Proponents say small reactors are safer, but skeptics say the risks outweigh the benefits
Author of the article: Gabriel Friedman
Publishing date:Dec 15, 2021
At the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, a large part of Ken Darlington’s job involves convincing the public that the latest generation of nuclear technology is safe — so safe, in fact, that it can be mass produced.
The USNC-Power, as the U.S.-based company is known in Canada, is developing the smallest nuclear reactors around — designed to produce enough power to provide electricity for about 5,000 homes, or roughly five megawatts. If all goes according to Darlington’s plans, as vice president of corporate development in Canada, there could be around 100 reactors around the country in two decades.
That’s a huge jump: Canada has roughly 19 large reactors, each around 900 megawatts, at six plants. As efforts to reduce emissions gather momentum, Darlington and others are advocating for nuclear power as a less carbon-intensive alternative to fossil fuels. But the high cost of nuclear power, as well as the catastrophic safety record, as seen in the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan as well as the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986 and others, has stopped the industry’s expansion.
“I think it’s going to come down to the perception of the safety issue,” Darlington told the Financial Post. “That’s where a lot of the work needs to happen.”
It’s been about a decade since a tsunami off the coast of Japan triggered the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown — the latest in a string of nuclear disasters stretching back to Chernobyl in 1986 — which resulted in hydrogen-chemical explosions, the release of radiation, the evacuation of more than 140,000 people, and which is still being cleaned up.
There are also issues around nuclear waste: for more than a decade, Canada has been searching for a permanent underground repository where it can leave the radioactive waste, a byproduct of nuclear power generation, to decay — a process that is estimated to take hundreds of thousands of years. For now, nuclear waste remains stored nearby where it is produced.
Despite these issues, Darlington is helping lead an effort to revive nuclear power in Canada, through small modular reactors. The idea is to gain a licence for a design, and then deploy the model to outposts that are not connected to the electrical grid — to mines, oil projects and remote communities dependent on diesel.
“Anytime you have a new reactor design it needs to go through licensing,” Darlington said. “The whole idea is to have a consistent design, so you’re producing the same thing, every time.”
In 2020, his company’s Canadian subsidiary and Ontario Power Generation struck a joint venture to acquire Global First Power Limited, which aims to develop a micro modular nuclear reactor: it’s about the size of a tanker truck turned on its side, vertically, Darlington said.
It is planning to install a commercial demonstration project at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ Chalk River site, outside Ottawa, that will take up approximately two football fields, and consist of one plant that generates 15 megawatts of thermal heat, and an adjacent plant that converts the heat into five megawatts of electricity.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is currently reviewing a licence application for the reactor, and Canadian Nuclear Labs is conducting a process to site the micro modular reactor on its property. The power would be deployed into the grid.
Meanwhile, separately, Ontario Power Generation, announced a deal earlier this month, in which General Electric and Hitachi would build a small nuclear capable of generating enough power to produce 300 megawatts of electricity — at its Darlington plant.
Proponents such as Darlington say that small reactors rely on new technology that reduces the possibility of the runaway chain reactions and other failures that led to disasters in the past.
Nuclear fission works by splitting atoms through a process that generates enormous amounts of heat, which in turn is used generate electricity. For instance, the heat can create steam to power a turbine.
But containing the heat creates risks: in Japan, floods from the tsunami knocked out the emergency diesel generators that were powering the cooling process, which led to a meltdown of the reactor.
Darlington says Global First Power is safer than past nuclear projects of larger scale: it uses passive, cooling systems, which make runaway meltdowns impossible, he said. Plus, it uses small pellets as fuel, which Darlington said are safer than the rods used at larger reactors.
Also, it’s cheaper, he said, because the reactors are designed to be produced at scale, whereas in the past all nuclear projects have been one-of-a-kind, subject to cost overruns and construction delays. He projected a reactor would cost about $200 million.
There are many skeptics.
M.V. Ramana, a professor of public policy at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, said nuclear power is inherently expensive, and past projects were designed to be larger in order to reduce costs by capturing economies of scale.
He also said past projects have tried to use passive cooling systems, but nuclear fission is inherently dangerous and it’s difficult to judge the safety of reactors that haven’t been licensed or produced yet.
“What we know about nuclear accidents is just about every one of them is unique in the way it happened,” said Ramana. “There are many ways of having an accident.”
For that reason, he said the risks outweigh the benefits: even if 100 small modular reactors were deployed, it would constitute just a small portion of the country’s electricity supply, but each reactor would generate radioactive waste and pose the threat of an accident.
