And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Earlier proposals for storage was First nations territory in Canada. the Bruce Peninsula (for those not aware of its geography) is that finger of land between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The facility is situated on the shore of Lake Huron. Any 'accident' or leakage at this location would effect all waters downstream, including Lakes St Clair, Detroit River, Erie and Ontario.. Plutonium would be Canada's forever Storage site lacking for weapons waste Martin Mittelstaedt Environment Reporter Monday, August 2, 1999 http://www.globeandmail.com/gam/National/19990802/UPLUTN.html Senior federal officials have given assurances to the United States that surplus plutonium from Russian and U.S. weapons used in Ontario nuclear reactors will remain in Canada forever, a federal document obtained by The Globe and Mail says. The document, a declassified 1995 memo from the Department of Foreign Affairs, was obtained through an Access to Information Act request. It indicates that if Canada starts using plutonium as fuel in its generating stations, the country will become the permanent repository for some of the most dangerous waste products from the nuclear-arms race, even though Canada has not been able to develop a long-term storage site for atomic waste from its own generating stations. The memo was written by Ian Smith, a Foreign Affairs nuclear-proliferation expert, to help guide staff at the embassy in Washington at a meeting with Charles Curtis, the U.S. deputy energy secretary. At the meeting, officials from the two countries were to discuss Canada's offer to use weapons-grade plutonium left over from up to 40,000 surplus nuclear bombs as fuel at Ontario Power Generation's Bruce A nuclear station. Canadian atomic plants usually use uranium but could, with a few design modifications, use plutonium. A U.S. Department of Energy official had sought information from Foreign Affairs earlier in 1995 on what would happen to the spent plutonium after it was used at Ontario Power, one of the successor companies to Ontario Hydro. "We have always presumed that storage and disposal would follow the same route as any other Candu fuel that is used in Ontario reactors, i.e. it will remain in Canada; "The DOE [U.S. Department of Energy] should be advised that this is the Canadian government position and it is also the position of [Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.] and Ontario Hydro," said the document, written on June 7, 1995. In an interview last week, Mr. Smith confirmed that high-level U.S. officials were given formal notice at the time that Canada would retain all the waste created after the plutonium was used to generate electricity. He said "it would make no sense" to send the spent plutonium back to Russia or the United States once it had been through a reactor, because it would resemble the spent fuel normally produced in Canadian atomic generating stations. Canadian reactors normally produce small amounts of plutonium as waste. An AECL document in the records indicates that the percentage of plutonium in the spent weapons-grade fuel will be 68 per cent higher than if regular uranium were used. Reactors using the plutonium would, however, use about 15 per cent less fuel. Canadian officials have tried to sell the idea of using the bomb material as fuel by arguing that spent fuel at reactors burning uranium would be little different from spent fuel at those using plutonium. The AECL document, however, indicates that the composition of radioactive materials in spent fuel can vary significantly depending on whether uranium or plutonium is used. The document, one of hundreds of pages of records released to The Globe, also indicates that unidentified entities in the United States viewed Canada as a "political risk" whose offer to use plutonium in commercial nuclear stations would pose nuclear proliferation problems. The federal government has been lobbying aggressively for five years to have Canada burn as much as 100 tonnes of surplus plutonium in Ontario reactors. Using the material as reactor fuel would destroy some of the plutonium and render the balance unsuitable for use in future nuclear weapons programs, making it a contribution to world peace, according to the documents. The plan to use the surplus weapons has been popular in Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's government as offering the opportunity to turn swords into plowshares. "Canada has a long history of promoting international non-proliferation measures and encouraging disarmament. Canada shares the concern of the international community that plutonium, a key component of nuclear weapons, must remain inaccessible to rogue states or organizations," one of the documents says. AECL, the federal nuclear company, has also been actively involved in the proposal because of the revenue it would gain by overseeing the operation. Although Ontario Hydro had been an enthusiastic backer of the plan in the mid-1990s under previous chairman Maurice Strong, the utility has since taken a low-key approach and has shut the nuclear station earmarked for plutonium use. The documents did not indicate what revenue the two government companies expect to earn if they are selected to dispose of the plutonium. To allay U.S. concern about Canada as a proliferation risk, Foreign Affairs staff were to assure the Americans that the country wanted to strengthen international non-proliferation rules. The document from Mr. Smith also said the government considered that the highest risks of proliferation were from "renegade states seeking political and military influence through the possession and threat of a few nuclear weapons." Under the access-to-information legislation, The Globe and Mail had sought all documents Foreign Affairs had compiled from 1994 to the present on the use of plutonium as fuel in Canadian reactors. The department released a heavily censored list of documents covering the period from 1995 to 1997. It is still compiling the rest of the records being sought. Other documents that were released shed light on many of the technical factors associated with using plutonium as fuel, as well as the intense political lobbying Ottawa has been doing for the scheme. None of the documents indicates the origin of the idea, although many records concern public-opinion polling and strategies that Ottawa and the nuclear industry could adopt to sell the plan to the public. The Bruce site, on Lake Huron, was chosen to burn the plutonium because it was remote from major population centres, near the U.S. border, and had a well-developed nuclear infrastructure, according to the records. Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
