Taliban celebratory gunfire turns deadly, Pakistan’s spy chief arrives in Afghanistan


THE TALIBAN WERE CREATED BY ISI; THE PAK SPY AGENCY UNDER BENAZIR BHUTTO

Issued on: 04/09/2021 - 

Taliban forces patrol at a runway at Kabul airport the day after the August 31, 2021 US troop withdrawal deadline. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo © STR, Reuters

Text by: FRANCE 24

At least 17 people were killed in Kabul due to the Taliban’s celebratory Friday night gunfire, news agencies said on Saturday as Pakistan’s powerful intelligence chief made a surprise visit to Afghanistan amid reports of intense fighting between the hardline Islamist group and resistance fighters in the Panjshir Valley.

Afghan medical officers said 17 people were killed and 41 wounded people were admitted to a Kabul hospital due to injuries sustained during the Taliban's celebratory gunfire, Afghanistan's leading private news station, Tolo TV, reported Saturday.

In the eastern province of Nangarhar, at least 14 people were injured in celebratory firing, said Gulzada Sangar, spokesman for an area hospital in the provincial capital of Jalalabad.

DUH OH

The gunfire drew a rebuke from the main Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid.

"Avoid shooting in the air and thank God instead," Mujahid said in a message on Twitter. "The weapons and bullets given to you are public property. No one has the right to waste them. The bullets can also harm civilians, don't shoot in vain."

The gunfire celebrations erupted overnight as Taliban supporters on Twitter said the Panjshir Valley, where anti-Taliban resistance fighters are based, had fallen. The Taliban however made no official claim Saturday and a resident told AFP by phone that the reports were false.

Amid reports of intense fighting in the Panjshir, Pakistan's powerful intelligence chief made a surprise visit to Kabul on Saturday.

Hameed arrived in Kabul Saturday morning, leading a delegation of "senior Pakistani officials", to discuss security, economic and trade issues, according to Pakistani media reports.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban leadership was based in neighbouring Pakistan and were often said to be in direct contact with the country's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

Pakistan routinely denies giving the Taliban military aid and the Taliban maintains it is an independent Afghan nationalist group.

 

'The resistance is continuing'

Meanwhile in the Panjshir, Afghanistan's former vice president Amrullah Saleh, holed out alongside Ahmad Massoud, the son of legendary anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, admitted the National Resistance Front (NRF) was in a perilous position.

"The situation is difficult, we have been under invasion," Saleh said in a video message.

Saleh, a former Afghan spy chief who has survived numerous Taliban attempts on his life, was filmed wearing a traditional shalwar kameez tunic and a flat woollen pakol cap favoured by Panjshiris.

"The resistance is continuing and will continue," he added.

Aid talks

Away from the valley, the international community was coming to terms with having to deal with the new Taliban regime with a flurry of diplomacy.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due on Sunday in Qatar, a key player in the Afghan saga and the location of the Taliban's political office, though he is not expected to meet with the militants.

He will then travel to Germany, to lead a virtual 20-nation ministerial meeting on Afghanistan alongside German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.



UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also set to convene a high-level meeting on Afghanistan in Geneva on September 13, to focus on humanitarian assistance for the country.

The United Nations has already restarted humanitarian flights to parts of Afghanistan, while the country's flag carrier Ariana Afghan Airlines resumed domestic flights on Friday and the United Arab Emirates sent a plane carrying "urgent medical and food aid".

Western Union and Moneygram, meanwhile, said they were restarting cash transfers, which many Afghans rely on from relatives abroad to survive.

China has already confirmed it will keep its embassy in Kabul open.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)

SECOND DAY OF PROTESTS

Groups of Afghan women brave Taliban-controlled streets to demand rights

Issued on: 04/09/2021 - 

A group of Afghan women protest in Kabul on September 3, 2021. 

© FRANCE 24 screengrab

Text by:FRANCE 24

A small group of Afghan women protested near the presidential palace in Kabul a day after women in the western Afghan city of Herat took to the streets in daring public demonstrations against Taliban restrictions on their right to work and seek education.

Around 20 women with microphones gathered in the heart of Kabul on Friday under the watchful eyes of Taliban gunmen, who allowed the demonstration to proceed. The protest in the Afghan capital was the second women's protest in as many days, with the other held in Afghanistan’s largest western city, Herat.

Gathering near the Arg presidential palace, the women demanded access to education, the right to return to work and a role in governing the country. "Freedom is our motto. It makes us proud,” read one of their signs.

A Taliban fighter ventured into the crowd at one point, but witnesses said he was angry at the bystanders who had stopped to watch the demonstration and not the protesters themselves.

Top Taliban leaders have promised an inclusive government and a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when they last ruled the country from 1996 to 2001. But as the country awaits the formation of a new government, Taliban spokesmen in recent days have admitted women are unlikely to get cabinet posts or positions of authority in the new administration.

Many Afghans remain deeply skeptical about the Taliban’s promises on gender rights and fear a rollback of the considerable gains women made over the past two decades.

On Thursday, a small group of women marched toward the office of the governor of Herat, to demand equal rights and opportunities.

“No government is stable without the support of women,” read one banner, referring to fears that the new government is unlikely to include women in leadership positions.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” the women chanted, as Taliban fighters watched, in videos shared on social media. “We are together.”

UN says women’s rights ‘imperative’

“We are concerned about the issues of human rights in Afghanistan, notably on the rights of women,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday. “It is imperative that women have the right to work, to work in a safe environment, and those are some of the issues that have been brought to the attention of our interlocutors in Kabul and elsewhere.”

While the Taliban have said women will be able to continue their education and work, they have also vowed to impose Sharia, or Islamic, law.

Afghan women’s rights activists say they are still seeking clarity on the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia law. Meanwhile, many Afghan activists have called for the international community not to grant the Taliban official recognition, which would unblock Afghanistan’s frozen bank accounts, amid fears the hardline Islamist group would crack down on women’s rights once the world’ attention has moved away.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

IT'S NOT THEIR MAYBE NUKES TO BE AFRAID OF

Commentary: Dealing with North Korea’s dangerous cyber threat

By Bruce Klinger The Heritage Foundation | Friday, September 3, 2021

North Korea appears to have restarted its nuclear reactor, enabling it to augment its ongoing production of approximately seven or more nuclear weapons per year. Pyongyang’s missiles and nuclear weapons have long garnered fear, international condemnation, and tough sanctions.

