Nuclear industry pitching small modular nuclear reactors for the north

Christopher Read, APTN

Nov 26, 2021

What will it mean for plans to entomb waste on traditional territories? 

With concern about climate change increasingly on the front burner globally, nuclear power is getting renewed interest as a carbon-free energy source.

The federal government is looking to the potential of small modular reactors, or SMRs, as a way to power remote industrial locations and northern communities.

Canada has its SMR Action Plan – which sees the development of small modular nuclear reactors as being necessary to help get us to net-zero emissions by 2050.

And in 2020, then Natural Resources minister Seamus O’Regan set the tone for this nuclear revival when he gave the keynote address at the Canadian Nuclear Association’s annual conference.

“We are placing nuclear energy front and centre,” said O’Regan. “Of course – nowhere is the potential of nuclear greater than it is with respect to small modular reactors – to generate electricity, and power resource extraction in distant places …and to offer a clean alternative source of light and heat in rural and remote communities.”

One of the remote areas being considered for small modular reactors is Nunavut, where power comes from diesel generating stations.

Qulliq Energy Corporation – the power company owned by Nunavut – is listed along with Bruce Power, Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power and SaskPower, as a utility participating in the SMR Action Plan.

Former Iqaluit mayor Madeleine Redfern signed a recent open letter advocating for nuclear power as part of the plan to mitigate climate change put out by Canadians for Nuclear Energy.

The Inuk politician is also on the board of the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, which has a micro modular reactor in development at the Chalk River nuclear facility in Ontario.

The inner workings of a Moltex small modular reactor or SMR.

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This is just a small slice of the attempted nuclear revival underway – but all told, it’s big news for an industry that has been in decline.

So what does it mean for the main and major problem posed by nuclear energy – the waste – which can be dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years?

With that question in mind in Nuclear Revival, APTN Investigates updates reporting done in 2020 about “Canada’s Plan” – which is the name the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) gives to their quest to find a place to bury 4.8 million bundles of used nuclear fuel.

More specifically, the NWMO, which is a consortium of Canadian nuclear industry players created by an act of parliament, is looking for a community willing to allow used nuclear fuel to be placed in what’s called a deep geological repository – or DGR.

Currently, the NWMO is engaging with Ignace, Ont., a small community 250 km northwest of Thunder Bay, as well as the municipality of South Bruce, on Lake Huron northwest of Toronto.

First Nations communities in the area of Ignace and South Bruce are being courted by the NWMO as well.

While the NWMO looks for a place to bury used nuclear fuel in Ontario, a company called Moltex in New Brunswick wants to reuse that same nuclear fuel in their first-of-a-kind small modular reactor design.

Moltex is one of 11 potential small modular reactor vendors listed on the SMR Action Plan website.

The company has been given $50.5 million by the federal government to develop its SMR at Point Lepreau in New Brunswick – which is on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy and in Peskotomuhkati (formerly known as Passamaquoddy) traditional territory.

“If we want to get to net-zero by 2050, it’s pretty clear that even though there’s a lot of challenges in nuclear, we need nuclear power to be part of the mix to supplement renewable power when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing,” says Rory O’Sullivan, CEO of Moltex Canada.

Moltex wants to use spent nuclear fuel from New Brunswick Power’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in their SMR.

“Instead of putting it in the ground where it’ll be radioactive for very long periods, we can reuse it as fuel to create more clean energy from what was waste,” says O’Sullivan.

This, O’Sullivan argues, will help make the spent fuel safer.

“We can’t get rid of the waste altogether, but the aim is to get rid, to get it down to about a thousandth of the volume of the original long-lived radioactivity,” says O’Sullivan.

But Gordon Edwards, a prominent Canadian nuclear critic is not buying the safety case presented by Moltex.

Edwards is president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and works on a radioactive task force with the Anishinabek Nation and the Iroquois Caucus.

For one thing, Edwards is uneasy about the fact that Moltex would like its SMR to be used around the world, and countries with this technology might want to use plutonium acquired in the Moltex process to make nuclear bombs.

“By spreading this technology around the world, we’re giving many different countries the opportunity to access plutonium – to separate plutonium,” says Edwards, “and that means that we’re almost inviting people to take advantage of the opportunity to develop their own nuclear weapons program, as North Korea has done, for example.”

