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Making Electricity + Waste and Pollution + The Future
A nuclear reaction can be used as the heat source in a power station. The energy released by a kilogram of nuclear fuel is far more than that from a kilogram of a chemical fuel such as coal. Consequently the volume of nuclear waste produced is a tiny fraction of that from a conventional power station.
Waste from coal, oil, gas or nuclear fuel can be harmful to the environment. However the small quantities of nuclear waste produced mean that it can be safely stored and affect no one. If Canadian nuclear electricity were produced by burning coal, every month it would generate about 7,000,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and 10,000 tonnes of soot resulting in 20 to 100 deaths from respiratory illness. It is almost impossible to store this volume of waste.
"Only nuclear power can now halt global warming"
James Lovelock, leading environmentalist and Author of the Gaia Hypothesis.
Waste fuel from the NRU reactor, like all nuclear reactors in Canada, is removed from the facility and stored in a secure place that is easy to monitor.