My hometown and the reason for it's existance circa 1970's

[245dlc]

Many many years ago we had a Prime Minister in Canada that actually gave a damn about the Canadian west and because of him and the cold war the Canadian Government started investing in more nuclear research and to make a long story short they built a nuclear research facility near where I grew up. My dad worked there for 32 years in the Waste Management program where they did research into the disposal of nuclear waste into a complex underground repository.
So anyway my sister had found this video from youtube posted on Facebook thought you guys might find it interesting it's old and probably made in the early '70's if not late 60's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg5wf5v7R1Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYomtwtaLOE

[Muz]

Since the days of Sir Ernest Rutherford ... the world has a lot to answer for ... .. currently as I post .. we host the nuclear fleet that protects you and most of the west , which is a conjoined effort with the US .. its only 40 miles or so from my door step. I do have my moments of worry sometimes

[245dlc]

Much of the U.S.'s ICBM and nuclear bombers are within an hour or two of the Canadian border....I live about 40 minutes from the border by the way. One time when I was about 9 or 10 years old we were camping near Grand Forks, ND and some big planes were flying over us in and out of the Grand Forks Air Force Base my dad said they were B-1B bombers which are a low level high speed nuclear capable bomber......warm fuzzy thoughts. lol

[Muz]

Yes ofcourse .. I was referring to Scotland, and our western defence capabilities, knowing ofcourse our allies are stationed world wide, but in the days of the cold war, I guess we were that much closer to Russia that the strategic capability was not to be overlooked. Then ofcourse submarines became the weapon of choice such as we have, due to their stealthy nature, they could patrol undetected for months at a time submerged, whilst targeting with incredible accuracy weapons of mass destruction.

I am digressing for sure from your point, and I actually have a view in both camps as to the whys and wherefors of the technology. I think our governments have accepted that it doesen't create carbon, and is viable for power generation,(and have done so for many years) but its legacy is not something our generation will have to deal with and thats what bothers me the most. Weapons aside, the by products are so toxic that I think we should consider whether to keep on using it, if we havent found a way of making the by products safe, that future generations shouldnt be saddled with. I'm not saying a disagree with its use, but its seems to me a bit odd, that we continue to store a legacy of problems, and by products, that we havent yet learned how to make safe ?. I know the fuel gets reprocessed, but its all the other bits of contamination that go with it that are the problem let alone the reactor parts themselves when decommissioning arrives, for a plant that has reached the end of its working life

Edit :

Havent seen the whole vid but you see what I mean here

And BTW I'm no greenpeace activist !! .. just thinking with a bit of common sense !!

[245dlc]

Hi Muz,

I have also questioned the use of nuclear energy myself though I do firmly believe that much of the research that AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) has done in the past has been for good and I know that some disposal practices that were done in the past we have come to regret especially that dumping in the sea bullshit. Much of the work my dad was involved in was actually the disposal of high level nuclear waste like spent fuel in underground vaults. The Canadian spin on disposal is to actually build a repository deep in the Canadian Shield in a rock mass called a Batholith. The reason behind burial in the Canadian Shield is that it's such an old and hard rock mass over a billion years old and hasn't moved very much in that time and a batholith has little to no fractures thus significantly decreasing the likelihood of any leakage. It is hard to convince people that this is really the safest place to put such dangerous material and a very safe way of keeping this material out of the hands of terrorists and other crazies, because as it stands now these casks of spent fuel and other radioactive material are stored on the surface in highly guarded and secured compounds and buildings.

[Stock]

Well the laugh here is that Ireland is a "Nuclear Free zone" yet within 60+ miles we have Sellafield and now the construction of Hinkley point. We have a heap of gas powered electricity and some coal / peat stations belching out noxious gasses which are effecting the environment practically on leaving the flue. Now storing waste for future generations to deal with may be an issue but if we look at landfill sites from the 60's 70's & 80's are now being harvested for gas to generate electricity we have to consider that with advances in processes, materials and technology this stuff may be rendered inert in the future all be it at a cost that is.

These windmills that are now popping up on the horizons that have huge carbon foot prints what or who will pay for the remediation of those sites when the time arrives.

[245dlc]

They plumbed a large landfill by Winnipeg recently to burn the methane it puts out and generate electricity. I believe it's an ongoing process as in as they have the money they plumb in more wells. As for power generation in this province it's mostly hydro electric with two small thermal generating stations, one that burns both coal and natural gas and the other only natural gas (it used to burn only coal). The thermal generating stations are suppose to only be used during peak times like when we get a cold spell and everybody has their electric furnaces running on high. There however has been some controversy over the hydro electric dams especially with how one particular dam uses Lake Winnipeg as it's reservoir and keeps it artificially high and causes it to act like a sewer lagoon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Winnipeg