Sep 132010
 

CONTENTS

(1)   2008-01-27   NDP Opposition Leader Lingenfelter on nuke agenda in Saskatchewan (when he was a Vice-President of Nexen Oil and Gas)(excerpt).   Nexen has tar sands holdings along the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan.  The tar sands industry needs huge amounts of electricity to heat up the underground deposits to the point where they will flow, so the tar can be brought to the surface.  Tar sands development is the driver behind the nuclear industry in Saskatchewan/Alberta.

A characteristic of a “petro-state”:  there is no effective opposition to the Government’s agenda.  The Government is in power because of “petro-dollars”.  Citizen participation in voting is ineffective.

(2)  2010-09-13  Premier Brad Wall on “value added” for uranium.  In spite of the expressed wishes of the people of Saskatchewan through public consultations in summer 2009.

(3)    Full text of articles related to Lingenfelter’s position on nuclear.

NOTE:  The quote from Lingenfelter is on the “Mines and Communities”  blog.    There is a list of very good articles on nuke in Canada on their blog:   http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=8411  

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(1)       NDP OPPOSITION LEADER LINGENFELTER:

http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=8411 

Canada Uranium update

Published Date: 01-02-2008

‘” . . . . .    Some, like former NDP deputy premier Dwain Lingenfelter, say Saskatchewan’s wide open spaces make it ideal for every step of the cycle, including power generation and waste storage. While conventional reactors are widely seen as producing too much power for the province’s needs, Lingenfelter argues Saskatchewan could become a power hub and supply energy to the rest of Canada and the United States.

“The first thing that has to happen is the government in the province has to say to the world that they’re interested, which hasn’t happened to this point,” says Lingenfelter, who is now (was then) an executive with the Calgary-based oil company Nexen.

“I think it takes more than governments saying, ‘Yeah, we are sort of in favour of it, but we will see how it goes.”‘

(2)      PREMIER BRAD WALL ON NUCLEAR:

His Government is doing “value added” for uranium. 

(Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan, was interviewed by Anna Maria Tremonti, Monday Sept 13th on “The Current”.

 ( http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/09/september-13-2010.html   Click on “Part 1, Boom Town”.) 

TRANSCRIPTION

Wall:  “ . . . to value-add to uranium . . . want to build, to diversify the resource strength we have   (coal  .. clean coal . . )  We have a lot of uranium, one-third of the world’s supply, so it makes sense we would add value to that.”

– – – – – – – – — – – –

Saskatchewan Greens participated in generating an information flow and in the public meetings in Saskatchewan, summer 2009, regarding the Government’s uranium/nuclear agenda. 

Dan Perrins conducted the public consultations and reported back to the Government:  the public does not want the uranium/nuke agenda. 

We went through a huge fight; the people of Sask clearly said “no nuclear”.    And definitely not high-level radioactive waste imported from other provinces:  we want legislation, similar to Manitoba and Quebec,  that bans the cross-Canada transportation of radioactive waste.

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3.   FULL TEXT OF ARTICLES IN WHICH LINGENFELTER IS QUOTED:

New government considers options for Saskatchewan’s nuclear future

Tim Cook, THE CANADIAN PRESS

27th January 2008

REGINA – It was an analogy that developed in the 1970s as nuclear power plants were being developed around the world: Saskatchewan and its vast supply of unmined uranium would be to nuclear power what Saudi Arabia was to oil.

Over the last three decades the prediction has been realized and the province, better known for wide open spaces and wheat, has grown into the world’s largest producer of the radioactive element.

But mining the raw material is as far as Saskatchewan has progressed in the nuclear cycle. Plans to develop a uranium refinery, build a nuclear reactor and even store nuclear waste have been shelved over the years in the face of stiff public opposition and concerns about feasibility.

Signs of change, however, are starting to emerge with a newly elected provincial government intent on moving the industry forward. The right-leaning Saskatchewan Party is not as fettered by internal conflict over the issue as its left-leaning NDP predecessor, and everything short of the nuclear waste storage idea appears to be back on the table.

“Who knows what opportunities lie ahead in this area for the province?” Premier Brad Wall said recently. “I believe we can lead in this area, certainly in research and development.”

Saskatchewan first looked at developing the uranium industry in the 1940s and ’50s under then premier Tommy Douglas as a means of diversifying its agricultural economy. In the 1970s the mining industry expanded rapidly thanks to several big finds in the north.

The province enjoyed a comfortable relationship with the industry until people began to question where the uranium was ending up, said Bill Waiser, a historian at the University of Saskatchewan.

“They were beginning to question the morality of it,” Waiser says. “There are ecological concerns about it and ‘Are we facilitating the arms race unintentionally?”‘

Former NDP premier Allan Blakeney, who oversaw the widespread expansion in the 1970s, recalls pitching uranium mining in Saskatchewan as something the province had to do for the sake of the rest of the world.

“As the world was developing and as the Third World was developing, there was going to be a need for significant new sources of power. One of those was uranium, and we had a moral duty to contribute,” Blakeney says now.

