Nuclear NIMBY

Unlike many opponents to nuclear power use in the Alberta tar sands, I am not anti-CANDU.

I support the use of CANDU as the safest low volume residue reactors in the world. That their need for continuing capitalization for maintenance is what has been problematic in the case of the industry in Ontario. Had the world adopted CANDU disasters like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl would never have occurred, because the technologies are different.

That being said, as a power engineer I oppose the use of Nuclear power in the Tarsands, as inefficient and not cost effective, because it will be used for steam injection of bitumen rather than for production of electricity. This will take up larger volumes of water, and further pollute the existing Athabasca river with heated effluent.

Nuclear power might be all the rage for some interested parties in Alberta's oil patch, but others question the need for such controversial power generation in an industry that requires more steam than electricity.

And let's understand that is what is being proposed for the tarsands, not just an electrical plant but one for steam and electrical production needed for bitumen production.

He was one of a small delegation of community leaders from Peace River, interested in visiting New Brunswick’s nuclear power plant. Whitecourt and Peace River are in the running to host Western Canada’s first nuclear plant, putting it about an hour’s drive from the B.C. border. It’s proposed for northwestern Alberta due to the presence of bitumen trapped in rock west of the main oilsands deposits.

Nuclear power may soon run deep electric heaters to extract that rockbound oil, reduce emissions for conventional oilsands extraction and perhaps light northeastern B.C. homes. It would spur the proposed pipeline to deliver the black gold to the west coast at Kitimat and on to Asia, and further cement the merger of Alberta and B.C. into Canada’s western super-province.

The prize Royal Dutch is chasing is bitumen trapped in hard-rock limestone, rather than the conventional oil sands around Fort McMurray where bitumen is mixed with dirt and sandstone.

The Anglo-Dutch energy giant is the likeliest customer for a nuclear power plant proposed by Energy Alberta Corp., a private company working with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.Unlocking the multibillion-barrel bonanza encased in limestone requires an astounding amount of electricity.

The resource has been known for decades but efforts to recover it have failed.

Royal Dutch is working on electric heaters below ground to loosen up the gooey bitumen to draw it to the surface through wells.

The firm is trying to commercialize what it calls a "novel thermal recovery process" invented by Shell's technology arm.

But because companies in the oilsands are now becoming conservationists due to the provinces carbon tax, they are finding alternatives to nuclear power in other fuels they generate as waste.

oil companies are already moving rapidly towards cheaper, more efficient technologies than those used for the past 20 years, one representative said.

''Nuclear may be an option in five to 10 years from now, but in the meantime, people are already moving off of natural gas and moving on to other things,'' Greg Stringham, with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said.

In the meantime, gasification of asphaltines, the dregs of the bitumen barrel, is one process being piloted in the oil sands as an alternative fuel, and underground fires fueled by oily air is another revolutionary technology being piloted to reduce costs in the oil sands, Stringham said.

So the guy who once was the leader of the Young Conservatives in Alberta now has to find a different market for his nuclear power plant. While still hoping to sell it to the oil companies as a possible mode for steam injection processes.

Energy Alberta, with partner Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., originally targetted the energy-hungry oil sands in its sales pitch, but has moved on to focus on Alberta in general. ''The purpose of this plant is to produce electricity only,'' spokesman Guy Huntingford said. ''Obviously hydrogen and steam are byproducts of it, but that's not why it's being built; it's being built purely for electricity, so we can place the plant anywhere.''

Nuclear power production of electricity is cleaner than coal, even when considering the environmental impact of both its energy source; uranium mining and fresh water, and its waste problems. It is also less environmentally damaging in comparison to the impact of hydro plants.

In fact nuclear power was one alternative source that M.K. Hubert recommended when offering alternatives to oil consumption in his Peak Oil theory.

The Green NGO's and their campaigners target nuclear power because they equate it with two false premises; fear of radiation, and fear of nuclear war.

They equate peaceful nuclear power with the military industrial complex, and they play on peoples fear of radiation.

There are all kinds of other problems with nuclear energy, including safety (even if technology has improved there is no such thing as a 100% accident proof anything, and a nuclear accident is the stuff of nightmares), dangerous waste (there is no way to get rid of nuclear waste at this time and the plant to be built would store all waste on site), environmental concerns (water would be drawn from the Peace River and that could mean pollution or an effect on local ecosystems), security (governments say nuclear power and nuclear waste are potential terrorist targets), and scarcity (uranium is a limited, non-renewable resource).

Facing reality
Editorial - Monday, June 18, 2007 @ 08:00

Not in my backyard. The call is going out loud and clear. In fact, it has been reverberating in both political and community circles ever since it was realized nuclear energy generates waste that must be stored somewhere.

As recorded in Saturday's Nugget, Nipissing-Timiskaming MP Anthony Rota has grave doubts about the whole concept of burying nuclear waste.

Rota is both a cancer victim and survivor. He cannot be thanked or commended too much for having the courage to admit his experience with cancer, and always being at the forefront in every effort to fight this dreaded disease.

Nuclear waste is radioactive. Radiation causes cancer. Rota speaks for millions of Canadians who are afraid of the stuff and do not want it in their backyards

Radioactive waste is the trouble with nuclear power says the right wing Green NGO Energy Probe which opposes nuclear power because they are shills for King Coal.

Dealing with the waste produced by nuclear reactors is one area that constantly dogs the nuclear power industry. Norman Rubin, director of nuclear research for the anti-nuclear organization Energy Probe, believes the waste is the primary problem with the technology.

The real problem is that with Canada's state funded CANDU, uranium industry and its provincial funded utilities,etc. the control lies with a closed group of state sanctioned corporations like Atomic Energy Canada, which have no public transparency, with no public representation on the board; union, consumer, engineering associations, MP's, etc.

The licensing of more reactors would also be a great boon, at potentially greater public expense, to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, which has received subsidies of $17.5 billion over 50 years, according to the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout.

Widespread distrust of existing agencies led Canadians to call for a new independent, non-partisan oversight body to keep tabs on how both government and industry handle nuclear waste.

This message means that top elected officials in Ottawa and the provinces must "revisit the mandates of existing oversight bodies in the nuclear field," concludes the report. Bodies like the federal regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, will need to have a "very public face."