Moltex, on the other hand, says its process does not involve extracting plutonium per se.

“We are not extracting plutonium,” O’Sullivan told APTN. “Extracting plutonium would not be possible in Canada.  Plutonium on its own is a very dangerous, hazardous material. But we are doing is taking out all of the long-lived radioactive waste as a result of the spent fuel, which is only about half a percent. So it includes the plutonium, but it’s all the other contaminants as well. We don’t go near plutonium separation.”

But Edwards is of the opinion that Moltex is going close enough to plutonium separation for it to be a problem.

“Moltex claims that because the plutonium is not being separated all by itself, because it’s also separating out these other heavier than uranium isotopes that therefore it shouldn’t be a problem for weapons because you need to get pure plutonium to really be able to make a good nuclear weapon,” says Edwards, “but they’ve already done most of the work.”

Like Edwards, Peskotomuhkati Nation, which counts the land occupied by the Point Lepreau nuclear facility as part of its traditional territory, has concerns about the Moltex project as well.

“Well, I don’t feel very good about it, to be honest,” says Peskotomuhkati Chief Hugh Akagi, “If you pay tax on anything in this country, you’ve just made a donation to Moltex. If you’re not concerned about $50 million being turned over to a corporation for a technology that does not exist – I hope you heard me correctly on that.”

In Nuclear Revival, APTN also speaks with the NWMO about what SMRs might mean for plans to entomb high-level nuclear waste deep underground.

Derek Wilson is vice president of Construction and Projects for the NWMO and he says there are still unanswered questions, including one about the potential use of enriched uranium in some SMRs on the drawing table.

“Until we have more information on the actual fuel type, the configuration of the fuel, and how that fuel would be received it’s difficult to say how the enrichment would impact our DGR,” says Wilson.

A proposed burial system for spent nuclear materials.

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The issue with enriched uranium – which is not used in Canada’s CANDU-type nuclear reactors, is that it can go critical, or accidentally chain react.

“It’s called a criticality accident,” says Edwards, “releasing enormous amounts of energy just by the splitting of atoms spontaneously underground when the repository floods.”

Edwards believes that water will eventually find its way into the NWMO’s DGR over the eons it will be tasked with keeping nuclear waste safely separated from our environment.

Another issue facing NWMO as it considers what kinds of spent nuclear fuel might be coming out of SMRs is the geometry of these new fuel bundles.

That’s because the NWMO plans to put used nuclear fuel within a “multiple-barrier system” which has been designed to accept the standard size and shape of fuel bundles that are used in Canadian reactors.

Wilson says this is an issue being considered by the NWMO but adds that until we’re further down the road of SMR development it’s hard to know what the answers are.

“Can the vendor produce a fuel – a fuel waste that we would receive that could go into our container,” asks Wilson as he summarizes the problem.  “So is there processing or can they configure their fuel in such a way that we could actually incorporate it into our used fuel container design? That’s probably the simplest.”

The question at the centre of all this is the safety of expanding nuclear energy production as a way to help us get net-zero emissions – and it’s a question some are hoping to hear from the new environment minister about.

The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change is listed as one of the federal entities supporting the SMR Action Plan, but Minister Steven Guilbeault is a former activist with Greenpeace, an organization that is against nuclear power and SMRs.

As recently as 2018 Guilbeault tweeted, “it’s time to close Pickering #Nuclear Plant and go for #renewables.”

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In an encounter at COP26, Guilbeault was questioned by Dr. Chris Keefer, president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy and an emergency medicine physician in Toronto.

Keefer asked Guilbeault to comment on the fact that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] is now presenting nuclear power in a positive light – but Guilbeault wouldn’t reveal his personal stance.

“What I’ve said publicly since I’ve been here – it won’t be up to the government to decide which technologies will flourish,” says Guilbeault in the exchange.

Guilbeault’s office did not respond to an interview request from APTN.

Neither did Jenica Atwin, Liberal MP for the Fredericton riding, who before crossing the floor from the Green Party earlier this year issued a statement calling Canada’s nuclear policies “profoundly misguided.”

