Plugging in to Power.

We produce electricity in a number of ways: by burning oil, gas, coal; by nuclear fission; by hydro generation. The burning and nuclear options have very serious environmental implications - dirty air and highly toxic waste. Energy produced by hydro is among the cleanest there is, but it also poses some serious problems

Canada is blessed with enormous hydroelectric power resources, and potential resources. But, there is a cost to the environment; land behind hydro dams is flooded and destroyed. Often, that land belongs to Native People who, understandably, object to this happening. The Cree in Quebec ran a successful campaign in the early 1990s to stop Hydro-Quebec flooding their land to create power to sell to the U.S. Now, the Cree in Manitoba are waging a boycott campaign against Manitoba Hydro over its megaprojects.

The Cross Lake Crees in northern Manitoba turned to environmentalists and human rights organizations for support in their fight. The group says the utility company destroyed their livelihoods and the environment when it built three dams in the 1970s on the Nelson River, causing widespread flooding. About 70% of the water that once flowed in Manitoba's Churchill River was diverted to the Nelson River. The dams generate about 80% of Manitoba Hydro's power. But, they displaced whole communities and permanently damaged about 1.2 million hectares of traditional hunting and fishing grounds.

Manitoba Hydro's opponents say the projects make for very pricey electricity in terms of social and environmental costs, but what consumers pay for electricity doesn't take that into account. The opposition crosses the border to the United States, where 30% of Manitoba Hydro's revenue comes from; that adds up to about $300 million worth of exported power a year. According to one newspaper report, some Americans think Manitoba electricity "is so morally tainted consumers shouldn't buy it." U.S. activists who have surveyed northern Manitoba describe "massive ecological disruption" caused by electricity megaprojects.

Manitoba currently has the lowest electricity rates in Canada and some of the cheapest in the world, primarily because of low-cost power from dams and diversion projects in Cree areas. So, the real cost of Canadian hydro is on the backs of Native People and their environment.

But, Manitoba Hydro points out that it is negotiating with Crees over compensation for the damage and that four of the five Native communities affected recently reached settlements. The Cross Lake community is asking for more and has headed south of the border for support.

Two years earlier, a study by the Environmental Defense Fund in the U.S. found that dam projects typically have overestimated economic returns while underestimating social and environmental costs. They displace Native People and steer power to cities at the expense of rural land, which ultimately has the effect of widening the gap between rich and poor.

Okay. So, let's fire up some furnaces to generate electricity.

A Canadian report in 1998 pointed out the huge environmental toll that results from electric utilities that burn coal to run their power plants. The emissions of air pollutants include toxic chemicals ranging from the sulphur dioxide that turns rain acid, to mercury that causes nerve damage. Some of these pollutants could be reduced by as much as 90% if the power plants switched to new generating stations fuelled by natural gas. The cost to consumers would be about $1.86 a month, an increase of about 3% in electricity bills, according to the report, which was commissioned by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. The Alliance includes environmentalists, public-health advocates, and municipal electric utilities. Natural gas is also a fossil fuel but it's much cleaner than coal because it contains smaller amounts of about three dozen pollutants. These include sulphur and heavy metals that are released into the atmosphere when fuel is burned.

A Clean Air Alliance spokesman says Ontario could achieve even larger air-pollution reductions by using its nuclear plants more. But, many of these have been put into semi-retirement after wearing out many years before they were supposed to.

Scientists thought nuclear power, fuelled by uranium, would take over in the 1950s when the first nuclear power station started producing electricity in the U.K. But, by 1979 it accounted for only 2.2% of world energy consumption, one third that of hydroelectric (water) power.

In 1999, Europe, with its dense population but few resources, accounted for more than half of the world's nuclear power stations: 221 out of 437. Its reliance on nuclear reactors for electricity ranges from a high of 78% in France to 27.5% in Britain. North America has 123 installations. As in North America, Europe has not built any new plants for several years.

The first nuclear reactor to be connected to an electricity distribution network in the U.S. started operating in 1957 at Shipping-port, Pennsylvania. Attempts to convert the world's electric generating systems from fossil fuels to nuclear energy faltered because of rapidly increasing costs, regulatory delays, declining demand for electricity, and concern for safety. Anti-nuclear activists have campaigned against this energy option because of what they see as the hazards of low-level radiation effects, nuclear accidents, management of spent nuclear fuel, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In 1979, there was a near meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Seven years later, the world's worst nuclear accident occurred at Chernobyl, Ukraine. There were many fatalities, vast tracts of land were laid waste, and the safety concerns of environmentalists were confirmed.

Not surprisingly, the nuclear industry is a subject of political and economic controversy around the world. Few orders for new plants were being placed by the 1980s, and many of those that were ordered were ultimately cancelled.

From the beginning the industry has had an image problem. Britain's first nuclear power station opened in 1956; it was built and run by the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. This was the same outfit that was responsible for making nuclear bombs. Electricity production was the stated purpose for building nuclear power stations. In reality, the electricity was a by-product. As a result of this early deception, no one trusts the industry. And, there still is the problem of what to do with nuclear waste.

There are 22 reactors in Canada, most owned by Ontario Power, except for one each at Hydro-Quebec and New Brunswick Power. Canadian nuclear-reactor sites have about 1.3 million used Candu fuel bundles in storage - enough to fill three hockey rinks to the top of the boards. The federal government estimates it will cost $11 billion to dispose of the waste over 70 to 100 years. Some of the growing world stockpile of spent fuel and waste will still be radioactive at the end of this millennium. It's not surprising that the nuclear power industry has failed to convince most of the people in many countries that it is a clean, cheap, safe, or even reliable energy source.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. If you want to know how reliant we are on manufactured energy, ask the folks who lived through the Ice Storm of '98; the storm paralyzed half of Quebec, caused 30 deaths, and cost $3 billion to the public and private sectors. Write a report detailing the effects of the storm, why it caused such a crisis, and what steps have been taken to prevent another similar disaster occurring.

