Isotope Crisis: What Impolitical Said

I've been slacking off on my blogging this summer because... well, it's summer. Get over it.

Besides, my very favourite nuclear blogger Impolitical has been doing a top notch job chronicling the Chalk River / Lisa Raitt / isotope debacle without the need for any added commentary from me.

Today's post discusses McMaster University's repeated and unheeded pleas for the federal government to give them the go-ahead and the relatively small amount of cash they need to enable them to start producing Moly-99 isotopes. Turns out they first made this offer a year and a half ago, stating that it would only take them 18 months to start production.

In other words, if the government had taken them up on it then, they would be producing large quantities of moly-99 isotopes RIGHT NOW.

I'll be asking Lisa Raitt about this, but assuming she even bothers to answer me I'm pretty sure I know exactly what her response will be:

"We are aware of McMaster's capabilities and this is one of the options we're considering."

Chalk River Quotes of the Day

From a G&M article entitled, "How Canada let the world down":

What's disappointing about the crisis isn't so much that the Chalk River reactor sprung a leak (or, rather, several of them) – that's what happens to a 52-year-old reactor, said Norman Laurin, a nuclear physician at the Trois-Rivières Regional Hospital in Quebec.

What's frustrating, he said, is that the ensuing crisis was entirely avoidable.

“Those are very, very complex technical issues. I don't blame them for taking the amount of time that is necessary,” Dr. Laurin said. “It's not the government's fault that the NRU reactor is broken. … It's the management of the crisis that should have been a lot better.”

Meanwhile, Stephen Harper is disappointed. In AECL. And so is Lisa Raitt:

The day before the prime minister made his comments, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and Raitt released a joint statement saying they, too, were disappointed about the latest setback for the still-offline reactor.

"We have asked AECL to provide a firm return-to-service plan as soon as possible, and we have underscored to them that their first priority is to return the NRU reactor to service, consistent with maintaining the highest standards of safety and security," the ministers said in the statement.

And:

...Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt said that fixing the reactor is the best way to ensure a supply of isotopes in the coming years.

"That is the main fact of it," she told CTV News Channel on Thursday.

Because apparently one can repair holes, reverse corrosion, and safely restart a leaky reactor through sheer force of political will. Now get to it!

(for a somewhat more nuanced summary of the situation, check here.)

Wednesday Morning Notes: Isotopes, Game Theory, and the PBO

Lazy mid-week blogging:

1) McMaster Reactor Steps Up.

I think I've mentioned before that my husband used to work at the accelerator lab at McMaster University as a nuclear safety technician way back in the late 70s (I'll have to dig up a copy of his 'Nuclear Bunnies' 'zine for you some time). Anyway, apparently Mac has now done the math and determined that the University's reactor can, in fact, produce enough Tc-99m needed to supply about 20% of the North American market. They just need (you guessed it) a biggish pile of cash to do it.

I did find this statement particularly interesting:

The president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, Dr. Robert Atcher, is saying the long-term solution to the worldwide isotope shortages isn't necessarily in building new reactors.

"It turns out that our real problem isn't that there aren't enough reactors to make medical isotopes," Atcher told CTV on Tuesday.

"It's the production facilities that we use when we take those targets out of the reactor and process them to remove the medically useful isotopes -- that capacity around the world is very limited. So we don't need necessarily to build any more reactors; we need to build those processing facilities."

UPDATE: The Natty Post picked this up this morning, quoting the McMaster facility's manager as saying that all they need is the non-weapons grade uranium and the trained staff and they're good to go.

2) 'Parliament Without a Cause'

A brilliant essay by Andrew Steele in yesterday's Globe & Mail on the application of game theory to this week's political showdown. He comes to some interesting conclusions about the pros and cons of a summer election for each of the four federal parties, but really - just watching someone draw parallels between the political brinksmanship in Canada's current multi-party minority government and the 'chicken' scene in 'Rebel Without a Cause', is just... wow.

Go read.

UPDATE: CalgaryGrit liked it too.

3) Kevin Page Vindicated

The Library of Parliament Committee has finally reached their verdict:

Parliament's budget watchdog is woefully underfunded, the Library of Parliament committee said in a report released Tuesday. The committee recommended his 2009-2010 budget be raised to $2.8 million from $1.86 million.

Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page's current budget is $323,000 short of his projected spending for the fiscal year and well short of the $2.75 million he was supposed to get before his budget was cut.

"Even with a $2.75-million budget it was virtually impossible to provide scrutiny of departmental estimates [planned expenditures] representing over $240 billion per year," the committee said.

"The reduction will mean that the scope for the PBO to fulfil the legislated mandate will be further reduced."

Assuming anybody is actually planning to act on the committee's recommendations, this is excellent news for our much beleaguered Paliamentary Budget Officer - who, BTW, recently looked at Jim Flaherty's numbers and concluded that there is no way in hell the government will be able to dig itself out of the deficit hole any time soon without severely cutting programs or (gasp!) raising taxes.

Kevin Page: the Last Honest Man in Ottawa.

OR NOT: The Toronto Sun is spinning this as putting Page on a "tight leash", insisting that he not hold press conferences or release his reports to anyone besides MPs an Senators. They also reference to Page's release of the Afghan War cost analysis during the election - a move which, they forget, was agreed to by all four parties.

This is the actual quote from the press release on the report:

The report proposes 10 recommendations aimed, among other things, at increasing funding for the Parliamentary Budget Officer, consistent with his following existing procedures at the Library of Parliament and respects the confidentiality of the work of parliamentarians and committees; and permitting the publication of independent reports as long as they are presented first to parliamentarians.

That doesn't sound like a spanking to me - that sounds like they're saying, "Carry on".

"MAPLES never produced a single isotope... oh, wait... you mean THOSE isotopes?"

Ever since the latest Chalk River isotope debacle started reaching crisis proportions, the folks at MDS Nordion has been trying to tell people that those supposedly fatally flawed MAPLE reactors - the ones the Conservatives mothballed a few months ago - might just be salvageable after all.

Lately, they've been saying it to the Natural Resources Committee:

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper repeated that defence of the government's decision, saying, "after hundreds of millions of dollars and years and years of investment, not a single isotope had been created and the expert assessment we received was that there was no realistic reason to believe there would be any isotope production for years and years to come, if ever. So it was not a viable project."