Expanding nuclear energy to the Arctic: The potential of small modular reactors

By Julia Nesheiwat


With increased emphasis on achieving political and technological solutions to climate change, many experts in the global community are turning their focus to the virtually emissions-free power produced by nuclear reactors. The continued development of small modular reactors (SMRs) offers a potential opportunity to overcome many of the hindrances presented by larger nuclear power plants, including high costs, complex supply chains, large physical infrastructure, and unsuitability in harsh environments, such as the Arctic. The Biden Administration and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson have both signaled that SMRs have a key role in combatting carbon emissions and meeting increased energy demand. More recently, several Canadian provincial governments have joined forces with private corporations to conduct feasibility studies for the deployment of SMRs in the far north. SMRs present a vital opportunity for energy production in the Arctic, where energy needs are more demanding and difficult to meet due to the region’s low temperatures, low population density, and inaccessibility. While other energy sources such as natural gas and oil are abundant in the Arctic, their exploitation is not sustainable and often comes at a high cost to local communities and the environment. While nuclear energy is not a new technology, recent advancements like SMRs present a promising solution to challenges associated with traditional nuclear power and fossil fuels, as well as along with high-polluting diesel generators used in the Arctic.

Arctic nations have explored the viability of nuclear energy production in the region for years. Despite high electricity production capabilities, traditional nuclear power plants entail complicated waste disposal operations and have more recently come under increased scrutiny over safety concerns and broader public perception issues, especially in Europe. In contrast, SMRs are smaller, easily deployed in almost any environment, and feature extensive passive safety features. They also use a set design framework and have extended fuel cycles, which reduces challenges associated with spent nuclear fuel and lowers the likelihood of radiation escaping containment.

The Arctic currently suffers from a dearth of renewable electricity generation, despite copious opportunities. Roughly half of the Arctic’s populations live in remote locations, requiring off-grid systems; consequently, approximately 80 percent of Arctic communities depend exclusively on diesel generators for electricity. Despite the region’s abundance of natural resources, most diesel fuel is imported, threatening energy security with both increased costs and the likelihood of shortages. While wind, solar, and hydropower are also viable green alternatives to fossil fuels, each comes with its own disadvantages in comparison to SMRs. Wind turbines are not yet adapted to the harsh Arctic conditions with persistent temperatures below – forty degrees Celsius. They likewise carry an environmental impact related to land use and interference with wildlife, especially migratory birds. Solar energy systems also require extensive land to reach higher levels of production, and their effectiveness is limited in the Arctic winter. Hydropower requires large initial investments and may have severe environmental impacts, especially if a large storage lake is necessary. SMRs can overcome all these challenges given their low start-up costs, use of uranium (which is abundant in the Arctic), and minor environmental footprint.

Nevertheless, installing SMRs in the Arctic comes with its own set of unique challenges. SMRs for commercial use are currently restricted by regulatory regimes that are far more accustomed to licensing conventional nuclear power plants. SMRs also generate less power than conventional nuclear plants and require a connection to the electrical grid to transport electricity from the reactor to the end-user. However, they can be deployed on the sites of retiring coal or diesel-fired power plants. For example, in the Canadian North, diesel plants serve many communities in Nunavut. Yet thirteen out of seventeen are at the end of their usable lives. Closing these plants and installing SMRs that can take advantage of existing switchyards and turbines have the potential to reduce initial costs, which could in turn be used to expand the electrical grid to more remote settlements.

As a result of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Pentagon initiated Project Pele which commissioned two companies to design SMRs for its remote operating bases. The research and development project required the companies design and build a one to five megawatt reactor that can last at least three years and be rapidly redeployed and removed. The project—under which BWXT Advanced Technologies and X-Energy will develop prototypes to be evaluated by the Pentagon—has the potential to pave the way toward the adoption of transportable microreactors critical to supplying clean, affordable power to remote communities with limited access to an electrical grid. The Pentagon plans to make a full evaluation in 2022 to determine whether to proceed to limited production.

While SMR technology is still in the early stages of development, increased attention to future advances in this area of nuclear technology is expected to result in a viable, functioning, and deployed SMR before the end of the decade. Expanding research in the nuclear domain will have many positive knock-on effects as well, especially in combatting climate change. The Arctic is the most suitable location for SMR pilot tests due to its remoteness and high-energy needs. To ensure the development and successful long-term deployment of SMRs in the region, governments, private companies, and civil society organizations need to continue to fund, pursue, and encourage further investment in nuclear energy production technologies, with a particular focus on SMRs and their viability in the far north.

