Dear Editor,

The federal government is promoting the notion of developing small modular nuclear reactors, to provide . . . .

electrical energy to remote communities. At first glance, it may seem like a good solution to the energy needs of the far north and other far-flung outposts, where transportation costs make petrol-fuelled generators impractical, solar power is too limited and wind power is not consistent. But the usual drawback and danger of nuclear power comes into play, end-of-service decommissioning. When the fissionable material inside the reactor is no longer producing useful harness-able energy, it will remain dangerously radioactive for millennia.

Who will see to the proper disposal of chemically and radioactively deadly substances when those engineers have given up and gone home? Who will warn the innocent future inhabitants of those communities against digging up and scuttling the modules? Who will see to it that those lethal remains aren’t commandeered for nefarious purposes, over the next 100,000 years? We shouldn’t depend upon Keith Richards to look after such details when we are long gone.

There are plenty of problems already, with spent fuel and collaterally radioactive items from large facilities with high security. The only solution the government has put forth so far is to bury it all in a large mound near the Ottawa River. That is not a good plan. All the problems inherent with that plan are multiplied by having small modules in use or in retirement, scattered about over great distances. The spent fuel from a nuclear reactor, no matter how large or small, is a monumental problem in waste management. It is chemically poisonous as well as being deadly radioactive and will remain so for longer than there have been humans in the Americas.

That suggests to me that this is not a good plan. Suggest to your elected representative that the government should abandon the plan to build and deploy small modular nuclear reactors.

Robert Wills

Shawville and Thorne, Que.