NUKE DANGERS COVERED UP BY REGULATORS?

File the “incident at Canada’s Chalk River nuclear reactor” under “these things CAN happen.” No, it wasn’t a nuclear accident. It didn’t get that far. It was the discovery of faulty safety equipment necessitating a plant shutdown.

Some would say this proves the system works. So did Watergate, but that wasn’t the way things are supposed to go either. The point is that nuclear energy is dangerous, and all the more so because humans are fallible.

Fortunately, harsh words are the only lasting consequence of this malfunction, though the supply of medical isotopes used in nuclear diagnostics was interrupted for a while.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, the shutdown was a political football pitting the conservative Prime Minister against liberal parliamentary leaders. (See NUKE PLANT SHUTDOWN STARTS POLITICAL ROIL)

Now it has devolved into a shouting match between the operator (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., AECL) and the regulator (the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, CNSC) over whose fault it was.

Imagine how ugly it could get if something really valuable like energy was at stake. Or if some terrible consequence like the release of radioactive materials had occurred.

The Chalk River laboratories on the Ottawa River, home of the National Research Universal reactor where the shutdown was required. (click to enlarge)

Nuclear watchdog misled public, Atomic Energy claims
Ian MacLeod, January 16, 2008 (CanWest News Service via Montreal Gazette)

WHO
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), Linda Keen, president; Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL)

WHAT
AECL is charging that CNSC was long aware of the problems that led to the Chalk River shutdown but did not act.

WHEN
The shutdown was November 22, 2007. AECL claims CNSC knew about the faulty safety equipment at least in July 2007, if not as far back as 2005.

A reactor at Ontario’s Pickering station where there was a safety issue in Spring 2007. Much of Canada's nuclear energy infrastructure is aging and requires heightened vigilance. (click to enlarge)

WHERE
- The Chalk River reactor is in Ontario.
- 2/3 of the world supply of medical isotopes come from Chalk River.

WHY
- The shutdown came when a National Research Universal reactor was announced to be operating without two of its most crucial water pump motor starters connected to an emergency power supply (EPS).
- Initially, Prime Minister Harper fired the head of AECL. Now Parliament is going after the head of the CNSC.

Climate change is serious but a nuclear accident could be cataclysmic. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Dale Coffin, AECL spokesman: "The commission made a decision and in retrospect, in light of all this evidence, we have shown it was a wrong decision and the reactor's extended outage could have been prevented…"
- AECL letter summarizing the Chalk River events: "While CNSC has stated repeatedly that it 'discovered' in November 2007 that the motor starters on (pumps) P104 and P105 had not been connected to EPS, the evidence incontrovertibly shows that on nine different occasions between June 2005 and July 2007, both CNSC and AECL explicitly stated in writing that the EPS had not been connected to the starter motors for the main heavy water pumps 104 and 105…"