2. According to an editorial in the Globe and Mail: "... the accident at the JCO Co. plant (in Japan in 1999) speaks less to the scariness of nuclear power and more to the scariness of human stupidity. "Discuss this statement.

3. In 1994, in Malaysia and Indonesia, demand for electric power was growing faster than the economy. The World Bank predicted that more than $1 trillion would be invested in developing countries' power systems in the 1990s. America's General Electric said that 45% of worldwide electrical equipment orders would come from Asia over the decade to 2005. China and India alone, with 40% of the world's people and less than 10% of today's demand for energy, plan to build what would amount to a quarter of the world's new capacity. By 2010, the carbon dioxide emissions of developing countries are expected to be almost as high as those of the whole world in 1970. Find out how developing countries are doing in terms of receiving power, where it's coming from, and what the future holds for demand and environmental impact.

FACT FILE

In 1910, only 10% of U.S. houses had electricity; by 1930, 80% did.

FACT FILE

According to the World Energy Council, in the period between 1994 and 2020 investment in electricity will account for a third of all energy investment, and more electrical generating capacity will be built than was built in the previous century.

FACT FILE

Nuclear power generates about one-sixth of the world's energy and one third in Europe, the world's largest market.

RELATED ARTICLE: ONTARIO COAL-BURNING HEALTH CRISIS

Ontario is North America's second largest source of air pollution, next to Texas.

In 1999, Ontario Power's five coal-fired power plants produced 22% of the province's carbon dioxide emissions, 15% of nitrogen oxides emissions (smog), 20% of sulphur dioxide emissions (a source of acid rain), and 21% of mercury emissions (a neuro-toxin linked to brain, liver, and kidney damage especially in the very young). The company, which is Ontario Hydro's successor, admitted that its nitrogen oxides and greenhouse-gas emissions will exceed its voluntary-emissions caps by as much as 42% in 2000. That means its coal-fired electricity generation and its emissions of sulphur dioxide, mercury, and six cancer-causing pollutants (arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lead, and nickel) will also rise by 42% in 2000.

It's estimated that air pollution causes about 6,000 premature deaths a year in the province.

RELATED ARTICLE: TURNING THE LIGHTS OUT

Historically, electricity in Canada has been generated and supplied by publicly owned utilities. Now, many governments are getting out of the business; they are privatizing the electricity system.

When the electricity market becomes a free market, the bottom line can become more important than customer service. The result can be power shortages as private companies cut costs, along with their ability to provide electricity during peak-demand periods, such as the middle of winter. It's happened in Alberta and parts of the U.S., and some people in Ontario are concerned it will happen there too as electricity hits the open market in 2000, allowing businesses and homeowners to choose their supplier.

Ontario Hydro currently controls 90% of the province's annual $10 billion electricity market. Under the province's restructuring program, the provincial utility will have three parts: a generating company, an electricity-transmission company, and a centralized sector that will make electricity produced by other companies available for sale in an open market.

There are also concerns that competition will lead to more pollution if utilities save money by continuing to rely on old and dirty, but relatively inexpensive coal-fired plants. That's what the Ontario Clean Air Alliance thinks and it wants the provincial government to establish "emission caps" to limit damage to air quality. The Clean Air Alliance is a coalition of 67 organizations, including eight municipalities, 10 utilities, and environmental and health groups, such as the Ontario Lung Association, and the Ontario College of Family Physicians.

Some observers say competition is one of the reasons behind the nuclear accident at JCO Company in Japan in September 1999. Human error and sloppy management were also cited, but there was pressure on the private company to cut costs to compete with rivals. Cutting corners is not a good idea in a nuclear fuel-processing plant. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, one Japanese nuclear power company executive said it led workers "to disregard the most elementary safety steps." Another said it happened because engineers wanted to lighten their workload, and ignored government-approved procedures to do so, with the company director's nod of approval. As a result, JCO's uranium-processing plant in Tokaimura, 110 km northeast of Tokyo, bathed three workers with lethal doses of radiation (49 people were exposed to the radiation and needed medical help but only three were admitted to hospital), sent levels outside the plant soaring 4,000-fold, and forced local residents to flee their homes. Hundred of thousands of others living within 10 km of the accident were told to stay indoors. Local Japanese news media reported that workers at the plant had been ignoring legally binding procedures for four years prior to the accident, and that they were not properly trained.

Japan has few natural resources and relies on nuclear energy for about a third of its electricity.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog in Vienna, ranked the accident among the world's five worst. For Japan, it was the country's worst ever accident.

RELATED ARTICLE: NUCLEAR SHUTDOWN

Eight of Canada's 22 nuclear reactors have been shut down; France, which gets three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear plants, is declaring a moratorium on further construction; Britain, Belgium, and Spain have done the same; Germany has pledged to pull out of nuclear energy, which provides 30% of its power; Sweden plans to phase it out by 2010; no new nuclear power stations have been ordered in the U.S. since 1978.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C., "the nuclear industry is experiencing a meltdown of historic proportions." Once the world's fastest-growing source of energy, it is now the slowest, well behind coal and oil.

Websites

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited - http://www.aecl.ca/

Canadian Electricity Association - http://www.canelect.ca/ connections_online/home.htm

Ontario Clean Air Alliance - http://www.cleanair.web.net/ index.html