Dr. Julia Nesheiwat is a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, and since December 2020, has served as Commissioner on the US Arctic Research Commission reporting to the White House and Congress on domestic and international Arctic issues.

NuScale Power, the Industry-Leading Provider of Transformational Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Technology, Announces Plans to Go Public via Merger with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp.

NuScale Power, LLC (“NuScale”) has entered into a business combination agreement with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: SV)

The combined company, which will be named NuScale Power Corporation, will have an estimated pro-forma enterprise value of approximately $1.9 billion and will be listed under the ticker symbol “SMR” upon closing

Transaction includes a $181 million oversubscribed, fully committed common stock PIPE anchored by global financial and strategic investors such as Samsung C&T Corporation, DS Private Equity and Segra Capital Management, with participation by Spring Valley’s sponsor, Pearl Energy

NuScale’s proprietary and innovative carbon-free baseload and load-following power solution, the NuScale Power Module™, is the only viable, near-term deployable U.S. advanced nuclear small modular reactor (SMR) technology

NuScale’s SMR technology is safe, reliable and scalable and the first and only to receive Standard Design Approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The transaction is expected to provide gross proceeds of up to $413 million to bolster and accelerate the commercialization of NuScale’s SMR technology

Fluor (NYSE: FLR) projects to control approximately 60% of the combined company and remain an important partner providing NuScale with engineering services, project management, administrative and supply chain support

December 14, 2021 06:58 AM Eastern Standard Time

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NuScale Power, LLC (“NuScale” or the “Company”), the industry-leading provider of proprietary and innovative advanced nuclear small modular reactor (SMR) technology, and Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: SV) (“Spring Valley”), a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, today announced they have entered into a definitive business combination agreement to create a first-of-its-kind energy company poised to power the global energy transition by delivering safe, scalable and reliable carbon-free nuclear power.

Company Overview

NuScale is the provider of a proprietary and innovative advanced nuclear power solution, the NuScale Power Module™ (NPM), which is the only viable, near-term deployable SMR technology. Capable of generating 77 megawatts electric (MWe) of electricity, the NPM is safe, reliable and scalable – NuScale’s VOYGR™ power plant design can accommodate configurations of four, six and 12 modules that can provide up to 924 megawatts per day of electricity.

NuScale’s NPM can serve as a reliable, carbon-free source of power that complements renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydropower generation. The NPM can provide consistent baseload power with available load-following, no matter the time of day, weather or season. Its unique design and safety features allow it to be easily integrated into electric grids or used in a variety of industrial applications such as water desalination, commercial-scale hydrogen production and carbon-capture technology.

In 2020, NuScale’s NPM became the first and only SMR to receive Standard Design Approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) – a watershed moment not only for the Company, but also for the nuclear industry. The advanced design of the NPM eliminates the need for two-thirds of the safety systems and components found in today’s large commercial reactors, which significantly improves the economics of NuScale plants compared to traditional nuclear power plants. NuScale’s reactors are designed to safely shut down in an emergency and self-cool, indefinitely, with no need for operator or computer action, power or the addition of water – a first for any commercial nuclear power plant. The intellectual property supporting NuScale’s technology is protected by more than 600 granted or pending patents.

With broad global consensus that nuclear energy is critical to achieving the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – and for the U.S. to create a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 – NuScale is well positioned to play a significant and multifaceted role in the global energy transition. As a first mover in the development and provision of SMR technology, the Company has a massive market opportunity, with growing bipartisan support in the U.S. and support around the world. Industry analysts estimate that more than 16,000 gigawatts electric (GWe) of zero-carbon generation capacity additions will be required globally through 2040.

Propelled by the growing urgency to decarbonize the world’s energy system and a longstanding partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, NuScale is currently working with a major regional utility customer, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), to deploy a NuScale VOYGR power plant in 2029. NuScale has a robust and growing customer development pipeline, with 19 Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) or agreements in 11 countries.

