotope production was the closest category in Perrins' review, but still one where opposition to nuclear development trumped support:

About four in ten (42%, n=174) responses opposed uranium research, training, and development. However, one-third of responses (32%, n=136) were in favour of going ahead with further uranium or nuclear research, training, and development, as shown in Figure 54. Another sizable number of responses (19%, n=81) spoke directly to the creation of isotopes for medical purposes, either without specifying how they would be created or by saying they wanted to see isotopes produced without nuclear fission. A small number of responses (2%, n=9) were against the production of medical isotopes for any reason.

But needless to say, the Sask Party decided to respond to a clear split in public opinion by utterly ignoring one side of the question:

The government’s general strategic direction on uranium includes...(e)ncouraging investment in nuclear research, development and training opportunities, specifically in the areas of mining, neutron science, isotopes, small scale reactor design, and enrichment...

The government...(supports) the concept of a nuclear research centre of excellence and expanded mining and exploration programs at academic institutions. It supports determining investment priorities in targeted areas of nuclear research and in partnering with the federal government on a research reactor that would produce medical isotopes.

In contrast, the question of nuclear waste and storage was one where a massive majority of Saskatchewanians interested in the issue registered their disapproval:

Approximately 900 responses dealt with nuclear waste disposal and storage, which includes references to used fuel or nuclear waste. The majority of these responses (86%, n=769) from people participating in the consultation process were strongly against nuclear waste disposal and storage in Saskatchewan, as shown in Figure 21. However, some responses (12%, n=103) did support waste disposal and storage in Saskatchewan.

Which of course means that the Wall government...wants to encourage future development as soon as anybody's willing to suggest it, contrary to the views of six out of every seven people who have an opinion about it:

The government’s general strategic direction on uranium includes...reserving decisions on supporting Saskatchewan communities interested in
hosting nuclear waste management facilities to when such proposals are advanced in a regulatory process...

And then there's the area most discussed by Saskatchewan citizens in making their submissions to Perrins:

Just over 1,400 responses dealt specifically with nuclear power generation in the province. Most petitions and form letters received centred on this area.

Of these 1,401 responses, 84% (n=1,183) were generally against nuclear power generation for the province, whether that included power generation for export or not (as seen in Figure 5). Many indicated that they did not want a nuclear power plant in their area of the province. Over one in ten (14%, n=190) were in favour of nuclear power, and 2% (n=28) of responses were either not given or expressed indecision.

But naturally, the Sask Party has responded to that red light on nuclear power by telling SaskPower to push ahead:

The government’s general strategic direction on uranium includes...(d)irecting SaskPower to continue including nuclear power in the range of sustainable energy options available for additional baseload generation capacity in the medium and long term after 2020.

So never mind that a strong majority of Saskatchewan citizens with any interest in nuclear issues at all took the time to express their disagreement with nuclear power. Having received about as compelling a public statement of objection as one could possibly imagine, their reaction has been...to tell those who made their views known that they can go pound sand, as they'll be ordering SaskPower to ignore the will of the people.

Of course, there are other serious issues with how the Sask Party is handling the nuclear issue. As a noteworthy example, having tied Perrins' hands in the type of recommendations he was allowed to make, they're now trying to frame public debate around the very UDP recommendations which were called into question by the public's input.

But most glaring problem is the fact that the Wall government has just declared that it couldn't care less what the public thinks about nuclear development. And as long as the public's views are being tossed out the window so casually, there's plenty of reason for concern that the public's interests will fare no better in Wall's decision-making.

Someday, this could all be ours...

The Leader-Post:

Nuclear facilities and power plants are contaminating local Canadian food and water with radioactive waste that increases risks of cancer and birth defects, says a new report to be released on Friday.

The report, Tritium on Tap, produced by the Sierra Club of Canada, warned that radioactive emissions from various nuclear plants across the country have more than doubled over the past decade. The figures were based on statistics compiled by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission which measured pollution coming from the plants.

Although Canadian guidelines have suggested that the existing levels of tritium in the water are safe, the report cites recent peer-reviewed studies, including a recent review by the UK’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters, that suggest the opposite.
...
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited has confirmed a “controlled release” of tritium into the Ottawa River from December 2008 to February 2009 but said this leak did not pose any risk to the environment because it respected the existing regulations. However, the Sierra Club said tests of the water done by a lab at the University of Waterloo revealed tritium levels that were five times higher than in water at other locations without any nearby nuclear plants.

