COURTICE, Ont. - An environmental assessment for four proposed nuclear reactors in Ontario found that the project will cause no significant adverse environmental effects, a review panel heard Monday.
Hearings into Ontario Power Generation's nuclear plans began Monday night after the joint review panel turned down a request from environmental groups to suspend the process while Japan's nuclear crisis is still ongoing.
But the situation at the earthquake- and tsunami-hit Fukushima plant nevertheless weighed heavily at the start of the three weeks of hearings.
"OPG, like everyone in the global nuclear industry, will incorporate lessons learned from the Japanese experience and make nuclear energy even safer," OPG executive Albert Sweetnam said before speaking about the environmental assessment.
What's happening in Japan is a "worst-case natural disaster beyond anything that we would need to manage here in Ontario," he said.
"Our reactors are robust in design and able to withstand large seismic events," Sweetnam said.
"Our plants are designed to ensure many concurrent events happening together would not impact the ability to safely operate."
OPG, the government-owned utility which supplies about 70 per cent of Ontario's electricity, is looking to build up to four new reactors to produce about 4,800 megawatts of power.
The proposed project would be located near OPG's existing Darlington site 70 kilometres east of Toronto on the shores of Lake Ontario.
In its presentation to the start of the review panel hearings, OPG said any potential adverse effects on the environment could be managed.
"There is no evidence that the project will cause any significant adverse environmental effects, taking into account the implementation of appropriate mitigation measures," Sweetnam said.
Environmental groups had wanted to postpone the hearings until lessons could be learned from Japan, but panel chairman Alan Graham said they would go ahead.
"We would not be proceeding with the public hearings today if we believed our mandate was unachievable in light of these events," he said.
The groups said the issues in Japan had demonstrated how a catastrophe can occur as a result of threats plant manufacturers would have considered outside the "design basis."
As a result, they said a thorough review of the fallout from the Japanese situation was needed first to see how that might impact the Ontario proposal.
The Canadian Environmental Law Association is concerned that OPG has not yet said exactly which of four kinds of reactors it proposes to build.
It was only a few months ago that OPG added the Candu 6 as a possible model for Darlington.
As a result, the law association said, the environmental impact statement prepared so far was too general.
OPG evaluated cooling options and concluded a once-through cooling system, using lake water, will have the lowest environmental impact and appease the community's issues with cooling towers, said Sweetnam.
Ontario currently depends on nuclear power for half of its electricity. The rest is generated through hydroelectric facilities, coal and natural gas fired plants, as well as renewable power projects such as wind turbines and solar panels.
In addition to Darlington, Ontario has the Pickering nuclear plant, just east of Toronto, and the Bruce facility in Tiverton, Ont., along the eastern shore of Lake Huron. OPG operates both Darlington and Pickering, while Bruce Power operates the provincially owned Bruce plant.
The government's long-term energy plan calls for $33 billion in investments by the government and the private sector to build the two new reactors and refurbish 10 older units.
