Since I’ve been incautious enough to mention the N-word in the previous post, I’ll open another sandpit specifically devoted to discussions of the merits, and otherwise, of nuclear power. Any mention of this topic on other threads will be deleted and will risk bans or restrictions on the offender
Update Since it’s still going, I’ve moved it up, which should reopen comments
John Quiggin 
Fran said;
1. “Right now, it’s not clear how the waste is composed, but if there were dedicated nuclear waste repositories in Australia — as I believe there should be — then this matter could also be easily resolved without ignorant nimbyism creeping into the discussion.” [FB @34, page 6]
2. “Right now, it’s not clear how the waste {i.e. the waste at Hunters Hill}is composed, but if there were dedicated nuclear waste repositories in Australia
That’s simply dishonest.” [FB@27, p7]
You did say all of it, Fran.
The sad fact is the authorities have known about this dangerous nuclear waste in Hunters Hill and have chosen to do nothing about it for decades and have left it long enough for a number of residents to die of likely related cancers. You assert the composition is unclear to authorities?
I say to you that is absolute garbage. It is more than clear and it has been known about and ducked by a long series of governments. Long enough to kill people. Do your history of this issue Fran.
I doubt whether recognising this wilful and deliberate negligence by authorities in dealing with hazardous waste materials associated with nuclear amounts to “ignorant nimbeyism” as you carelessly suggest Fran. Its a genuine concern you obviously dont care to adopt.
The fact is also there is no dedicated nuclear waste facility. The State government is simply paying some private landfill operator quite a large sum of mioney to transfer contaminated soil from one solitary block or two worth of contaminated soil (and ignoring a number of other sites in Hunters Hill completely) to move it to a non dedicated general waste facility out west ie just shifting the waste to a new group of residents.
You call our concerns on nuclear use “ignorant nimbeyism”??
I call your flippant avoidance, denial and downplaying of the dangers of nuclear use “blinkered pro nuclear boneheadedness”.
@Jarrah
This is your error;
You have to consider the benefits and costs in the long-run. This is a moral imperative.
Anyway I do not believe you because you were trying to make cute points about NPV, which is entirely a time-based factor.
So I do not think you are being honest. Like other nukers you just jump around as it best suits you and causing long, repetitive threads with no real illumination.
At this point it really is pretty much – dumb, stupid and boring.
@Alice
The quotes you use show that you were being dishonest. Apart from the portion I marked as added later by use of braces, the quoted material was as I put it and shows that you were attibuting to me things I’d not said. As I said to “Ernestine” it’s clear that you lie and why. You’ve no business lecturing anyone else on the matter.
As to the matter of Hunters Hill, while it is probably the case that the authroties know the composition of this waste, I merely noted that this is not public knowledge. I tried looking this up. This was relevant in terms of the waste handling issues.
It’s all very well for you to stand on your hind legs and bay at the moon about how dreadful this all is. The question is — what is to be done about it now. In my opinion, a suitably robust and large waste facility should be built in some environmentally suitable location. If Hunters Hill were objectively the best location for it, then so be it. And if the locals weren’t that keen, that would be just too bad. In all communities, the common good trumps local amenity. Don’t you agree?
What you and “Ernestine” are doing is a version of Tony Abbott: jump up and down and make a lot of noise, pretending to solidarise with local concerns, without offering anything like a solution, precisely because that would destroy the fragile bonds connecting all people who have bees in their bonnets with “the government”.
So you are unserious and lying.
Away from this place and this issue, you and “Ernestine” may well be worthy people, but it is clear that the usages of this place, and your cultural-aesthetic concerns over nuclear power fundamentally compromise whatever intellectual or ethical standards you feel moved to apply to yoursel(f)/(ves).
That’s always a regrettable thing to see.
“You have to consider the benefits and costs in the long-run. This is a moral imperative.”
My original question was on precisely this point, so no error on my part. And the long run has to consider the changes likely to occur in wealth (ie another way of saying we have to come up with a NPV) and technology, otherwise the calculation will be way off.
“There can only be a momentary shortage of processed silicon where demand outstrips supply.”
Yes, this is what I meant. How ‘momentary’ it is could be problematic if our window to replace fossil fuels isn’t very big, and the shortage drives up prices and therefore changes the calculation of costs for implementing PV on a large scale. However, I have confidence that silicon manufacture would spool up and replacements for silicon will come on stream fairly quickly – thanks to market processes – but I was just trying to give an example of the weirdly compartmentalised thinking on this thread.
