Excerpt from Part 3: Incinerators - The Next Generation "Waste Circus" Coming to Canada

by Joyce Nelson

Preferential Treatment

In Canada, the federal government has been doling out funding to this sector, with billions of dollars available both for WTE companies and for municipalities to invest in WTE incineration via P3s.

For years, the point-man on the WTE incineration issue at the federal level has been Bob Mills, the five-term (1993-2008) MP from Red Deer, Alberta, and one of the original Reform Party MPs. Before retiring from office in 2008 to become the registered lobbyist for Ottawa-based Plasco Energy Group, Mills was the Alliance/Conservative environment critic (as of 2001), then a member of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development (2005-2007), and then Chair of that powerful Committee (2007-2008).

By 2005, Mills had become a committed believer in gasification WTE incineration for MSW and had convinced his Red Deer constituency to take a trip to Germany to see WTE incineration in action.

In that same year, Plasco brought Ottawa businessman Rod Bryden on board as President. Toronto's Now Magazine (April 5, 2007) called Bryden "a deep Liberal insider, the largest single donor to [Ontario Premier] Dalton McGuinty's 1996 leadership campaign ($10 grand) [and] co-chair of Stephane Dion's leadership transition team."

by Joyce Nelson

With the November 2009 release of Metro Vancouver's draft "Integrated Solid Waste and Resource Management Plan," the Greater Vancouver Region is formally on the path to building one or more waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerators by 2015. The Plan confirms that "Metro Vancouver will establish up to 500,000 tonnes per year of new waste-to-energy capacity within the region." 

by Susan MacVittie

It seems that the brighter colours and sharper images that flat screen TVs offer come at a price. They are electricity hogs.

LCD (liquid crystal display) TVs, which account for 90% of the four million TVs purchased in California each year, consume 43% more energy on average than the older cathode ray tube TVs (CRTs), while plasma TVs use three times as much. A 60-inch plasma TV uses more power in a few hours than the largest residential refrigerator running 24 hours.

by Joyce Nelson

Across Canada, the US, the UK, Europe, and Asia, communities are facing an unprecedented onslaught of proposals for new incinerators. In July 2008, Friends of the Earth released a map showing dozens of planned new incinerator sites across the UK. The British government has committed billions to new incineration, while cutting budgets for recycling by 30 per cent.

Germany, which already has such an over-capacity of incineration that it imports millions of tonnes of garbage each year to feed its maw, is nonetheless planning 100 new incinerators. The Germany waste-disposal industry is lobbying fiercely to get the government out of regulating the sector.

by Anna Tilman

Reality Check

The nuclear energy industry has a dream of a new renaissance - but their dream could be our nightmare. Already there are large quantities of long-lasting highly radioactive waste at reactor sites sitting in cooling pools of water with nowhere to go. A nuclear renaissance would only make this desperate problem even worse.

Despite all the reports about leaks, shutdowns (temporary and long-term), construction woes, and financial costs, nuclear power proponents continue to portray it as safe, reliable and cheap. Worst of all, they portray it as the solution for climate change.

by Anna Tilman

This series of articles, "On The Yellowcake Trail," tracks the history of all aspects of uranium in Canada from the mining and milling, to processing and use, throughout its eighty-year history. The series began with the history of uranium mining in Canada. This article examines the various stages involved in processing uranium and the issues that emerge with each of these stages.

The nuclear industry paints a rosy picture of its operations, portraying itself as a well-planned, controlled and safe industry, and the answer to climate change. But the track record of flooding and spills at mine sites, cost overruns, delays, leaks and shutdowns at nuclear plants, and the catastrophic nuclear "accidents" at Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island, are in stark contrast with that positive image. At every stage in the nuclear chain, from extraction to processing and use, vast amounts of radioactive waste and other highly hazardous wastes are produced. Spills and leaks commonly occur, marking treacherous places in the yellowcake trail that remain deadly for hundreds of thousands of years.

This series of articles, "The Yellowcake Trail," tracks all aspects of uranium in Canada from the mining and milling, to processing and use, throughout its eighty-year history. The series begins with the history of uranium in Canada, from its initial discovery to the rapid development of mines that placed Canada as the prominent world leader in uranium production. Each mine has a story and each story has a common thread and legacy.

On the Yellowcake Trail

by Anna Tilman

Click here to download a large jpg of the map 

Click here to download the expanded and footnoted version of this text (Word doc)

Yellowcake is the bright yellow uranium powder produced when raw uranium ore is crushed and purified. It is actually a mixture of uranium oxides, mostly U3O8 (urania), and ranges in colour from yellow to orange to dark green. It is this yellowcake that is packaged in steel drums, traded and sent across the world to be further proc­essed, converted to different forms, enriched and used in the manufacture of nuclear fuel or bombs.

by Arthur Caldicott

When the BC Liberals took over government in 2001, water pricing for the Power-General license – that’s the water license a company needs to generate electricity for sale – had two parts: a capacity charge calculated on the generating capacity of a facility, and an energy charge, based on how much electricity was generated each year.

The energy charge was applied in two tiers. The first tier, for the first 250,000 megawatt hours (MWh) generated by a licensee, was levied a much lower rate than the second tier, which applied to everything else.

By 2008, the lowest tier had been reduced to 160,000 MWh, and a new middle tier was introduced, up to 3 million MWh.

What is not immediately apparent is how the tiers and the prices align with actual projects being proposed in British Columbia. There are two intriguing aspects to these alignments.

 49 MW and 160,000 MWh

by Delores Broten

BC Hydro forecasts BC electricity requirements to go up to between 68,000 and 82,000 gigawatt hours (gwh) by 2025. This is up 35% from 51,000 gwh in 2006 - an increase of at least 17,000 gwh.

Sounds like we are going to need a lot more power in BC, but BC Hydro's Powersmart people say that BC can easily conserve 8,660 gwh by 2026, and could conserve up to 15,070 - for a net increase of only 2,000 gwh.

To put that in perspective, BC Hydro has accepted 4 projects to generate power from beetle kill wood for 579 gwh. The 2003 Green power proposals came to 1762 gwh so 2,000 gwh will not require much capacity-building.

Hydro is in the process of adding two 500 megawatt generators to the Mica (Columbia River) dam. They are also adding another 500 mw generator to the Revelstoke dam.

Permanent closures in the pulp industry, not included in these forecasts, should free up 2,000 gwh. Then there is the Kitimat aluminium plant, which is not now going to be expanded according to the new owners. It has power surplus to its needs.

For "Clean Power," in the current round, BC Hydro received 68 proposals from 43 companies, representing a total firm energy output of approximately 17,000 gwh per year. The proposals were for 45 hydro projects, 19 wind projects, 2 waste heat projects, 1 biogas project, and 1 biomass project."

Site C would create 4600 gwh.

-BC Hydro 2005 Electric Load Forecast, BC Hydro Conservation Potential Report, 2007

by Maggie Paquet

Google the phrase, “Site C” and whaddya get? 1,270,000 hits! The first two are from BC Hydro claiming that another dam on the Peace River is a good source of “green energy.” Green energy?

What does the term “green energy” mean? That it’s completely “sustainable”? It has no negative environmental effects? Does “green” mean “clean”? Or is it a case of “clean” compared to…What? Coal-fired generation? Nuclear power? Incinerating garbage? The purpose of this article is to get us thinking beyond the words and into a closer approximation of reality – in the context of energy production.

What is Site C?

Site C is a proposed third dam on the Peace River about 7 km southwest of Fort St. John in BC’s northeast.