On rush jobs

Yessiree, this certainly inspires nothing but confidence as to how much thought has gone into the Wall government's efforts to slap together a research/isotope reactor in Saskatoon:

A recent access to information request from The StarPhoenix for the minutes of the meetings of the working group aiming to bring a research nuclear reactor to Saskatoon received this response: They don't exist.

"No minutes were recorded at the meetings of the Nuclear Centre Working Group, as a result of the significant time pressures to create and submit the proposal on medical isotope production," reads a letter sent from Crown Investments Corp.

Messages received

While we're on the subject of public input from concerned Saskatchewan citizens, it's worth noting that there still seems to be some information available for public release from this summer's uranium consultation process. While Dan Perrins' report referenced thousands of submissions (most of them against nuclear development), it appears that only a few dozen organizational submissions along with full meeting recordings and notes have been released in full. And as far as I can tell, that leaves hundreds of written and electronic submissions getting included only in Perrins' statistical analysis rather than being made available for public debate.

So it's worth asking: is there any plan in the works to make the balance of the submissions public (with personal information removed of course) to ensure that all of the ideas counted by Perrins are also available for public review? And if not, might a FOIP request be in order?

On closed minds

Shorter corporate Saskatchewan on the province's overwhelming rejection of nuclear development through the UDP consultation process:

If the lowly general public has the nerve to disagree with what we've heard in our well-sealed echo chamber, that just proves that it isn't worth listening to.

The reviews are in

Murray Mandryk:

For however much Dan Perrins's report on the Uranium Development Partnership's (UDP) public consultation did or didn't reflect Saskatchewan's true feelings on nuclear development, one thing should be learned from this process.

Don't let Energy Minister Bill Boyd teach you how to drive.
...
(I)t might have been Boyd's motoring analogy that was the real car wreck Tuesday. To be begin with, a yellow light doesn't mean "proceed with caution". It means "prepare to stop". (Let us all hope and pray that Premier Brad Wall opts for the safer option of teaching his own kids to drive on the province's back roads, rather than assign the task to Boyd).

Second, even "prepare to stop" would be an exceedingly understated interpretation of the submissions delivered to Perrins that screamed at the government to slam on the brakes.

Sask Party Plans to Run a Red Light

Bill Boyd desperately wants to pretend that Dan Perrins' report on public opinions about uranium development in Saskatchewan was anything but a clear repudiation of the Wall government's determination to build a nuke-dependent Saskatchewan:

"When I look at this report, it's neither a green light nor a red light for future uranium development," said Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd in a news release.

"It's more like a yellow light — take any next steps with caution. Saskatchewan people are saying — take your time, get it right, consider all the options. I think that's wise counsel."

So what kind of language does Boyd consider to be an instruction to keep forcing nuclear development on the province? Let's take a look at some highlights from the report...

Theme 1: Opposition to Nuclear Power Generation
Overall, while there is some support for nuclear power generation, the overwhelming response to this public consultation was that nuclear power generation should not be a choice for Saskatchewan, whether it is intended to serve the needs of Saskatchewan people only, or for a combination of Saskatchewan people and other provinces or states.

Now, it may be worth following up to determine whether Boyd was sheltered from the actual outcome of the consultations in order to be able to make that kind of statement with a straight face. But it's hard to see how a document that explicitly says the overwhelming response wants to rule out nuclear development can be taken as evidence that it should be pursued by anybody who isn't either utterly clueless, or determinedly dishonest.

What about the other pieces of the Wall government's nuclear agenda? The other live issue is Wall's proposal to slap up a reactor to produce nuclear isotopes - but that too was rejected by a wide margin as citizens pointed out that isotopes can be generated through other means:

Most people were opposed to uranium research, development, and training. They pointed to opportunities in alternative energies, to the desire to avoid non-green technologies including uranium, and to the costs of doing research (including opportunity costs) in this field.

People were interested in the topic of medical isotopes and expressed a need for more information on isotope production and use. Responses were divided on this issue. In fact, many people who expressed support for the production of medical isotopes stipulated it should occur without the use of nuclear fission.

In fact, exactly twice as many respondents expressed support for producing isotopes by means other than fission than for producing isotopes generally (a margin of 54-27) - reflecting the greater number of opponents than supporters on the "research/isotope" section in general.