But Jill Chitra, a vice-president and professional engineer at MDS Nordion told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources that is incorrect.

"From 2000 to 2008, the MAPLE reactors ran numerous times at various power levels, up to 80 per cent power," Chitra said. "(Isotope) targets were inserted in the reactor for a number of those tests. When targets are inserted in the reactor and it operates at power, isotopes — Moly-99 — is created."

Chitra said that the targets were simply not processed or harvested.

"Those targets could have been removed and processed and you'd have had medical isotopes for sale," Chitra said. "It's one of the reasons we think MAPLE has potential."

This flies in the face of what we have previously been told about the MAPLE reactors, which is that they are fatally flawed and cannot be operated safely. And of course, one cannot forget that MDS has a considerable financial stake in the MAPLE reactors.

So what is the truth?

I found this article to be particularly informative, in that it explains what a positive energy coefficient is and why it can be bad, but isn't necessarily always bad. In fact, the only time when it would be bad is if all primary and backup power to the reactor suddenly shut off AND the entire crew at the reactor had either died, disappeared, or ascended in the Rapture at that same exact moment, preventing them from conducting a safe manual shutdown.

Yes. That would be bad.

On the other hand, the odds of that happening are so utterly astronomical that it makes the whole Rapture thing seem plausible. And if some unforseen catastrophe were to cause a complete power shutdown and the deaths of every person at Chalk River (a 10.5 quake? a meteor?), I would imagine we would be dealing with a significantly bigger problem than a melting reactor.

Far be it for me to suggest that anyone compromise safety when it comes to a nuclear reactor - even a little one. But given the near certainty of people actually dying from undiagnosed cancers sometime in the forseeable future if this situation isn't rectified, maybe it's time to reconsider our options. Preferably with the help of someone without a financial or ideological interest in the outcome.

(H/T to David Akin, who is going to have to write a book about all this someday.)

Heads Are Gonna Roll

Lisa Raitt might just be destined to join Maxime Bernier on the backbench over this one:

Secret federal documents reveal full AECL funding

Sensitive government documents left behind at a CTV News bureau reveal Ottawa has poured far more money into the aging Chalk River nuclear reactor than the public has been told.

The binder of documents was left nearly a week ago at CTV's Ottawa bureau by either Minister of Natural Resources Lisa Raitt or one of her aides. Some of the papers are clearly marked "secret."

Oops. Of course, it's unclear at this point which is worse: the fact that 'secret' documents dealing with our nuclear industry were left for a week in a TV studio without anyone noticing, or the actual information contained in those documents:

...In documents headlined "Background for discussion with chair of Atomic Energy Canada," the government lists funding for the Crown corporation at $351 million for 2009-2010. That figure was in the January budget.

However, it also lists $72 million to "maintain the option of isotope production." The public 2009 budget does not specifically mention funding for isotopes.

The documents also include a hand-written note that lists total funding for Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. since 2006 at $1.7 billion, and then a talking-point memo to characterize the spending as "cleaning up a Liberal mess."

...Publicly, Ottawa has downplayed Ontario's interest in the sale of AECL's Candu division. But included in the binder is background information for a May 25 meeting with Glenna Carr, who chairs the board of directors for AECL: "The government continues to support AECL's bid in Ontario, but the announcement will probably raise questions about this support. We will have to manage this very carefully."

On the bright side, this little faux pas has probably saved the government at least a year and a half of ducking freedom of information requests.

Meanwhile, according to a recent interview with our man on the nuclear beat David Akin, Lisa Raitt's plan is apparently to give up Canada's leading role in nuclear technology in favour of a "continental" approach. And by "continental", she means...

"We have to look to . . . the United States. For all the medical isotopes that they use — and it's 100 times more than what we use — they don't have a reactor to produce their own medical isotopes. So we are working with them as well because I think it's really important to approach this from a North American continent point of view and not have a situation where we're depending on five aging reactors in the world."

John Ralston Saul is whispering in my ear again: "...fear of owning...". I never thought I'd say it, but thank God for people like Frank Stronach, or this country would just be one big goddamned branch plant.

Spanish Highways, French Reactors. Welcome to Canada.

Government of Canada Moves Forward on Restructuring Atomic Energy of Canada Limited

“Our Government is acting now to inject strength into Canada’s nuclear industry by enhancing the culture of growth; the culture of efficiency; and the culture of leadership,” said the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources. “The ultimate objective of this restructuring is to leverage Canada’s long-term investment in nuclear energy and strengthen Canada’s nuclear industry at a time of global expansion.”

I don't think I've ever heard so many corporate weasel words come out of somebody's mouth since Enron, but the upshot is this: The government is planning to split AECL, sell off its ownership stake in the profit-making reactor sales division (probably to a foreign entity like France's AREVA), and keep the leaky, expensive, isotope-producing NRU and all the financial and environmental liabilities that go with it on the public books.

Not only that, but they'll be selling AECL before it officially wins the expected multi-billion dollar Ontario reactor contract, but after the price has been driven down by the recession, the failure of the Maple reactors and a fresh new isotope crisis.

Private wealth and public squalor.

None of comes as a surprise to anyone, of course. The minute the government initiated its "strategic review" of AECL back in 2007, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the review would tell Jimmy P.E. ("Privatize Everything") Flaherty exactly what he wanted to hear. And it's not like we haven't seen all this before. Those of us who suffered through his buddy Mike Harris' 'Common Sense Revolution' will recall their bargain-basement sale of the income-generating 407 toll highway to a Spanish consortium, as well as the (thankfully failed) attempts to privatize the LCBO and Ontario Hydro after carving the latter up in a very similar way to what's being proposed for AECL.

I would love to be able to blame Lisa Raitt for all this. I really would. But really, now that all the renegades have been culled from the Conservative herd, you know that none of this was actually her idea. Besides, she is just doing what is in her reptilian corporate nature to do. Maximize profits. Divest toxic assets. And above all, don't think beyond the numbers to fuzzy, human considerations like quality of life or a national strategy or the long-term benefit to the nation. In fact, this situation is perfectly suited to her skills. You can tell when words like "restructuring" and "leveraged investment" drip so effortlessly from her lips - she's in her element.

