SASKATOON – It will be a while before radioactive waste is stored anywhere other than the sites of the 22 Canadian nuclear reactors, says an industry representative.
Larry Christie, of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. said all the uranium fuel rods are numbered before and after use. They are then placed in “large, Olympic-sized swimming pools” or stored in dry canisters at the site where they were used.
Until the AECL finishes its scientific investigation of whether the wastes could be placed underground in granite rock, there is no other legal storage allowed.
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“There is no urgency tied to it” said Christie of the rock storage concept. The AECL is still dealing with the technical questions about rock storage and it has been sharing its findings with community and citizen groups for five years. It’s a “long-range plan” he said that still requires federal government approval before dealing with where a storage site would be.
Christie said he didn’t have the technical knowledge to say whether the Meadow Lake area would be suitable for the granite rock concept. He said the tribal council is responsible for looking at economic development possibilities for its people. There are communities in northern Ontario, in the appropriate Canadian Shield rock, that see the economic possibilities in having a nuclear waste site. However, he estimated it would be 20 or 30 years before the question of site location would be dealt with.
Nuclear power plants in Canada make electricity by using the heat produced during a nuclear reaction to turn water into steam to run the turbines that generate power.