Perhaps most interesting, though, is Perrins' chart of the common themes within submissions received (page 32 of the report). Of the 2,263 submissions, well over 60% (1401 in total) set out opposition to nuclear power [see update below], with the next most common themes being concern about health, safety and the environment; opposition to nuclear waste storage; concern about the costs of uranium development; support for renewal energy sources; concern about the UDP report itself; and opposition to mining and exploration.

That was the last theme listed with the total number of mentions at 519. But Perrins' text includes nine more themes presumably based on the same type of ranking process, and none of those were actually supportive of nuclear development either.

That's particularly noteworthy in light of the best efforts of the business community to hijack the process before throwing a tantrum over the fact that people were actually being heard. Indeed, I'm surprised that there wasn't enough of an astroturfing effort to at least push some nuclear propaganda into the top 16 messages taken from the consultation process.

But in the final result, it's hard to imagine the consultation process producing a more clear signal to the Sask Party that they need to stop trying to foist the nuclear industry on Saskatchewan. And the fact that they're so blatantly ignoring what Saskatchewan's citizens have had to say should speak volumes as to how likely they are to "get it right" given any opening to pursue their nuclear agenda.

Update/correction: On further review, I note that the numbers listed within each theme in Perrins' summary don't necessarily fit the heading: for example, the 1,401 listed under "opposition to nuclear power" actually include submissions in favour of nuclear power. But the strength of opposition to nuclear power is even more striking when that breakdown (84%-14% within the 1,401) is taken into consideration: an absolute majority of all submissions made stated their opposition to nuclear power, while a paltry 8% offered support for it.

The reviews are in

Jim Harding:

If former federal governments had invested in non-reactor technologies that weren't designed for nuclear weapons and adapted for nuclear power, we could have avoided this isotope shortage. If the risks of low level radiation, in medicine as well as along the nuclear fuel chain, weren't so downplayed to try to make nuclear power more palatable, we might also have become less dependent on nuclear medicine.

So let's get it right this time round. Wall's government should stop playing politics with nuclear medicine.

On impact assessments

In earlier posts I've discussed a few of the major problems with the Sask Party's isotope reactor proposal and associated posturing. But let's take a closer look at the proposal to see just how bizarre the Sask Party's plan seems to be.

For consistency's sake, the below chart lists the top-end estimated numbers for both estimated costs and economic impacts (GDP and labour income) as presented by the Sask Party's proposal:

Phase	Costs	Economic Impact	Difference
Development/Construction	$750 million	$663 million	$87 million
Operation (annual)	$70 million	$65 million	$5 million

So what do those numbers tell us? By way of comparison, consider what would happen if Brad Wall's Sask Party government was obsessed with, let's say, dirt rather than uranium.

Presumably the Sask Party's focus on megaprojects would lead it to build the Brad Wall Centre of Excellence in Soil Relocation, consisting of paying $750 million to dig a giant pit and $70 million in annual operating costs to move dirt around. And by the Sask Party's method of counting "economic impact", that would result in a productive activity, as every dollar put into each of those tasks would be measured as GDP or labour income.

Which would seem to be a reasonable baseline result for a pure make-work project: every dollar spent would result in exactly one dollar of economic activity, with no expectation of adding any value to the economy.

Now, nobody figures to advocate for the construction of a giant pit anytime soon. And the actual public policy choices figure to involve areas like social housing, child care, etc. where the up-front economic activity generated by government funding would make for only a small part of the ultimate benefit.

But what's remarkable is that by the Sask Party's own standards, even the giant dirt pit would actually result in a more efficient means of turning government funding into economic impact.

After all, unlike any sane policy proposal, the isotope reactor proposal actually seems to be designed to hemorrhage money. By the numbers in the Sask Party's proposal, $87 million in construction costs and $5 million in annual operating costs are planned to vanish into thin air, being presented as costs in excess of any associated benefit.

But what about the perceived benefits of building an isotope reactor beyond GDP and wages? One would expect the panel responsible for presenting the province's bid to have at least some idea how to assign a value to the factors which are supposed to justify spending millions of dollars of public money. But one would be entirely wrong in that expectation.

Instead, the other "impacts and expected outcomes" are presented solely as theoretical and unquantified concepts. So as far as anybody has bothered to measure or even plausibly estimate the outcomes, the Sask Party is eager to see hundreds of millions of dollars vanish. (And never mind the total cost of the project - even the money which Wall wants to make disappear would exceed the actual cost of the two other Western Canadian proposals to generate isotopes.)