Hear now the words of John Ralston Saul, from "A Fair Country". He's talking about the private sector, but he could just as easily be talking about AECL:

When you look at how Canada came to lose its entire complex and successful steel industry through a series of takeovers squeezed into little more than two years, ending in 2007, you conclude with the same answer. The industry leaders, financial market potential investors, regulators, civil service leaders and politicians all saw themselves as followers, as temporary holders of wealth. And since others wanted control of our industry in order to shape it to their own interests, it was our duty to hand it over as rapidly as possible. Why? In order that the new owners should derive downstream, complex, long-term benefits. Our reward for such passivity? Some handsome payouts to short-term, first-tier managers. And with luck the new owners would allow the second-tier and below employees to continue as their employees.


... [speaking of the owners and CEOs of Barrick Gold, Bombardier and other major Canadian businesses] All of them would agree that the statistics showing our legal corporate headquarters to be growing in number are nonsense. "A head office of a subsidiary is not a head office." Why? Because it is missing the leadership jobs, the key ser vice jobs, the research and development jobs.

These five men represent some of the most powerful business leaders in contemporary Canada. Yet Conference Board of Canada economists, who do not earn their living in the marketplace, accuse these most successful of our corporate leaders of "sentiment and emotion," of being "commercially xenophobic." These protected employees, who rarely leave their cloistered offices in Ottawa, hide behind the Conference Board to accuse a few Canadian businesses leaders who do well around the world of suffering from "fear of foreigners." They argue with a certain glee that foreign owners are better for Canada than Canadian owners.

... The economists in the Ministry of Finance use almost the same numbers and makes reassuring sounds about head offices, without analyzing the type of head office and what they do or do not contain. They reveal no understanding of economic strategy - the sort of strategy used by other countries. They use the old concept of foreign direct investment, which does not differentiate between real investment - that which works to create wealth - versus buying out fully developed corporations - or entire sectors - in which the purchase implies no investment in wealth creation. In fact, the buyer usually uses the wealth of the company bought out to finance his taking control. Often the buyers then treat the company like a car wrecking yard - they cut it up and sell off the pieces that can make them quick money. When you read the assertions of the finance ministry thinkers over foreign investment or corporate headquarters growth, it is as if you are dealing with the brain dead. Strong words? Not at all. The strong words are those of economists in positions of influence who refuse to think. For example, although the figures are available, they make nothing of the difference between takeovers and new investment. Approximately 97 percent of what they call foreign investment is for takeovers; approximately 3 percent is for real new investment.

What is frightening is that Canada's economic policies are largely shaped from the ideas and advice of Ministry of Finance economists.

Here endeth the lesson. God help us all.

Linda Keen and Some Actual Scientists Weigh In on Chalk River

The most interesting thing I found about this article was not so much Linda Keen saying "I told you so" about the slow death of the Chalk River NRU, but the perspective she and others have on the now-mothballed MAPLE reactors - and why they think they still might be salvaged.

A project to build two isotope-producing reactors called the Maples to replace the aging NRU was cancelled a year ago when AECL could not solve a design flaw in the cores of the proposed reactors that would make them more prone to a meltdown. At that time, the infrastructure to house the cores had already been built.

Ms. Keen said she was told the Maples had problems in 2001, when she arrived at the CNSC.

“One of my staff who has since retired said, ‘You know, we are going to be bringing out the cement machines to fill that in,'” she said.

“The fact that it took seven years to decide [to scrap it] and many millions of dollars is because the AECL engineers tried their hardest to make it work. But the CNSC had really great physicists – and still has, I believe – and the CNSC said, ‘No, it is an inherently flawed design.'”

I tend to view the world through the lens of whatever book I happen to be reading, which at the moment is "Voltaire's Bastards" by John Ralston Saul. I admit to being a bit out of my depth with this one, having no background in philosophy whatsoever (I knew Voltaire was French...), but I read that last paragraph and instantly recognized the work of rational technocrats who truly believe that no problem cannot be solved through the application of hard work and a well thought-out plan - even if that plan is based on a faulty premise and the results are demonstrably catastrophic.

This is the same mindset that had kept the U.S. fighting unwinnable wars for the past five decades and has kept our leaders committed to the notion that Friedman-esque free market capitalism is the best way to run an economy, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I thought of all this as I envisioned these doggedly determined engineers slogging away at their project, all the while assuming that the problem somehow lay in the execution and not the design. And, of course, the government bureaucrats prodding them along saying, "You can't stop now - we have too much invested!"

Meanwhile, the actual scientists are looking at this problem and are stating what seems obvious to us non-technocrats:

But nuclear-medicine specialists are questioning why AECL and the government walked away from the project without a contingency plan.

Robert Atcher, the New Mexico-based president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, said doctors are asking “Well, they've built the infrastructure, why don't they consider using some other reactor design?”

A committee struck by the U.S. National Research Council to examine ways of producing medical isotopes without highly enriched uranium – which the Americans fear could be used to build bombs – suggested in a recent report using a different kind of core for the Maples.

Thomas Ruth, a senior research scientist at the British Columbia Cancer Agency and TRIUMF – Canada's National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics – was also a member of that committee. He said the decision to walk away from the Maples was probably tied to political and business issues.

“To the non-expert, it looks like a solution,” Dr. Ruth said yesterday of the committee's recommendation to use different cores.

“They have the processing facility, they have the control room, the infrastructure is all there. What is involved with changing out the core? ... But government is supporting [AECL] in that decision. It's not like government is saying, ‘Hey, guys, get in there, fix it, find a solution.' They're not doing that.”

I'll have to add that to my list of questions for Lisa Raitt.

Yet Another Chalk River SNAFU

The Chalk River NRU is leaking again. It's been shut down, again - this time for at least a month. And once again, people are questioning why nothing has been done.

There are a few differences between this crisis and the one a year and a half ago. For one thing, the medical community at least is somewhat better prepared and has a contingency plan in place that should see them through for a little while. Maybe a week.

For another, this time it only took four days between the shutdown and discovery of the leak and its revelation to the public and (presumably) the government in the form of a quiet notice on the AECL website. But hey, it was a long weekend, right?

