Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit

Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit, or ‘Makita’ for short, is an independent, non- governmental organization made up of Nunavummiut who came together in the fall of 2009 to share our concerns about the possibility of Nunavut being opened to uranium mining. Everything we do, we do as volunteers.

One of the first things Makita did was lobby the Government of Nunavut to call a public inquiry into all aspects of the possibility of uranium mining in Nunavut. The GN denied Makita’s request.

I will summarize Makita’s comments on AREVA’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS).

1)Analysis of Timeline AREVA’s statement that the world price for uranium will increase in the near future may reflect overly optimist projections about the future of nuclear power.

In their opening presentation to this hearing, AREVA used a graph to explain that the world will need a lot more uranium in order to power nuclear reactors.

Who made that graph? Where did it come from? It was made in 2011 by the World Nuclear Association (WNA), an organization that promotes nuclear power and supports the many companies that comprise the global nuclear industry. It is not an objective organization.

The WNA estimates of demand for uranium in the future are based on their own estimates of installed nuclear generating capacity in the future.

What do independent organizations say, and predict? Let’s look at ‘Uranium 2014: Resources, Production and Demand’, prepared jointly by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

That report looked around the world at each country that has (or might have) nuclear reactors, and developed a Low estimate and a High estimate of the installed nuclear generating capacity for each country until the year Note that for Canada, both the Low and the High estimate are lower than what the present-day capacity is.

The authors then calculated total estimated installed nuclear generating capacity for (A) the 34 OECD countries, and (B) the entire world.

From that basis, the report estimates the “annual reactor-related uranium requirements” for each country. Again there is a Low estimate and a High estimate.

And again the report calculated the “annual reactor-related uranium requirements” for (A) the 34 OECD countries, and (B) the entire world.

The independent OECD/IAEA estimates of how much uranium will be needed to power nuclear reactors in the future are significantly lower than the industry-group WMA’s estimates are.

WNA estimates are in red, OECD/IAEA estimates are in blue

The World Nuclear Association hopes that future demand for uranium will look like the red line:

But the OECD and the IAEA believe it will be no higher than the blue line:

And it could be as low as the green line:

It is because the World Nuclear Association is super-optimistic about the future of nuclear power that it is also super- optimistic about the demand for uranium. If the demand for uranium for nuclear reactors in the coming years is lower than the WMA estimates, then logically the price of uranium will also be lower.

An interesting analysis published in the journal Nuclear Engineering International in 2014 concluded that nuclear companies like AREVA are “incurable optimists.” They believe their own propaganda. Note the sub-title of the article: “Predictions of the rise in price of uranium are unjustified.”

If Kiggavik is approved and actually gets built, the Kivalliq region faces: the prospect of the entire region being opened to uranium development; induced development after the Kiggavik mine is opened; and, significant cumulative impacts without protection in place for the caribou calving and post-calving grounds.

And if Kiggavik is approved but remains unbuilt because the price of uranium remains low, we will have uncertainty hanging over our heads for years. Makita agrees with the HTO that the lack of a start date for the project makes many of the analyses and conclusions contained in the FEIS so uncertain that they are largely unreliable.

2) Cumulative Effects and the Basin- Opening Nature of the Kiggavik Proposal The current planning and policy framework is insufficient to protect critical wildlife habitat and important Inuit cultural areas from the induced development that would result from the approval of the Kiggavik proposal.

The Kiggavik proposal and its basin- opening potential poses a serious threat to the long-term viability of the Kivalliq region’s caribou herds and potentially their harvesting by Baker Lake Inuit.

3) Significance Thresholds Our concern regarding significance thresholds has not been resolved to our satisfaction. To Inuit, being able to reasonably access the caribou herds we depend on IS A VERY SIGNIFICANT THRESHOLD.

4) AREVA’s Track Record In addition to the Saskatchewan story, there’s also the Niger story – and it’s not a entirely happy one…

AREVA’s parent company in France is in financial crisis. Last Wednesday AREVA declared a financial loss of $6.5 billion. This is a staggering amount of money, more than the company’s entire value on the stock market.

There has been speculation in the financial press that, as part of restructuring, AREVA may sell its uranium mining operations. Yesterday The New York Times ran a story suggesting that AREVA’s huge mine in Niger might be sold to Chinese investors.

Makita believes that NIRB must seriously consider the implications of the possibility that AREVA might sell its rights to the Kiggavik deposit to another company.

5) Shipping with Reference to Land and Water Makita has serious concerns about AREVA’s uncertainty re: an all-weather or a winter road, the possible impacts of an all- weather road, and the lack of scientific data about the impact of roads on caribou.

6) NTI and GN Uranium Policy Statements NTI: One ‘principle’ (the economic one) should not be allowed to trump the others (especially the one about protecting health). GN: Is the stated principle that uranium projects must have the support of neighbouring communities meaningless now that a proposal is being reviewed?

7) End Uses Our expert advisors tell us that international agreements that uranium mined in Canada can never be used for nuclear weapons are meaningless accounting exercises. We have a moral issue with that. It does not reflect our priorities and values as per NLCA article (c).

7) Conclusion For all of the reasons outlined in this presentation, Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit urges you – and I urge you – to reject the proposed Kiggavik uranium mine. Ma’na.