Firing of nuclear safety chief is inexcusable
As a Canadian citizen I’m outraged. The federal Conservative government has fired the head of the country’s nuclear safety commission, using Linda Keen as a fall guy for the government’s own screwups related to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s NRU research reactor in Chalk River (it was shut down in late November because it didn’t comply with safety standards, causing a global shortage of medical isotopes). The government, because it didn’t have any of its own backup plans, blamed the “:independent” regulator instead of the crown corporation that was in violation of its license: AECL. It then overrode the authority of the regulator and ordered the reactor to be put back online. So much for independent oversight in the name of safety.
Now, Keen has been fired — for doing her job. And the last I heard, her job has nothing to do with guaranteeing the supply of medical isotopes. But there’s more to this. Keen, in the course of doing her job and keeping nuclear safety top-of-mind, has made life difficult for AECL and its ability to sell new reactors in Canada (specifically Ontario). Many observers of this battle between Keen and the federal government believe her dismissal is also part of a plan to make it easier for AECL to comply with safety rules and ultimately get licensed in Canada. Also, as the federal government looks to privatization AECL, it needs a reactor sale in Canada to get top dollar.
I should point out that Keen remains on the commission, but one wonders how long that will last.
Now, I don’t know about you, but as a Canadian I’m not comfortable with the government cutting corners and firing people who do their jobs just so they can sell a reactor or two and continue to justify the existance of AECL, and the further use of taxpayers’ dollars to support it.
End of rant.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
January 16th, 2008 at 9:05 am
This is why we should away from nuclear tech. It is too political since only governments can afford to build reactors. Free markets tend to avoid such collisions and rightly so!
Darklamp
January 16th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I think we must have government support for the isoptope business, and the current meddling is frustrating to watch and would probably require a commission to find out what really happened (or not). I did read all of the published letters that flew back and forth, and as an engineer I could see that they were reflecting a very debateable technical issue of various emergency pump configurations and licensing requirements. It is not clear to me what the real shortage of isotopes was, we may never know. This particular unpleasant fight to me is not connected to the bigger issues of what the real costs of nuclear powered electricity are.
If everyone knew that Canadian nuclear reactors are liability limited to $75 million dollars, maybe they would ask why? I still wonder why the free market insurance costs should not be built into any reactors built. If commercial liability insurance is too expensive, maybe we should think about what that means for a society? (For those that do know what “k” factors are, yes, I have had post graduate training in reactor engineering)
Lets push for sustainable and insurable electricity production and creative energy storage and management methods, billions spent here will ensure an insurable future.
Cheers
January 16th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Contrary to what Steve says, the current fight IS connected to the bigger issue, i.e. the REAL COST of nuclear reactors. The Canadian government has been trying to privatize the business of making medical isotopes for nearly a decade, but the plan still isn’t working. Two privately owned replacement reactors, MAPLE1 and MAPLE2, have been under construction all this time; but they are experiencing huge technical problems and cost overruns and thus their startup has been delayed by 8 or 9 years. The old NRU was to be shut down as soon as the new MAPLEs were up and running. Hence, AECL didn’t want to spend any new money installing more safety features on the old NRU.
The issue is really about the government wanting to get out of the medical-isotope business and thus being unwilling to cover the cost overruns on the privately owned reactors. At the same time, the government doesn’t want the public to hear about yet another example of how economically unrealistic nuclear reactors are. As Steve said, government funding is needed for the production of medical isotopes. What does it take to get the politicians and the public to see the real problem, here?
RePeter.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
This ongoing dispute with the Nuclear Safety Commission has very worrying implications. An earlier blog entry suggests why.