We also have a whole new cast of characters as well. Instead of Tony and Gary we now have Leona Aglukkaq and Lisa Raitt, both of whom have issued identical "Everything is just fine" statements buried in the back pages of their respective ministry websites.

Even after years of neglect and mismanagement, there are still solutions available to fix this mess. But none of them are pretty, or cheap, and none appear to have been actively pursued by the Federal government. One is to get serious about refurbishing the Chalk River NRU instead of continually patching it together with duct tape and baling wire while placing buckets under the leaks. But that would take money, and a commitment by the government to keep the place up.

Another is to try to salvage the now-mothballed Maple reactors. Unfortunately, that may prove to be even more difficult and expensive to accomplish since the problem there is a fundamental design flaw that would require starting again from scratch so they don't... you know... Chernobyl.

Possibly the best potential long-term solution is the use of particle accelerators to produce medical isotopes. Such a plan is actually in the works between MDS Nordion and the TRIUMF particle physics lab, but unfortunately its still in the feasibility study phase and wouldn't actually start producing isotopes for many years. The government could probably help things along, but since TRIUMF is funded through the National Research Council and the NRC is having $27.7 million cut from its budget over the next three years, it may take a while.

With the government apparently determined to maintain their hand's-off approach, it's hard to imagine how we might avoid the worst case scenario described by David Akin's unnamed government friend. That scenario would involve MDS Nordion pulling up stakes and moving their operations out of the country, possibly out of the continent, leaving 1,000 people in Kanata thrown out of work and the Canadian taxpayer on the hook for the decommissioning and clean-up of the Chalk River site.

Not a pretty picture at all.

BTW, when I asked Lisa Raitt about the government's plans for AECL a few months ago, she said that they were waiting to find out whether the Crown corporation would be getting the contract for Ontario's nuclear power expansion. Now that it appear they will, in fact, be taking on the $26 billion project, what does this do to the Federal government's planned "restructuring" of AECL? Will some of that contract money and/or money from the sale of assets be spent to fix Chalk River once and for all, or on the approximately $7 billion it's estimated it will cost to shut it down and clean it up? Or will the cash simply get tossed into the deficit hole as part of Flaherty's still undefined "revenues from asset sales"? And what exactly were the results of that strategic review of AECL that was supposedly completed months ago?

I'll be sending a note to Ms. Raitt with all of these questions. I'll let you know what she says.

The Plan for AECL: Private Profit, Public Liability

Those of us following the Chalk river / AECL saga have been anxiously awaiting a report from the National Bank of Canada regarding the crown corporation's disposition.

Actually, 'anxiously' might be an overstatement, since the report's recommendations were pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Ottawa urged to sell controlling interest in AECL

TORONTO, OTTAWA — The federal government should relinquish control of its flagship nuclear energy company but retain its problem-plagued Chalk River research facility, says a report commissioned by Ottawa.

The report by National Bank of Canada recommends that the federal government sell off at least a 51-per-cent interest in Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s commercial operations, according to sources who have been briefed on its contents.

Ottawa has refused to divulge the report's recommendations and has left the fate of AECL in limbo until the Ontario government decides whether to buy the Crown corporation's Candu technology or opt for its main rival, France's Areva Group.

...But even if AECL succeeds in winning the bid, the federal government, which has been heavily subsidizing the business since the 1950s, plans to restructure the company to make it more competitive.

The National Bank report recommends the government break up AECL, sources confirmed yesterday. The commercial venture, with new investors as majority owners, would handle reactor sales and service, while the government would retain ownership of the research and technology division, which runs AECL's Chalk River laboratories and the NRU reactor.

... National Bank recommends that the Chalk River site be excluded because AECL – and its government shareholder – face liabilities totalling about $7-billion to clean up waste at the Chalk River site.

“No company would want to buy that,” said Greenpeace energy campaigner and nuclear opponent Shawn-Patrick Stensil.

In other words, they're selling the store and keeping the dumpster out back.

I shouldn't be surprised, though. This is exactly what the government wanted to hear. When you don't believe in public ownership, it's easy to find ways to make public assets unprofitable so you can justify selling them off to your corporate buddies - and then call it being 'competitive'.

Welcome to Canada's new Free Market Nuclear Industry.

Reports to the Minister of Leaky Reactors

Both AECL and our nuclear watch-puppy, the CNSC, presented their reports to Minister of Natural Resources Lisa Raitt today. Both reports seem to expend as much ink in ass-covering as they do in explaining exactly what happened on December 5th, when 47 kg of tritium-contaminated heavy water leaked from the NRU. But happily, the details are leaking even faster:

Canwest News Service first learned of the Dec. 5 radioactive leak on Dec. 14 through a source with knowledge of the operations at Chalk River who requested anonymity out of concern for job security.

"(There was) a minor spill of tritiated water on the reactor hall floor," the source, an engineer, told Canwest News Service on Dec. 14. "Operators now must wear protective clothing inside the reactor hall because of the beta fields."

As chance would have it, I happen to be on close personal terms with someone who not only took physics engineering in university, but actually worked at the accelerator lab at McMaster where he was in charge of (among other things) nuclear safety.

I read him that portion of the article and asked, "So, what exactly would be involved in cleaning up a spill like that?"

He said, "To start? Tear up the floor."

Oh. My.

I sent him links to the two original reports (yes, yes, I email across the couch), and he had quite a lot more to say. I'm working on getting him to do a guest blog post for tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, Back in Chalk River... (UPDATED)

... things continue to come apart at the seams.

Canada's nuclear agency misled the Prime Minister's Office about the nature and extent of a radioactive spill at the troubled Chalk River reactor west of the capital in December, a senior government official said yesterday.

"We are as upset as anyone," the official said.

The official was responding to an exclusive Sun Media story yesterday, detailing the reactor leak on Dec. 5 that released radioactive tritium into the air.

...After a brief shutdown, Atomic Energy has continued to operate the reactor even though officials there say they have not found the source of the leak and it may reoccur at any time.

In an unrelated mechanical failure, the same reactor has been leaking as much as 7,000 litres of water a day for more than a month from a crack in a weld.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says the water spewing from the weld has "a very low level of radioactivity" and is not a safety concern.

