The Evolution of Decommissioning Planning: Tracing the Requirements to Consider Radioactive Wastes and Social Risk of Nuclear Power Plants

Abstract

In Canada, nuclear power plant operators are required to have decommissioning plans and financial guarantees as conditions of licensing, which plan for radioactive and non-fuel wastes and identify risks to natural and social environments post-closure. However, decommissioning plans were post hoc licensing requirements, introduced when the Nuclear Safety and Control Act (NSCA) came into force in 2000. Thus, for over thirty years Canada’s first nuclear power reactor operated absent considerations of decommissioning planning. While the NSCA sought to combat these gaps, residual challenges remain. Therefore, this chapter traces the evolution of decommissioning regulations and policy since the NSCA’s introduction and compares decommissioning guides among proponents, since their development in 2000. As the nuclear sector enters an era of decommissioning—with over 60% of all operating reactors now exceeding 30 years of age—this chapter also highlights the challenges caused by the historic lack of preventative planning and foresight. Ultimately, we find that the failure of Canada’s legal frameworks to pre-emptively consider and establish reliable and socially acceptable methods of managing long-lived radioactive wastes before commercial nuclear stations were made makes it unlikely that Canadian nuclear sites will be successfully decommissioned within the foreseeable future.

Kerrie Blaise is Legal Counsel at the Canadian Environmental Law Association; Shawn-Patrick Stensil is Program Director at Greenpeace Canada .