Where our concern has to be is the privatization of nuclear power, it is when plants like that at Three Mile Island or worse; Hanford, are built by Westinghouse and contractors in a P3 with the State that slip shod construction and maintenance leads to critical problems.

The same kind of cronyism that saw the MIC in the U.S. build nuclear power plants was the kind of cronyism that occurred when the Soviet State built its MIC nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. After all Ukrainians were expendable just like the nice folks around Hanford, or those who live in the Nevada desert.

CANDU was a state sponsored engineered and maintained nuclear power process plant different from the Westinghouse and other designs. It was during the Harris and Martin governments rush to privatize and cut back public sector funding that resulted in the Bruce plant in Ontario running into problems. Bruce is now operated by a more public corporation which includes the Power Workers Union.

But in the Post-Kyoto era all that has changed. Those who once talked about selling off government assets now embrace them and are promoting them not only in Alberta but internationally.

Stephen Harper would seem an unlikely pitchman for nuclear power. When the Prime Minister launches into his familiar spiel about Canada as an emerging "energy superpower," we all think we know what he's talking about -- he's an Alberta MP, after all, and his father worked for Imperial Oil. Yet in a key speech last summer in London, his most gleeful boast was not about record oil profits, but about soaring uranium prices. "There aren't many hotter commodities, so to speak, in the resource markets these days," Harper joked to the Canada-U.K. Chamber of Commerce crowd. Then, noting that Britain is among those countries poised to begin buying new reactors for the first time in decades, he added: "We'll hope you remember that Canada is not just a source of uranium; we also manufacture state-of-the-art CANDU reactor technology, and we're world leaders in safe management of fuel waste."

And in response to the key criticism of waste storage these leaders in the 'safe management of fuels", a state sanctioned private conglomerate of nuclear power companies, have blown the dust off another old proposal from the seventies; using the Canadian Shield to store radioactive waste. Not much of a different plan than that used by the US. And one opposed by the Canadian public.

Canada's Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn announced Friday the Harper government's endorsement of nuclear power and its approval of going ahead with storing high-level radioactive waste underground.

The Conservatives' announcement allows existing reactor sites to continue accumulating waste indefinitely, and it initiates a search for an "informed community" willing to host a "deep repository" for burial of wastes. It will also explore moving wastes to a central location for temporary, shallow underground storage and recycling of nuclear fuel.

As Susan Riley writes in today's Ottawa Citizen, "Apart from the experimental nature of the proposed solution, many hurdles remain — notably, finding a community desperate enough to become a nuclear dumping ground. It has been long supposed that some remote northern town would be the lucky winner, given the technological preference for disposing of the waste deep in the Canadian shield. But recent research suggests the sedimentary rock underlying much of southern Ontario would also be suitable. That said, the prospect of a bidding war between Oakville and Rosedale appears unlikely."

Lunn said the planned depository would cost billions of dollars but said the cost would be borne by the nuclear industry.

It would take 60 years to find a location, build the facility and then transport in the used fuel.

The Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) regulates this waste, which is currently stored safely and economically in water-filled pools or in dry concrete canisters at the nuclear reactor sites. While there is no technical urgency to proceed toward disposal right away, the issue needs to be addressed partly because the volume of the waste is growing, and partly because the Government has recognized a public concern that a disposal option needs to be identified. In 1978, AECL began a comprehensive program to develop the concept of deep geological disposal of nuclear fuel waste in igneous rock of the Canadian Shield. AECL, assisted by Ontario Hydro, subsequently developed the detailed proposal that is the subject of a public environmental review process by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Public hearings began on March 11, 1996, and are expected to continue until the end of the year.

Subsequently, in 1978, the Governments of Canada and Ontario established the Nuclear Fuel Waste Management Program “to assure the safe and permanent disposal of nuclear fuel waste”. In this program, the responsibility for research and development on disposal in a deep underground repository in intrusive igneous rock was allocated to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL).

As it stands, the AECL concept for deep geological disposal has not been demonstrated to have broad public support. The concept in its current form does not have the required level of acceptability to be adopted as Canada’s approach for managing nuclear fuel wastes.

Ignoring a 1998 recommendation by a federal environmental panel (the Seaborn Panel) to create an impartial radioactive waste agency, the Chretien government in 2002 gave control of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to the nuclear industry - namely Ontario Power Generation, Hydro Quebec and New Brunswick Power. Also in 2002 the federal Nuclear Fuel Waste Act gave NWMO a three-year mandate to choose between (a) "deep geological disposal in the Canadian Shield"; (b) "storage at nuclear sites"; and (c) "centralized storage, either above or below ground". NWMO must make its final recommendation to the federal government by November 15, 2005.

The Nuclear Fuel Waste Act results from the response of the Canadian federal government (December 1998) to the recommendations of the report of the Environmental Review panel (March 1998) on AECL's nuclear fuel waste management proposal. The report concluded that the plan for Deep Geological Disposal is technically sound, and that nuclear waste would be safely isolated from the biosphere, but that it remains a socially unacceptable plan in Canada. The report makes several recommendations, including the creation of an independent agency to oversee the range of activities leading to implementation. The scope will include complete public participation in the process. (See also the author's March 1998 editorial on this subject, and a detailed critique by industry observer J.A.L. "Archie" Robertson, published in the Bulletin of Canadian Nuclear Society, vol. 2 and 3, 1998)

Over a study and consultation period of three years the NWMO was mandated to choose among three storage concepts and propose a site:

• Deep underground in the Canadian Shield
• Above-ground at reactor sites
• Or at a centralized disposal area

The final report of the NWMO was released in November 2005, recommending a strategy of "Adaptive Phased Management". The strategy is based upon a centralized repository concept, but with a phase approach that includes public consultation and "decision points" along the way, as well as several concepts associated with centralized storage (vs. disposal), and the ability to modify the long-term strategy in accordance with evolving technology or societal wishes. The approach of Adaptive Phased Management was formally accepted by the federal government on June 14, 2007.

The NWMO is financed from a trust fund set up by the nuclear electricity generators and AECL. These companies were required to make an initial payment of $550 million into the fund: Ontario Power Generation (OPG), contributed $500 million, Hydro-Quebec and New Brunswick Power each paid $20 million, and AECL contribute $10 million. The participants are also required to make annual contributions ranging between $2 million and $100 million (one-fifth of their respective initial contributions).