The regime’s cyber activities, however, have elicited less response, despite their repeated attacks on governments, financial institutions and industries.

What started as rudimentary denial-of-service attacks against South Korea has been expanded into a robust array of disruptive military, financial and espionage capabilities with global reach. The regime’s cyber guerrilla warfare has stolen classified military secrets, engaged in cyberterrorism, absconded with billions of dollars in money and cyber-currency, held computer systems hostage and inflicted extensive damage on computer networks.

Its targets have ranged from nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructure to telecommunications, media and corporations. Following the onset of COVID, Pyongyang even trained its cyber-weapons on pharmaceutical companies developing COVID vaccines.

Pyongyang’s cyber protection rackets refrain from attacking entities in return for payment. Its cyber retaliation squads attack those who oppose the regime or demean its leaders. The most notable of the latter was the 2014 Sony hack inflicting financial damage on the company while threatening “9/11 style” attacks against any theater showing the movie “The Interview,” which ridiculed leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea’s cyber weapons and tactics are consistent with its asymmetric military strategy. As the regime’s conventional military forces deteriorated in comparison with those of the United States and South Korea, Pyongyang developed new weapons to counter the growing gap in capabilities, including nuclear weapons, missiles and cyber operations.

North Korean strategists have designated cyberspace as “the fifth major battlefield” along with ground, air, sea and space. Kim describes cyber warfare is a “magic weapon” and an “all-purpose sword.”

North Korea’s cyber operations are also consistent with the regime’s long history of using criminal activities to acquire money. In recent years, Pyongyang prioritized financial targets to evade international sanctions and augment the regime’s coffers for its nuclear and missile programs. Cybercrimes are more lucrative and cost-effective than its longstanding criminal activities (counterfeiting and supplying slave labor) and its more recent practices of smuggling and illicit ship-to-ship transfers of oil.

Compared to these other criminal enterprises, cybercrimes are quite low-risk. They are difficult to detect, and there is little likelihood of international retribution.

All of which has made cybercrime a big business in the Hermit Kingdom. North Korea was estimated to be responsible for 65 percent of all global cybercrime in 2017-2018. In August 2019, the United Nations estimated that Pyongyang had cumulatively gained $2 billion from cybercrime. Some experts now assess that North Korean cybercrimes may generate $1 billion a year — a third of the value of the nation’s exports.

North Korean hackers have proved adept at deeply penetrating even highly secure computer networks of governments, militaries, banks and international financial transaction systems, as well as critical infrastructure targets. It is certainly possible — many would say likely — that Pyongyang’s cyber warriors could inflict tremendous damage during a crisis or hostilities on the Korean Peninsula.

Nor is America safe from their predations. The U.S. intelligence community assesses that North Korea is one of the top four cyber threats capable of launching “disruptive or destructive cyberattacks” against the United States. In other words, Pyongyang has the potential to engage in cyber warfare with disproportionately massive impact — a cyber 9/11, if you will.

North Korea could paralyze critical infrastructure systems such as communications, dams, electrical grids, hospitals, nuclear power plants, supply chains and traffic-control systems. It could steal massive amounts of money or undermine the stability of the international financial system or worldwide markets. It could also conduct ransomware attacks on banks to gain money, flood the system with fraudulent transactions, or disable or destroy financial computer networks.

To date, however, neither the UN nor the U.S. have imposed many sanctions or taken other legal actions against North Korean cyber groups or the foreign countries that give them safe haven to operate and launder their ill-gotten money. The United States, in conjunction with foreign governments and the private sector, needs to augment cyber defenses and respond more forcefully to attacks.

Failure to do so enables North Korea to continue undermining the effectiveness of international sanctions and leaves the United States and its partners exposed to a potentially devastating cyberattack in the future.

A senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, Bruce Klingner previously served as the CIA’s deputy division chief for analysis of Korea.

 

Hydrogen hype: climate solution or dead-end highway?

David Suzuki  RABBLE.CA  

Around the turn of this century, hydrogen was big, especially in B.C. We were testing hydrogen fuel cell buses. Then-premier Gordon Campbell promised a "hydrogen highway" with a series of fuelling stations between Vancouver, Victoria and Whistler to enable zero-emissions bus transport -- possibly extending to California by 2010.

There is no hydrogen highway. What happened? And why is hydrogen in the news again?

Much has to do with how hydrogen is produced and used as fuel or to "carry" energy. Although it's the simplest, most abundant element in the universe, on Earth it's only found in nature combined with other elements. It must be unlocked from sources like water (H2O = two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen) or methane (CH4 = one part carbon, four parts hydrogen). Separating hydrogen from water leaves oxygen. Separating it from methane leaves carbon and carbon dioxide.

Most commercial hydrogen is obtained from fossil fuels using chemicals and heat, but water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolytic processes (with or without electricity from renewable energy). Researchers are also studying ways to split water with light or solar energy, and to use microbes such as bacteria and microalgae to produce hydrogen.

As a fuel, hydrogen requires substantial new infrastructure, whereas electric vehicle charging can be facilitated easily anywhere there's a grid. As an energy "carrier" -- that is, it's used to store or deliver energy produced from primary sources -- it must be compressed or liquefied to be transported and used, which requires energy.

Despite its drawbacks, the amount of hydrogen in methane has industry eyeing it as a potential lifeline and a way to appear "green." Methane is a byproduct of oil and coal extraction, and "natural" gas is almost entirely methane. Industry and advocates have campaigned to convince governments and the public that fossil fuel-derived hydrogen is as good as that split from water using renewables -- if carbon is removed and stored.

