The week in nuclear news
The pandemic and the development of the vaccine have dominated the news this week. Also, the impending USA electoral college vote is holding media attention, along with the potentially violent movement to overthrow Joe Biden’s election win.
The U.N. Climate Change Action Summit drew attention both to the scale ofthe action needed, and to the efforts being made by different nations .
On the broad news, nuclear issues are in the background. For me, life has been busy, too. So this week’s notes are mercifully short.
Dr Helen Caldicott on the nuclear lessons of the past – time to take note of them.
Canada re-engages in the Nuclear Weapons Business with SMRs,
Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan is expected to announce within weeks his government’s action plan for development of “small modular” nuclear reactors (SMRs).
SMR developers already control the federally-subsidized Chalk River Laboratories and other facilities owned by the crown corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Canada is now poised to play a supporting role in the global nuclear weapons business, much as it did during World War II.
Canada was part of the Manhattan project with the U.S. and U.K. to produce atomic bombs. In 1943 the three countries agreed to build a facility in Canada to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Researchers who trained at the Chalk River Laboratories went on to launch weapons programs in the U.K. and France. Chalk River provided plutonium for U.S. weapons until the 1960s.