Monday 20 June 2011

Don't give up on AECL

A must read! the author argues: "In a post-Fukushima world, the ideal opportunity exists for Canada to regain its competitive position in the global nuclear industry. The recently elected federal majority government must exercise leadership now to fully leverage Canada's present nuclear advantage.
That advantage rests with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), the arms-length federal corporation, which possesses a highly successful CANDU reactor technology. Beyond the myriad other benefits CANDU technology offers, if this technology had been present in the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, much, if not most of the disaster following the earthquake and tsunami could have been averted. 
Unfortunately, since 2007, the federal government has let AECL's restructuring and potential sale languish. The delay in decisions on this file has created uncertainty in the global nuclear marketplace about the future of CANDU reactor technology. At risk is Canada's $6.5-billion-a-year nuclear industry, employing more than 70,000 people in direct and indirect industry jobs, and generating more than $1.5 billion in federal and provincial tax revenue. All this, at the time when the world has no choice but to focus on using greener technologies like nuclear, and perhaps more importantly, when the global nuclear industry is taking a serious look at the risks posed by the nuclear technology used by Japan and many other countries around the world." read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/give+AECL/4973025/story.html#Comments

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