“And perhaps you might be a little more specific on which “costs of renewables” you have in mind.”
Material costs, embedded carbon costs (meaning a contribution to AGW, ie there’s a lot more concrete going into solar and wind than into NPP), storage costs, transmission costs (because it might be a good idea to go put in long DC lines to connect up intermittent sources), back-up capacity costs, and of course opportunity costs.
@Fran Barlow
This is a very strong argument why society cannot truck with the nuclear industry.
Jarrah,
“Yes, this is what I meant”
The reason why there is a shortage of silicon at present is, apart from the excessively high demand, during the GFC a lot of foundries went bust. Since then the solar manufacturing industry has developed its own silicon foundries and no longer competes head on with the general electronics industry for output.
This
“Material costs, embedded carbon costs (meaning a contribution to AGW, ie there’s a lot more concrete going into solar and wind than into NPP)”
is not necessarily true by a large margin. For starters what you are refering to are BNC “future estimates” ie not the present day reality, and is based on artificially prejudiced service life of the compared infrastructure.
Secondly, GenIIPV uses about a third to a half of the materials consumption (about 600kg for 19,200 Kwhrs per year [electrical output] with an indefinite service life) compared to Nuclear for the same delivered annual electrical output. This is also in the future along with everything else being discussed here.
So, no, I don’t agree with any of your points.
Fran writes:
Actually I’m using the term correctly. Prima facie means at first appearence or on the face of it. The evidences suggest there is a problem with NPP on the face of it (or at first sight), the most likely cause is deduced, but total proof is not attainable yet. There is just cause for great caution.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=define%3A+prima+facie+&rls=com.microsoft:en-au&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&redir_esc=&ei=vHLkTPPfOoXqvQOe3a23DQ
@Chris Warren
Actually it’s an argument for writing regulations and designing audit procedures in such a way as to ensure transparency and timeliness.
@jakerman
Actually I’m using the term correctly. Prima facie means at first appearence or on the face of it.
Indeed it does, which is 100% consistent with its application under the jurisprudence of public law jurisdictions. It doesn’t at all help your claim to add this.
That something might appear to be true on the face of it implies further investigation is required to corroborate the inference.
Yes, nuclear technology has to be accompanied with a host of regulations, audit, transparency provisions, health and safety monitoring, environmental monitoring, licences, quality assurances, testing regimes, standards development etc etc.
Competition under capitalism contradicts all this because these requirements add to costs.
So even though you know we must have these, the commercial commercial basis of nuclear industry precisely they will never be permitted at the required level.
Governments will minimise red tape, eliminate regulations, contract-out quality assurance and testing and monitoring mechanisms, cutback on OHs, and explain any resulting accident as all very unfortunate with rejoinder promises “that in will never happen again”.
Expecting to contol the problems of commercial competitive nuclear industry with “regulations” is foolish in the extreme.
So you have provided yet more evidence why there is no nuclear in a moral society (but there is solar – if you play scrabble).
see if you can spot a missing word in the above?
Fran, I’ll let this evidence speak to that:
http://www.ehjournal.net/content/8/1/43
Your assertion that this does not present a prima facie case warrenting just concern about the proximity of NPP can be seen for what it is.
As I’ve said, your appeal to ignorance is fallacious in the context of this evidence.
From the foregoing, Fran Barlow concludes that I dishonestly misrepresent what she said.
At other places Fran Barlow assets that I lie.
I conclude that Fran Barlow is living in an alternative universe.
@Chris Warren
You object to nuclear above, as I see it Chris, because you say that good regulation and compliance would in practice be subverted.
That is progress. So do you agree then, that subject to robust rules ensuring compliance with best practice for all energy generators you’d be happy to allow nucelar power to be considered as an option here?
@Chris Warren
You object to nuclear above, as I see it Chris, because you say that good regulation and compliance would in practice be subverted.
That is progress. So do you agree then, that subject to robust rules ensuring compliance with best practice for all energy generators you’d be happy to allow nuclear power to be considered as an option here?
I understand nuclear power has been considered as an option in Australia and it has been repeatedly rejected.
I understand nuclear power had been considered as an option in Germany and had been adopted several decades ago. More recently, the earlier decisions have been re-evaluated with the conclusion that nuclear power will be discontinued.