That's led to a distinction between "brown," "grey," "blue" and "green" hydrogen. The first is from coal. Grey is from fossil fuels without carbon capture and storage, which creates CO2 emissions. Blue is from fossil fuels with CCS. Green is split from water using renewable energy.

Grey -- mostly obtained with "steam methane reforming" -- accounts for about 95 per cent of all commercially produced hydrogen worldwide. It's inexpensive and relatively easy to produce and can use gas that would otherwise be wasted. It could become blue if the technology to store carbon byproducts were feasible and economically viable without creating additional ecological damage.

On a large scale, electrolysis is known as "power-to-gas," as electricity produced by renewable sources like wind and solar or fossil fuels is converted to hydrogen gas for transport and use. If renewable energy is used, only oxygen is emitted, making it green.

Hydrogen has many applications -- including energy-intensive long-haul freight, mining and industrial processes -- and will likely be a key component in a decarbonized future. But we need to shift the dynamic so most or all is green.

Even blue hydrogen is not emissions-free, as carbon capture doesn't entirely eliminate emissions, and they're also produced during fossil feedstock extraction, processing and transportation.

Grey hydrogen offers no climate benefit. Hydrogen linked to costly and unproven small modular nuclear is problematic on many levels and would drive costs up.

Green hydrogen can be produced at the renewable electricity generation site, or closer to end uses with grid infrastructure. It doesn't require pipelines or carbon capture infrastructure, so hydrogen electrolysis plants can often be built quickly and cost-effectively. It can be used to channel large amounts of renewable energy from the power sector into those where electrification is difficult, such as transport, buildings and industry. And it can stimulate investment and growth in renewables for electrolysis and improve energy storage capabilities. 

Green hydrogen is also a better financial bet. Blue hydrogen's costs are tied to expensive carbon capture facilities. Analysis by banking giant Morgan Stanley found plummeting wind energy prices could make government-supported green hydrogen more cost-competitive than fossil-dependent grey hydrogen by 2023.

Canada's Hydrogen Strategy identifies a "clean hydrogen economy" as "a strategic priority." It's time to recognize our competitive advantage and kick-start innovation and investment in green hydrogen. Fossil fuel–based hydrogen is an expensive dead end.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.          

August 11, 2021

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org

Image: Michael Chu/Flickr

UBC Millwrights accepts Indigenous candidates into MRCO Program in Bruce County with support from OCNI, FNPA and HAAMB

NEWS PROVIDED BY OCNI


Indigenous cohort at the Bruce Power Training Facility in Underwood along with representatives from MRCO, HAAMB, OCNI, Bruce Power and the Adult Learning Centre.

MRCO, OCNI, FNPA, and HAAMB are pleased to announce the start of a six-week training program for Indigenous people at Bruce Power’s facility in Underwood.UNDERWOOD, ONTARIO, CANADA, August 16, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- 

The Millwright Regional Council of Ontario, the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries (OCNI), the First Nations Power Authority (FNPA), and Huronia Area Aboriginal Management Board (HAAMB) are pleased to announce the August 9 start of a six-week training program for eight Indigenous men and women at Bruce Power’s training facility in Underwood. The training and skills-upgrade program will prepare successful candidates to become millwright apprentices and begin a career in the millwright industry.

Financial support enabling the eight candidates to participate in this valuable training program is being provided by OCNI and FNPA through a Skills Development Fund grant by the Ontario Ministry of Labor, Training, and Skills Development (MLTSD) to recruit, train and place Indigenous peoples and women in skilled trades positions in Ontario’s nuclear sector.

The OCNI/FNPA project is part of the Ontario government's new two-year $115 million Skills Development Fund (SDF) to support workers and apprentices in meeting the challenges brought on by COVID-19 and to help reduce obstacles to hiring, training, and retaining workers to participate in the province's economic recovery. The OCNI/FNPA project is opening doors for traditionally underrepresented groups, such as Indigenous people and women, to enter careers in the skilled trades while enhancing the pipeline of skilled workers required to extend the operating lives of 10 nuclear generating units at the Darlington and Bruce sites and prepare for the next generation of Small Modular Reactors in Ontario and other regions of Canada.

“Millwright Regional Council of Ontario is pleased to be working with OCNI, FNPA, the Huronia Area Aboriginal Management Board (HAAMB), and Bruce Power in recruiting candidates from local Indigenous communities and helping them acquire the skills needed to begin careers as professional millwrights in Ontario’s construction and maintenance industry” said Mark Beardsworth, Director of Operations with the Millwright Regional Council of Ontario.

“We are proud to collaborate with the Millwright Regional Council of Ontario, HAAMB, Bruce Power and FNPA on this program which we hope to replicate in Bruce Region or Durham Region in the coming months as the demand for millwrights expands to support Ontario’s nuclear life extension projects at Bruce and Darlington” added OCNI CEO Ron Oberth.

Millwright Regional Council of Ontario (MRCO) is composed of eight affiliated Local Unions of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBC) across the Province of Ontario. We represent thousands of women and men working as progressive cross-trained construction and maintenance professionals with exceptional skills to install, maintain, diagnose, and repair precision machinery. UBC millwrights are vital partners in industries as diverse as energy, automotive, aerospace, food processing, pharmaceuticals and more.

Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries (OCNI) is an association of more than 200 Ontario-based suppliers to the nuclear industry that employ around 20,000 highly skilled and specialized engineers, technologists, and trades people. OCNI member companies design reactors, manufacture major equipment and components, and provide engineering services/support to CANDU nuclear power plants in Canada as well as to CANDU and Light Water Reactor (LWR) plants in offshore markets.
First Nations Power Authority (FNPA) is Canada’s only not-for-profit organization mandated to help grow Indigenous-led independent power producers while greening Canada’s electricity grid. We got our start with SaskPower thorough our Master Agreement in 2012 and look forward to working with other power utilities in Canada to promote economic and environmental reconciliation amongst Indigenous peoples and other Canadians.