The water is being dumped into the Ottawa River.

One clarification: that 'unrelated' leak was reported more than a month ago, but at that point it had already been leaking for "several months".

Lisa Raitt, the natural resources minister responsible for the leaky reactor, told Sun Media yesterday that she has ordered a full written report on the radioactive spill from the nuclear safety commission.

Raitt said she and her departmental officials received an "e-mail briefing" on the leak the day after it occurred.

"There are some aspects that came out today that we weren't fully aware of," the minister said yesterday.

I'm guessing she's referring to the whole tritium thing.

Let's be clear about something. AECL, operating as it does on a for-profit basis, can to some extent be expected to downplay such an incident and even cover it up. That's what businesses do, whether they are privately or publicly owned. Which is precisely why we have a non-partisan, impartial nuclear regulator in the form of the CNSC to keep an eye on them and keep us safe.

Or we did, until Linda Keene was fired for doing her job last year. Since then, one can't help but wonder if perhaps her successor might be somewhat hesitant to examine activity at AECL too closely, or to step in and shut it down in any but the most dire circumstances.

Certainly not in today's job market.

Whether this is what happened in this case, or whether AECL really did manage to pull the wool completely over the CNSC's eyes as well as the government's, remains to be seen.

I'll be emailing our Minister of Leaky Reactors Natural Resources and see if I can get some answers - specifically, was that December email briefing from AECL or from the regulator? And, what exactly is CNSC's justification for not shutting down the reactor in order to find the source of this second leak?

It would have been nice to hear something from her today when CTV did a brief story about this on 'On The Hill', but apparently she was 'unavailable'. I guess she was busy with more important things.



(crossposted from HaltonWatch)

UPDATE: CNSC has issued a press release clarifying and on some points disputing the Sun article. Specifically, they report:

- At no time was the public or the environment at risk. There is no radioactive material leaking into the Ottawa River associated with these leaks. CNSC has on-site staff that monitors the NRU and ensures that it operates safely and is in compliance with its licence conditions. Any water released into the Ottawa River is treated and monitored by AECL according to environmental standards.

- The second leak referred to in the media reports involves light water leaking from the NRU reflector system. This water is collected by AECL and purified in the Waste Treatment Centre. Therefore, there is no leak into the Ottawa River and there is no risk to the public or the environment.

- Contrary to media reports, it did not take four days for AECL to inform the CNSC of the leak. The CNSC was made aware within hours of the leak and verified that it did not pose any significant risk to the public, workers or the environment.

None of which is good enough for the NDP, who are very keen to have a word with Ms. Raitt at the upcoming Natural Resources Committee meetings.

“Minister Raitt has some serious explaining to do,” said New Democratic Natural Resources Critic Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley), “Minister Raitt either knew about the leak and didn’t bother informing the public, or, didn’t know about the leak – I’m not sure which is worse. Either way, the Minister has let the people of Canada down.”

Update on Chalk River; Action by Lisa Raitt

Things appear to be getting back to normal over at the Chalk River NRU. If by 'normal' you mean 'coming apart at the seams':

Ont. nuclear reactor running despite 'significant' leak

OTTAWA - The nuclear reactor that is the source of more than half of the world's medical isotopes was back to full production Monday, even as engineers and technicians at the Chalk River, Ont., facility were making plans to fix a "significant" leak in one of the key pieces of machinery that is part of the reactor's core.

"The reactor is operating normally and safely," said Bill Pilkington, chief nuclear officer for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the Crown corporation that operates the National Research Universal reactor at Chalk River.

...The leak in the NRU's reactor circuit first showed up several months ago, an AECL official said. The reactor circuit is a massive metal vessel that surrounds the reactor's core, which itself occupies an area about three metres in diameter.

Canwest News Service has learned that the hole in the tank is growing and is now about six centimetres wide. Sources say about 7,000 litres of water a day are leaking out.

The leaking water is not radioactive and is being recycled back into the tank.

I feel so much better. Although when I showed this story to my husband (who used to be a physics engineering student with a part time job at the accelerator lab at McMaster) said, "It's not radioactive yet". Something to do with contamination of de-ionized water...?

Anyway.

In the interests of fairness, I must give a tip of the hat to our new Minister of Natural Resources for the actions she is reportedly taking on the AECL/Chalk River front.

Government officials and AECL, for example, are working on a process to extend the operating licence of the NRU past 2011. That process began under Raitt's predecessor, Gary Lunn.

But Raitt is embarking on her own initiatives, as well.

At Canada's request, an international meeting of governments and industry will take place in Paris in January. The meeting will focus on the security of isotope supply.

"This is a global issue which warrants a global response, and I will ensure that Canada plays a leadership role in the planned discussions," Raitt said in a statement.

She has also ordered an internal review of government-funded research to see if there are alternative methods to conventional medical isotope production.

Finally, Raitt and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq have asked their departmental officials to assess alternative medical and diagnostic procedures that could alleviate demand for medical isotopes.

"Ensuring that the Canadian medical community receives a consistent and reliable supply of medical isotopes has been of critical importance to me," Raitt said.

Fair enough.

(cross-posted from HaltonWatch)

Lisa, Then and Now

Two stories mentioning Lisa Raitt hit the news this week - one involving her old job, the other about her new one.

First, the Toronto Port Authority. A long-standing deadlock between feuding factions of the TPA board was recently broken in favour of the anti-airport expansion camp. So what does new federal Transport Minister John Baird do? He announces the addition of two new positions on the board, which of course will be filled by those more... sympathetic to the Conservatives' wishes.

Finally embarrassed by the endless chicanery - and freed from the hotly partisan influence of former chief executive officer Lisa Raitt, now a Tory MP - the Port Authority shocked the teeming world of gutter politics by refusing the offer of unnecessary hacks.

The reasons would be obvious to any director who takes their responsibilities seriously.

The boards of real port authorities governing actual ports in Montreal and Halifax only have seven members. Why should the Port Authority, which has no operational port to manage, have nine? There are no more "user groups" in Toronto left to represent. The new appointees will inspire further opprobrium.

Most of all, there is no money to pay them. The expense accounts of the two new members would likely rival the gross revenue of the Port of Toronto.

