The Auditor General's report notes that drivers who graduate from Ontario's volunteer driver's education program have a much higher accident rate than motorists who don't. Stay out of school, kids!
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his government will restart the Chalk River nuclear power plant, in spite of a warning from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission that such a move poses an accident risk until needed safety equipment is installed. To minimize the danger, the P.M. has advised the nation that "there will be no accident."
This much-loved Canadian game show host is resting at home following a minor heart attack. Um, who is Alex Trebek? He's okay, though, and is expected to be back in the studio when Jeopardy shooting resumes in January.
16-year-old Aqsa Parvez died yesterday, allegedly strangled by her father after an ongoing dispute over her refusal to wear traditional Muslim dress. Even in a year with a bumper crop of tragic murders, the family circumstances around this one make it especially disturbing.
Photo by gardinergirl from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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I was under the impression that the restarting of the reactor was approved by all of the major political parties because of the 'medical isotopes' produced there.
BTW, check out the wiki page for a funny possible etymology of "crud".
"I was under the impression that the restarting of the reactor was approved by all of the major political parties because of the 'medical isotopes' produced there."
Correct, obviously there was some urgency - that said, the restart was not approved by the CNSC, who are actual nuclear scientists, not politicians.
The question is why did AECL tell CNSC that they had installed the pumps and had not done so? Someone at AECL should pay a price for that. The government could not permit the impasse to continue but the fact that the CNSC is back in the game in 120 days means that once the technecium and other isotopes are well stocked again the reactor will shut down again and the pumps will be installed.
The fact that Chalk River supplies virtually the entire US market will almost certainly lead to demands there for an isotope facility there so that the krazy kanucks can't mess with them again.
Harper's shot at the CNSC (Liberal appointed) might have been aimed at Ignatieff because the Liberals were the only party to hold up the original Tory restart plan, but the fact that we are even talking about political involvement in an issue like nuclear safety says to me we need a new way of appointing agency boards.
Pretty weird to see the NDP wanting to start a nuclear reactor up eh? :)
As for the reactor itself - it was supposed to be replaced by Maple 1 and 2 reactors years ago. The problem is the nuclear reaction to produce the isotopes in the new reactor did not follow the predicted path (which would have ensured safe shutdown in an incident).
The question is why did AECL tell CNSC that they had installed the pumps and had not done so? Someone at AECL should pay a price for that. The government could not permit the impasse to continue but the fact that the CNSC is back in the game in 120 days means that once the technecium and other isotopes are well stocked again the reactor will shut down again and the pumps will be installed.
The fact that Chalk River supplies virtually the entire US market will almost certainly lead to demands there for an isotope facility there so that the krazy kanucks can't mess with them again.
Harper's shot at the CNSC (Liberal appointed) might have been aimed at Ignatieff because the Liberals were the only party to hold up the original Tory restart plan, but the fact that we are even talking about political involvement in an issue like nuclear safety says to me we need a new way of appointing agency boards.
Pretty weird to see the NDP wanting to start a nuclear reactor up eh? :)
As for the reactor itself - it was supposed to be replaced by Maple 1 and 2 reactors years ago. The problem is the nuclear reaction to produce the isotopes in the new reactor did not follow the predicted path (which would have ensured safe shutdown in an incident).
Except that some of those isotopes don't last very long, which is what makes them useful in medicine: you can get your test without being hot stuff for months afterward. All depends on how long it takes them to install those pumps, I guess.
It's possible to build a reactor that fundamentally doesn't function as expected?
Blimey.
… though of course we all know that that's perfectly possible with Web sites.
Memo to me: even when the page clearly says "Giant Hairy Error," the post probably still went through, and I should wait ten minutes before trying again.
Yup, Eric, we're aware of the commenting errors and we know that it sucks, but the elves are in the workshop fixing it.
[Eric's duplicate comment unpublished]