• High cost
• Low efficiency
• Expensive to maintain
• Prone to breakdowns
• Big environmental footprint

The Nuclear Model

Big Environmental Footprint
Nuclear is not clean energy.  It produces dangerously radioactive waste for which there are no long-term disposal options in place.   Nuclear waste will remain radioactive for thousands of years and current plans call for high-level management of waste sites for at least 300 years!  

No one has ever attempted to actually take apart and dispose of an aging reactor, but given the performance history (and dangerously close to Toronto location) of the Pickering Nuclear Station, Ontario may be facing that challenge sooner rather than later.

Nuclear power also relies on fuel – uranium – that is every bit as limited as fossil fuels.  Uranium mining has big environmental impacts and a long history of air and water pollution.  Uranium reserves are dwindling and the quality of ore bodies is dropping, meaning mines have to be bigger and more energy expended to produce the same amount of fuel.

Lastly, nuclear is a slow and expensive response to climate change. We cannot wait 10-15 years to reduce emissions from coal-fired electricity — the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario — but that is how long it will take to build a new nuclear plant.

There are better answers to meeting our electricity needs >

Nuclear power is a slow and expensive response to climate change, which requires action today — not a decade or more from now.