For Further Information Contact:
Millwright Regional Council of Ontario
Duncan McIntosh, Director of Communications, dmcintosh@millwrightont.com

Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries:
Ron Oberth, President and CEO, (905) 839 -0073, ron.oberth@ocni.ca

First Nations Power Authority:
Guy Lonechild, President and CEO, 306-359-3672, glonechild@fnpa.ca

Ron Oberth
Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries
ron.oberth@ocni.ca

MORE MAYBE TECH

SC: Nuclear energy is what Canada needs to win the energy transition

25.08.2021 QP Briefing Staff 0


By Heather Chalmers and Lisa McBride

Heather Chalmers is President and CEO of GE Canada, and Lisa McBride is Canada Country Leader for GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology.

In the fight against climate change, all Canadians will benefit from the increasing global recognition that nuclear power generation is key to achieving net-zero carbon emission goals. As a proven, reliable source of electricity generation that is carbon-free, nuclear energy is a game-changer in the fight against climate change. And, nuclear energy could play an important role in Canada’s post-Covid economic recovery.

Meeting Canadian and international emissions targets will require a diverse portfolio of solutions. Critically, nuclear energy must be in the decarbonization mix. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) International Energy Agency estimates in its Net Zero by 2050 report that nuclear power output will need to increase 40 per cent by 2030 and double by mid-century.

There has been no new nuclear power plant construction in Canada since the 1990s, and, since then, innovation has transformed the technology. New nuclear reactor designs are smaller and modular, lowering capital costs and speeding up installation. The latest small modular reactors (SMRs) can provide grid-scale power generation, replace diesel as a distributed power source in remote communities or be used in industry.

As much as Canadians want their electricity to be carbon-free, they want it to be safe and reliable. Today, nuclear plants have automatic shut-off safety features, and they are protected by multiple backup safety systems. Generations of Canadians have come to safely rely on nuclear energy, the only source of carbon-free electricity generation that is available 24/7, 365 days a year.



(A rendering of the GE Hitachi BWRX-300, a grid-scale SMR facility. Courtesy GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.)

SMR technology has the potential to deliver energy across Canada with that same level of certainty. Companies like GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) are already through the steep learning curve associated with designing, licensing and deploying nuclear reactor technologies. GEH has decades of experience and more than 90 per cent of its SMR design components have been tested and proven in operating nuclear reactors. Because SMRs are designed to produce reliable, carbon-free electricity 24/7, they can complement intermittent or variable sources of electricity, such as solar and wind technologies. Together, nuclear energy alongside wind, solar, and other sources of electricity generation form a balanced mix that can move Canada toward a carbon-free energy future.

Canada has the building blocks to develop a world-class supply chain for SMR technology: multi-level government support, world-class universities, an established nuclear power industry and a skilled workforce.

Canada is leading on SMR development. The federal government has released a roadmap and action plan for SMR technology development, and the provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta recently committed to work together on SMR deployment. Canada's first grid-scale SMR—among the first in the world—is slated to be in operation at the Ontario Power Generation (OPG) Darlington site as early as 2028.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Bruce Power (BP), and New Brunswick Power (NB Power) have decades of experience operating nuclear reactors. Ontario-based engineering, procurement, and construction firms such as Aecon and Hatch have robust capabilities to design and build nuclear power plants. Ontario Tech, Durham College, McMaster University, the University of Saskatchewan and more are helping develop the nuclear workforce of the future.

In addition to helping achieve energy reliability and carbon-free emissions goals, the deployment of SMRs can act as an engine for job creation and economic growth in Canada. In an independent report (commissioned by GEH), PwC estimates that the deployment of a single SMR at OPG’s Darlington site could create more than 1,700 highly skilled jobs during seven years of manufacturing and construction, nearly 200 jobs sustained over a 60-year period of operation, and $2.3 billion in total GDP. Each subsequent SMR deployed in Canada – whether it be in Ontario or another province – is expected to create more than $1.1 billion in GDP.

While Ontario and Canada are poised to support the development and deployment of SMRs on a provincial and national level, the bigger opportunity is for Canada to support the energy transition to safe, reliable, carbon-free nuclear power generation around the world. With Canada’s world-class nuclear operating expertise and infrastructure project experience, Canada is well-positioned to become a global leader in the deployment of carbon-free energy technology. The federal government, in its SMR Action Plan, estimates the global SMR market will be worth $150 billion per year by 2040. PwC estimates each SMR deployed globally will generate approximately $98 million in GDP for Canada and more than $45 million in total tax revenue through the purchase of nuclear fuel, machinery, and equipment.

Canada can seize this global SMR opportunity by working together with companies like GE that know how to scale energy technology innovation for deployment globally: GE technology generates 30 per cent of the world’s power. As just one example, our LM Wind facility in Gaspe, Quebec exports wind turbine components around the world. If Canada seizes this opportunity, SMRs could play a key role in reinvigorating Canada’s post-Covid manufacturing economy as the world works toward meeting its goal of zero-carbon emission electricity.

Climate change is an urgent global priority, and nuclear energy will play a major role in helping Canada—and the rest of the world—reach its net-zero carbon emissions goals. Provincial and federal stakeholders are working to harness Canada’s capabilities to deploy SMRs at home and deliver jobs and economic benefits for generations of Canadians. Canada is on the brink of becoming a global leader in the energy transition.

The above was provided to QP Briefing by GE Canada as sponsored content.

Western University scientist asks: How can Canada bury nuclear waste?

Author of the article: Heather Rivers
Publishing date: Aug 29, 2021 • 

Western University stainless steel corrosion expert Samantha Gateman will be lending her knowledge to the effort to find a place to store used nuclear fuel bundles. (Supplied photo)

A Western University corrosion expert will lend her expertise in the quest to find a safe way to store Canada’s nuclear waste.

Corrosion scientist Samantha Gateman will begin her tenure as the new chair in radiation-induced chemistry at Western in the new year. Her research will be funded by a $1.1-million grant from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, bolstering Western’s team of chemistry, physics and engineering researchers assisting with the effort.

With a specialty in how stainless steel corrodes over time and how to stop it, Gateman said her expertise in thermal coatings will assist NWMO in a plan for Canada’s three million used radioactive fuel bundles.

