Over the next four years, Laurentian University engineering professor Dr. Dougal McCreath will be burying himself in the weighty issue of finding the best way to dispose of radioactive nuclear waste.
In January, the professor of Civil and Mining Engineering was selected as an advisor to Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). The nuclear industry funds the organization for the specific purpose of finding safe choices in handling nuclear waste.
McCreath said the Chinese proverb of 'May you live in interest times' certainly applies to this appointment.
"I've been involved in many of these social discussions and we have to develop ways that society builds trust in the technical arm of engineers. If I can help play a little of that role, I'm looking forward to it."
No doubt, McCreath and his colleagues will have to deal with the NIMBY element in finding what federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn called a "willing community" to host a nuclear waste repository.
"This whole issue of nuclear waste is very much one that lies at the boundary of technical and social dialogue."
Both Queen's Park and Ottawa want to build more nuclear plants but what to do with the thorny issue of disposing of the 85,000 used nuclear fuel bundles generated by Canadian reactors every year.
The NWMO said at the end of 2001, utilities had produced almost 1.6 million bundles, enough to fill a soccer field to the height of 1.3 metres. The group estimates a total of 3.6 million used fuel bundles will exist by the end of 2033.
Last summer, Ottawa gave the green light to a $24 billion long-term nuclear waste management plan first proposed by the NWMO in 2005. Industry will pay for the research, construction and maintenance costs.
McCreath joins an advisory group with a pretty diverse technical, socio-political and Aboriginal background including former Toronto mayor David Crombie and Lakehead University president Fred Gilbert.
For more than 20 years, the LU geotechnical engineer has been involved in some of the earliest industry discussion in Canada and the U.S. on nuclear waste management including examining the possibility of establishing power plants underground as part of a safety case.
Since the 1970s, he's served on various commission and studies including two Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency review panels looking at methods of deep geologic storage for spent fuel.
His work on these panels led to the eventual creation of the NWMO.
More recently, McCreath has been the director of Laurentian University's Elliot Lake Field Research Station. The small analytical laboratory was set up in the 1990's to ensure the community was involved in the environmental monitoring of 14 decommissioned uranium mines and 130 million tonnes of radioactive residual tailings in the Serpent River basin.
As an advisor, McCreath will review the organization's technical work and guide NWMO management in their approaches to ensure the views of the public and communities of interest are fully considered and reflected as part of an "open and transparent process."
Actual field work and participation in public consultation is not an obligation, but McCreath intends to be involved out of his own interest.
No specific site locations for storing high-level waste (such as spent fuel rods) have been selected.
Likely disposal sites include somewhere in the granite rocks of the Canadian Shield or deep sedimentary formations in southern Ontario, closer to the places where most of the nuclear waste is generated.
There is an investigation underway examining the idea of placing low and intermediate waste inside a deep repository 680 metres beneath the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station.
Currently heavy level waste is stored at Ontario's nuclear power reactors in water-filled pools or on surface in concrete cannisters. Low and intermediate level waste is stored in buildings and containers.
But McCreath is unsure if any definite sites or methods will emerge at the end of his four-year tenure.
The NWMO's cautious and painstaking 'Adaptive Phased Management' involves small piece-meal steps involving constant review and revisions.
"Where we are in four years, I can't say, but we will have taken another step and hopefully sharpen the focus," McCreath said.
Placing waste in closed mines is a possibility, but quite likely a purpose-built facility storing cannisters would be built to properly monitor and easily recover material if need be, McCreath said.
Radioactive waste may also be a potential fuel source in the future.
His group will be examining best international practices from Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and France which are more advanced in high level waste management, as well as reviewing some Canadian-designed methods.
