| Nuclear cleanup to cost billions Ontario power utility tallies future costs NDP calls for auditor to probe Pickering delays PETER CALAMAI SCIENCE WRITER OTTAWA—Dismantling Ontario's nuclear power reactors and safely getting rid of radioactive waste will cost about $18 billion and take until 2070, according to official estimates made public yesterday. The estimates were prepared by the provincially owned Ontario Power Generation (OPG) for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the federal agency that regulates atomic energy. More than $10 billion of the estimated $18 billion arises from storing and disposing of nuclear fuel waste, which stays radioactive for at least 10,000 years. OPG would need to set aside $6.2 billion this year to meet the eventual costs, increasing that figure to $8 billion in 2007 and $10 billion in 2010. But several commission members voiced strong doubts about the reliability of the figures, pointing out that OPG seriously under-estimated the cost of refurbishing the troubled Pickering-A nuclear power station. "Why should we have any faith in these estimates now?" asked Yves Giroux, a part-time commissioner and civil engineer from Quebec's Université Laval. The refurbishing of Pickering-A's four mothballed units is years behind schedule and is expected to cost $1.2 billion over budget. Last November, Premier Ernie Eves promised to look into restoring the station to full capacity but that investigation also has been delayed. The nuclear safety commissioners were concerned that the federal government might have to pay some of the clean-up bill if OPG became insolvent. A back-up financial guarantee from Ontario was too limited, they complained. "I don't accept the federal government should be responsible for what is a provincial utility," said Alan Graham, a part-time commissioner and former New Brunswick energy minister. Under a new federal law the safety commission must ensure that financial guarantees to cover the costs of dismantling and safe disposal are provided by the owners of major nuclear facilities and waste-disposal operations. In Ontario, this covers seven installations all owned by OPG. Financing for decommissioning and waste disposal follows the same procedure as pension funds in calculating how much money must be invested today to meet payouts over an extended period in the future, a commission official told a public hearing here yesterday. "Even if the plants were all shut down today, the money would not be spent all at once," said Richard Ferch. The $6.2 billion, which OPG must set aside by the end of this year, will come from three sources: $4 billion from a special decommissioning fund Ontario will establish this summer; $500 million from OPG's payment to a federal nuclear waste disposal fund, and $1.7 billion in a financial guarantee from the province. Yesterday, Ontario Auditor Erik Peters said he would relish conducting a review into the lengthy delay and skyrocketing cost of restarting the first unit at the Pickering-A plant. Peters said all Eves has to do is pick up the phone and ask. "It is definitely of interest," he said in an interview NDP leader Howard Hampton urged Eves to make that call. "Pickering is a financial fiasco that screams for the auditor's attention," he said yesterday. Yesterday Jim Blyth, a senior official with the safety commission, told a commission meeting that Pickering-B's Unit 6 had to shut down Wednesday when a machine that inserts fuel bundles in the reactor jammed. The reactor remains out of service. With Files from Richard Brennan and John Spears |