Nuclear power is not "emissions-free": Correction request

To the Toronto Star:

I am writing to correct a false statement contained in the article "Nuclear's future: Fission or fizzle?" by Wayne Lilley, published January 16, 2011.

Mr. Lilley states that nuclear power is "the best emissions-free source of electricity." This statement is false.

Nuclear power plants are not "emissions-free". In 2010, Advertising Standards Canada formally decided that ads making this claim were inaccurate, unsupported, and misleading.

ASC's decision was based, in part, on documentation proving that CANDU reactors at nuclear plants such as the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station emit many different contaminants: 2-propenoic acid, ammonia, aromatic hydrocarbon resin, benzene, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrazine, morpholine, nitrogen oxides, phosphoric acid, quarterly ammonium compounds, sulphur dioxide, suspended particulate matter, total hydrocarbons, as well as tritium.

Advertising Standards Canada posted a decision to its website declaring that the unqualified phrase "emission free" is inaccurate and unsupported. In its commentary, Advertising Standards Canada stated emphatically: "... it is misleading ... for an advertiser to categorically promise one thing when, by its own admission, it can only deliver something that is significantly less".

We respectfully request that a correction be made in the Toronto Star and that the paper refrain from referring to nuclear power as "emissions-free" in the future.

Thank you,

Krystyn Tully