By Keith Roulston

I see they’re talking about  expanding the Bruce Power nuclear station near Tiverton.
    In February the federal government announced it will provide $50 million for preliminary work for an expansion of the Bruce Power nuclear plant — Ottawa's first major investment in expanding a large nuclear plant in decades.
    All this talk about expansion by federal Natural Resources and Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith, comes as the government tries to plan for Canada to have enough energy in the future. Bruce Power, a private owner of the Tiverton station, already produces 30 per cent of Ontario’s electricity.
    All this comes as Ontario still faces a “small” problem of how to get rid of spent uranium used to produce power we’ve already used. One possible site for disposing of spent fuel rods is under exploration near Teeswater, but the final debate about whether the community will agree that the site can be used to bury the spent uranium has not been finalized (the facility would sit more than 500 metres below the surface).
    Meanwhile, of course, Ontarians have enjoyed the power from the Bruce station for more years than most readers have lived. You need to be as old as me to remember when the first nuclear generating plant was built at Douglas Point, opening in September 26, 1968. 
    Later, the Bruce station was built, originally by Ontario and then sold to Bruce Power. In that time, the local economy has totally changed. I had relatives who used to work in factories in Kincardine but those low-paying jobs were wiped out by the much better paycheques at The Bruce. The benefit of those jobs has spread much farther, as even residents of my own community, nearly an hour’s drive away, got good jobs at The Bruce.
    When the original plants aged, a plan was proposed to go through an expensive rejuvenation plan, creating even more jobs, and for several years. Now, if the new expansion takes place, even more money and more jobs will be created.
    Nearly all of us have benefitted, even if only because well-paid nuclear experts helped drive up the price of our real estate.
    Yes, we’ve all benefitted, but there’s still the problem of the nuclear waste – 3.2 million bundles of used fuel which could fill nine hockey arenas to the height of the boards, according to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.
    There’s strong opposition to the possibility of locating the waste near Teeswater (as well as at the other possible site at Ignace, in Northern Ontario). Residents of the Teeswater area, like the rest of us, have benefitted for half a century from the prosperity of The Bruce. Opponents to the plan can also count on opposition  of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation-South Bruce.
    Later this year people in the affected area will vote on whether or not to accept a potential $26-billion nuclear waste site.
    This isn’t the first time there has been an unhappy local population because of opposition to an aspect of the Bruce site. If I recall correctly, the very first issue of The Rural Voice back in 1975 (it was a newspaper, then) carried a photo of the construction of the power corridor carrying the power from The Bruce to the rest of Ontario and a story of the opposition to it.
    Later, the provincial Liberal government allowed construction of wind turbines, again to local opposition which led to the election of the Ford government and the end to wind turbine building.
    But we citizens still want electricity, more than ever. And so the province is joining with the federal government to study the expansion of The Bruce, and creating even more nuclear waste that we’ll hope somehow will just disappear.◊