About 60 per cent of Ontario’s electricity is produced at three nuclear power plants. Used fuel bundles are kept for 10 years in deep pools before they are sealed in containers for temporary storage.


“The reason my expertise is important for the NWMO is they are using a very similar type of coating technology to stop the corrosion of containers that they are putting the nuclear fuel waste inside,” Gateman said. “I will be working with the best experts in the world and using my own expertise to investigate this research.”

NWMO’s long-term plan is to contain the bundles in copper-coated containers in bentonite clay in a deep geological area. The organization has two potential sites: in crystalline rock in the township of Ignace in northwestern Ontario or sedimentary rock in the municipality of South Bruce, near Owen Sound.

A decision on the location for the depository is expected by 2023.

The depository will be built 500 metres underground with multiple barriers including coated steel containers encrusted with clay, during the thousands of years it will take to reduce their radioactivity.

Laurie Swami, president of the NWMO, says the organization has invested millions into Western’s anti-corrosion research and other projects in chemistry, engineering, physics and earth sciences over the past 20 years.

“It’s important to have a robust understanding of the underground conditions, including corrosion conditions that would exist in a deep geological repository,” Swami said.

HRivers@postmedia.com

NUCLEAR NEWS
Canada gives one for the team


As Natural Resource Canada’s nuclear director, Diane Cameron helped chart the country’s nuclear roadmap and brought the technology into the climate change conversation. Ahead of her move to OECD-Nuclear Energy Agency, she sat down with NEI contributor Jacquie Hoornweg to reflect on her career and the path forward



Diane Cameron is tracing back through her career to explain her pivot from a career destined for distinguished service in the Canadian government to take on her new role as head of the Nuclear Technology Development and Economics Division at the OECD-Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA).

2 September 2021

Her journey has been powered by her intellect but as she speaks, it’s clear her career choices have been driven by her heart. Her internal compass points her toward solutions to climate change at a time when the planet is under duress from the strains of its effects.

One important contributor to climate change mitigation is low-carbon energy. Lots of it. One way to generate it, nuclear power.

Cameron joined NEA earlier this year following seven years as director of the Nuclear Division for Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). Before taking that role, she says, she had seen increasing evidence of the powerful role nuclear could play in climate change mitigation.

In May 2014, six months before the Canadian government announced the final piece in its restructuring of Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. (AECL), Cameron moved posts from Canada’s foreign affairs department into the nuclear division directorship, an open role left unfilled for years prior. Her time in the role serves as a map of the country’s nuclear programme itself, during that time.

The department had been working in quiet mode as the federal government undertook the review and restructuring of AECL, the crown corporation that gave the world CANDU technology and operated several national nuclear facilities, including the national research lab at Chalk River where the Nuclear Research Universal (NRU) reactor operated for more than 70 years before a well-earned retirement in 2018.

As Cameron arrived, the restructuring, which included sale of the crown corporation’s nuclear reactor division to SNC-Lavalin and the formation of government-owned, company-operated, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, was just wrapping up. As Cameron describes it, her role was to chart a new direction into unknown territory.

“It was sort of carte blanche, almost. I had to rebuild the team essentially from scratch, which was a challenge but also an opportunity, obviously,” says Cameron. “Every little growth step was pitching a vision to senior management of what we could accomplish; pitching an idea of a role we could play and incrementally building a team.”

Fast forward to February 2021 when Cameron left NRCan to join the NEA. The NRCan team had grown to 24. But the U
V heft was not just in the head count. The team accomplished milestones on the national and international front, which have set the table for Canada’s nuclear sector’s future, should federal and provincial governments choose to pursue it.

In Canada, constitutionally nuclear energy falls within the jurisdiction of the federal government. The government’s role spans across research and development, as well as regulation of nuclear materials and activities. The government’s nuclear priorities, and related legislation, are in health, safety, security and the environment.

However, the decision as to which technologies to invest in for electricity generation rests with the country’s 13 provinces and territories.

To date, only two provinces use nuclear power though one of them, Ontario, is the country’s largest province. In in both Ontario and New Brunswick, nuclear is a major contributor to the grid. So, while nuclear accounts for only 15 per cent of Canada’s generation capacity, for more than 40 per cent of Canadians, the primary source of electricity is nuclear power. The nuclear industry hopes to expand on that. Cameron and her team believed there were some important reasons to help them.

“The nuclear sector supports many different types of priorities: economic and innovation as well as environment, climate change and public health,” says Cameron. “The nuclear sector can support a range of different national priorities, so it was a question of starting to tell the story and framing Canada’s nuclear story (first) within the government’s other priorities.”

Illustrative of their progress, has been several speeches from the sector’s top elected official, NRCan Minister Seamus O’Regan who has delivered some of the most bullish speeches about nuclear in recent memory. He’s gone so far as to say, Canada cannot meet its net-zero carbon emissions without nuclear energy.

By the mid-2015s, with AECL’s nuclear division privatised and its national research programme and liabilities under private-sector management, NRCan’s nuclear division, could have coasted into babysitting mode.

Cameron, however, is not that type of bureaucrat. Leading up to and early in her tenure with NRCan, Cameron says, the evidence and modelling increasingly demonstrated the essential role nuclear could play in addressing climate change. She recognised the importance of contributing that evidence in broader policy conversations. In her role as director, she says, it was her job to move that forward because public service boils down to two over-riding points, fearless advice and loyal implementation.

“The fearless advice is around bringing in a non-partisan, non-partial evidence-based analysis and then (based on that), advice. Part of my role as a public servant was to make sure I surfaced and shone a light on a part of the conversation, that, not only in Canada but around the world was pretty quiet,” she says. “Many, many of these conversations were silent on nuclear. It is not as if they brought the nuclear option or evidence to the conversation and took a values-based decision against it. It was just silent. I saw that my role as a public servant, very clearly, was to ensure nuclear was positioned in those conversations.”

Cameron’s background lent itself well to the task. When she joined NRCan, she had clocked seven years in Foreign Affairs serving as deputy director for trade and environment, from which she brought knowledge and contacts. She also brought a unique pairing of technical and social expertise.