What we know about nuclear accidents is just about every one of them is unique in the way it happenedM.V. RAMANA
Neil Beveridge, an analyst at research firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co, LLC, wrote that small modular nuclear reactors are attracting a lot of attention amid a flood of investment into decarbonization technology.
“While nuclear has many problems, including safety and cost competitiveness, the one big advantage is that it offers baseload clean energy supply, which is hard to replicate,” Beveridge wrote in a note to investors earlier this month.
Given the variable nature of wind and solar power, dependent on weather, there is growing interest in whether nuclear can be harnessed as a clean baseload power source, he wrote, adding that the promise of cost-competitiveness and safety remain untested.
Darlington said USNC was founded in 2011 by a family office in Seattle, and its technology spun out of U.S. National Laboratories. So far, he said, the company has raised $100 million from U.S., but the company’s investors and balance sheet remains private.
Given the history of nuclear disasters, in which radioactive material has leaked into the environment, he said persuading the public on the safety of new small modular reactors will be a critical factor in adoption. Still, Darlington declined to disclose information about his company’s founders or investors.
Similarly, Ontario Power Generation, structured as a corporation but owned by the province, declined to disclose the terms of its deal with USNC-Power to acquire Global First Power in 2020, including the price of the acquisition or other details about the proposed Chalk commercial demonstration reactor at the Chalk River Lab.
Robin Manley, vice president of new nuclear at OPG, said the aim is to use small modular nuclear reactors for industrial purposes, whether powering a remote mine and then maybe use the excess power generated during off-peak periods to produce hydrogen — another clean fuel.
But he acknowledged the technology remains a future option. Even at Chalk River, OPG is targeting 2026 as a start date for the 5 MW micro modular reactors, while the GE Hitachi small modular reactor, of around 300 MW capacity, will not be ready until 2028.
‘It’s going to be cost-competitive or cheaper than diesel,” he said, but added, “When you haven’t actually built a project yet, you don’t yet know the full cost.”
Thunder Bay·In Depth
Small northwestern Ontario town considers if it's willing to house nuclear waste from across Canada
Decision on whether Ignace will have nuclear waste repository will come in the next year
A small town in northwestern Ontario is facing a big question: How to determine whether people in the community want to host a site that would store nearly 5.5 million spent nuclear fuel bundles from across Canada.
The issue's been ongoing for years in Ignace, with a population of about 1,300, 250 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay.
But now, it's one of two communities left in the search by Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to find a host community for its proposed deep geological repository.
Canada's nuclear electricity producers created the non-profit in 2002. It's responsible for coming up with a long-term management plan for Canada's used nuclear fuel.
The fuel bundles are about the size of a fire log, and each bundle holds about 20 kilograms of uranium. The final two sites for the proposed storage facility are in Ignace and South Bruce, about 100 kilometres from Kitchener.
A spokesperson for the NWMO said that unless the community is willing to host the site, the project won't go ahead. Organization officials have repeatedly said they welcome public discourse and debate, while promising a safe solution in line with international best practices.
Right now, a consultant is in the process of determining what criteria need to be met to prove the community does, in fact, support the project.
The entire process to gauge whether Ignace could be the site of the facility started a decade ago.
Within the last few years, drilling has taken place at six sites surrounding the community, some of which are halfway between Dryden, the closest major centre, about 100 kilometres away, and Ignace.
For many, the saga has dragged on, but it is nearing the finish line. A final decision is expected in about a year.
In the meantime, CBC News visited Ignace and nearby Dryden to talk to residents about the project and what they're looking to see from officials going forward.
An 'informed and willing host'?
"Ignace is the community that said, 'We want to be involved, we want to be an informed and willing host,'" said Brad Greaves, chair of the Ignace Community Nuclear Liaison Committee.
"But the actual engagement outside of our community is the [nuclear waste management organization's] responsibility."
The community liaison committee was established by the Township of Ignace as a go-between for townspeople and the local government. It's made up of people who live in the community and has representatives from nearby Wabigoon and Dryden.
Greaves said his committee will determine if the community is willing to have the town affiliated with the nuclear waste site.
He said the site is an opportunity for a community with little industry and a shrinking population.
"Anything, whether it be a mine or forestry, when industry comes to a town, a real spark of life come back," he said. "Socioeconomics is a big part of this project too. It's not just the fact that there's going to be nuclear fuel put underground for long-term storage. And, it's not just Ignace — it'll be the whole area."