Another important component of the disposal plan is the transportation of nuclear fuel to the disposal site. In Canada this aspect is the responsibility of the Ontario utility, Ontario Power Generation Inc.. Special transport casks have been designed that are able to withstand severe accidents. The battery of tests applied to these casks include being dropped 9 metres onto a hardened surface, exposure to an 800 degrees Celsius fire for 30 minutes, and immersion in water for 8 hours. The development of such specialized containers has proceeded in parallel with efforts in other countries. Sandia Labs in the U.S., in particular, has published some remarkable photographs of severe crash tests performed on one such design.

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Small nuclear cheaper than solar and wind as Canada greens its power grid: report

NO EMPIRCAL TRUTH TO THIS STATEMENT

Jeff Lagerquist - 

The Canada Energy Regulator (CER) should hedge its bet on solar and wind making up the bulk of the country’s new power-generating capacity into 2050, according to a new report suggesting small nuclear reactors are the best option to do so.


Canada is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the small nuclear reactor technology, having operated reactors for over 70 years, according to the C.D. Howe report. (GETTY)

Canada is uniquely positioned to take advantage of small nuclear reactor technology, having operated reactors for over 70 years, the C.D. Howe Institute says in a report released Tuesday. Canada has 19 operable reactors, and is the world’s second-largest producer of uranium, a key component of nuclear fuel. In 2021, Ontario Power Generation said Canada could support 70 to 80 per cent of a nuclear supply chain, from fuel production to parts manufacturing.

However, the CER’s projection includes no expansion of Canadian nuclear assets, only refurbishment of existing reactors. Wind and solar account for about a quarter of the nation’s total expected power generation by 2050, the year Canada has committed to net-zero emissions.

Solar and wind are set to make up 60 per cent of the increase in new capacity added between 2019 and 2050, according to C.D. Howe's researchers. But that means added costs for energy storage.

“The Achilles heel of wind and solar is provision of adequate storage, at reasonable cost, of power not needed in the middle of the day, but needed when the sun is not shining and/or the wind is not blowing,” authors John Richards and Christopher Mabry wrote in the report.

C.D. Howe’s findings follow a report from Royal Bank of Canada in September calling for energy consumption in Canada to surge 50 per cent in the next decade. The bank warned of power shortages as early as 2026.

Related video: The Canadians who want to see more nuclear energy

Duration 3:06 View on Watch

Nuclear power is an important source of low-carbon energy: World Nuclear Association

In their report, Richards and Marby rank the cost of various power sources, with nuclear power from small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) being the cheapest to operate, once storage costs for wind and solar energy are accounted for. Unlike larger nuclear power plants, which often overrun cost estimates and experience construction delays, SMRs are less complex and require less material and labour.


Source: C.D. Howe Institute© Provided by Yahoo Finance Canada

The International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) defines small reactors as having capacity under 300 MW of capacity. Last month, the Canada Infrastructure Bank announced a deal with Ontario Power Generation to provide $970 million to build the country's first small modular reactor next to the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Clarington, Ont. The federal government’s fall economic statement also included a tax credit of up to 30 percent for investment in clean technologies, including SMRs.

C.D. Howe calls Ottawa’s recent nuclear policy offerings “a modest down payment in its green energy financial support,” while stressing that Canada’s net-zero goals will require a “massive reconfiguration” of the power sector.

“These are welcome actions from Ottawa, however nuclear energy is still excluded from some major federal clean energy funding programs such as the Green Bond Framework,” Richards and Marby wrote. “Much more funding will be needed to ensure we don’t put all our eggs in the wind and solar basket.”

The energy crisis in Europe ignited by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has helped nuclear power overcome some of its reputational baggage amid greater focus on energy security. Governments from Japan to South Korea to the United States have made policy “U-turns” on nuclear power over the past year amid soaring energy prices, according to a large Canadian uranium investor.

"What politicians have figured out is that we've loaded a lot of intermittent power into the grid over the last 20 years, and that's been a good thing. But it's not a magic bullet," Sprott Asset Management CEO John Ciampaglia told Yahoo Finance Canada in August. The Toronto-based financial firm operates the world’s largest physical uranium investment fund. (U-UN.TO).

"You need backup baseload power generation to offset the intermittency of renewables,” Ciampaglia added. “There are only three ways to do that. You can burn natural gas. You can burn coal. Or you can have nuclear power plants."

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

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CANADA
Feds fund small nuclear reactor ahead of national strategy to adopt more of them

OTTAWA — An Ontario nuclear power company is getting $20 million from Ottawa to try to get its new small modular reactor in line with Canada's safety regulations.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The grant to Terrestrial Energy in Oakville, Ont., is the first investment Canada has made in small modular reactors, or SMRs. It comes just weeks before Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan expects to produce a "road map" to show how the emerging technology will be used to help get Canada to its climate change goals.

"Just last week, the International Energy Agency released a landmark report showing that achieving our target of net-zero emissions without nuclear energy will take a lot longer, with a great risk of failure," he said.

Canada has promised to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by almost one-third in the next 10 years, and then to net-zero by 2050, when any emissions still produced are captured by nature or technology.

About one-fifth of Canada's electricity still comes from fossil fuels, including natural gas and coal.

Nuclear generators produce no greenhouse gas emissions. They currently make up 15 per cent of Canada's energy mix overall, but only Ontario and New Brunswick use nuclear reactors for electricity.

Those CANDU reactors are big and expensive, while SMRs are pitched as smaller and more versatile, and can be shipped to remote locations where electricity grids don't currently reach.

SMRs are still in the developmental stage, with about a dozen companies in Canada trying to be the first to the finish line.

Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, whose department is providing the $20-million grant through its strategic innovation fund, said they are an emerging technology with high growth potential.

"Without a doubt one of our most promising solutions to fight climate change and promote clean energy has three letters — SMR," he said.

Bains says the money will help the company complete a pre-licensing process with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

This process occurs before the company applies for a licence so that it can work to meet the commission's requirements in the development phase. Terrestrial has been working with the commission for nearly two years and is also undergoing a similar process with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Terrestrial has offices in Oakville and Connecticut.

The company hopes its first nuclear reactor will be producing power before the end of the decade.

Not everyone is as convinced as O'Regan and Bains that nuclear is the answer to Canada's climate change dreams.

Eva Schacherl, who helped found the Coalition Against Nuclear Dumps on the Ottawa River, said nuclear waste is a big concern, and fears investments in SMRs are going to take money away from cleaner, already proven technologies like wind, solar and tidal power.

