I recently took part in a focus group discussing various aspect of electricity service in Newfoundland and Labrador. We looked at some fairly innocuous questions such as cost, value for money, maintenance or improvement of infrastructure, and so on. Many of the participants, including me, strayed from the intended pathway by introducing the issue of Muskrat Falls, but the moderator always dragged us back to the rather mundane list of prepared questions. We were there for two hours, but it was clear to me that a discussion or debate on Muskrat Falls alone would have taken up twice that time.

Now I don't intend going over what has already been said on that matter. Instead I want to raise a different aspect of the generation of electricity: the use of nuclear power. Until recently I was totally and absolutely opposed to the use of nuclear fission for this purpose. The examples of Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukiyama were enough to convince me that the dangers associated with the operation of nuclear reactors, and the intractable problem of the disposal of spent nuclear fuel, far outweigh any potential benefits in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Certainly, the cost of building and maintaining such reactors seem to lead to higher prices for the consumer. And those price increases have been mitigated by enormous government subsidies which, by sleight of hand, have been disguised as not coming from the pockets of taxpayers.

So what changed my mind? I came across an article on a blog called Brave New Climate (http://bravenewclimate.com) and read an item on Internal Fast Reactors (IFR). I had never before heard of such animals, and was intrigued to read more (I'm still reading the wealth of information that site contains). In simple terms, this form of nuclear fission can use existing spent fuel rods, or a form of uranium that has not been enriched to weapons grade, to generate electricity in a set-up that is designed to run virtually untended and that will in the event of a natural disaster -- flooding, earthquake -- shut itself down.

So, why has this technology not received wider publicity or support? It's hard to say. But one factor that has been cited is cost. In the facilities that were built (no more than one in any country up to now), the cost comparisons were skewed in favour of the Light Water or Heavy Water Reactors (the Canadian preferred type), because the experiments were small scale. There may have been another reason: IFRs do not produce weapons-grade material for nuclear bombs.

I'll contact the author of Brave New Climate to see if I can reproduce here some of his material, since his explanations of the technical aspects of IFRs are very clear.

One immediate benefit that comes to mind is that, if the technology can be cost-effective on a medium scale, we don't need to flood vast areas of Labrador, nor construct an absurdly long transmission line to bring electricity to markets in eastern Canada or the NE United States.

More to come.

My blog on the fishery got sidetracked.... (Is this a common problem among bloggers?). Since my last post, I have been thinking a little more about the structure of the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery, and here are a few, random comments:
1.  It seems that (I can't find confirmation of what I read) the Federal Government has slipped into the Omnibus Bill a statement that the fish in Canadian waters  in the North Atlantic will no longer be recognized as a Common Property Resource. With this designation, the fish in Canadian waters are deemed to be the property of the Canadian people, and thus nominally under the control of the Federal Government. This designation is important since it forms the ground for regulations governing quotas and disposal, that is it is the basis for setting the amount of fish caught, species to be harvested, and where the fish may be processed. There is overlap with provincial jurisdiction; the NL provincial government, for example, determines licences for fish plants and whether fish can be exported processed or whole.
But, without the designation of Common Property Resource, fish harvesters will be free to take what they can since no one entity owns the fish.
2.  It is becoming clearer to me that the decline, and slow recovery of the fish stocks, especially cod is not open to a simple explanation. Actions of fish harvesters have contributed: extensive use of draggers disturbing the sea-bed where cod spawn; the switch, after the cod moratorium, to shrimp fishing which reduced the available food supply for cod; the extensive over-fishing of caplin off Iceland which again reduced food supply for cod; and the continued high level of foreign fishing for cod on the noase and tail of the Banks.
However, another factor, which I have not seen discussed, is the effect of con trails, or vapour trails from transatlantic flights that reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the ocean surface, thereby reducing the growth of plankton and other minuscule entities that form the bottom of the food chain. When, during the three-day hiatus in flights following the 9/11 disaster, it was observed that temperatures rose, there seems to have been little follow-up to see what other effects might have been produced. A study elsewhere (in Israel, I believe) did show that there was an increase in the amount of beneficial sunlight reaching the ground.
3.  The recent closure of five fish plants in NL (and the confirmation of two further closures) raises certain questions. On the one hand we are told, by plant owners and the government, that there is not enough product to keep the plants going. But at the same time at least two of the plants have applied for permission to export unprocessed fish to China.

I'll leave this blog for now, and look forward to receiving comments.