So, in some sense, nuclear power is always an option, but not necessarily an option that is exercised.
In theory, subject to robust rules ensuring compliance with “necessary” practice not just some “best” practice then society can have as much nuclear power it needs.
Rule number one: all waste to be disposed of in earth orbit initially, but then sent towards the centre of the solar system.
As the cost of space-lift falls, and if the amount of waste is reduced (as our pundits claims) then there could well be some point in the future where this is all quite reasonable and practicable – particularly if all the wasted money going into subnarines and jet fighters was used to build the space industry Australia always should have had.
@jakerman
For what it is worth, I concur with your argument and thank you for the reference.
@Chris Warren
Coming from you that is rank hypocrisy.
Even if such additional depositories were needed (and they’re only needed in the US now because of stupid US anti-reprocessing regulations), the net present cost of all depositories now and in the future would be 1.14 times the cost of the first one at a discount rate of 7% per annum.
So now you admit cost is not the issue.
I’m afraid I just can’t manage to get stressed out about nuclear waste minding its own business in a remote salt pan.
BTW, the fact that your arguments are heavy on ad hom shows how much you are ideologically motivated.
@jakerman
There is no way in the world I would live within 5 km or even 10 km of a coal-burning power station so there’s no argument that nuclear power stations are any worse in this respect.
Chris O’Neill, I’ve asked you for a reference which contains your understanding of ‘net present value’. I haven’t received it as yet. If you don’t wish to supply a reference then this is fine with me but I need to ask you to list the theoretical assumptions underlying the formula you use. Once you have done that then we can discuss these assumptions with the aim of arriving at a conclusion on whether or not your NPV formula is relevant for the actual problem.
@BilB
“So, no, I don’t agree with any of your points.”
Except you forgot to mention more than half of them. But I appreciate you addressing at least some of them, thank you.
The rather obvious reason why society cannot trust nuke pundits.
They always claim:
and:
I know we are scrapping the bottom of the barrel dealing with this fellow, but as long as they exist, society cannot trust nuclear companies to keep society safe. So as long as O’Neill-types exist – there is no way we can risk nuclear, and the countries that have are now running great risks for their own future generations if not humanity in general.
O’Neill proves the case for renewables.
@jakerman
.
I’m glad you acknowledge that. It is what reasonable persons would call “fair comment” because ven if one accepted that all of the data had been validly collected one could not rely on it to infer teratogenesis with confidence, so it is not prima facie evidence. It’s suggestive or circumstantial evidence at best.
It’s in the same order of evidence as the suggestion that the Feferal government’s home insulation program had increased the rate of housefires or construction related deaths. There can be no doubt that some occurred, so there was a correaltion, but an examination of the data showed that overall, the rate was low by comparison not only with housing construction but even with insulation installation.
What we saw was affirmation bias.
And even if it were prima facie evidence, we’d still need to examine the matter more closely by resort to a more rigorous methodology to be sure that the conclusion was warranted at the civil standard of evidence i.e. on the balance of probability
Well you haved asserted it but you are mistaken.
“and the countries that have are now running great risks for their own future generations if not humanity in general.”
How so?
Its a case of evidence vesus opinion and word spin.
http://www.ehjournal.net/content/8/1/43
I’m happy to put it this evidence to a jury of residnece in any proposed NPP development.
It seems you might have convinced yourself Fran. Others might conclude your are circling round to jump the shark one more time.
@Chris Warren
Define waste (as distinct from hazmat)
Some of the “waste” may turn out to be material than can be re-used as fuel. In that case, blasting it into space would not be a good idea, especially since the high energy costs of the equipment needed would ential a very large payload to break even and technology in the future may radically cut the cost of doing this, even if we thought it worth doing.
We already have a range of solutions for sequestering hazmat that are both safe and not energy intensive to implement, especially considering the small mass of the material involved.
This is a red herring. While I share your view that Australia buying jetfighters and submarines is a poor use of public funds that doesn’t mean we get to blow public funds on something marginally less irrational. Why would Australia need to duplicate the space industry of other states?
The fact of the matter is that we are a significant supplier of uranium and potentially thorium. We could manufacture fuel rods here and develop engineering and management capacity around best practice in nuclear fuel cycle processes and plant development. We have enormous quantities of geographically stable, remote sub-arable land not far from rail links, capable of being leased for about $1-2 per hectare. The rest of the world has a range of political problems (some of which concern people here on the anti-nuclear side of the debate) which we could help solve by becoming a significant repository for hazmat we’d like to keep out of the hands of the wrong kinds of people.
