INVITATION to CELEBRATE: The Nuclear Age in Quebec is Over! Gentilly-2 is SHUT DOWN!
"Rest in Peace, Gentilly-2". Image compliments of CentricoisES et mauricienNEs pour le déclassement nucléaireThis tremendous good news just came in from Dr. Gordon Edwards, chair of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and co-chair of the Great Lakes United Nuclear-Free/Green Energy Task Force:
28 December: The Nuclear Age in Quebec is Over!
Join us, in Montréal, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon
On this occasion, Sonomi and her two children-- refugees from Fukushima, Japan -- will be our special guests.
P.S. Québec will be truly out of the nuclear age only when we achieve a permanent moratorium on uranium mining, as has been done in two other provinces -- Nova Scotia and British Columbia!
(Nuclear utility Hydro-Quebec announced Gentilly-2's permanent shutdown, to occur tomorrow, last October. Gentilly-2 is a CANDU atomic reactor which has operated since 1982. The Quebec public will now avoid the wate, and risk, of billions in refurbishment costs, which Hydro-Quebec had hoped to foist upon them, in a bid to operate Gentilly-2 for 20 more years. However, decommissioning costs will now begin.)
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CBC has reported on this story. The article reports:
"...Environmental groups applauded the government's decision to shut down the plant...Michel Fugère, spokesman for the Mauricie's Green Movement, said the closure is a 'great gift' and represents 'a big day' for all Quebecers.
He pointed out that several polls suggested more than 60 per cent of the population in Quebec's Mauricie region supported the plant's closure..."
(Note that the article's report that dismantlement of the reactor would take place over the next 18 months is inaccurate. Only preliminary decommissioning activities will take place in the next year and a half; full dismantlement will take decades.)
Regarding the price tag for decommissioning, the article reports "The plant's closure is expected to cost $1.8 billion over a period of more than 50 years."