This unprecedented little rebellion, which was presaged by months of vicious, albeit inexplicable, infighting on the divided board, explains Mr. Baird's actual motive. He is moving to counter the unexpected effect of the city's first-ever nominee to the TPA, former city planner David Gurin, whose recent arrival tipped a 3-3 deadlock into a 4-3 majority of the sane.

Although a spokesman for the Transport Minister insisted the unwanted newcomers will nonetheless arrive soon, fortune has delivered the fleeting majority an enticing agenda. It can quash Porter Airline's demand for a new ferry to replace the one it just bought. It can replace Ms. Raitt with a qualified professional. Most compellingly, it is preparing to order an audit of its own operation, finally cracking open a black box bulging with inexplicable revenues.To the extent it was inspired in part by a sincere desire to mollify its many enemies, the TPA's sudden turnaround worked like magic. "No expansion" is a potent mantra.

I'm guessing Lisa is glad she didn't get the Transportation ministry after all. Pulling this sort of manoeuvre after her history with the TPA might have been a little... awkward.

Unfortunately, she has her own looming crisis to deal with over at Natural Resources:

Isotope shortage to delay medical tests across Canada

OTTAWA - Canada's doctors have been told to rush patients into clinics this weekend if they need tests or treatments requiring the use of medical isotopes, Canwest News Service has learned.

More than half the world's medical isotopes are produced by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., at its Chalk River, Ont., facility. That Chalk River reactor, known as the NRU, was shut down for more than a month last November, sparking a global medical crisis and a domestic political crisis.

Production at the NRU has been interrupted again this month - so much so, nuclear medicine specialists have been told to plan for a sharp reduction in isotope availability next week.

...Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.

Poor dear - I imagine she's still digging through all those briefing notes. If it's any help, I've got most of the background on Chalk River right here.

You're welcome.



(cross-posted from HaltonWatch)

Chalk River: AECL Giving Up on Maple Reactors

Well, isn't THIS interesting...

AECL scraps development of isotope reactors

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. -- Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is scrapping development of its two new MAPLE medical-isotope reactors at its Chalk River, Ont., laboratories.

The decision "is based on a series of reviews that considered, among other things, the costs of further development, as well as the time frame and risks involved with continuing the project," the federal Crown corporation said Friday.

The MAPLE reactors, described as the first in the world dedicated entirely to medical isotope production, were intended to be capable of supplying the entire global demand for molybdenum-99, iodine-131, iodine-125 and xenon-133.

AECL said the decision to abort them "will not impact the current supply of medical isotopes."

It said contracts with MDS Nordion (TSX:MDS) provide for production to continue at AECL's existing National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River.

Wow. It's the right decision, of course. Aside from these reactors being years overdue and millions over budget, the fact is that they simply don't work and never will. Still, AECL had dug in its heels so deeply over the Maples that their admission of defeat now is pretty surprising. Conventional wisdom is that they want to focus all their efforts on getting the contract for the new Ontario power reactors.

Now we're back to square one, because the NRU still needs hundreds of millions of dollars worth of upgrades if it is to continue to function and produce medical isotopes.

12:10 - Gary Lunn is talking. A couple of reporters are asking him whether the government would be willing to cough up the 600 million the AG says the NRU needs, but he's dodging. Ah, there we go - he just brought up possible 'private sector funding options'. Sigh.

Chalk River: And One More Thing...

In my previous post, commenter shun mentioned something that I hadn't noticed before. It has to do with the timing of a statement Gary Lunn made on Thursday, November 29th, 2007:

Lunn announced Thursday, in concert with the decision to join GNEP, that AECL's future is up for grabs.

"It is time to consider whether the existing structure of AECL is appropriate to the changing marketplace," Lunn said in the government release.

He announced a review of the Crown corporation.

Hmm... wait a minute... that date rings a bell. Oh, yeah:

"I sent an e-mail on Nov. 29 or 30 ... which said this is serious, we need to get on this," the source said.

But of course that's just a coincidence. Riiiiight...

Chalk River: The "Holy F!@#$ing S$#@t!" Edition

This story is starting to take on almost Watergate-like dimensions. Except, you know, on that way smaller, 1/10th Canadian scale.

Yesterday, the Washington Post Globe & Mail ran a story illustrating just how much better and more profitable the world has become for AECL since Linda Keen was replaced by a more... cooperative regulator.

Today the Globe & Mail ran two more stories that pretty much blow the government's spin on Chalk River out of the water, as well as exposing Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn as a lousy, stinking liar.

You really need to read them both.

The first article dispels any remaining notion that any of this ever had anything to do with isotopes or public safety. Even after following this story rather closely over the past few months, this particular section caused my jaw to drop to the floor (emphasis mine):

Ms. Keen's suggestion that her overstretched commission would no longer prioritize prelicensing was seen as obstructionist.

AECL's private-sector partners, including SNC-Lavalin, GE Canada and Hitachi Canada, hired some of the best-connected lobbyists in Ottawa to carry that message forward; other industry members complained directly to the Prime Minister's Office, sources said.

"We've tried to communicate however we could to whomever we could, to make this point," said Patrick Lamarre, president of SNC-Lavalin's nuclear division.

Michael Burns, the B.C.-based wind power executive who Mr. Lunn appointed as chairman of AECL, began to lobby the minister, whom he said he spoke with once a week during his chairmanship, about addressing the problems with Ms. Keen and her commission.

"I told [Mr. Lunn] then the dysfunctional relationship was going to cause serious trouble for commercial operations at the company. I told him we were going to have a train wreck. And I gave him a plan to fix it," Mr. Burns said.

The goal, he said, was to induce the government to legislate an overhaul at the CNSC, including Ms. Keen's position.

Mr. Lunn refused to discuss whether he attempted to push that reform in Ottawa, saying he is "not at liberty to talk about … discussions with cabinet colleagues."

No. Of course he isn't. But since the guy he appointed as chairman claims that Lunn was making a serious effort to bring this suggested overhaul to pass, I think it's pretty safe to assume that such discussions did, in fact, take place. Which means that even then, a government minister was attempting to interfere with the operation of a quasi-judicial tribunal at the behest of a Crown corporation for purely commercial reasons.