Cameron earned her undergraduate degree in systems engineering with a minor in society, technology and values, the latter reflecting a deep personal interest in social justice, likely inherited from her father and mentor, a professor in social work.

After several years working for a consultancy in Princeton New Jersey, where she honed skills in business management and efficiency optimisation, she went back to school and earned a master’s in technology policy from MIT, a programme targeted to people like Cameron who want to marry technical skills with policy development.

MIT also gave her an introduction to nuclear energy and the role it could play as a tool to combat climate change. While at MIT, she worked under Ernest J. Moniz, who would later serve as US Secretary of Energy from 2013-2017.

While Cameron came to the NRCan role already understanding the value of nuclear, it was while she was there that she learned about Canada’s important contribution to the technology development. “In every objective measurable way,” she says, “Canada’s nuclear industry is a nuclear rock star.”

In early days in role, as she investigated the terrain, Cameron says, “I learned about the talent in Canada, the Canadian story. I was meeting with Canadians working in this sector and their accomplishments, yet the public policy discussions were not giving this a voice.”

She says she observed that many people in the provinces where nuclear is generated did not appreciate the benefits it delivers. “I think we owe it to have a much more public policy debate with Canadians about some of the really tough choices ahead of us.”

Perhaps driven by that conviction, during her tenure, Cameron was tireless in a campaign of personal appearances to spread information about the role of nuclear and the data that supported that.

Darroch Harrop, an early recruit who joined Cameron’s team in 2015, jokes that he and his colleagues tried to count how many webinars, seminars, podcasts and conferences she participated in but gave up the futile exercise.

He says, as impressive as Cameron’s commitment to these appearances, it is her ability to build coalitions and “get people to sit around the table” that helped drive the visibility and measurable progress during her time at NRCan.

“She is an alliance builder,” he says. “She finds the win-wins. The number of perspectives she brings together is huge.”

Dan Brady, deputy director for the nuclear division says Cameron’s ability to work inside government, across multiple ministries to create visibility for nuclear has been important in moving the conversation beyond energy industry stakeholders and has helped break log jams to get nuclear onto broader policy agendas. He talks about initiatives Cameron created specifically to prompt conversations, including one that drove required briefings for every deputy minister across government, consequently requiring the staffers to also get up to speed on the file.
Tracking the progress

An early visible indicator of the work going on in Cameron’s department arose in the government’s response to a 2017 UV Standing Committee for Natural Resources report Nuclear at a Crossroads. The report reflected the status of nuclear in Canada, with the AECL restructuring behind it, the end of operation of the NRU reactor just in front of it and the end of operation at Canada’s oldest commercial nuclear site, Pickering Nuclear (3100MW), coming up fast with no new-build CANDU planned to replace it. Three other Canadian nuclear stations, Darlington and Bruce Power in Ontario
and New Brunswick Power’s Point Lepreau station had either undergone or were committed to moving forward with refurbishments. The refurbishments represent a massive investment in nuclear infrastructure. But as the industry considered development beyond the refurbishments, a question hung in the air, “What’s next?”

From the Standing Committee report, five themes emerged including the importance of the federal government as a partner, the value of nuclear energy in addressing climate change, the need for cross-sector partnerships and the spectrum of policy areas where nuclear can be positively impactful.

From these themes, came a series of recommendations. They included strengthening the government’s work with industry, Indigenous governments and communities, as well as other levels of government and the sector. They reinforced the government’s role in supporting research and development, working with international partners, support for Canadian technology development and commercialisation, strengthening public education and training, and, importantly, support for new technologies and the development of small modular reactors.

The report gave Cameron’s team a mandate and from its response, a blueprint emerged that would serve to guide their work through the remainder of her tenure.
Canada’s SMR Roadmap

A year after the Standing Committee report, the 2018, multi-stakeholder authored Canadian SMR Roadmap was released followed in December 2020 by release of Canada’s Action Plan. The two encapsulate almost every theme from the Standing Committee’s report.

The roadmap engaged more than 180 individuals representing 55 organisations across 10 sectors and subsectors, including multiple levels of government, civil society, academia and industry. The Action Plan includes chapters from 117 organisations. Both used a pan-Canadian approach to bring together disparate voices of many interests to create a common vision for development of a Canadian approach to small modular reactor development. An outcome that can be traced back to the SMR Roadmap and related work by government and industry working together, includes the 2021 agreement by four provinces – Alberta, New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan – to collaborate on SMR deployment as part of a strategy to meet Canada’s net-zero targets. In a marrying of technical and social intersection, the Roadmap brought in voices from Canadians who had never been engaged in conversations about nuclear energy and helped start meaningful engagement on low-carbon infrastructure and the relevance to their lives.

Cameron herself describes the roadmap as “impactful in Canada and globally” and truly reflective of a “coalition of the willing.” The work also provided an opportunity to validate the economic assumptions about the value of SMR development in Canada. One assessment by a third-party organisation indicated the global impact in the ballpark of CA$300 billion by 2040.

Cameron’s role in the roadmap was pivotal, says Fred Dermarkar, president of AECL and former president of CANDU Owners Group.

“Diane was the key driver behind the SMR roadmap,” he says. “She created a vision that inspired politicians, government, industry, academia and the international community. For example, when France announced the launching of its SMR project at the IAEA GC in September 2019, the CEO of EDF referenced Canada’s SMR Roadmap.”

Canada on the world stage

In fact, some point to Cameron’s work to bring Canada more prominently into the international community as one of her most significant accomplishments.

Explaining the international emphasis, Cameron says, “An important input on Canadian policy work is to be able to turn to international peer-reviewed studies, modelling, forecasting and analysis,” and conversely, she says, “Canadian expertise contributes to international knowledge.” As well she adds, being part of the international community “also showcases Canada’s expertise and provides it a source of influence.”

Further, this work contributed to her personal desire to “normalize” nuclear in the climate change conversation.