NuScale’s scalable technology and diversified business model are designed to drive exceptional financial results and create long-term value. The Company has an attractive, high-margin business model that monetizes its intellectual property through NPM sales and recovery fees, while driving recurring revenues through critical maintenance services over the lifecycle of a plant. NuScale is positioned to deliver the first VOYGR power plant to a customer as soon as 2027 (based upon customer needs), supported by its established supply chain partners. NuScale anticipates being cash flow positive by 2024.

NuScale VOYGR power plants also create significant economic opportunities, including skilled jobs, for the communities where they are located. This is a critical consideration when replacing retiring fossil fuel-generating facilities. For example, in the U.S., the domestic supply chain for manufacturing 27 NPMs per year could generate over 14,000 direct jobs, in addition to indirect benefits in local taxes and economic activity.

Following the transaction, NuScale will continue to be led by its highly experienced leadership team, including John Hopkins, President and Chief Executive Officer, Chris Colbert, Chief Financial Officer, José Reyes, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder, Dale Atkinson, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Nuclear Officer, Tom Mundy, Chief Commercial Officer, and Robert Temple, General Counsel.

Management Comments

John Hopkins, President and Chief Executive Officer of NuScale, said:

“NuScale is building the next generation of nuclear power technology that is safer, more versatile and more cost-efficient than ever before. The scale of our ambition is only matched by the world’s enormous decarbonization needs, and now is the right time to accelerate and expand our efforts to bring our trailblazing SMR technology to more customers around the world. Spring Valley will be a highly complementary strategic partner for NuScale as we enter this next phase of growth, with leadership that brings deep expertise in sustainable energy and a strong operating and investment record in the energy sector, including in nuclear power.”

Christopher D. Sorrells, Chief Executive Officer of Spring Valley, said:

“NuScale is a bellwether company that has developed pioneering technology that can have a transformational impact on humanity by improving the energy sector. By receiving Standard Design Approval from the NRC, NuScale has helped establish a new standard in nuclear safety, and in doing so, developed a new carbon-free power solution that provides unique capabilities and performance that can realistically factor into the clean energy transition in the near term. This is the rare chance to invest in an industry-defining technology. We are very pleased to partner with NuScale and its deeply knowledgeable management team to bring this critical technology to market.”

Alan L. Boeckmann, Executive Chairman, Fluor Corporation, said:

“Fluor expects that the proposed transaction will bolster and accelerate the path to commercialization and deployment of NuScale Power’s unique small modular nuclear reactor technology. This is the next step in Fluor’s plan, first outlined 10 years ago, to work closely with NuScale Power, Congress and the Department of Energy to commercialize this unique carbon-free energy technology. Today’s announcement is further evidence that cost-shared government funding to build first-of-a-kind commercial scale technology can attract private investment and yield results. Fluor will continue to serve as an important partner by providing NuScale Power and its clients with world-class expertise in engineering services, project management and supply chain support.”

Transaction Overview

Under the terms of the Merger Agreement, the transaction is valued at an estimated pro-forma enterprise value of approximately $1.9 billion. At close, NuScale expects up to $413 million of gross cash proceeds, including a $181 million oversubscribed, fully committed PIPE anchored by Samsung C&T Corporation, DS Private Equity, Segra Capital Management and Pearl Energy. NuScale intends to use the proceeds to fund its path to commercialization and expects no additional capital requirements between closing and achieving positive free cash flow.

Upon completion of the transaction, Fluor projects to control approximately 60% of the combined company, based on the PIPE investment commitments received in the transaction and the current equity and in-the-money equity equivalents of NuScale Power and Spring Valley.

Existing NuScale shareholders, including majority owner Fluor, will retain their equity in NuScale and roll it into the combined company. Fluor will also continue to provide NuScale with engineering services, project management, administrative and supply chain support. Additional existing strategic investors in NuScale include Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction, Samsung C&T Corporation, JGC Holdings Corporation, IHI Corporation, Enercon Services, Inc., GS Energy, Sarens and Sargent & Lundy.

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2022 and is subject to approval by Spring Valley’s shareholders as well as other customary closing conditions.

Advisors

Guggenheim Securities, LLC is acting as financial advisor to NuScale and Fluor. Cowen is acting as financial advisor and lead capital markets advisor to Spring Valley. Guggenheim Securities, LLC and Cowen acted as placement agents to Spring Valley in connection with the PIPE offering.

