Court decision sidetracks future nuclear reactors for Ontario
Source: Ottawa Citizen
The Federal Court has halted Ontario’s long-term intent to build nuclear reactors at Darlington over concerns about nuclear waste, accidents and hazardous emissions.
The decision orders that a federal joint review panel be reconvened to more fully consider those three issues under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
While the decision has no immediate impact — Ontario has already indefinitely postponed the new-build plan — it is a symbolic blow to an industry coping with the public and political fallout from Japan’s 2011 Fukushima meltdown, diminishing demand for electricity.
“Until such time as the panel has completed its work of reconsideration and determination….(the federal cabinet) has no jurisdiction to issue any authorizations or take any other action. which would enable the project to proceed, in whole or in part,” Justice James Russell declares in the 213-page decision.
He also ruled that a preliminary site-preparation licence issued to Ontario Power Generation (OPG) in 2012 by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is now invalid. It had been the first preparatory permit for new reactors in Canada in 30 years.
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