In 2018, Canada, the United States and Japan teamed together to form the Nuclear Innovation: Clean Energy Future initiative that introduced nuclear into the annual Clean Energy Ministerial talks. Following a “modest side event” at the Copenhagen CEM talks, in 2019, nuclear was fully integrated when CEM was held in Vancouver. By then, nine countries had signed on to NICE Future.

As CEM 2019 host, Cameron says, “We wanted to ensure nuclear literacy and we wanted nuclear to be part of the main conversation.” Several strategies were employed to fully integrate nuclear into the forum, and the measure of success, says Cameron, was the fact that for anyone attending CEM for the first time, “it would have looked unremarkable to have nuclear at those tables,” which was exactly the point.
A different form of public service

There is a spiritual connection with the number seven. It is said seven years represents a cycle in our lives and a sense of completeness.

In her seventh year in role, Cameron left NRCan for the NEA, taking the work she’d done on a national level to apply it in a global role. As she stood, straddled between the two roles, she said it was a “moment of reflection” as she set on the path where she believes she can make the most impact in the fight against climate change.

She hopes the various levels of government, back in Canada, will act on the early promise in SMR development and together with industry can solidify nuclear’s contribution to meeting Canada’s net-zero targets and socio-economic goals both domestically and globally.

Internationally, Cameron sees COP26 as the next test. Whether nuclear can achieve “unremarkable” status as a natural player at the table remains to be seen. But chances are good, if you are in Glasgow, you will see the NEA’s new head of nuclear making a very evidence-based case as to why it should be considered in the energy mix.

Jacquie Hoornweg is Managing partner at Querencia Partners

Canada's nuclear reactors may not be fit for service

Joyce Nelson

RABBLE.CA

On July 13, Bruce Power announced that two reactors at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario had violated its operating license.

It had "higher than anticipated readings" of hydrogen-equivalent concentration (Heq) in pressure tubes in two units. Pressure tubes must not exceed the allowable limit of 120 parts per million of Heq. Each pressure tube in a reactor contains 12 bundles of uranium, which are the basis for the nuclear reaction, but the pressure tubes also contain the coolant that keeps the fuel from overheating and triggering a meltdown. Pressure tubes with high levels of Heq can develop cracks and fractures, thereby compromising a reactor's safety.

As The Globe and Mail reported:

"In response to Bruce Power's contraventions, on July 13, the CNSC [Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission] ordered the company, along with fellow CANDU [Canada Deuterium Uranium] operators Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and New Brunswick Power, to review the fitness for service of their pressure tubes and report back no later than the end of July."

Aging reactors

Many of Canada's aging CANDU reactors are older than their design-life for pressure tubes, which originally was designated as 210,000 effective full power hours (EFPH), or about 30 years.

When Hydro Quebec's Gentilly-2 CANDU reactor reached that limit, it closed the plant.

As The Globe and Mail reported:

"Thierry Vandal, chief executive at the time, testified before Quebec's national assembly that he considered 210,000 EFPH 'the extreme limit' beyond which his management team dared not go. 'I would no more operate Gentilly-2 beyond 210,000 hours than I would climb onto an airplane that does not have its permits and that does not meet the standards,' he said, according to a translated transcript."

Under industry pressure, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission subsequently raised the limit to 247,000 EFPH in 2014, and then to 295,000 EFPH in 2018.

In 2018, the CNSC extended OPG's license for its Pickering Nuclear Generating Station for 10 years. Rather than require that OPG replace aging pressure tubes, the regulator mandated more frequent inspections.

When asked how often pressure tubes are checked, retired nuclear scientist and radioactive chemistry expert Dr. Frank Greening answered by email:

"Pressure tubes are checked for their hydrogen/deuterium concentrations about every two years, but it's a little more complex than that. Each CANDU unit contains about 400 tubes and each tube is about six meters in length. This means it's next to impossible to check every tube at every location, so only about 10 tubes are checked at a time. In addition, corrosion and [hydrogen/deuterium] pickup are expected to be most significant at the hot, outlet end of each tube, so samples are usually restricted to this location."

As a result of such limited inspections, the industry relies on mathematical models to predict how long the untested tubes can safely remain in service. But this modeling is not necessarily accurate, as evidenced by the July 13 "higher than anticipated readings" at Kincardine.

Indeed, in March 2021, The Globe reported:

"Documents obtained under the federal Access to Information Act by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin, and provided to The Globe, show that since 2017, CNSC staffers had grown increasingly concerned about unreliable data arising from OPG's inspections of pressure tubes…The whole method by which operators assessed fitness for service of pressure tubes had been called into question."

Another Fukushima?

It is somewhat disconcerting that, while discussing the pressure tube situation in Canada, three nuclear experts have made reference to the ongoing, 2011 nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan.

As The Globe reported in March:

"In a worse-case scenario, a ruptured tube could lead to a series of 'cascading failures not unlike what happened at Fukushima' says Sunil Nijhawan, a nuclear engineer and consultant who once worked for OPG and specializes in accident and safety assessments."

At Fukushima, the loss of coolant led to three reactor meltdowns.

In April, Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, told the National Observer:

"Cooling the fuel is essential in nuclear power. If you don't cool the fuel even after shutdown, you can have a meltdown. That's what happened at Fukushima. I'm not saying every loss of coolant will lead to a meltdown, but that's the precipitating cause that could lead to a meltdown. So therefore the integrity of the piping is a prime concern."

The aging nuclear plant at Pickering is of special concern. Slated for closure in 2024, OPG has been lobbying the Doug Ford government to keep the plant open until 2025. Pickering reached its operational-life limit in about 2015, but the nuclear regulator has kept allowing it to remain in service.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance says a moratorium should be imposed until OPG can prove that the Pickering plant poses no risk to public safety. In 2018, the Clean Air Alliance commissioned a study by Ian Fairlie, an independent consultant on radioactivity.

As reported in April by the National Observer, Fairlie's report about the Pickering plant found that "a Fukushima-level accident" at Pickering "could cause approximately 26,000 cancers, require the evacuation of more than 150,000 homes and more than 650,000 people, and trigger a $125-billion loss in the value of single-family homes in the Greater Toronto Area."

How serious?

