Present full nuclear picture

A renaissance is usually associated with a period of enlightenment in art, culture, science, etc. Heather Exner-pirot's article on nuclear renaissance (LP, April 27) does little to enlighten us on a complicated subject, the nuclear energy industry, its upsides and downsides.

Exner-pirot goes far too quickly to economic benefits seemingly to convince us that if we don't jump on the nuclear power bandwagon we're missing out. As well, why is it necessary for someone who is a “senior policy analyst” to diss environmentalists as not grounded in reality.

We don't need that and neither does the industry. What we need is balanced information to help the majority of people understand all sides of non-renewable resource based power generation.

The disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima are not to be treated as aberrations and ignored. There are lessons to be learned about how difficult it is to recover from a nuclear power accident and how long the contamination lasts.

Exner-pirot's economics appear to skip over the costs of storing spent nuclear fuel. This is a real issue! The more reactors we build, the more fuel waste has to be contained.

Currently, the industry in Canada stores spent fuel in barrels in cooling ponds. That's good for the short term; however, spent fuel remains “hot” and toxic not for decades but centuries. Where will this stuff be stored and at what cost? France, which has a much larger fleet of nuclear power stations than Canada, has tried to recycle spent fuel and has largely been unsuccessful. Exner-pirot fails to mention this.

So let's dispense with the one-sided economics and the labelling of misguided environmentalists in favour of informed dialogue where we hopefully get real answers. Gerard Saretsky, Saskatoon