This could and would be a profitable business and when we do get IFRs up and running here we’d have the feedstock for free. best of all, by addressing uncertainty and angst over these issues outside of Australia, we’d make nuclear power a lot more politically saleable, which would in turn lead to a sharp increase in plant building and quicker GHG abatement.
Would it not be a great thing if Australia came to be recognised, inter alia as at the cutting edge of establishing safety standards in nuclear power and having the best developed nuclear power engineering capacity in the world? Wouldn’t it be nice if we developed the heavy nuclear-powered shipping here to put the world’s biggest and dirties tankers out of commission? Currently, the world largest 9 container and bulk cargo ships emit as much pollution as 450, 000,000 or so cars combined. I’d feel mighty pleased if we could build about 50 of them and clean up the equivalent of the exhaust from that many cars and other vehicles.
People say that Australia’s potential to abate GHGs is modest since we only contribute about 1.4% of global emissions, but if we helped other states to do what they would find difficult to do for one reason or another, then in effect, Australia’s potential to abate would grow.
Fran asserts:
Complete empty assertion, and wrong. Here are some examples of difference between your false analogy and this Scientific study:
Sending the waste into outer space? What happens if the rocket blows up?
Fran, you just gotta have some of that Nuclear stuff, haven’t you.
“which we could help solve by becoming a significant repository for hazmat we’d like to keep out of the hands of the wrong kinds of people”
Here you are saying that the presence of nuclear waste is a national security risk. That is on record now.
And Australia
“establishing safety standards in nuclear”
For starters I don’t believe that Australia has the weight of population from which to draw sufficient scientific talent to pull this off let alone the experience to know where to start, or for that matter be able to enforce it. And I think that the French, Americans, the Russians and the Chinese would all have a little together about it if we tried to become an authority.
And there is the
“Would it not be a great thing if Australia…..”
… the only thing you did not say was “oh, please, please, please, go onnnn!”
Pretty much the exact theme my 12 year old took about the puppy, and I’m going to get another serve of it tonight.
Enthusiasm is a good thing, but, gee, over Nuclear Power??
@BilB
Cute. Ever heard of NNPT? There are existing programs designed specifically to ensure that hazmat (including of course, radioactive hazmat) is dealt with securely. This reflects concerns people have over accidents in trasnport, or misappropriatetion for criminal purposes.
The fact of the matter here is that not withstanding your bleating, radioactive hazmat exists. Not only that it will continue to exist even if every nuclear plant and weapons facility were shut tomorrow. What does that mean?
Well here I do agree with Chris Warren. Regardless of the operation of nuclear power plants (and we must assume they will continue to operate for the indefinite future) there will be a need for facilities capable of ensuring the hazmat they create is dealt with human safety in mind. Even allowing that the prospect of materials falling into the hands of people whose capacity to harm a piopulation centere would be tiny, the fear of such an outcome amongst wide sections of the populace is a sufficient reason to have the most secure provenance available. We have seen how FUD works with boat people. There need not be a threat for people to go nuts. The same is true of radioactive hazmat but on a scale much larger than that attaches to asylum seekers.
Clearly we don’t today, but that doesn’t mean that in the process of building up local capcity that we couldn’t acquire it within 25 years or so. We aren’t limited to current nationals of course.
Well if it can help head off an ecological catastrophe, give us a cleaner biosphere at the same time, provide potable water in the developing world cheaply and at low footprint cost, reduce the call on oil etc. then yes.
Fran,
The 1.4% CO2 comment is an insult to most other countries in the world. We are one 318th part of the world’s population yet we are now one 60th of the world’s CO2 problem. Such comments are seen as the height of arrogance by other populations who live with very carbon footprints.
Whereas I am sympathetic on the nuclear container shipping issue, only because of peak oil, it is ridiculous to think that Australia has the ability to build such ships. We certainly have the knowhow, but not the number of motivated skilled workers or the body of machinery to even get started. We can build ships, but only little ones, and slowly. It takes big populations to build big ships.
This brings up memories of your cycleways over railway lines “plan”. Engineering is not your thing, Fran. I’m happy to applaud your good ideas but they are a little thin on the ground since you joined the BNC thinktank.