“We have got virtually every power source in the world and there is one million of us, and we’re saying, ‘Oh, those people over there shouldn’t be generating their power over there using uranium.’ This is not a very good piece of moral ground to stand on.”

Still public opposition prevented the industry from developing further than punching holes in the ground and bringing the ore to the surface.

In 1980 a proposal to build a uranium refinery in Warman, north of Saskatoon, was killed because of the impact it might have on the largely Mennonite community.

In the early 1990s both the Progressive Conservative government and the NDP government were in talks with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to build a Candu 3 reactor in the province, but the idea was shelved because of cost and lack of need.

In the mid-1990s the Meadow Lake Tribal Council, an organization representing several northern First Nations, briefly studied the idea of storing nuclear waste on its land but backed down after widespread protests.

“It caused a lot of controversy and a lot of difficult feelings,” Vern Bachiu, general manager with the tribal council’s development corporation, recalls today.

With a new government in power and a premier who talks about nuclear opportunities every chance he gets, people on both sides of the debate are watching the situation closely.

While the previous NDP government had expressed interest in refining uranium in the province, Steve McLellan, CEO of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, figures the business-friendly Saskatchewan Party will take a “hard look” at attracting a company to do it.

“We, particularly, are quite optimistic,” McLellan says. “Anything that adds value to things that are mined here is great for business.”

Some, like former NDP deputy premier Dwain Lingenfelter, say Saskatchewan’s wide open spaces make it ideal for every step of the cycle, including power generation and waste storage. While conventional reactors are widely seen as producing too much power for the province’s needs, Lingenfelter argues Saskatchewan could become a power hub and supply energy to the rest of Canada and the United States.

“The first thing that has to happen is the government in the province has to say to the world that they’re interested, which hasn’t happened to this point,” says Lingenfelter, who is now an executive with the Calgary-based oil company Nexen.

“I think it takes more than governments saying, ‘Yeah, we are sort of in favour of it, but we will see how it goes.”‘

Wall has expressed interest in research being done around small-scale nuclear reactors that would produce power at a level more suitable to the province’s needs. He’s also talked about the idea of developing a research reactor such as the one in Chalk River, Ont., which produces medical isotopes.

Ann Coxworth, with the Saskatchewan Environmental Society, acknowledges that the current political situation in the province does not favour the anti-nuclear movement.

“I think we have quite a struggle ahead of us, so there is a lot of work to be done,” she says. “The forces that want to go down that nuclear path are pretty powerful right now.”

Coxworth is worried that those who oppose nuclear energy may have been lulled into a sense of complacency over the last few years.

“When these issues were being quite actively discussed – say in the 1970s – the public got quite well informed about the issues,” she says.

= = = = = = = =  

http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=8411 

MAC: Mines and Communities

Canada Uranium update

Published Date: 01-02-2008

‘” . . . . .    Some, like former NDP deputy premier Dwain Lingenfelter, say Saskatchewan’s wide open spaces make it ideal for every step of the cycle, including power generation and waste storage. While conventional reactors are widely seen as producing too much power for the province’s needs, Lingenfelter argues Saskatchewan could become a power hub and supply energy to the rest of Canada and the United States.

“The first thing that has to happen is the government in the province has to say to the world that they’re interested, which hasn’t happened to this point,” says Lingenfelter, who is now an executive with the Calgary-based oil company Nexen.

“I think it takes more than governments saying, ‘Yeah, we are sort of in favour of it, but we will see how it goes.”‘

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

 Sask. should look at nuclear power:  Lingenfelter

Last Updated Nov 9 2005 08:21 AM CST

CBC News

A former NDP cabinet minister is trying to refuel the nuclear debate in Saskatchewan.

Dwain Lingenfelter, who was once considered a possible successor to former Premier Roy Romanow before leaving government, has been talking about the merits of nuclear power lately.   It’s a message he brought to business leaders in Saskatoon yesterday.

Lingenfelter’s idea is to build a nuclear power plant in Saskatchewan for Alberta’s massive oil sands.  “The opportunity is big. The only question is can we reach out and grab it?” Lingenfelter said in a speech to the North Saskatoon Business Association Tuesday.

The Saskatchewan NDP is officially opposed to nuclear power and it’s rare someone from the party takes such a pro-nuclear stance.

But Lingenfelter, who went to work for a Calgary oil company after leaving the NDP government, insists this is not about politics.  “It’s got to do with what’s best for the economy and the environment at this moment,” he said.

ICUCEC-Lingenfelter CBC report file:///Users/johnyates/Desktop/icucecOLD/art-lingenfelter…

2 of 2 2/14/08 11:05 PM

Although the current government favours uranium mining, it doesn’t want nuclear waste or a power plant.  Lingenfelter said that’s hypocritical !  if the province will not move forward, he suggests, uranium mining should stop.

On that point, one anti-nuclear lobby group couldn’t agree more.  “For both economics and social economics it’s better not to mine,” said Michael Poellet, who speaks for Saskatoon’s Inter Church Uranium Committee.

Lingenfelter said it’s important for people to speak up about the future of nuclear power in Saskatchewan, whether they support it, or not.

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