KI pills no panacea after nuclear accident

Re Jagged little pills, Nov. 10 As one with experience on nuclear reactor design (C.D. Howe, NRU), I would find this front-page article somewhat amusing, if it were not for the potentially deadly aspects of nuclear energy.

First, there is the remote, but not impossible, chance of a reactor core meltdown at Pickering or Darlington. Proponents of the Canadian-designed Candu reactors claim that this is impossible because of the natural uranium (U238) in heavy water coolant, vs. the U.S. concept of enriched uranium (U235) in ordinary light water coolant. I hope that they are right. All nuclear reactors produce huge quantities of deadly radioactive spent fuel, essentially plutonium, that must be immersed in water on the reactor site for approximately 12 years. As there is no international agreement with respect to the long term (10,000 years), spent fuel is stored on some reactor sites, Pickering and Darlington included, in steel and concrete bunkers with a rumoured life expectancy of 40 years.

At present there are several hundred thousand tons of spent fuel stored on various sites worldwide.

If there were a nuclear issue at Darlington or Pickering, the jagged little pills would not be very effective. Roy Cowan, Port Hope, Ont. For too long, Ontario’s nuclear industry has been allowed to operate with minimal oversight and without consulting the public. Distributing KI pills to those living within 10 kilometres of the reactors is a good first step, but more needs to be done to protect the public.

Following the Fukushima disaster, residents up to 50 km away were evacuated. This distance would cover most of Toronto, yet we have no off-site emergency plan to protect us in the event of an accident of this scale.

If Durham region passed a motion requesting that the province update the nuclear emergency response plans, why doesn’t Toronto city council?

It’s time we demanded that the government protect Canadians instead of the nuclear industry. Kirsten Dahl, Toronto