The possibility of extracting energy from the atomic nucleus has been known only since the beginning of this century. It is less than forty years since the scientific feasibility of this energy source was first demonstrated. Since that time, the application of this basic knowledge to weaponry has overshadowed its peaceful uses in the minds of many people; the term "nuclear power" tends to be associated with bombs rather than electricity production. Nonetheless, peaceful applications have been developed to the point where, in 1977, the United States generated about the same amount of electricity from nuclear power plants as from all of their hydro-electric power dams.
Over the past thirty years, scientists and engineers in Canada have developed a unique system for producing nuclear-electric energy. This system is called CANDU, an acronym for the Canadian-Deuteriurn-Uranium system. The engineering design of the system is mature, the necessary manufacturing industries are in place, and several operating units have demonstrated the technical and economic viability of the system. In 1977, CANDU units on the Ontario Hydro grid produced over twenty five percent of the total electrical energy needs of the province. Quebec and New Brunswick each has one CANDU unit under construction.
Only one component of the overall power system, namely long-term waste management, remains to be demonstrated on a commercial scale. Ontario Hydro and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. have proposed a comprehensive joint demonstration project to be developed over the next few years. Current engineering judgment indicates that this is a relatively simple task. There are several alternative disposal methods available, and even "worst case" assumptions lead to extremely small risks to future generations, which are easily balanced by the large societal benefits of an assured energy supply.
Remaining technical problems in station design are a matter of capital cost reduction and reliability improvement. Manufacturing and operation technologies are becoming more or less routine as experience accumulates; the stations are developing into "standard" industrial plants. Fuel supplies for committed stations are assured for at least thirty years. Beyond this time scale there are large uncertainties in resource estimates. Fortunately, feasible means exist for extracting almost all of the stored energy in mined uranium, instead of about one percent as is now the case. Development of the technology and industry to do this is the major unfinished task. When this task is complete, the known fuel resources will be sufficient to support a large electrical supply system for many hundreds of years.
What are the concerns? It is necessary here to distinguish real concerns from far-out, improbable events. The major item is protection of operating staff and the public from the effects of ionizing radiation. As a matter of record, radiation doses from nuclear plants during operation are extremely low compared with the dose received from natural radioactivity in the environment. World-wide, over one thousand reactor-years of operation have been accumulated without a single radiation-induced fatality. This outstanding safety statistic is bound to be broken at some time or other, but the record is already much better than is accepted routinely in other human activities.
