Darlington New Nuclear Power Plant Project Joint Review Panel ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Projet de nouvelle centrale nucléaire de Darlington Commission d’examen conjoint
PMD 11-P1.254 File / dossier : 8.01.07 Date: 2011-05-17 Edocs:3725943
Final Written Comments from Natalia Moudrak
Observations écrites finales de Natalia Moudrak
In the Matter of
À l’égard de
Ontario Power Generation Inc.
Ontario Power Generation Inc.
Environmental Assessment pursuant to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act of a proposal by Ontario Power Generation for a Project that includes site preparation, construction, operation, decommissioning and abandonment of up to four new nuclear power reactors at its existing Darlington Nuclear Site located near Oshawa, Ontario, in the Municipality of Clarington and a Licence to Prepare a Site application for the Project under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.
L’évaluation environnementale, en vertu de la Loi canadienne sur l’évaluation environnementale, du projet d’Ontario Power Generation qui inclut la préparation de l’emplacement, la construction, l’exploitation, le déclassement et l’abandon de jusqu’à quatre nouveaux réacteurs nucléaires sur le site de la centrale nucléaire Darlington près d’Oshawa (Ontario), dans la municipalité de Clarington, et une demande de permis de préparation de l’emplacement, aux termes de la Loi sur la sûreté et la réglementation nucléaires.
Public Hearing
Audience publique
March 21, 2011
Le 21 mars 2011
To: Darlington Joint Review Panel From: Natalia Moudrak (April 7th, 2011 Oral Statement Presenter) Re: Written Submission - Darlington New Nuclear Power Plant Project This note was prepared by Natalia Moudrak, Masters of Planning student at the University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) for kind consideration by Darlington Joint Review Panel members. This note urges Darlington Joint Review Panel members to recommend against granting the Ontario Power Generation (OPG) the licence to prepare site for the proposed Darlington New Nuclear Power Plant Project. Three arguments against granting the licence to prepare the site are: 1. Lack of information pertaining to the costs of preparing the site and no cost comparisons to other alternatives as required by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. In particular, cost comparisons of: a) Investments into infrastructure supporting other energy sources: natural gas; hydro supply from Quebec; and district energy combined heat and power technologies suggested by Mr. Etcheverry b) Renewal of the EcoEnergy Home Retrofit Initiative (Natural Resources Canada) to expand to more Ontario households Results of the EcoEnergy Home Retrofit Initiative for Ontario (ended March 31, 2011): Total Ontario Participants (houses)
346,858
Energy Reduction (per house)
20%
Energy Reduction (GJ/house)
42.7
Annual GHG Reduction (tonnes/house)
2.79
Federal Expenditure on the EcoEnergy Home Retrofit Initiative
$483,613,286, or $1,400 per house
Source: communication with Kathy Crate
[email protected] Total Annual Energy Reduction
Total Annual Greenhouse Gas Reduction
Source: derived using average per house data above
14,810,837 GJ, or 4,147,034 MWh, or 473 MW off grid 967,734 tonnes
If the program was expanded to 50% Ontario households (1,800,838 houses): Total Annual Energy Reduction
Total Annual Greenhouse Gas Reduction
76,895,761 GJ or 21,530,813 MWh or 2,458 MW off grid 5,024,337 tonnes
Source: derived using average per house data above as demonstrated to date 2. High chances that the project may not go through at later stages, thus making the money spent on the site preparation a sunk cost. In light of the Japanese nuclear accident at Fukushima nuclear plant, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is reviewing the safety cases for all of Canada’s nuclear facilities to take into account any relevant lessons learned for implications on Canadian facilities. The licence to prepare the site should not be granted prior to the CNSC determining the lessons learned to avoid future cost overruns: According to Ms. Swami’s (OPG) statements to the Darlington Joint Review Panel on April 4th, “the initial cost estimate for Darlington plant in 1977 was $5 billion.” When the station was brought into service between 1990 and 1993, the total cost came to $14.3 billion. The escalation of $6.9 billion over the definitive estimate was due to several reasons, including interest charges and the postponement of the project. “The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 accident at Chernobyl had to be factored as lessons learned into additional regulatory requirements.” 3. Undertaking 77 results. The CNSC recognizes that human error can contribute substantially to nuclear system failures. In answering my question “how many of the 33 nuclear accidents that happened in the last 59 years were due to human error?” the CNSC found that human error may have played a role 66% of the time. Thank you very much for the consideration of these three arguments in your decisions and recommendations. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at your convenience.
Sincerely,
Natalia Moudrak May 17th, 2011