When asked about the seriousness of the pressure tube situation, Greening said a lot depends on the CNSC.

"I would definitely expect the CNSC to demand OPG and Bruce Power do a lot more sampling and analysis of selected tubes in each and every reactor they are operating. Then we will see how widespread this problem is.

"However, given the logistics of doing this, it would take months to complete all the necessary sampling, and each reactor would have be shut down for several weeks to do this. This would cost tens of millions of dollars and result in a serious loss of nuclear energy production. Then, of course, if many units are found to have [hydrogen/deuterium] concentrations well above 120 ppm in many of the examined tubes, the CNSC, and the whole of Canada's nuclear industry would be in a real pickle!"

As Greening explained: "In Canada, we have one reactor design -- the CANDU. If there is a design flaw discovered in one unit, then every operating unit is likely to have the same problem sooner or later."

So "if the CNSC does the right thing" by ordering the sampling and analysis of pressure tubes in all reactors, "it will cost millions."

However, Greening suspects that "the nuclear operators are probably going to say that the current limit of 120 ppm is far too restrictive and could be increased without jeopardizing plant safety."

The CNSC has catered to that argument before, raising the limit from 100 ppm to 120 ppm.

"Believe it or not, our wonderful nuclear regulator, the CNSC, has in fact used that very option to deal with exceedances of things like [deuterium]-pickup, feeder pipe thinning, etc. in the past," Greening said.

By the end of July, the CNSC had given such contradictory requests to Bruce Power that Greening was asking: "Does the CNSC's left hand know what its right hand is doing?"

As he wrote to CNSC president Rumina Velshi back on July 14, "maybe it would be better to admit that the CNSC and the Canadian nuclear industry are collectively unable to predict pressure tube corrosion and hydrogen pickup in operating CANDU reactors…and in the interest of public safety, permanently shut down these very old reactors."

In an email to rabble.ca Greening stated that a good place to start this shut down would be Pickering unit 6 and unit 7, which are both long past their fit for service date.

Otherwise, the consequences could be dire.

August 11, 2021

Canadian freelance writer Joyce Nelson is the author of seven books. She can be reached via www.joycenelson.ca

Image: Chuck Szmurlo/Wikimedia Commons 

Is smaller better when it comes to nuclear?

David Suzuki    RABBLE.CA

Nuclear power hasn't been in the news much since the 2011 Fukushima meltdown in Japan. Thanks to a push by industry and governments, you might soon hear more about how nuclear reactors are now safer and better. 

Specifically, the conversation has shifted to "small modular nuclear reactors" or SMNRs, which generate less than 300 megawatts of electricity, compared to up to 1,600 MWe for large reactors.  

Some of the 100 or so designs being considered include integral pressurized water reactors, molten salt reactors, high-temperature gas reactors, liquid metal cooled reactors and solid state or heat pipe reactors. To date, the industry is stuck at the prototype stage for all models and none is truly modular in the sense of being manufactured several at a time -- an impediment considering the speed at which global heating is worsening. 

The benefits touted by industry have convinced many countries, including Canada, to gamble huge sums on nuclear, despite the poor odds. The Small Modular Reactor Action Plan hypes it as the possible "future of Canada's nuclear industry, with the potential to provide non-emitting energy for a wide range of applications, from grid-scale electricity generation to use in heavy industry and remote communities." 

Canada would reap economic benefits from an expanded nuclear industry. We have the largest deposits of high-grade uranium and a long history of nuclear power development and export. But uranium mining creates problems: impacts on Indigenous communities, workers exposed to radiation, radioactive contamination of lakes, habitat destruction and more.  

The World Nuclear Association says small reactors' modular construction means they can be built faster and for less money than conventional nuclear, and several modules can be combined to create larger facilities. They're seen as a cleaner replacement for diesel or gas power in remote oil and gas operations and isolated communities.  

The association says they're "designed for a high level of passive or inherent safety in the event of malfunction" and that "many are designed to be emplaced below ground level, giving a high resistance to terrorist threats." They can also produce steam for industrial applications and district heating systems, and used to make value-added products such as hydrogen fuel and desalinated drinking water. 

But, given the seriousness of the climate emergency and the various options for transforming our energy systems to combat it, is nuclear -- regardless of size or shape -- the way to go? We must rapidly reduce emissions now, and we have readily available technologies to do so. 

New nuclear doesn't make practical or economic sense for now. Building reactors will remain expensive and time-consuming. Studies estimate electricity from small nuclear can cost from four to 10 times that of wind and solar, whose costs continue to drop. SMNRs will require substantial government subsidies. 

Even when nuclear has to compete against renewables prepackaged with storage, the latter wins out.  

One recent study of 123 countries over 25 years published in Nature Energy found that renewables are much better at reducing greenhouse gas emissions than nuclear -- whose benefits in this area are negligible -- and that combining nuclear and renewables creates a systemic tension that makes it harder to develop renewables to their potential.  

Like all nuclear reactors, SMNRs produce radioactive waste and contribute to increased nuclear weapons proliferation risk -- and Canada still has no effective strategy for waste. Nuclear power also requires enormous amounts of water. 

Corporate interests often favour large, easily monopolized utilities, arguing that only major fossil fuel, nuclear or hydro power facilities can provide large-scale "baseload" power. But many experts argue the "baseload myth" is baseless -- that a flexible system using renewables combined with investments in energy efficiency and a smart grid that helps smooth out demand peaks is far more efficient and cost-effective, especially as energy storage technologies improve. 

Even for remote populations, energy systems that empower communities, households, businesses and organizations to generate and store their own energy with solar panels or wind installations and batteries, for example, and technologies like heat-exchange systems for buildings, would be better than nuclear. 

Renewables cost less than nuclear, come with fewer health, environmental and weapons-proliferation risks and have been successfully deployed worldwide. Given rapid advances in energy, grid and storage technologies, along with the absolute urgency of the climate crisis, pursuing nuclear at the expense of renewables is costly, dangerous and unnecessary. 

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.            

July 28, 2021

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org. 

Image: Nuclear Regulatory Commission/Flickr