Yes, O’Neill needs to provide his formula and theoretical assumptions. Personally I would use a growing annuity with compounding as this is what waste management requires over time. You need to build a waste repository, maintain it, wait some years build the next depository, then maintain it and the previous and so on.
This looks like a case of recursion formula that can be simplified (in the first instance) if you assume zero interest rate, and no increased nuke capacity (just a constant flow of waste from present facilities) – with new extra costs every 10 years or so as you have to move to a new depository.
There may be other approaches.
Renewable do all of this
“Well if it can help head off an ecological catastrophe, give us a cleaner biosphere at the same time, provide potable water in the developing world cheaply and at low footprint cost, reduce the call on oil etc, then yes”
And an early example of thermal CSP power and water desalination is under way for Whyala.
@BilB
Here I absolutely agree with you. Indeed, when one considers the historic legacy and attributes all of the CO2 added to the biosphere from fossil hydrocarbon andf land use change since 1850 the figures are even more stark. Given that the problem is less about the present than the past which underpins it, speaking of 1.4% is ludicrous.
Well apparently we are going to build submarines in SA. While we certainly don’t have that capacity now again, this is something he could acquire, especially if we are doing other cognate heavy engineering projects.
You are less well placed than many to assess my capacity to conceive engineering projects. What I proposed there was eminently plausible, and interestingly would have sat nicely with the engineering capacity to build most of the renewables people are so keen on.
@BilB
I read this link:
http://www.epnrm.sa.gov.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=LWB541dthKI=&tabid=2732
(Page 19 of the PDF is interesting!!!)
What is not clear is that the project has started. It’s also not clear what the total project cost is for those 80MW. A figure of $250m in private investment is mentioned, though here it is claimed the total package is $355 million
h t t p://w w w.eesa.asn.au/media/sa/SA%20-%20Solar%20Power%20March%202010.pdf.
{separated to avoid spam trap}
It’s unclear if this has actually started though and at 80MW it’s not going to replace any fossil HC plant.
@BilB
I appreciate your comments for a long time because they have content and they are written in an objective style.
I admire your patience and your optimism regarding trying to talk sense with Fran.
From this and previous nuclear sandpits I learned that Fran writes as if nothing can exist, in logic or in the physical world, and nothing can happen unless she approves it – for the whole world!
Alternatively put, these nuclear sandpits provide valuable case material to study (verbal) communications strategies. Communications strategies and media management (‘spin’) are really not my area of expertise but I couldn’t avoid being confronted with this stuff.
Best wishes
eg
@BilB
Seeking further information on the progress at Whyalla in Google News, the search terms Whyalla + Big Dish or Solar or renewable return zero results.
I have to say that this is not the project that I thought it was. There may be another.
http://www.wizardpower.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=36&Itemid=35
http://www.wizardpower.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22&Itemid=23
And this company may be the common link.
@Ernestine Gross
Ernestine – the nuclear sandpit is really a nuclear killing ground thank goodness. If the average person read enough of what these brave new climate pro nuclear devotees wrote here they would be thinking “god help us all if those idiots are unleashed”.
@Fran Barlow
I have never heard such a bunch of ignorant rubbish in all my life. The facts of the matter on Hunters Hill are (and it doesnt escape my notice or surprise me Fran that you know very little about the history of this incident despite being a so called informed pro nuclear advocate…I could say “Ha…really” but Ill try to avoid it.
1. There was a nuclear producing firm in Hunters Hill. The steeply sloping site, at Nos 7 and 9 Nelson Parade Hunters Hill, was occupied between 1908 and 1915 by a smelter that extracted radium from uranium imported from South Australia. A co-located watch factory made luminous paint from the radium for watch dials and hands.
2.Far from reducing over time, the levels of radioactivity are increasing as thorium in the soil decays, creating radium and lung cancer producing radon gas.
Radon levels are almost five times the acceptable standard, yet the site carries no warning signs and there are people living right next door – on land previously occupied by the uranium smelter.So contaminated is the Nelson Parade site that in 1982 the Wran Cabinet ordered the two houses built on it to be pulled down.
3.Bob Carr knew what had to be done – in August 2001 he instructed NSW Health to remediate the site. But the Government had nowhere to take the contaminated soil.
4.Now it turns out the Government intends to reclassify the radioactive waste as industrial waste and dump it in Western Sydney so it can make a profit on the site.