But Greaves's opinion on the project is far from the consensus needed. The decision to bury nuclear waste is contentious, and he said it is probably the biggest decision ever made by the township.
William Marsh has lived in Ignace off and on for a number of years, and feels moving the waste to a small town in northwestern Ontario would be an out-of-sight, out-of-mind decision for the nuclear waste organization.
"Why should they have to put it here?" he asked. "Because we're in the middle of nowhere? Right?"
Why should they have to put it here? Because we're in the middle of nowhere? Right? - William Marsh, Ignace, Ont., resident
He said he doesn't trust the information coming from the NWMO and does not support the project.
"Just because they say it's not going to leak, doesn't mean it's not going to leak."
Marsh, like others who have worries about the project, is concerned about a potential leak or spill and what could happen to ground and surface water, despite assurances the proposal is safe.
"We believe in this project. We believe in the safety of this project, and that's why we're here," said Alexander Blyth, a section manager with the NWMO.
"We need to show and demonstrate the quality of this rock and our understanding of the area to demonstrate to the community and to our regulators, because the site will have to go to an impact assessment, and we'll have to prove how good this site is."
Blyth, a hydro geologist, said he's heard the concerns people have about their fears of groundwater contamination.
"From a technical standpoint, ultimately, the water issue is a really important one, and it ties into the safety assessments that are done, it ties into the engineering work that is going to be done underground, so it is all about the water."
The debate has spread from Ignace to Dryden, about 100 kilometres away.
People in Dryden, which has nearly 8,000 residents, are concerned about the proposed site too, and want a greater say on the matter.
"We have a river here in town, the Wabigoon that's been rendered basically a dead river by industrial waste already, so it surprises me that people aren't taking the example of that and extrapolating," said Brad Pareis, who lives in Dryden.
Pareis said he's only learned in the last few months how close the proposed site is to his home community.
"We're told by our council that this isn't our [Dryden's] decision to make, and that seems a little ironic," he said. "We are a neighbouring community, we have about eight times the population of Ignace, so I think it should be partially our decision. It should be a provincial decision, because it's going on Crown land."
Pareis said he is uncomfortable with the way the NWMO is able to easily distribute its information without challenge. He said his children were taken on a field trip a couple of years ago to one of the borehole sites and were given information by the NWMO, but not opposing environmental groups.
"Politically speaking, it really is a hot topic. Nobody really wants this in their backyard."
Mark Zimmerman, who owns a camp about 15 kilometres north of the proposed repository site, said he's heard nothing from the nuclear waste organization regarding the proposal. He said he wasn't even told when the organization was drilling a test hole about five kilometres from his doorstep.
"Why are we even thinking of bringing this nuclear waste up here? It's got nothing to do with northwestern Ontario. Keep it down there where it belongs."
Back in Ignace, Sheila Krahn, who has lived in the community for more than 30 years, said she's totally opposed to the concept.
"Ignace should ask, 'What are they going to get?' I don't see anything coming to Ignace from this," Krahn said. Her concerns are environmental and worries about what will happen to water in the area if there is a spill or accident.
Ignace should ask, "What are they going to get?" I don't see anything coming to Ignace from this- Sheila Krahn, Ignace resident
The opinion in the community is mixed, she said, with some for, some against, and some indifferent to the project.
Just down the street from Krahn, Naomi Peters sees the site as an economic boom, and it's an opportunity too good to pass up.
"It's the economic stability that this project will add to this area that's been economically depressed for years. It's important for Ignace not to be a one-horse town," Peters said.
Still, she too has worries about the project, and wants the township to hire an independent nuclear expert to ensure all questions regarding safety can be answered.
"The foundation of the project is informed consent," Peters said. "That word informed is important. It means that the vocal minority needs to sit down and take nuclear 101. They need to go through all of the training, all of that, and understand what, how and where this whole project entails."
Janet Griffiths, who has lived in Ignace for decades, is more indifferent to the idea of burying nuclear fuel. She remembers the so-called "good times" in the community, when a nearby gold mine employed hundreds and the township was booming.
"It needs to be moved from the shores of Lake Ontario, and needs to be put into an area that is bedrock and is secure. We have that here," Griffiths said.
If the plan proceeds in Ignace, "It's not going to happen in my lifetime," she figures, as it would take a decade for all the licensing and environmental approvals to the completed, plus another decade for construction of the repository itself.
"But the actual movement of that stuff, I'm going to be long gone," Griffiths said.