"It will distract our attention and resources," she said.

Plus, she said, Canada already has enough nuclear waste to fill more than 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

"We really don't need to create more," she said.

O'Regan said he is also developing a radioactive waste policy, and said nuclear will not displace other sources of clean power.

"All of this is part of a wave of different energy sources we are going to need," he said. "We're going to need all of it."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2020.

Federal government invests in small nuclear reactors to help it meet net-zero 2050 target


The federal government says it's investing $20 million in the nuclear industry to help Canada meet its target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The investment in Oakville Ontario's Terrestrial Energy is meant to help the firm bring small modular nuclear reactors to market.

"By helping to bring these small reactors to market, we are supporting significant environmental and economic benefits, including generating energy with reduced emissions, highly skilled job creation and Canadian intellectual property development," said Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains in a media statement.

Small modular reactors — SMRs — are smaller than a conventional nuclear power plant and can be built in one location before being transported and assembled elsewhere.

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited says it sees three major uses for SMRs in Canada:

Helping utilities replace energy capacity lost to closures of coal fired power plants.

Providing power and heat to off-grid industrial projects such as mines and oilsands developments. 

Replacing diesel fuel as a source of energy and heat in remote communities.

Bains said nuclear energy is part of the energy mix Canada must have to reach its climate targets. 

Another part of that mix, Bains said, was the recently announced $590 investment — split evenly between the Ontario and federal governments — to help the Ford Motor Company upgrade its assembly plant in Oakville and start making electric vehicles there

.

© Tracy Fuller/CBC Small modular nuclear reactors could replace diesel generating facilities in remote communities across Canada, like this one in Fort Providence, NWT.

Recycling nuclear waste

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan said the federal government is reviewing its radioactive waste program to ensure it adheres to the "highest international standards."

"We do have to make sure that Canadians trust the power system," O'Regan said. "SMR technology allows us to minimize the amount of waste and in some cases has the potential to recycle nuclear waste."

The federal government says that Terrestrial Energy has committed to creating and maintaining 186 jobs and creating 52 co-op placements nationally.

The government says the company also has promised to undertake gender equity and diversity initiatives to, among other things, boost the number of women working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

Canada, USA pledge to bolster nuclear supply chains, SMR development

27 March 2023

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Joe Biden have pledged to coordinate efforts to develop secure and reliable nuclear fuel supply chains in North America and build partnerships to help ensure access to low-enriched uranium. They will launch a one-year task force to accelerate cooperation on critical clean energy opportunities and supply chains, and Canada is to join a US-led programme to support small modular reactors (SMR).

Biden (on the left) and Trudeau met in Ottawa (Image: Prime Minister of Canada)

The leaders issued a joint statement during Biden's visit to Canada on 24 March in which they restated their commitment to accelerating the North American clean energy transition as well as setting out how Canada will join the Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) programme, providing funding and in-kind support.

"Our enduring partnership is based on a mutual commitment to shared security, shared prosperity, and shared democratic values, including the importance of fighting climate change and an abiding respect for human rights and the rule of law. As the closest of friends and allies, we remain committed to making life better for people on both sides of our shared border and to building a more free, equitable, secure, and prosperous world," they said.

"Canada and the United States will also coordinate efforts to develop secure and reliable North American nuclear fuel supply chains and build broader partnerships with longstanding allies and partners, both of which will help to ensure access to low enriched uranium, including High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium," the statement added.

The FIRST programme was launched by the US Department of State in 2021 to provide capacity-building support to partner countries developing nuclear energy programmes to support clean energy goals, under the highest international standards for nuclear safety, security, waste management and non-proliferation. The programme uses the International Atomic Energy Agency's Milestones Approach as a baseline for infrastructure development and nuclear security support. The Department of State committed an initial USD5.3 million of investment to support FIRST projects, and the programme has so far seen the USA engage with countries including Armenia, Ghana, the Philippines and Romania.

The one-year Energy Transformation Task Force, chaired by the US Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Canada's Deputy Prime Minister, will work across the spectrum of the clean economy to accelerate cooperation on critical clean energy opportunities and supply chains, including amongst other things critical minerals and rare earths, grid integration and resilience, and advanced and conventional nuclear energy.

"Economic policy, climate policy, and security policy aren’t just connected; they’re one in the same," Trudeau said in a joint press conference. The Energy Transformation Task Force will accelerate work on clean energy and clean tech, including securing and strengthening electric vehicle and critical mineral supply chains, he said. "Of course, an integrated approach means creating good middle-class jobs for workers on both sides of the border, and it will make our collective economic growth stronger and more resilient."

Virginia governor signs bills to support SMR development

28 March 2023

Governor Glenn Youngkin has signed into law two bills that will support ambitions for Virginia to include small modular reactors (SMRs) as part of an "all-of-the-above" energy plan released last year. Projects on SMR feasibility and supply chain have also received a share of USD8.1 million of grant awards announced by the governor.

Youngkin signed six bills supporting the delivery of Virginia's energy plan (Image: Christian Martinez, Office of Governor Glenn Youngkin)

The first piece of legislation - HB 2386 and SB 1464 - creates the Virginia Power Innovation Fund for the research and development of innovative energy technologies, including nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture and utilisation, and energy storage. It also creates the Virginia Power Innovation Program to use money from the fund to establish a nuclear innovation hub and award competitive grants to support energy innovation.

The second bill - HB 1779 - creates the Nuclear Education Grant Fund to award competitive grants to
higher education providers to establish or expand a nuclear education programme to create employment and training pathways in areas including nuclear engineering and nuclear welding.

"Today is a great day for Virginia energy and American energy. With the bills I'm signing, we're moving closer to delivering on the All-American, All-of-the-Above Energy Plan I put forward last year. We can, in fact, make Virginia energy more reliable, affordable, and clean while creating jobs and spurring innovation and today is a testament to that," Youngkin said as he signed the legislation on 23 March.

When he launched the 2022 Virginia Energy Plan last October, Youngkin envisaged that a commercial SMR would be serving customers with baseload power in southwest Virginia within the next 10 years. However, a bill that would have made it state policy to promote the development and operation of SMRs and to establish an SMR pilot program - HB 2333 - failed to pass through the legislature.

