A BRIEF ON (a) CANADA'S DOMESTIC NUCLEAR ISSUES & (b) INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR TRADE

Submitted to the First and Second Weeks' Panels of the Interfaith Program for Public Awareness of Nuclear Issues (IPPANI)

by

J.A.L. Robertson, M.A., F.R.S.C.

1 Kelvin Crescent

Deep River, Ontario

K0J 1P0

1984 September 24

ABSTRACT

This brief consists of four parts:

  1. An outline of my own position on the ethical issues involved.
  2. A discussion in general terms of the principles of justice; sustainability and participation as they apply to nuclear energy.
  3. Responses to the specific questions raised by the organizers in their background document.
    1. Domestic nuclear issues
    2. International nuclear trade
  4. A summary of the points that I suggest the panel should consider.

The points listed in Part 4 are as follows:

  1. There are no panaceas --- nothing is perfect, no technology or human activity of any kind is perfectly safe, there are no guarantees of absolute safety.
  2. It is therefore meaningless to judge a single technology in isolation; one can only evaluate it in comparison with practical alternatives. Avoiding the use of a technology usually implies using another or others.
  3. Society has only limited resources and cannot do everything that might be desirable when viewed in isolation. Making any one technology appreciably safer than others is not the optimum use of these resources.
  4. In addressing any sort of risk the first step is to define the nature of the risk. Vague and subliminal fears cannot be properly addressed, let alone evaluated.
  5. As a preliminary to deciding on the acceptability of a risk, an estimate of the risk in question together with some measure of its uncertainty should be presented in a perspective of other risks familiar to whomever is making the judgment. This usually involves some sort of numerical evaluation of risks, but the result may be a simple comparison.
  6. For all criteria used in judging a technology, and not just for risk, one should determine what standards society applies to other comparable technologies to ensure reasonable consistency.

The principle of justice, supported by the churches, requires some such approach. I am confident that this will lead you to the conclusion that the judicious use of nuclear energy offers great benefits to Canada and to the world as a whole.

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