Have you ever wondered where all the nuclear waste from Canada’s power plants is going? The answer might just be rolling through your neighbourhood before long — on a lot of trucks.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), which was created by Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government in 2002 to find a solution for Canada’s nuclear waste, wants to move millions of bundles of radioactive nuclear waste across Canadian highways to a final resting place. It plans to bury it deep underground in Ontario, either near Lake Huron or up north near Dryden, in a deep geological repository (DGR).
NWMO’s plan involves driving truckloads of this radioactive waste across the country from nuclear sites in the GTA, Bruce County on Lake Huron, New Brunswick, Quebec and Manitoba. Slow-moving trucks will be hauling massive steel containers filled with 192 used nuclear fuel bundles. Each load will weigh 35 tonnes and contain waste that remains radioactive for thousands of years. The NWMO estimates that taking it all to the Dryden area will amount to 84 million kilometres of road trips.
How many trucks will it take? Current operating reactors will ultimately produce six million nuclear fuel bundles. That doesn’t include the announced “Bruce C” reactors, or any further nuclear generating stations not yet announced. Bruce C would add at least two million more bundles. Eight million bundles will require 40,000 truckloads over at least 40 year.
But there will also be 20,000 dry cask containers that previously stored the nuclear fuel which will also need transportation to a DGR. Empty, they each weigh 60 tonnes and will be radioactive. They will need to be cut in half due to their weight, adding up to another 40,000 truckloads. If they go to a DGR near Dryden, that will double the number of trucks and bring the total truck travel on Canadian roads to 168 million kilometres. (The NWMO has not done this estimate.)
Is everybody okay with all this? Are most Canadians even aware of these scenarios?
The NWMO says the containers on the trucks will survive any imaginable road accident and no radioactivity will escape. But do you know how often NWMO has talked about the risks of those thousands of trucks travelling millions of kilometres getting into accidents? Not once.
Imagine this: 80,000 truckloads of radioactive material driving 168 million kilometres through Canadian cities and towns, including right through the gridlocked GTA. Are we supposed to believe that in 168 million kilometres of travel, not a single truck is going to get into a serious accident? It seems like a bet that’s too big to take lightly.
And here’s where things get even more uncertain. Only two small towns — one near Dryden and another near Lake Huron — along with two First Nations get a say in where this nuclear waste facility will be located. How is it fair that such a small number of people decide something that could affect millions of Ontarians, especially those living along the transportation routes? Ontario is giving municipalities the right to say yes or no to new wind farms and solar farms. What say does your municipality have in the federal government’s NWMO moving huge truckloads of nuclear waste through your community?
A Saugeen Ojibway Nation leader recently said he doesn’t believe waste from the Bruce station will ever leave his community’s traditional territory if the site near Dryden is selected. “If you think about how many [other] treaty territories that waste would have to go through, I don’t think it will happen.”
It’s clear there’s no consensus and, with so much at stake, shouldn’t other First Nations and municipalities have a say too? It’s time for more of us to pay attention to this issue. The risks of trucking radioactive waste through our neighbourhoods and many First Nation traditional territories for decades are real. There are several other options the NWMO has not adequately considered, including improving on-site storage to keep the nuclear waste where it is.
The NWMO might think trucking nuclear waste through your backyard is the best solution, but I’m not convinced. You shouldn’t be either.
-William Leiss is emeritus professor at Queen’s University and author of Deep Disposal: A Documentary Account of Burying Nuclear Waste in Canada (2024)