What?: Lecture on nuclear energy: is it necessary to mitigate climate change in Ontario?

Who?: Dr. Gordon Edwards, Dr. Dorothy Goldin-Rosenberg, Jack Gibbons (OCAA)

When?: Friday, November 14 - 12 noon to 2 p.m. Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle (room TBA), Toronto Free admission. Lunch will be served.

This talk is co-sponsored by University of Toronto Students Union and the new Sustainability Commission, Graduate Students Union Social Justice Committee, and Students Against Climate Change (a U of T campus club).
Contact Paul York at 647-342-7995 / E-mail: paulyork.2008@gmail.com

Background: The Ontario government and Ontario Power Generation have set in place a plan to spend roughly $46 billion of the Ontario taxpayers' money over the next 20 years on nuclear energy, to meet Ontario's rising energy demands.

Critics maintain that this plan destracts from much-need conservation efforts, uses enormous amounts of valuable public funds better spent on renewable energy projects (namely wind), poses an unacceptable safety risk to the GTA (which will be within a30 km radius of a potential Chernobyl, if the power plants implode), will not adequately mitigate climate change (as claimed by advocates), and poses the additional problem of whether nuclear waste can safely be buried or disposed of.
Advocates for nuclear energy, such as Murray Elston and other members of the nuclear energy lobby - including many Liberal MPPs - contend that Ontario's 'baseload' energy needs cannot be met through renewables, that coal-power is too dirty (too many GHGs) and that nuclear is the only viable alternative, despite its risks and cost.

Against this position, the 'Renewable is Doable' campaign of 13 ENGOs issues a position paper illustrating base load power can be generated through a mix of renewables and conservation. They contend that nuclear energy is a clean, safe, and healthy way to produce energy, incontrast to coal-fired power. So who is right?

Dr. Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibilty will address this issue, through an educational slideshow. He is a part of a panel which includes Dr. Dorothy Goldin-Rosenberg, who will speak on the health risks of radioactive materials released by nuclearpower plants, and Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, a group dedicated to ridding Ontario of its reliance on coal-fired power plants.