Of course, it's worth granting as noted by Lee Harding that it isn't any better to overestimate the perceived economic impact of a particular action. But when even a project proposal involves government actors paying a tithe of hundreds of millions of dollars to we're not sure who for the privilege of turning their money into economic activity, that should be an obvious signal that the project in question doesn't pass the laugh test.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

On reactions

On their face, the caveats and cost-sharing provisions in Sask Party's nuclear isotope reactor proposal could have been taken to reflect at least some acknowledgment that it wouldn't be a great idea for the province to say "cost and public opinion be damned!" in pushing ahead. But Bill Boyd has set the record straight, declaring that the Sask Party will be happy to funnel more money in and trying to minimize any possibility that public concerns might be worth addressing.

Here's Boyd's stunningly ill-advised comment on the question of cost:

Bill Boyd, Energy and Resources Minister in the Saskatchewan Party government, acknowledged to reporters that the provincial government itself could end up carrying more than the funding share outlined in the proposal submitted to the federal government last week and made public Tuesday.

Under the plan put forward by the U of S and the province, the federal government would pick up 75 per cent of the construction costs, with the province paying for the remainder. Saskatchewan also wants the federal government to pay 60 per cent of the operating costs, with the province covering 25 per cent and the rest coming from isotope sales and industrial science.

“I suppose that those are negotiable items that the federal government might want to negotiate. We think they are good starting points,” Boyd said at the legislature.

“They are our proposal going forward. The federal government may have some different ideas with regard to cost-sharing for these types of things.”

Boyd did say the project would be unlikely to go ahead without a significant financial commitment from the federal government.

So in effect, rather than reflecting a serious allocation of costs, the numbers in the proposal don't appear to be much more than a cap on what the federal government might be called on to contribute. And with Boyd publicly stating that the province is willing to put in more money if the federal government would like to spend less (and do we seriously need to ask whether that might be the case?), it's painfully clear that the final result won't be anything like the current proposal.

So what about Boyd's concurrent suggestion that the province would require a "significant financial commitment" from the federal government? On its face, the phrase is vague enough to allow for almost any federal contribution to be spun as being sufficient. But the context is even worse than the lack of content: given that one of the flimsy rationales for building a reactor in Saskatchewan is supposed to be the support of the provincial government, does anybody think the Sask Party would have a reasonable response to a federal suggestion that the proposed provincial share of the cost should be seen as meeting the standard? That would leave the province on the hook for $500 million-plus during construction and $40 million-plus during operation - which presumably serves the Sask Party's purpose of tying the hands of future provincial governments, but can't be seen as a plus for anybody else.

Meanwhile, Boyd's take on the proposal also involves both trying to predetermine the outcome of the UDP consultation process, and declaring that the Sask Party will ignore it if it doesn't like the results:

If the report of Dan Perrins, who chaired the public consultations, puts forward that public opinion is dead-set against a research reactor, it could derail the government’s proposal, said Boyd.

He added that he does not expect that to be the case, given the submissions in public hearings, but said that the public debate over the issue won’t necessarily be ended by Perrins’ report.

In case it wasn't clear enough how disingenuous the latter statement is, remember that the UDP hearings didn't often discuss an isotope reactor in detail precisely because the UDP report itself didn't consider an isotope reactor to be a high priority. In fact, it was only after the public hearings were done with that Wall declared that he wanted to push ahead with an isotope reactor. Which means that Boyd's attempt to paint the fact that large crowds turned up at the public meetings to oppose a reactor for power generation as support for an isotope reactor looks to be at best nonsensical, and at worst the height of dishonesty.

But then, Boyd apparently recognizes that there was some time after an isotope reactor became a topic of public conversation in which participants were able to make their concerns known. Hence his last attempt to hedge his bets by declaring that if the public managed to dodge his government's misdirection to make its concerns clear during the consultation process, the Sask Party still won't take that as ending its efforts to keep foisting nuclear development on the province.

Fortunately, there's still reason to hope that the federal government will actually compare the price tags of the different proposed projects and correctly conclude that the Sask Party's makes absolutely no sense based on the expected return on investment (which I'll deal with further in another post). But the fact that the Sask Party's point man on nuclear development doesn't seem to care about the cost involved and is eager to distort the public input received so far should signal that we still shouldn't expect any reasonable decision-making from within Wall's government.