Youngkin nevertheless remained optimistic: "I can't wait until I watch that first small modular reactor turn on, and hospitals flip switches for their NICU units and senior living facilities turn the air conditioning on in the summertime, when it's so hot. And yeah, parents and children turn the light on in the early morning, when it's dark outside and have breakfast together. That's going to be pretty awesome," he said as he signed the bills into law, as reported by Susan Cameron in the Cardinal News.

Feasibility and supply chain

Two projects related to the potential deployment of SMRs are amongst a total of 17 projects announced by Youngkin as recipients under the Growth and Opportunity for Virginia (GO Virginia) grant awards for 2023.

The LENOWISCO Planning District Commission, in partnership with independent subject matter experts, to examine the feasibility of developing multiple SMR site locations within the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority (RIFA) has been selected to receive USD100,000 of Go Virginia funding. A second project by the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission, in partnership with Lonesome Pine Regional RIFA, is to receive USD50,000 to prepare a regional SME manufacturing supply chain report which will be used to identify existing businesses for retooling and recruiting new businesses to provide the baseline for manufacturing jobs needed to support the SMR supply chain.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Canada’s nuclear future brightens

Although the Canadian and US nuclear industries have shared origins in World War II, their paths soon diverged.

David Kramer

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Physics Today 74, 1, 23 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.4653

On a windswept field near the shores of Lake Ontario in mid-November, Canadian politicians and nuclear industry executives gathered to announce plans to build the country’s first new nuclear reactor since the early 1990s. A month earlier US Department of Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Romania’s Minister of Economy, Energy, and Business Environment Virgil Popescu signed an $8 billion agreement in Washington, DC, that paves the way for the construction of two new Canadian-origin reactors at a nuclear power plant on the Black Sea. Two Canadian reactors are already located there.

The two events highlight differences between the Canadian nuclear industry and its counterpart in the US. As competitive pressures have forced the closure of nuclear power stations and threaten many others south of the border, Canadians are in the midst of major refurbishments to extend the lives of a dozen reactors; another has already been updated. Six other aging reactors are due to be shut down by 2025, and it’s likely that some new nuclear plants will eventually replace them.

Canada’s 19 operating power reactors all have a markedly different design from the light-water reactors (LWRs) that predominate in the US and around the world. Known as CANDUs (Canadian deuterium uranium), they employ heavy water (deuterium oxide) as the neutron moderator and coolant. Should current plans proceed, however, the next Canadian reactor will be of a new type altogether.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the provincial government utility that owns the province’s 18 reactors, is to select one of three competing designs for a single small modular reactor (SMR) to be built at its Darlington Nuclear Generating Station roughly 80 kilometers east of Toronto. GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, X-Energy, and Terrestrial Energy are finalists in the competition, said Ken Hartwick, OPG’s president and CEO. The target date for startup is 2028.

A rendering of a small modular reactor design from SNC-Lavalin. The heavy-water-moderated reactor would produce 300 MW of electricity.

• PPT
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• High-resolution

Additional SMR orders from Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and Alberta will follow, predicted Greg Rickford, Ontario’s minister of energy, northern development, and mines and of indigenous affairs. In a December 2019 memorandum of understanding, the four provinces agreed to cooperate on advancing development and deployment of SMRs.

Nuclear power in Canada has always been centered in Ontario, the most populous and industrialized of the 13 provinces and territories. Roughly 60% of the electricity consumed in the province is from nuclear. The only CANDU outside Ontario supplies about one-third of New Brunswick’s electricity. British Columbia, Manitoba, and Quebec have abundant hydroelectric resources, and Quebec, which exports power, closed its only CANDU in 2012, electing to forgo the expense of refurbishment. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the maritime provinces are more sparsely populated and rely mainly on fossil fuels.

Heavy and light water

Canada’s nuclear program dates to World War II, when the UK relocated its atomic bomb program from Cambridge University to its North American dominion. In Montreal and later at Chalk River Laboratories, about 180 kilometers upstream of Ottawa, British and Canadian scientists were focused on developing a heavy-water-moderated reactor to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project. The British had brought along a large quantity of heavy water that had been smuggled out of occupied France. The Zero Energy Experimental Pile (ZEEP) at Chalk River, the first operating nuclear reactor outside the US, was a heavy-water design.

Ultimately, the US nuclear bomb development program chose graphite to be the neutron moderator for the reactors that made the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb. But Canada’s National Research Experimental (NRX) reactor, the successor to ZEEP, was the basis for the heavy-water plutonium and tritium production reactors at DOE’s Savannah River Site, says historian Robert Bothwell, author of Nucleus: The History of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (1988).

Some of the R&D in support of Hyman Rickover’s nuclear propulsion program for the US Navy was done at the NRX, although the navy chose light water as the moderator and coolant for submarine reactors. President Jimmy Carter, who was then a navy lieutenant, was assigned to assist the cleanup of a 1952 partial meltdown of the NRX, the world’s first major nuclear accident.

The National Research Universal (NRU) heavy-water research reactor began operating at Chalk River in 1957. In addition to developing fuels for CANDUs and conducting materials research, the NRX and NRU produced medical radioisotopes. At times the NRU supplied more than half the world’s molybdenum-99, the precursor to technetium-99m, the most widely used medical isotope. When it was permanently shut down in 2018, the NRU was the world’s oldest operating nuclear reactor. Two dedicated replacement isotope-production reactors at Chalk River, completed by a public–private partnership, were plagued by design faults and were abandoned in 2008.

The Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on Lake Huron is the largest nuclear power plant in North America. Its eight CANDU reactors produce 30% of Ontario’s electricity. Four of the reactors are in the foreground; the others are visible in the background.

BRUCE POWER

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Canada never developed nuclear weapons, but Canadian mines and uranium processing facilities played key roles in the Manhattan Project and in the postwar US nuclear arms buildup. In Port Hope, Ontario, a former radium processing plant now owned by Cameco Corp was converted during World War II to refine high-grade uranium from the Belgian Congo. Today it exports uranium hexafluoride to enrichment plants for peaceful purposes only. It also produces uranium dioxide for CANDU fuel.

The Cold War arms race fueled a boom in uranium mining at Elliot Lake in northern Ontario. Joseph Hirshhorn, whose collection of art now populates the Smithsonian museum that bears his name, made much of his fortune from Elliot Lake. When the US Atomic Energy Commission began cutting back on uranium orders in the late 1950s, the boomtown went bust. Canada is today the world’s second-largest exporter of uranium, all of which is now mined in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca River basin, whose ore has a higher grade than Elliot Lake’s.