Another jaw-dropper is the revelation that the reactor would probably have been allowed to re-start anyway on December 18th, just two days after it actually did. Seems the AECL had screwed up some paperwork justifying a re-start with just one back-up powered pump, which was all the CNSC had asked for to give its approval. If they hadn't screwed up the paperwork (known as a 'safety case'), the reactor could have been re-started as much as a week earlier.

The second article reveals the existence of emails and at least one witness who can prove that Gary Lunn lied to a parliamentary committee when he claimed that he knew nothing about anything until Dec 3rd:

"I sent an e-mail on Nov. 29 or 30 ... which said this is serious, we need to get on this," the source said.

Mr. Lunn took a break from skiing in British Columbia on Dec. 1 to respond to the e-mail, the source said, adding that Mr. Lunn confirmed he "knew it was a situation he needed to work on."

"He certainly knew there was a situation and he was going to get on it Monday morning," the source said. "I assumed in my conversation he had ingested all the data in the [e-mail]. My assumption may be wrong, but when he said to me he'd received my message and acted on it, as far as I could tell he knew everything there was to know."

When confronted with this evidence, Mr. Lunn sputtered, looked around nervously, repeated his claims of ignorance, then suddenly tore off all his clothes and ran screaming into the snow.

And then he exploded.



H/T to Dave, Lord Kitchener's Own, Impolitical, and all you other bastards who found time to blog on this today while I was at work. Hmph.

Still More Chalk River Fallout

(Gotta love those nuclear reactor stories - the whole 'fallout' angle never fails to provide a catchy title.)

Linda Keen filed suit on Friday, contesting her dismissal as President of the CNSC.

Linda Keen will ask a judge to find that her dismissal by Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn in January was ”invalid or unlawful.”

Ms. Keen was terminated as the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission after she refused to sanction the reopening of a reactor in Chalk River, Ont., where required safety upgrades had not been performed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

“I continue to believe that as the President of the CNSC, I acted appropriately, in accordance with the Act and as mandated by Parliament. I am looking to the Court to set aside the termination of my role as the President", said Linda Keen, in a statement.

...“Despite her request for particulars of any misconduct or failure to meet performance standards, no such particulars were ever provided,” says a statement of claim been filed in Federal Court.

“She was deprived of sufficient notice of any alleged misconduct on her part and necessarily deprived of any opportunity to respond to the allegations.”

She doesn't appear to be asking for any financial compensation here. She just wants her job back, and maybe a bit of public vindication.

All this comes after Tuesday's briefing of the Commons Health Committee on the supply of radioisotopes. The committee heard from several people including Health Minister Tony Clement and Douglas Abrams, President of the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine.

I wish I had the transcript, but there was one revealing moment when Abrams was asked how he would characterize the government's oft-repeated claim that the isotope shortage had put "thousands of lives at risk". His response was measured, echoing that of Dr. Karen Gulenchyn who testified last week, as well as the opinions expressed by Dr. Tom Perry in his CBC Radio interview regarding the alternative tests and treatments available to most patients. Abrams concluded by saying that the government's estimate of "thousands of lives at risk" was "overstated".

No surprise, then, when the "thousands of lives at risk" talking point was notably absent from Tony Clement's later testimony.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Tony. He went to high school with my husband, and even then he was devoted to politics and the Progressive Conservative Party. So I can't help feeling badly for him and all the other old PCers who woke up one morning to find their beloved party replaced by some mutant pod-thing.

The stress seemed to be getting to Tony when he blew up at one of the committee members. I think it was a woman from the NDP, but I can't remember what it was she said that pushed his buttons. He calmed down pretty quickly, but I had the feeling he was really starting to wish he had never heard of radioisotopes, Chalk River or Linda Keen.

I think he should ask for a less stressful portfolio. Like Heritage, or maybe Fisheries. At least until his blood pressure medication kicks in.

(cross-posted at Kats 'n Dawgs)

Linda Keen's Testimony

Linda Keen finally appeared before the Commons Committee today, and essentially shredded every single argument the government had raised to justify her removal as president of the CNSC.

Here is her testimony.

Some important points she clarified:

1) It was AECL and NOT the CNSC who decided to extend the shutdown of the Chalk River facility once it was discovered that the required safety upgrades had not been made. Just like I've been saying. This point has been consistently misrepresented by the media and the government, and even by Gary Lunn who should have known better. Yes, she said the CNSC would have extended the shutdown anyway, but the point is that AECL recognized that there was a serious problem and that the extended shutdown was absolutely necessary.

2) The risks to the health and safety of Canadians as a result of continuing to run the reactor without the safety upgrades were NOT negligible, as the government has repeatedly implied. They were, in fact, 1,000 times greater than the level of risk recognized by international standards as being the minimum acceptable for a nuclear facility.

3) The impact on health and safety of a shortage of medical isotopes that may (or may not) have resulted from the shutdown of Chalk River was NOT taken into consideration because such considerations are NOT, repeat NOT covered under the mandate of the CNSC. Her proof? The fact that the government found it necessary to add the consideration of these consequences to the CNSC's mandate after the 'crisis'.

(my take on this is that it would be like requiring a health inspector to consider the risk of neighbourhood kids going hungry when deciding whether or not to shut down a rat-infested grocery store.)

4) Despite this, the CNSC was NOT oblivious to the effects of a potential medical isotope shortage. Which is why it took a VERY pro-active approach in expediting both the re-start of the Chalk River reactor and the approval of alternate isotopes for its licensees. As she put it, she and the panel were "available 24-7" to facilitate the resumption of normal operations and isotope availability.

5) Neither Ms. Keen nor the CNSC had any issue with Parliament passing Bill C-38 mandating the restart of the Chalk River reactor. Parliament had a duty to balance the risk of a nuclear accident against the risks to those affected by the shortage of medical isotopes because that is their job. It is NOT the job of the AECL. The AECL is there specifically to assess the risks associated with the operation of nuclear facilities - NOT their shutdown.

I didn't catch Two Tier Tony's testimony, but I can only assume it precisely mirrored Lunn's and the Party line.

