Dear Saskatchewan Greens,

Globally, the world is experiencing exponential growth of solar power with storage. Saskatchewan is an excellent place to employ solar, wind and other renewables, and the Saskatchewan Green Party is prepared to incentivize the rapid transition to clean energy in our province. The economics of energy production clearly favours renewables, and our province needs politicians who are prepared to do the work to bring our province within climate goals that look after future generations.

Currently, politicians are vulnerable to the nuclear industry’s massive monetized sales pitch; jobs in the nuclear industry are seen as glamorous. And yet renewable alternatives, energy storage devices, continuing energy retrofits – all exist, and all are ready. Canada’s goal of reaching its climate commitments by 2035 can be met by building up proven renewable sources and crafting our grids to accommodate these sources. Fossils and nuclear power are fuels of the past, holding back healthier and ultimately more effective means. We are most powerful when we work in tune with Nature instead of merely consuming it. Fossil fuels and nuclear energy create long-lasting, basic survival problems which will become irreversible unless we quickly reduce and stop using both. 

Our federal government recognizes the “atmospheric carbon dioxide” planetary boundary and the need for Canada to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets to reach “net zero” by 2035. However, instead of following the more economical routes of energy efficiency – solar with storage and wind power – the Saskatchewan and Canadian governments have decided to provide substantial new funding for expanding nuclear power in Canada, and now in our province. 

The links between nuclear weapons and nuclear power are so problematic that in order to completely abolish nuclear weapons, we must stop nuclear power. To be against war is to be against SMRs and other nuclear reactors. Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons are irrevocably linked. Saskatchewan’s and Canada’s pursuit of building nuclear power, especially small modular nuclear reactors, will add to pushing the world towards increased nuclear weapons proliferation since competition for power and influence would inevitably lead to available nuclear weapons development as a national defence priority.

At the beginning of the nuclear age, the military in both the USA and the Soviet Union raced to harness the energy produced from uranium when its atom is broken or “fissioned”. Their goal was to create an atomic bomb. In 1945 the USA’s Manhattan Project won the race, and the USA’s military carried out the only use of atomic weapons in history. Hiroshima was attacked by a uranium bomb and Nagasaki was attacked by a plutonium bomb.

“The expansion of an extensive nuclear infrastructure for civil nuclear energy programmes makes it much easier and, above all, cheaper for a country to pursue a military nuclear programme. Already in 1946, an official report by the U.S. government warned that the infrastructure for civilian and military nuclear technology was largely interchangeable and interdependent, posing a substantial risk for the proliferation of nuclear weapons through the development of a nuclear energy infrastructure.” (Dr. Angelika Claussen, Dr. Alex Rosen, Dr. Frank Boulton)

“Leaders from politics and industry in the US now openly admit that they depend on the civilian use of nuclear energy to build nuclear weapons: “The entire US nuclear enterprise – weapons, naval propulsion, non-proliferation, enrichment, fuel services and negotiations with international partners – depends on a robust civilian nuclear industry”. Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz also confirms this connection: “A strong domestic supply chain is needed to provide for nuclear Navy requirements. This supply chain has an inherent and very strong overlap with  commercial nuclear energy.” (Drs. Claussen, Rosen and Boulton)

Both nuclear weapons and nuclear power use the same basic materials. The acquisition of nuclear weapons-usable materials is the first step to making nuclear weapons. Many nuclear plants have produced both. For example, Chernobyl was a “dual purpose” plant.

Fuel for some proposed small modular reactors is approaching military grade. For instance, the extraction of plutonium from CANDU waste creates the substance used in the Nagasaki bomb. Six kg of plutonium made the Nagasaki bomb. The nuclear industry will argue that they will not refine plutonium sufficiently to make a bomb; however, many experts disagree. All do agree on the need for heightened security. 

Another problem area is with High-Assay Low-Enriched uranium, being proposed for an alternate small modular nuclear reactor design. This is connected with military use, as in submarines. 

Nuclear power makes the proliferation of nuclear weapons more likely – and verification of the possession of nuclear weapons more difficult. For example, India made and exploded its first nuclear weapons in 1974 from a reactor given to India by Canada. This example of nuclear weapons proliferation occurred despite monitoring and promises to the contrary. 

Concerns specific to Canada:

The government of Canada is enabling foreign-owned start-up companies to set up in Canada to extract plutonium from nuclear waste to make Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs). Consider:

1. Canadian environmental laws are considered ‘lax’, or ‘easy to work around’ compared to other countries, hence Canada attracts these companies.
2. Canadian government money for SMRs is flowing to these companies, rationalized (excused) by promising jobs for disadvantaged areas.
3. Canada has no official policy regarding plutonium extraction, even though unofficial adherence to such a policy was followed after India created a bomb from Canada’s gift of a nuclear reactor.
4. Several of these startup companies plan to extract plutonium as a cash cow. Their plan is to market the resulting SMRs worldwide and include the technology to extract plutonium with it. This activity would accelerate the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.

In conclusion, as a first principle, war and violence are unjustifiable; conflicts have to be settled in a peaceful way. War can be fatal to Earth and the people and animals supported by it. We, as a province, should not be funding and promoting an industry directly linked to the violence of war, but rather we should be standing against it.  

Yours in seeking peace and energy sanity, 

Naomi Hunter
Leader of the Saskatchewan Green Party

* P.S. The above was written with help from IPPNWCanada, an affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Because there is no meaningful medical response to the trauma involved in a nuclear weapons catastrophe, the focus is on prevention. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War has been awarded two Nobel Peace Prizes for their work. The first was in 1985 for decreasing East-West tensions during the Cold War; the second was in 2017, for the creation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.