As partner in the North American Aerospace Defense Command and a NATO member, Canada once fielded US nuclear warheads on surface-to-air missiles and aircraft, says Tim Sayle, assistant professor of history at the University of Toronto. Canada has been free of nuclear weapons since the early 1980s.

Enrichment not required

With encouragement from the government, the US Navy submarine reactor technology was adapted by US utilities for electricity production. All operating commercial reactors in the US are LWRs. But Canada continued to develop its heavy-water technology. In large part, the CANDU design stemmed from Canada’s inability to manufacture large castings for the pressure vessels that encapsulate LWR nuclear fuel assemblies, says Colin Hunt, cochair of the government and regulatory affairs committee of the Canadian Nuclear Society.

The CANDU reactor core consists of a calandria, an unpressurized vessel of heavy water with hundreds of tubes running through it to contain the nuclear fuel. Whereas LWRs must be shut down every 12–18 months to be refueled, CANDUs were designed to allow on-line refueling. The reactors remain operating as fresh fuel bundles are inserted into the tubes and the spent ones are ejected. LWR uranium fuel must be enriched to around 4% in the fissile uranium-235 isotope, but the CANDU burns naturally occurring uranium fuel containing about 0.7% ²³⁵U. That feature eliminates the need for costly enrichment plants or services. And the CANDU can burn other fuels, including thorium, plutonium, and even spent fuel from LWRs.

The first CANDU, at Douglas Point on the shores of Lake Huron, operated commercially from 1968 to 1984. Four larger CANDUs came on line at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station near Toronto in 1971, and four more units were added there in 1983. Six remain in operation. Twelve more CANDUs were built in Ontario, eight at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station at Douglas Point and the newest four at Darlington. Today, Bruce is the largest nuclear generating station in North America, supplying more than 30% of Ontario’s electricity.

Outside Canada, CANDUs have been installed in Argentina (1), China (2), India (2), Pakistan (1), Romania (2), and South Korea (4). Following India’s 1974 test of a nuclear weapon, Ottawa ended nuclear cooperation with New Delhi. India went on to build more than a dozen reactors of a CANDU-derived design. Canada’s assertive efforts to sell CANDUs to the UK were unsuccessful. Had the UK bought any, Bothwell says, the CANDU likely would have become a joint venture between the two nations, and the technology might have become the world’s dominant reactor model.

An uncertain future

The aging Pickering reactors, which supply about 15% of Ontario’s power, are scheduled to be permanently closed by 2025. It’s an open question what will replace them. The other major power source in Ontario, hydroelectric, has been fully tapped, says Hunt. Coal-fired generation in the province is prohibited by law, and a recently enacted federal carbon tax of Can$30 ($23) per ton of carbon dioxide, rising to Can$50 in two years, should discourage new natural-gas-fired plants.

Although the province’s electricity demand isn’t growing now, it will likely increase as demand for electric vehicles and hydrogen grows, says William Fox, executive vice president for nuclear at SNC-Lavalin, an architect and engineering firm that holds the rights to CANDU technology.

Created during the Manhattan Project, the Chalk River Laboratories north of Ottawa were home to CANDU heavy-water-reactor development and several research reactors. Now known as Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, the facility is operated by a consortium of companies led by SNC-Lavalin for the federal government.

CANADIAN NUCLEAR LABORATORIES

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At the federal level, the Liberal-led government of Justin Trudeau has begun considering legislation with the aim of reducing Canada’s carbon emissions to zero by 2050. On 30 November the government announced its intention “to launch an SMR Action Plan by the end of 2020 to lay out the next steps to develop and deploy this technology.” It’s a sign that Liberal members of Parliament have recognized that nuclear power is needed if Canada hopes to meet its 2015 Paris Agreement pledge that by 2030 it will have cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% from their 2005 levels, says John Barrett, a consultant and former Canadian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Increasing wind and solar energy seems an obvious option to meet Ontario’s future needs. But its leaders have soured on renewables since the previous Liberal provincial legislature’s heavy subsidization of wind energy led to enormous increases in electricity rates. From 2010 to 2016, average home electricity costs rose by 32%, despite a 10% decline in average household electricity consumption, according to Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office. The price hikes, which also caused many industrial operations to flee the province, were a major contributor to the Liberals’ historic rout in the 2018 elections. The current Progressive Conservative provincial government tore up the still-outstanding wind turbine construction contracts, says Hunt.

Importing power from neighboring provinces isn’t an option, Hunt says. Purchasing power from electricity-rich Quebec would put Ontario in competition with New England and New York State and drive up electricity rates further. Quebec’s transmission system was built to export power to the US, so new transmission lines would be required to accommodate interprovincial flow, Hunt says. A further complication is that Quebec’s electricity grid is out of phase with the rest of North America’s: The peaks and valleys of its alternating current flow are asynchronous with the rest of the continent’s. As a result, the power imported by Ontario would need to be converted to DC and then converted back to in-phase AC once across the border.

Hunt believes that no more CANDUs will be built in Canada; he sees the future belonging to SMRs. (See Physics Today, December 2018, page 26.) Though SNC-Lavalin has a large SMR design (see the figure on page 23), Fox believes that large reactors will be needed to replace the 2400 MW that Pickering’s CANDUs now supply. Because the entirety of Canada’s nuclear experience with large reactors has been with CANDUs, Fox is confident that the same technology will be chosen if new conventional-size reactors are ordered.

Smaller SMRs could be ideal for providing electricity to remote off-grid communities in the vast Canadian north. The diesel-generated power they use now is expensive, dirty, and vulnerable to cutoffs of fuel supply during severe winter weather. SMRs also would be an attractive option to provide power to remote mining operations and to produce the steam used in extracting oil from Canadian tar sands, Barrett says. Several 300-MW-sized SMRs could meet Saskatchewan’s needs, he notes.

Compared with the US, Canada has made far more progress on the disposition of nuclear waste. The federal Nuclear Waste Management Organization expects to select the location for a geological nuclear waste repository in 2023. Unlike the US, where the now-abandoned Yucca Mountain location was unsuccessfully forced on Nevada, the waste authority invited site proposals from communities; 22 were received. After each was characterized, two Ontario sites were named finalists: one in farmland about 45 kilometers east of Lake Huron and the other in the exposed rock of the Canadian Shield about 246 kilometers northwest of Thunder Bay.

