Pros and Cons

____ince the creation of CANDU, there have been two accidents
____but no civilian injuries. The first was on December 12, 1952 at the Chalk River NRX (Whitlock, 2007). A human error caused the power to surge for a minute, melting and breaking the fuel rods. A mechanical malfunction in the shut off roads made it so the reactor did not shut off (Whitlock, 2007). The radioactive waste was carried by millions of gallons of cooling water into the basement of the reactor, and was then pumped to waste management facilities were the water was monitored to meet safety requirements (Whitlock, 2007). The calandria was severely damaged, but there were no casualties (Whitlock, 2007). According to Whitlock, a massive clean up took place involving the Canadian and American Military and AECL staff. The positive to this accident was that it taught Canada an important lesson. It showed the need for fast acting shut down systems and a high level power threshold (Whitlock, 2007). The NRX was completely rebuilt and was operating within 14 months (Whitlock, 2007).

____he second accident happened May 24, 1958 at the Chalk
____River NRU (Whitlock, 2007). It was caused by a fuel handling accident and was not as serious as the previous one. The accident occurred when the system was shut down to remove failed fuel (Whitlock, 2007). According to Whitlock, the fuel rod was not cool enough and began to burn. The rod broke apart while being moved to storage and a piece fell on the maintenance bridge and continued burning (Whitlock, 2007). The fire was quickly extinguished by staff, but the building was contaminated. Clean up began soon after, and the plant was running that August.

____he CANDU reactor has many economical and
____environmental advantages. First of all, a new CANDU power plant would supply jobs for 30,000 people, and would collect $700 million of tax to be used to improve other affairs (CANDU, nd). CANDU currently supplies fifteen percent of Canada’s energy (CANDU, nd; Whitlock, 2007). According to Whitlock (2007), in 1997 CANDU produced almost half of Ontario’s energy. CANDU is also cost efficient because it does not need uranium to be intensely refined in order to reach criticality (CANDU reactor, 2007). According to Whitlock, every year $1 billion is saved in Canada by not using foreign energy. A total of $34 billion have been saved between 1962 and 1994. Also according to Whitlock, selling two CANDU reactors abroad creates $760 million dollars for Canada, 10,000 jobs, and business for 1,500 private companies. In 2000, exporting by the nuclear industry created $1 billion (Whitlock, 2007).

____he environment would also experience many benefits from ____CANDU. Without nuclear technology for forty years, 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, 11 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide, and 2.5 million tonnes of nitrogen oxides would be let into the Earth’s atmosphere (CANDU, nd). Nuclear energy is much cleaner than fossil fuels because there is no ash, gas, or airborne particles created (Whitlock, 2007). According to Whitlock, a twenty kilogram bundle of uranium can supply 100 homes with electricity for one year. The same amount of energy is created from 400 tonnes of coal, 270,000 litres of oil, or 3 million litres of natural gas (Whitlock, 2007). Whitlock also said that 1 kilogram of pollution is avoided for every kilowatt per hour generated by nuclear energy. Studies show that 20 to 100 deaths are caused by pollution from coal for every gigawatt of energy generated per year (Whitlock, 2007). This adds up to 300 to 1,600 deaths in Canada alone. CANDU would have than saved between 4,000 and 20,000 lives since its creation (Whitlock, 2007)