An inefficient proposal

There's plenty worth dissecting in the Wall government's latest attempt (warning: PDF) to sell anything they can think of with the word "nuclear" in the title. But here are a couple of take-away points from the isotope reactor proposal.

In terms of cost, the proposal looks to be completely out of whack with every other suggested alternative for isotope production. While the accelerator proposals from UBC and Manitoba have put forward costs in the range of $35-$50 million to get to actual isotope production, the Saskatchewan proposal involves spending roughly that much in a "development" phase before construction even begins - and 10 to 15 times as much to actually get a reactor running (without even considering how to get any isotopes processed).

Likewise, the timelines involved suggest that the Saskatchewan proposal is by far the worst available option out of the ones presented in western Canada: a 2016 start time, compared to 2012 or sooner for the other possibilities. Though that may be good news to the extent that it means the province won't be following Brad Wall's previous musings about slapping a nuclear reactor together in two years.

Of course, the proposal tries to get around its frailties compared to other alternatives by suggesting that it would create only a complementary source of isotopes. But there's little apparent reason why the federal government should be looking to pay far more for a far slower option. And the fact that Wall and his government are willing to burn more money as part of a relatively small provincial share under its proposal than it would cost to put the B.C. and Manitoba proposals into effect combined should serve as a fairly clear signal that the Sask Party's nuclear agenda has nothing at all to do with what's best for the province.

Someday, this could all be ours

The latest from Chalk River:

Radioactive water has stopped leaking from the nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ont., ending two months of low-level radiation seeping into the atmosphere near Ottawa.

Workers with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. recently completed draining the reactor's 65,000-litre vessel and are now preparing to dispatch a remote-controlled ultra-sonic probe deep into the disabled machine to inspect the site of a pinhole leak of tritium-laced heavy water that began May 14.

What it reveals will help determine what is expected to be a delicate, complex and potentially costly repair strategy.

Most of the leaking water was slowly captured and stored in special drums and is to be reused when the National Research Universal reactor restarts. But about 20% evaporated and was drawn into the building's ventilation system. To prevent a dangerous buildup of tritium inside the NRU building, the airborne tritium was steadily released into the atmosphere as the leak progressed.

The quantity going into the surrounding air, some of which then fell on land and into the Ottawa River, was well within current maximum health limits. Still, those limits were publicly questioned in June by the federal nuclear safety commissioner, echoing a long-running debate over what constitutes safe exposure to cancer-causing tritium, especially in drinking water.

On consultations

For those waiting until the last minute to put together a submission in response to the UDP report on the nuclear industry, the deadline is coming up this Friday, July 31. Check out the Coalition for a Clean Green Saskatchewan's site for a handy list of materials.

Meanwhile, the federal copyright consultations are in full swing, with the first set of submissions going public this weekend. There's plenty of time left until the September deadline - but why wait when you can take action now?

One day, this could all be ours

We'd sure hate to miss out on the chance to have stories like this coming from Saskatchewan's largest city:

AECL officials said Wednesday the Chalk River leak itself is a tremendously challenging engineering problem.

For one thing, it is at the bottom of the tank nine metres below the nearest access point and that access point is nothing but a small hole just 12 centimetres in diameter. AECL must design special tools that can squeeze through that access point and then navigate to the bottom of the reactor vessel — a vessel filled with a tangle of tubes, wires, and the reactor core itself — and then complete a tricky welding and repair job in a highly radioactive, dangerous environment.

The cone shaped vessel that houses the reactor's core is about 3.5 metres tall and 3.5 metres in diameter. The vessel itself is encased in a larger structure.

"I've heard it described as . . . trying to change the oil in your car from your living room," said David Cox, the director of the NRU repair project. "We're faced with conducting remote investigations in a radioactive environment with high radiation fields, conducting the examinations and inspections through small openings in the top of the reactor and accessing, over great distances. So it's technically challenging."

And all this with a minister responsible agitating to get the unit back in service as quickly as possible even though it's already had to be shut down twice in a year and a half.

In fairness, of course, that's not the only possible outcome: a new isotope reactor could just flat out be unfit for service to begin with after a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars thrown away. So what's not to like?

Strong public opposition vs. weak private government

Shorter Brad Wall:

Why, of course I'll take into account any dissent that I hear against my plan to force an isotope-generating reactor on the province without the slightest bit of public consultation. But for some reason, I can't make any out over the sound of my own cheerleading.