Re: “‘Green’ Energy and Uranium Do Not Mix”, by David Suzuki
(The Muskokan, June 12 Edition)

I read with interest the recent piece by David Suzuki on the perils of nuclear energy while unenergetically enjoying some of Muskoka’s many pleasures this past weekend, focused more on splitting wood than splitting atoms.

I have always admired and been inspired by Dr. Suzuki, who has spent much of his life encouraging, cajoling and warning his fellow humans to adopt a mode of living more attuned to environmental concerns and consequences. I personally have long considered these issues and attempted to modify my personal energy and resource consumption accordingly, and support many of the Suzuki Foundation’s initiatives.

However, as a geoscientist who has been involved in many aspects of energy exploration, development and utilization, I would judge Dr. Suzuki’s arguments against harnessing uranium for electricity generation are weak and biased, nurtured by irrational fears much like those who have an exaggerated fear of flying. I would have also thought that as editor you should have also sought out and published differing views in tandem with publishing his advocacy piece.

Dr. Suzuki ably points out the perils and costs associated with uranium mining and refining and nuclear power plant construction, operation and decommissioning. However, the absence of any recent significant nuclear incident in North America and Europe since Three Mile Island (1979), or since Chernobyl in Ukraine (1986), highlights the extraordinary safety features incorporated into every reactor and its operation, and particularly the Candu heavy water design. Safely dealing with residual radioactivity is a very real concern but is achievable with proper engineering, with a rational assessment of risks, and at a cost far less than proposed capture and storage of CO2 from coal-burning power plants.

In terms of quantifiable risks of common human activities, autos pose the greatest risk (as anyone driving on Highway 400 can attest), followed, I believe, by smoking, alcohol use, obesity and household accidents, with commercial aviation and nuclear power generation close to the bottom of risk factors.

Dr. Suzuki also fails to rationally assess the costs and limitations of his suggested energy alternatives. Even so-called ‘green’ power is not without direct and indirect costs and is not universally welcomed, whether wind turbine farms, low-head hydropower, large-scale solar power capture, corn-based ethanol production, energy from waste, geothermal or biomass (aka wood), and is best considered as supplementary to base electrical generation from hydropower, nuclear and/or hydrocarbons.

Finally, and most consequentially, while energy conservation can and should adopted for immediate, low-cost benefits (as is being spurred by recent price increases for petroleum products and electricity), and while appropriate green power opportunities should be pursued on an individual and societal basis, all rational, quantitative assessments of the requirements for reliable power for a modern society (even with very modest or negligible population growth) lead to a difficult choice between additional nuclear or carbon-based electricity generation (as the Ontario government has debated and recently decided in favour of nuclear after much consideration of benefits and costs). I don’t think Dr. Suzuki would favour more coal power plants with demonstrable immediate air quality degradation and long-term climate consequences, or, on full reflection, would advocate that society revert to a pre-coal era of low energy consumption, with attendant low-productivity manual labour and widespread deforestation that is unfortunately still the case in many developing countries.

Jerry Roth
Toronto