Past Events - April 26 1998
Sunday April 26 1998 was a gloriously warm and sunny day at The
Forks, the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers in Winnipeg.
A year earlier I had been helping people sand bag their homes
against the rising flood waters, but this year the rivers were
quite low in comparison, thank goodness. So there was no excuse
- I was off to run the Canadian Nuclear Society (CNS) Manitoba
Branch booth at the Earth Day trade show.
I took the CNS-MB banner, literature, a CANDU model, a section
of fuel channel with an empty fuel bundle, a model dry storage
canister, and a Geiger counter and some radioactive samples.
I was nervous - what would my fellow exhibitors say, what would
the public think, what would the anti-nuclear protesters say,
what might people do? I've given many nuclear energy talks to
classes from Grade 7 to university, but never had I done anything
so very public, so very vulnerable. Would my life insurance broker
consider this a risky activity, like alligator wrestling?
I set up my table in the marquee tent for "corporate"
sponsors, in between the Manitoba Heavy Construction Association
and the Manitoba Trappers Association. In the same tent were
the Manitoba government sustainable development group, Manitoba
Hydro, the Model Forest, Archaeology in Manitoba, Natural Resources,
peace and disarmament groups, Earth First, and a group encouraging
the public to sign the organ donation line on their driver licence.
It seemed the whole spectrum of possible "environmental"
organizations were represented.
The CNS display looked quite good, if I say so myself. The crowds
started to flow through, and the outdoor band kicked it off with
some LOUD music (what was the risk to my eardrums for the day?).
The CANDU model with the fuel channel section on top was a good
drawing card, and people were amazed that the eight (simulated)
fuel pellets would be enough to supply the typical Canadian home
with electricity for a year.
Around noon a group marched into our tent, led by an accordionist
and someone with a megaphone, and followed by a couple of TV cameras.
They latched onto my neighbour, the trapper. I'd never seen
"environantics" until then, as the lead protester brought
out a leg-hold trap and set it off with his placard - for the
cameras, of course. There were lots of words from the protesters,
who took a while to disperse. I'm not wild about fur, but the
trapper was a pleasant fellow who was trying to eke out a living
off the land - without destroying the environment and thus his
livelihood. He told me afterwards that the protesters had used
a leg-hold trap - they've been banned for 10 years or so. Nothing
like dredging up the past!
Some protesters then latched onto me. When there were only one
or two at a time we had good discussions, usually ending up with
pleasantries and a handshake. One fellow was evidently concerned
that "an evidently smart guy like me" (his words!) could
support the use of nuclear technology. When I was faced with
half-a-dozen protesters, it ended up being a fun game of "us
against him". Lots of questions were fired off, without
necessarily waiting for my answer before snickering. I don't
think they believed me, that I had pursued a career in the nuclear
industry precisely because of my concern for this good
and only Earth. One person thought the "corporate tent was
really undemocratic" because she didn't get to set up a table
to counteract mine! The table cost $50 to rent, dropping our
bank account down to all of $250! As you can see, we're a rich
society!
Some protesters attacked food irradiation. One young (almost
all the protesters seemed SO young) lady told me that she had
a 9-year old cookie irradiated by AECL, and it still looked the
same as the day she got it. Somehow this was awful because, as
one person put it, you couldn't tell if food was bad if there
was no mold on it (!!?) I told them I wouldn't eat a nine-year
old cookie - they go stale after a few months (I have experimentally
derived this conclusion from a large sample). Another person
thought that irradiating strawberries was bad because they would
get stockpiled in warehouses for later consumption (!!?) There
were also concerns that the effects of irradiation had not been
monitored over two or three generations of human consumers to
observe the effects.
I had a chart comparing the waste generation between nuclear and
conventional thermal electrical production for 1994, using the
numbers from the federally-appointed Environmental Assessment
Panel (EAP) on the Nuclear Fuel Waste Management and Disposal
Concept. In 1994 the electricity production from each source
was very close to one-fifth of Canada's total electrical production.
The waste production, by mass, was much less from nuclear than
from coal and oil. One man told me that I could only compare
the 2200 tonnes of used nuclear fuel and the 3780 tonnes of heavy
metals in the coal ash. To him, the 4,200,000 tonnes of ash,
95,000,000 tonnes of CO2, 542,000 tonnes of SO2
and 168,000 tonnes of NOx (all dispersed into the environment
or put in landfills) from coal and oil-fired generation were irrelevant!
As an aside, the EAP comparison includes the tailings and waste
rock from the uranium mines, but not from the coal mines (nor
the sour gas emissions/flaring from the oil wells).
Another woman looked at the map of Canada's reactors and said
"Not only does southern Ontario have all that smog, they
have to live with all those reactors too!" Hmmm - there
would be a lot more smog without the reactors. The only really
rude person was a smug teenage boy who picked up a food irradiation
pamphlet and intentionally dropped it. I asked him if he would
please pick it up, but he pretended not to understand and ground
it up with his heel. I guess he likes to litter (I picked up
the pamphlet later).
I had many others drop by the booth, asking lots of questions
and taking brochures. The kids loved playing with the Geiger
counter, and took lots of the "I'm naturally radioactive
- so are you" stickers. They made the day so worthwhile.
On Sunday evening I watched the local news and, sure enough, there
was lots of footage of the protesters (disproportionate to their
number). Their leader was recorded decrying the rental of tables
to corporations like "Pine Falls Paper and AECL". What?!
I represented CNS on my own time (I spent all Friday in preparation),
and CNS paid for the table rental and my mileage. Yes, I work
for AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) and borrowed some of
their display items, but so what? My AECL brochures were amongst
others from CNS, Nordion, the Atomic Energy Control Board, Canadian
Nuclear Association, and the American Nuclear Society. While
I am glad to be employed by AECL, my views on nuclear matters
would not change whether I was employed by the nuclear business
or not.
All in all, a good day. I believe I made nuclear science and technology a little less remote and a little less frightening for many passersby. Maybe I even showed some anti-nuclear protesters that I too am human, I too am very concerned over our planet's future. So consider what you might do for next Earth Day, or sooner- it was challenging at times, but worth the effort!