2018-09-08 Staring down opposite ends of the same pipeline (Oil sands – Suncor; Nuclear – Cameco; Pipeline – Kinder Morgan -Trans Mountain)

Staring down opposite ends of the same pipeline

You, in Saskatchewan.  Me in BC.  We’re staring down opposite ends of the same pipeline.

BC – – West Coast:

• prevent death of coastal waters by oil spills and super size tanker traffic  – – means
• stop the Kinder Morgan TransMountain Pipeline Expansion  – – means
• stop expansion of Tar Sands production (Suncor)**  – –  means
• Canada will at least be TRYING to help other countries address greenhouse gases.

Prairies:

• prevent nuclear reactors  (“SMR”s – – Small Modular Reactors)* for the huge planned expansion of Tar Sands production** – – means
• don’t need Pipeline Expansion  – – means
• Canada will at least be TRYING to help other countries address greenhouse gases.
• and tax-payers won’t be footing the bill to help a dying industry (nuclear) survive (with its $$ multiple-millions salaries for the head haunchos).

 

Whichever end of the pipe you’re on,  we sink or swim together?

2018-08-28   French Minister Nicolas Hulot says he is leaving government because president is not doing enough to meet environmental goals, The Guardian

* SMR’s  Thanks to Elaine.  Several postings on SMRs:  http://forum.stopthehogs.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=20

**  2018-02-27 Canada’s largest integrated energy company has filed an application for a massive new oilsands project defying expectations of slowing growth in the oilsands, Financial Post

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Connection,   the “Massive new oilsands project”  and  Nuclear:

Tar sands were strip-mined in the beginning; they were at the surface.  The further the development, the deeper the deposits, the more energy (heat) required in the mining.  I presume they’re still using natural gas to boil water, making steam that can be forced underground.

You could figure out the attempt to build a nuclear reactor on the North Sask River when we did that tour with Andrew Nikiforuk, to help inform about planned development of the tar sands on the Sask side of the border – –  gargantuan demand for energy.   To be paid for by publicly-financed energy supply and power lines.  Citizens stopped the reactor, when they knew the economics, the costs they would be saddled with.

The SMR’s have been in the making for a lot of years – – all the same issues as big reactors, but now they’re “small” and benign (of course!).

2011-09-02 Moving Saskatchewan forward .. to a toxic economy (the Government $10 million deal with Hitachi / GE for “small” reactors for tar sands.

2018-07-25 Nuclear:  Commentary & Updates. Cameco lays off hundreds of Saskatchewan employees, extends site shutdowns, CBC News.

The “SMR’s”  are a climate change issue – – the source of the electricity they need to boil the kettle, or to heat the Earth, to heat the tar, to get it to the surface  – – for, according to the Financial Post,  a “massive new oilsands project”,  that requires new, expanded pipeline capacity.

On top of

• what they’re doing to the Fort Mac area and the residents of Fort Chipewyan
• what they’re doing to fresh water supplies
• the burgeoning forest fires
• all that comes with an expanded pipeline, expanded shipping
• mother orcas in mourning for their lost offspring
• reliance on investment from funds such as Canada Pension Plan (CPP), IN SPITE OF financial analysis that says Tar Sands are a bad investment

they want to keep on pumping out high level radioactive waste.  More than 50 years of trying, and they still haven’t found a way to safely dispose of it.

BUT!   there is a good news story in all of this.   I don’t think it would have happened without our intense mobilization in 2006.

Let me thank you – –  I don’t think anyone else is going to!     2018-08-06    Comment on “Estimates of exceedances of critical loads for acidification”, includes connection tar sands – nuclear – university.