For years, Toronto has been trying to foist its garbage -- all 725,000 tonnes a year -- on some other community. Michigan took it for a while, but now it is about to pass a law to keep our trash-filled trucks out. In desperation, Toronto just paid $220-million for a landfill site near London, Ont., in a deal so controversial, the council debate was held in private. Clearly, we have enough trouble dealing with our everyday waste.
And now, suddenly, we may have to worry about being stuck with the spent fuel rods from the power that keeps the lights on and transit running.
Ten days ago, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization -- the group tasked with finding a long-term solution for storing Canada's spent nuclear fuel -- released its 2006 annual report. Over the past year, it said, the NWMO focused on the idea of burying high-level radioactive waste in sedimentary rock, which underlies Southern Ontario, including Toronto.
A dumpsite under Toronto? It's the ultimate NIMBY problem.
"Southern Ontario tends to think nuclear waste is not a problem," says Greenpeace Canada's energy co-ordinator, Dave Martin. "But there's a very good chance a nuclear-waste dump could end up in your backyard."
Why not? Ontario generates more than 90 per cent of the high-level radioactive waste in this country.
About half our electricity comes from nuclear power plants -- one of which, Pickering, is right next door. And "existing facilities tend to become sacrifice areas," Mr. Martin says. "If you have one kind of dirty development, it tends to attract other dirty developments."
Right now, Ontario is sitting on about 30,000 tonnes of nuclear waste stored at the three plants. That could double, if the Ontario Liberals go ahead with their plan to spend $40-billion building new nuclear plants and refurbishing old ones. As they see it, that would solve our electricity and climate-change woes in one shot, because proponents of nuclear power say it's carbon-neutral. "The industry argues that with nuclear power, the waste is contained -- it's not punked out into the atmosphere," Mr. Martin says. "The problem is that it's around for a million years."
As it stands, Ontario's three nuclear facilities -- at Kincardine, Darlington and Pickering -- house the spent-fuel canisters they produce in huge pools for roughly 10 years, before transferring them to steel-and-concrete containers. But those will last, at the maximum, 100 years. And then you have to find something new to do with them.
Why consider Toronto among other Southern Ontario cities? It all has to do with a new way of thinking about how to deal with the waste. Canada, like every nuclear-power-sucking nation in the world, is struggling with that question. The answer, according to the NWMO, is deep-geological deposits.
In this scenario, spent fuel rods are encased in copper-and-steel canisters, then buried in solid rock 500 to 1,000 metres underground, where they are monitored for roughly 300 years, then sealed up with waterproof clay. France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and Sweden are all investigating the same idea; the government has already dug a test tunnel in Finland. "No one's come up with a better way to do it," says Sean Russell, a technical adviser with the NWMO. "The ultimate goal is to contain and isolate the waste from the surface environment where people hang out."
For decades, most deep-geological research focused on the crystalline rock of the Canadian Shield. But the NWMO has shifted its focus to sedimentary rock (the bedrock of Southern Ontario), including limestone and shale. This material, basically ancient seabed, can go down a kilometre or more. "Once we realized that sedimentary rock was appropriate," Mr. Russell says, "it was only fair that we investigate."
The federal government still has to decide how to proceed. But if it opts for deep-geological deposits, the NWMO will start searching for a site -- a process that could take 10 years or more. "A key part of our approach is that there be an informed and willing host," says former Toronto mayor David Crombie, who sits on the NWMO's advisory board. "And I'd be quite surprised if Toronto was a willing host."
No kidding. When asked how he felt about the idea of Toronto housing high-level nuclear waste, all Mayor David Miller could spit out was, "No. No." He soon regained his composure. "We're trying to work with the federal government to produce significant investment in things that Toronto needs to grow, and I don't see a nuclear-waste dump fitting with increased prosperity or livability," Mr. Miller said. "It's simply not tenable, it's not feasible, and it's not appropriate."
So what kind of "willing community" would volunteer to house highly radioactive waste? Well, Kincardine, for one. The town of 12,000, located on the shores of Lake Huron, is home to the Bruce power plant, which generates more than 20 per cent of Ontario's electricity and is the region's largest employer.
In 2005, Kincardine signed up for a deep-geological repository for low- and intermediate-level waste (everything but spent fuel). In return, Bruce agreed to hand the municipality $650,000 each year until 2034, plus two "milestone" payments of $1.3-million. It also agreed to help create a Centre for Energy Excellence to train the next-generation workforce.
"We have the highest percentage of nuclear workers of any community in North America, so the expertise is already anchored here," says Kincardine's mayor, Larry Kraemer. "The people of this area are far more comfortable with it than the average member of the GTA."
Indeed, the town conducted a poll of every adult in Kincardine, and 60 per cent said yes to the underground dump, which likely won't begin construction until 2017.
As for the high-level stuff, even Kincardine has said thanks, but no thanks.
Finding a site for that waste will be incredibly sensitive. First off, Mr. Russell says, the NWMO will need about 600 hectares of space, an area twice the size of the Toronto Zoo (downtown dwellers, breathe a sign of relief). Second, the rock will need to be "very boring" -- no mineral resources, very few fractures and groundwater that's millions of years old -- to ensure the fuel containers remain intact. But will they last for 10 millennia? Doubtful.
Many believe these wastes will eventually find their way into the surrounding environment. "The questions are, how soon will it happen?" Greenpeace's Mr. Martin says. "And what will be the toxicity of the waste at that time? That's the nuclear dilemma."
For Mr. Crombie, it's a dilemma we have a responsibility to solve. He's no fan of nuclear power. In 1977, as Toronto's mayor, he was part of a citizens' group that petitioned the feds to ban new nuclear facilities and to pursue alternative-energy policies. "There are people on the NWMO's advisory board with clear views on nuclear, but they agree that we have an obligation to deal with what we've already done," he says.
"We enjoy the benefits of nuclear power whether we want it or not," he says. "It's part of life. It heats the houses and lights the streets."