© 2021 American Institute of Physics.

MPs and activists push back as Ottawa pitches expansion of nuclear energy

Story by John Paul Tasker • Apr 25, 2023

Anti-nuclear activists and a cross-partisan group of MPs urged the federal government Tuesday to drop its support for nuclear energy projects, calling the energy source a "dirty, dangerous distraction" from climate action.

Nuclear power has long been an important part of Canada's energy mix. In Ontario, for example, an eye-popping 60 per cent of the province's power needs are met by nuclear generation — a non-emitting energy source that industry groups and some politicians view as fundamental to the net-zero transition.

Other provinces — notably New Brunswick (which already has a nuclear power plant), Alberta and Saskatchewan — have expressed interest in "small modular reactors" (SMRs), which have been billed as more affordable, less complex and easier to operate than traditional, large-scale nuclear plants.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN-affiliated organization, has said SMRs could be crucial to the clean transition because, unlike renewable energy sources like wind and solar, these smaller nuclear plants don't depend on the weather or the time of day.

SMR boosters also say the technology can help high-polluting, industrial economies ween themlselves off dirtier fuel sources like coal.

But SMR technology is still in its infancy and it isn't widely used around the world.

As of 2022, there were only three SMR projects in operation — one each in Russia, China and India — according to the International Energy Agency.

There are dozens of others under construction or in the design and planning phase — including one at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington nuclear site.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland's recent federal budget included a generous tax credit to spur clean energy development, including SMRs.

The industry lobby group, the Canadian Nuclear Association, has said the 15 per cent refundable tax credit is a recognition by Ottawa that nuclear power is "a fundamental and necessary component of Canada's low carbon energy system."

Susan O'Donnell, a professor and a member of the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick, said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet are getting bad advice about nuclear energy.

"The nuclear industry, led by the U.S. and the U.K., has been lobbying and advertising heavily in Canada, trying to convince us that new SMR designs will somehow address the climate crisis," O'Donnell told a press conference on Parliament Hill on Tuesday.

She said SMRs will produce "toxic radioactive waste" and could lead to serious "accidents" while turning some communities into "nuclear waste dumps."

She also said there's "no guarantee these nuclear experiments will ever generate electricity safely and affordably," since SMRs are still relatively untested.

"Canada is wasting time that must be urgently spent on genuine climate action," she said. "This is a dirty, dangerous distraction. We don't need nuclear power."

Asked how Canada would meet its baseload power requirements — the power that is needed 24 hours a day without fluctuation — without nuclear power or fossil fuel sources like natural gas, O'Donnell pointed to promising developments in energy storage technology.

Liberal MP Janica Atwin was also on hand for the anti-nuclear press event.

"I want to be clear, I'm here as an individual, a concerned individual and a mother," she said — before launching into remarks that raised questions about the "associated risks" and "many unknowns" of nuclear energy development, which is expected to see a sharp increase in activity due to her government's proposed tax policies.

"When it comes to nuclear, there's no margin for error," Atwin said. "This is a time of action. We don't have the luxury of waiting to see if things will pan out."

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, who once sat in caucus with Atwin before she decamped to the Liberals, said government funding for nuclear projects is a "fraud."

"It has no part in fighting the climate emergency. In fact, it takes valuable dollars away from things that we know work, that can be implemented immediately, in favour of untested and dangerous technologies that will not be able to generate a single kilowatt of electricity for a decade or more," May said.

The SMR that is under construction in Darlington, Ont., is expected to be finished by 2028 — five years from now.

The project's proponents say this SMR, once operational, will deliver 300 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 300,000 homes in the country's largest province.

To address concerns about the reliability of clean energy sources, May said Canada should build a national grid, which could "essentially be a giant battery" — storing excess energy when solar panels and wind farms are producing electricity and feeding it back into the grid when they're not.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Canadian Nuclear Association said that "Canadians deserve to be told the truth, and the truth is that there is no easy path to net zero for Canada."

"It is disingenuous to suggest that we can easily decarbonize through wind and solar alone, while at the same time doubling or tripling our total electricity demand to 2050," said Christopher Gully.

"Contrary to the statements made today by MP May and others, the changes necessary to support a fully renewables grid in Canada would be absolutely massive, including tens or even hundreds of billions in grid upgrades, fundamental changes to interprovincial power markets, and extremely long timelines for the necessary transmission corridors to be permitted and built. While that may be feasible in a research paper, it is more of a dream than a possible reality."

NDP and Bloc MPs were also on hand for the press conference. NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice said the government's recent support for nuclear power is the result of of heavy lobbying efforts.

He said Natural Resources Canada has somehow been infiltrated by pro-nuclear proponents. "They don't have to knock on the door to get into the house because they own the house," he said.

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who was an environmental activist before jumping into federal politics, has a history of anti-nuclear campaigning.

In 2018, Guilbeault tweeted that "it's time to close Pickering #Nuclear Plant and go for #renewables." Before running for federal office, he was involved with Greenpeace for ten years and was a founding member of Équiterre, two organizations that oppose nuclear energy.

Since his election, however, Guilbeault has been less vocal.

Late last year, he also decided that a proposed small nuclear reactor project at Point Lepreau in New Brunswick will not undergo an extra federal impact assessment.


A test engineer at TerraPower, a company developing and building small nuclear reactors, works on a project in Everett, Washington.© AP

Speaking at an event Monday in Ottawa with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Trudeau said Canada is "very serious" about reviving nuclear power.

With Canada attracting substantial new industrial development, Trudeau said there's a need for new, cleaner energy sources.

"As we look at what baseload energy requirements are going to be needed by Canada over the coming decades, especially as we continue to draw in global giants like Volkswagen, who choose Canada partially because we have a clean energy mix to offer ... we're going to need a lot more energy," he said.

"We're going to have to be doing much more nuclear."

World’s Biggest Nuclear Power Plant Being Planned in Canada

Will Wade
Wed, July 5, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- A Canadian utility is starting early work to expand a nuclear plant, potentially building the world’s biggest facility as growing demand for clean energy spurs interest in atomic energy.