The worst part of all this is not Keen's dismissal, nor the blatant interference of a minister with an independent quasi-judicial body, although these are disturbing enough. The REALLY disturbing part is that this is just part of an ongoing, systematic purge of the civil service by the Harper government. Remember when he said that we didn't have to be afraid because there were enough Liberal-appointed judges and career bureaucrats in place to keep the Cons in check? Well, not so much any more.

Linda Keen - CNSC president.
Arthur Carty - science adviser.
Jean-Pierre Kingsley - chief electoral officer.
Marc Mayrand - chief electoral officer.
Johanne Gelinas - environment commissioner.
Bernard Shapiro - ethics commissioner.
Adrian Measner - wheat board president

All senior bureaucrats. All appointed by a Liberal government. All either fired, 'encouraged to resign', marginalized or on the chopping block.

(I'm sure this list is incomplete - feel free to fill it out.)

(UPDATE: Oh dear. We might just have to add Information Commissioner Robert Marleau to that list pretty soon.)

I keep thinking about that movie, 'Pacific Heights'. Michael Keaton plays a somewhat psychotic but seemingly trustworthy con man who rents a ground floor apartment from a young Yuppie couple, and then proceeds to dismantle and destroy the place. He never pays any rent, he ends up suing them when the hubby loses it - and all the while he convincingly feigns complete innocence.

I wonder - even if the Liberals win the next election, who will be left of those who actually keep the country running?

The Fabrication of a Crisis

More Notes From Underground caught this fascinating interview on As It Happens last night. Seems they got an email from Dr. Tom Perry, a doctor and former B.C. cabinet minister, who is calling into question Gary Lunn's assertion that "lives were at stake" because of a shortage of isotopes. The interview is about 13 minutes into Part One of the program.

He points out that doctors can generally get the same information from CAT scans and other diagnostic tests as one can from those using radio isotopes, and that most hospitals have some sort of contingency plan. He also suggests that parliament actually examine the "numerous letters" Lunn received from medical professionals urging him to take immediate action to see if they actually give any coherent evidence that there was a life-threatening crisis.

He even goes so far as to suggest that Parliament consider that these medical professionals might have had a financial motivation to exaggerate the crisis, given that they all work on a fee-for-service basis, so if there are no isotopes...

Nah! They wouldn't do that, would they?

Coincidentally, about 20 minutes in there's an interview with that McDonald Dettwiler employee who quit in protest over the sale of the Canadarm branch to American arms manufacturer ATK.

Thursday News Round-Up

Those pesky Conservatives have sure been busy busy busy over the past couple of days. Where to begin...

CANADA: LEADING THE WAY IN FOLLOWING GEORGE BUSH

Here we go. Remember a couple of days ago when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty inexplicably took it upon himself to criticize Quebec for trying to bring in tough new California-style greenhouse gas emission standards?

Now we know why:

Ottawa moves to emulate U.S. on new fuel mileage standards

OTTAWA — Canada's auto makers as well as consumers are keen to see new fuel economy standards applied on a national basis, says federal Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon.

"Industry and the average Canadian, they all want to have a national standard," Mr. Cannon said this morning at the unveiling of a 60-day consultation process aimed at developing a fuel-economy target by 2020.

The goal is a target that "achieves at a minimum" recently enacted legislation in the U.S. Congress calling for auto makers' fleets to average 35 miles per gallon, or 6.7 litres per 100 kilometres, by the year 2020.

Mr. Cannon conceded that some provinces have struck out with their own fuel-economy programs but said he believes a common standard can be worked out in the talks.

Quebec, for example, has said it wants to move to more stringent standards such as those being proposed in California

But Mr. Cannon pointed out that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched a court challenge against the California measures and that it makes more sense to use the U.S. Congress legislation as the benchmark. The new U.S. standard falls well short of the regulations proposed by California.

One would hope that Harper wouldn't take it any further than simply suggesting that provinces stick with the federal standards, but given his recent fondness for draconian, bully-boy measures whenever his will is defied, I wouldn't put it past him to try to force the issue.

In which case Quebec can do what Arnie and the State of California are doing: sue the bastards.


MORE CNSC FALLOUT

The National Post (The National Post?!?) has published an op-ed piece that soundly criticizes Harper and Lunn and suggests what we bloggers have been saying all along - that this has nothing to do with the 'health and safety of Canadians' and everything to do with getting Keen out of the way of the government's plans to privatize AECL.

We also have op-eds in the Star and the Globe and Mail saying essentially the same thing. But of course most people don't read newspapers or blogs and there's nothing about the privatization scheme or a profit motive in any of the 30 second news 'stories' on the TV, so chances are nobody will notice.

BTW, correct me if I'm wrong, but it occurs to me that 11:00 p.m. is the optimal time to put out a press release if one wants to ensure that it does NOT make it onto the front page of the paper the next morning. Funny, that.


NEW WRINKLE IN CANADARM SALE

Last week's story about MacDonald, Dettwiler's sale of its satellite and space technology division to U.S. firm Alliant Techsystems (ATK) managed to leave out this little nugget:

The company they sold this stuff to makes, among other things, LANDMINES.

Aside from the obvious ethical problems with having technology funded by Canadian tax dollars being sold to a major arms manufacturer, there's the little matter of that anti-land mine treaty Canada signed on to that might just make the whole deal illegal.

ATK derives more than half of its $4 billion US in annual revenue from military contracts, including cluster bombs, depleted uranium rounds and landmines.

In December 1997, a total of 122 governments signed the Mine Ban Treaty in Ottawa — the most comprehensive international instrument for ridding the world of anti-personnel mines.

Lloyd Axworthy, the foreign minister when Canada signed the Ottawa protocol, said he believes the sale contravenes the provisions of that treaty.

"It [ATK] is a major arms merchant that is creating some of the dirtiest weapons in the world," Axworthy said Wednesday.

"The transfer of public money into a company making landmines is clearly banned under the treaty so this would be a clear case of non-compliance," he said.

And the government's response is... about what you'd expect:

Federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice, who will have to review the sale, declined an interview with CBC News. His spokesperson said Prentice will review the sale based on whether it's good for Canada.

"Good for Canada" means "Good for Canadian shareholders and corporate profits", of course. Time to give Scott Brison a call.

(H/T to Blast Furnace Canada Blog)