Last week there was a telling exchange between federal environment minister John Baird and the Toronto Star’s Ian Urquhart. On Monday, Urquhart published a column claiming that Baird had said that Ontario’s coal plant closures wouldn’t qualify for emission credits under the trading scheme the federal government is contemplating. Baird responded in a letter...
Atomic Energy Canada
Chalk one up for the system: isotope flap proves it works
The Chalk River reactor shutdown escalated into a political issue last week, because a shortage of medical radioisotopes had developed along the worldwide supply chain. What does it say that the federal government overrode the nuclear regulator by ordering the reactor to resume production? It says that the Canadian nuclear regulatory system works, and...
Koreas reach nuclear deal: major implications for Canada’s role in GNEP
South Korea has achieved a stunning breakthrough in nuclear negotiations with the North. This agreement, assuming it holds, may free the South to commercialize technologies that recycle spent nuclear fuel. Prominent among these is DUPIC, which uses CANDU reactors to burn spent fuel from light water reactors. DUPIC is a joint effort between Atomic...
Nuclear cooperation and Canadian energy policy: Harper’s complicated decision tree
A couple of Canadian newspapers are on the prime minister for being coy about the prospects of Canada joining the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). They’re trying to pin him down on how Canada will deal with radioactive waste, i.e., whether we would import it or not. Harper is too smart to answer right...
How Canada can punch above its weight in energy
Canada has been called an energy superpower, largely because of the massive petroleum reserves entrained in the Alberta oil sands. But this country is also a major player in the international nuclear industry. Canada is the world’s largest uranium producing country, and a Canadian company, Cameco (formerly the government-owned Eldorado Nuclear), is the world’s...
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