The Ontario government said Wednesday Bruce Power will conduct an environmental assessment of adding as much as 4.8 gigawatts of capacity to its plant in Canada’s most-populous province. The plant’s eight reactors currently have about 6.2 gigawatts of capacity and supply 30% of the province’s power.

The expansion would make the site larger than Japan’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the biggest in the world with seven reactors and more than 8 gigawatts of capacity.

The announcement comes amid growing recognition that carbon-free nuclear power is likely to play an important role in the global battle against climate change. Canada is developing plans to mandate a net-zero power grid by 2035, and the Bruce project would be the first conventional nuclear plant in the province in three decades. Another utility in the region, Ontario Power Generation Inc., is involved in an effort to develop a new type of advanced reactor.

“New nuclear generation is going to be critical to building the clean grid of the future,” said Todd Smith, Ontario’s energy minister.

World’s Biggest Nuclear Power Plant Being Planned in Canada

Will Wade
Wed, July 5, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- A Canadian utility is starting early work to expand a nuclear plant, potentially building the world’s biggest facility as growing demand for clean energy spurs interest in atomic energy.

The Ontario government said Wednesday Bruce Power will conduct an environmental assessment of adding as much as 4.8 gigawatts of capacity to its plant in Canada’s most-populous province. The plant’s eight reactors currently have about 6.2 gigawatts of capacity and supply 30% of the province’s power.

The expansion would make the site larger than Japan’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the biggest in the world with seven reactors and more than 8 gigawatts of capacity.

The announcement comes amid growing recognition that carbon-free nuclear power is likely to play an important role in the global battle against climate change. Canada is developing plans to mandate a net-zero power grid by 2035, and the Bruce project would be the first conventional nuclear plant in the province in three decades. Another utility in the region, Ontario Power Generation Inc., is involved in an effort to develop a new type of advanced reactor.

“New nuclear generation is going to be critical to building the clean grid of the future,” said Todd Smith, Ontario’s energy minister.

Ontario wants to expand Bruce Power, Canada's first new large-scale nuclear build in 3 decades

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Bruce Nuclear in Tiverton, Ont., is already the largest

generating station in the world

Colin Butler · CBC News · Posted: Jul 05, 2023 

An aerial view of the Bruce Power nuclear generating station in Kincardine, Ont., is shown in August 2003. (J.P. Moczulski/Canadian Press)

Driven by clean energy goals and surging electricity demand, Ontario has announced it wants to add a third nuclear generating station to Bruce Power near Kincardine, which, if built, would be the first new large-scale nuclear plant construction in Canada in three decades. 

On Wednesday, Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith said the new construction would generate up to 4,800 megawatts, enough to power 4.8-million homes, nearly doubling the power plant's output. 

It would be located at Bruce Power's current facility on the rim of Lake Huron in Tiverton, Ont. The site currently has two generating stations with eight reactor units, but according to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, two reactors are currently being refurbished. 

Securing a third generating station at Bruce Power will be a lengthy process, one that may take a decade and require the province to clear a number of regulatory hurdles. Public input and consultations with nearby communities, including First Nations, are prerequisites for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's multi-stage licensing process.

Nuclear power has won new converts

With infamous accidents such as Three Mile Island, Chornobyl and Fukushima over the last five decades, nuclear power had earned a bad reputation.

But as nations look to slash emissions and de-carbonize their economies in preparation for climate change, nuclear energy has won over new converts, who see it as a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

On Wednesday, Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith said if built, the new reactor would generate up to 4,800 megawatts, enough to power 4.8 million homes, on the site of Bruce Power's current generating station, on the rim of Lake Huron in Tiverton, Ont. (Canadian Press)

"I don't think anyone would have seen this coming, certainly two or three years ago," said Dr. Chris Keefer, a Toronto emergency physician and the president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, a group that has long urged governments to build new CANDU reactors.

"Any investment in this technology leads to not only clean air, not only medical isotopes, not only climate action, but also really good things for Ontario working people."

Keefer, who began supporting nuclear power because of the nuclear isotopes used in medicine that are created as a byproduct of the energy-making process, said unlike the nuclear technology of other countries, Canada's CANDU reactors are known as some of the safest in the world. 

"We have, I think, the world's safest nuclear reactor," he said, adding the technology's passive safety systems rely on large amounts of water to keep the system cool for up to 12 days before energy officials must intervene. 

Canada doesn't have a perfect safety record

Despite having a solid international reputation, there have been a number of nuclear incidents involving Canadian reactors since the 1950s, including the world's first nuclear reactor accident in 1952, when an experimental reactor at Chalk River, Ont., experienced significant damage to its core caused by overheating fuel rods.

More recently, in the Greater Toronto Area, Darlington Nuclear Generating Station saw the release of 200,000 litres of water containing trace amounts of radioactive isotopes into Lake Ontario after workers accidentally filled the wrong tank with water in 2009. 

Canada's most recent nuclear incident happened here at Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, when a water tank mix-up led to the discharge of 200,000 litres of water containing trace amounts of radioactive isotopes, which officials said did not pose harm to residents. (Ontario Power Generation)

While potential safety issues are one thing, cost is another, according to critics like Jack Gibbons, the chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, an environmental group that doesn't see nuclear power as a viable solution for climate change. 

"The Bruce nuclear station is already the largest nuclear station in the world and it doesn't make any economic sense to make it bigger, since we've got much lower cost and cleaner and safer options to keep our lights on."

Gibbons said if Ontario's government really wanted to lower electricity costs, it would lift the moratorium on Great Lakes wind power the provincial government imposed by the then-Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty in 2011. 

"Great Lakes wind power could meet more than 100 per cent of our electricity needs at a much lower cost than a new nuclear reactor."

Gibbons adds that, if Ontario wants to do its part to help mitigate climate change, there are zero-emission options that are much less complicated. 

"A new nuclear reactor will take 10 to 15 years. We need to dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas pollution before 2030, and a new nuclear reactor can't do that, whereas wind and solar can be built in 12 months or less."

To build the plant, the province would need federal approvals. Smith, Ontario's energy minister, said Bruce Power would start community consultations on Wednesday and conduct an environmental assessment for federal approval to determine the feasibility of another nuclear plant.

The announcement is part of the province's wider "open for business" approach that casts itself as the supplier of jobs and opportunity into the future through the manufacturing of EV batteries, the mining of critical minerals in the north and reshaping the province's environmental safeguards to foster economic growth.