Protesters Rally at the Legislature
Concerned Residents Present Petition with 1300 Signatures
By Jeremy Loome, Sun Media

Just 10 kilometres from Trudi Keillor’s house in the Peace Country is an unassuming spit of land, vacant save for wildlife, water and weeds. The fact that its status might someday change scares the hell out of her.

It also demonstrates that fear is another harmful byproduct of nuclear energy.

“We do not want this. We don’t want it for the rest of Alberta or for Canada,” Keillor said, as she joined about 100 other Peace Country residents outside the legislature today, protesting a company’s plan to build a nuclear power plant. “I live six miles west of the proposed site. And this is all happening behind the scenes. Nothing is being done to keep residents informed.”

Energy Alberta Corporation, which is owned by Calgary liquor magnate Wayne Henuset, has the only license from the Atomic Energy Company of Canada to built a reactor in Alberta. It sees 10 to 15 years of hearings, license applications and approvals before that can happen. It did not return a call for comment today.

But the process is already moving too quickly for residents to keep up, said Keillor, and given that the company has met numerous times with government to push the deal already, they’re not taking EAC’s word on the issue.

“It was all done hush-hush, and people were very upset when they found out. And a lot of the municipal councillors did not get voted back in that were involved in that. The people have not been consulted.”

Keillor doesn’t doubt the company can produce reams of stats showing nuclear power accidents are incredibly rare. She also thinks that assurance is meaningless, given the magnitude of the damage when something does go wrong. “They talk about it being so safe and having all of these redundancy features, but accidents do happen. And if a nuclear accident happens, it is very big.”

The province has repeatedly noted that ultimately most of the approvals related to nuclear plant construction are under federal jurisdiction. “With respect to the development of nuclear energy in Alberta most certainly there is an application in front of the Canadian Nuclear Security Commission.

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Whatever Happened to Nuclear Power?

Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Michael Schirber Fox News

At the turn of the millennium, nuclear power appeared to be on its way out, like land-line telephones.

But the nukes industry appears to be in vogue again, thanks in large part to fears of climate change.

"Global warming has definitely been a big help to us," said Don Hintz, vice president of the American Nuclear Society.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.

Nuclear power plants produce no significant quantity of greenhouse gases, in contrast to coal-fired power plants, which account for 35 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

France gets roughly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is said to have the cleanest air in the industrialized world, according to coverage of the topic by CBS News' "60 Minutes."

Politicians and, ironically, some environmentalists have been calling for new nuclear reactors. In September, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) received its first application in 30 years for a license to build a new plant, and there are about 20 more applications in the pipeline.

The International Atomic Energy Agency recently forecasted that the current global nuclear capacity of 370 gigawatts will grow by 20 to 80 percent in the next two decades.

However, some feel this so-called "nuclear renaissance" is based on false promises.

Read the "latest news" here.