And you dare to tell me and others here
” In my opinion, a suitably robust and large waste facility should be built in some environmentally suitable location. If Hunters Hill were objectively the best location for it, then so be it. And if the locals weren’t that keen, that would be just too bad. In all communities, the common good trumps local amenity. Don’t you agree?
No I dont. They should never have permitted the radioactive processing firm to start with – you see Fran – thats what you really dont get (and I call that incredibly selective retention).
The stuff is dangerous. This firm who caused this damage closed in 1915.
Do you read?….over… 1915.
Its caused death and misery and cintinues to cause illness and misery now, here, in Hunters Hill, in 2010.
95 years later ..and thats nothing on the scale of nuclear waste damage (just a drop in an ocean of time).
Are you really that mad (insane actually) that you want us to dig this stuff up so as for all of us to run our alarm clocks, fridges and hot water systems on it? I can only say..run your own life, MYOB, try to stay alive, and stop trying to endanger mine and other peoples lives.
With people like you we dont need extreme sports at all.
Hey Fran, have you actually read those pdf that you linked to?
@BilB
Yes I have BilB
Well then you will have noticed that in one doc there is description of an energy storage system suitable for long term storage of energy in chemical form an compatible with Solar thermal systems in the 500Mw scale (according to the document). In the other doc there is reference to a number of storage sytems (several itemmed as being expensive in the near future).
What intrigued me was Barry Brook’s apparent endorsement of the Whyalla project. I would have thought that to take credit for being involved in such a product while heading up a solar and renewables assasination team is something of a conflict. Two faced even. Perhaps, though, the Whyalla solar oasis is using Barry Brook’s image and reputation without his knowledge?
In a wise decision the German government has now agreed to extend the service life of its 17 nuclear reactors. Nuclear power generates 23% of German electricity saving about 150 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually and for a country of 81 million, that is about 2 tonnes per capita. With per capita emissions almost unchanged at about 10 tonnes over the last decade, closing down nuclear power in “green” Germany would increase emissions to 12 tonnes per capita about double those of “nuclear” France. Germany is currently building 8GW of coal burning power stations, with about another 20 planned. With a program like that I cannot see “green” Germany reducing per capita emissions or total emissions any time soon.
The bottom line is global emissions must be reduced by 50% on 1990 levels by 2050 if we are to avoid dangerous climate change. In this regard which country is serving the global community better, “green” Germany or “nuclear” France?
That comes about, Tom Bond, because when Engela Merkel, then a global warming skeptic, came into power she stalled the Desertec programme which is a key component of Germany’s future renewable energy needs. This policy is effectively paying the price for that delay. Meanwhile in Sweden they have raised the performance bar on CO2 abatement
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/01/sweden_raises_t.php
in very practical ways, upfront and energetically. However it was Sweden’s decision to reverse its nuclear phaseout plan that isolated Germany on nuclear power elimination. However each of those countries are already carrying the cost of nuclear waste management and the health risks associated with nuclear power (as highlighted by Jakerman) so they are not losing that much in the short term.
@Chris Warren
These are the sort of assumptions geniuses like Warren make.
@Alice
More likely they would see that the anti-nuclear arguments are mainly ad hom such as the above.
@Chris Warren
Classic ad hom.
@Ernestine Gross
Ever heard of google?
@jakerman
The author suggests that dose estimates for populations living near NPPs may be understated by large amounts, perhaps orders of magnitude, due to cumulative uncertainties in models. In fact the substance of the commentary pretty much requires large underestimation of dose to have any real plausibility.
This study http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/pubs_catalogue/uploads/Investigation_of_Environmental_Fate_of_Tritium_in_the_Atmosphere_INFO-0792_e.pdf
includes model/measurement comparison for tritium release for a number of Canadian NPPs. The agreement is quite good with the models somewhat overestimating. If the generally accepted figures for dose estimates of populations living near NPPs are more or less correct, then it is quite implausible that radiation exposure from NPPs are the cause of the cancer clusters.
There is a lot of material from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission on studies into tritium and NPPs here: http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/readingroom/tritium/tritium_studies.cfm
The author raises issues that require further study, but I would suggest that it is far from definitive evidence that NPPs are responsible for some increase in the incidence of childhood cancer. The unexpected low incidence of leukemia in Chernobyl cleanup workers or the general population who received much higher doses certainly raises doubts.