Stoel Rives LLP is acting as legal counsel to NuScale, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is acting as legal counsel to Fluor, White & Case LLP is acting as legal counsel to the placement agents and Kirkland & Ellis LLP is acting as legal counsel to Spring Valley.

Investor Presentation

NuScale and Spring Valley management will host an investor presentation on December 14, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. ET.

To listen to the webcast, please visit www.netroadshow.com/nrs/home/#!/?show=04285b34. Following the webcast, a telephone replay will be available at 1 (844) 385-9713 (U.S.) or 1 (678) 389-4980 (International), replay code number: 48521#.

Additional information about the proposed transaction, including a copy of the Agreement and Plan of Merger and investor presentation, will be provided in a Current Report on Form 8-K to be filed by Spring Valley with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") and is available on the NuScale investor relations page at https://www.nuscalepower.com/about-us/investors and at www.sec.gov.

About NuScale Power

NuScale Power is poised to meet the diverse energy needs of customers across the world. It has developed a new modular light water reactor nuclear power plant to supply energy for electrical generation, district heating, desalination, hydrogen production and other process heat applications. The groundbreaking NuScale Power Module™ (NPM), a small, safe pressurized water reactor, can generate 77 MWe of electricity and can be scaled to meet customer needs. The VOYGR™-12 power plant is capable of generating 924 MWe, and NuScale also offers the four-module VOYGR-4 (308 MWe) and six-module VOYGR-6 (462 MWe) and other configurations based on customer needs. The majority investor in NuScale is Fluor Corporation, a global engineering, procurement, and construction company with a 70-year history in commercial nuclear power.

NuScale is headquartered in Portland, OR and has offices in Corvallis, OR; Rockville, MD; Charlotte, NC; Richland, WA; and London, UK. Follow us on Twitter: @NuScale_Power, Facebook: NuScale Power, LLC, LinkedIn: NuScale-Power, and Instagram: nuscale_power. Visit NuScale Power's website.

About Fluor Corporation

Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) is building a better world by applying world-class expertise to solve its clients’ greatest challenges. Fluor’s 44,000 employees provide professional and technical solutions that deliver safe, well-executed, capital-efficient projects to clients around the world. Fluor had revenue of $14.2 billion in 2020 and is ranked 196 among the Fortune 500 companies. With headquarters in Irving, Texas, Fluor has been providing engineering, procurement and construction services for more than 100 years. For more information, please visit www.fluor.com or follow Fluor on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

About Spring Valley Acquisition Corp.

Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: SV) is a special purpose acquisition company formed for the purpose of entering into a merger or similar business combination with one or more businesses or entities focusing on sustainability, including clean energy and storage, smart grid/efficiency, environmental services and recycling, mobility, water and wastewater management, advanced materials and technology enabled services. Spring Valley’s sponsor is supported by Pearl Energy Investment Management, LLC, a Dallas, Texas based investment firm that focuses on partnering with best-in-class management teams to invest in the North American energy industry.

Additional Information and Where to Find It

In connection with the business combination, Spring Valley intends to file a Registration Statement on Form S-4 (the “Form S-4”) with the SEC which will include a preliminary prospectus with respect to its securities to be issued in connection with the business combination and a preliminary proxy statement with respect to Spring Valley’s shareholder meeting at which Spring Valley’s shareholders will be asked to vote on the proposed business combination. Spring Valley and NuScale urge investors, shareholders and other interested persons to read, when available, the Form S-4, including the proxy statement/prospectus, any amendments thereto and any other documents filed with the SEC, because these documents will contain important information about the proposed business combination. After the Form S-4 has been filed and declared effective, Spring Valley will mail the definitive proxy statement/prospectus to shareholders of Spring Valley as of a record date to be established for voting on the business combination. Spring Valley shareholders will also be able to obtain a copy of such documents, without charge, by directing a request to: Spring Valley Acquisition Corp., 2100 McKinney Avenue Suite 1675 Dallas, TX 75201; e-mail: investors@sv-ac.com. These documents, once available, can also be obtained, without charge, at the SEC’s website www.sec.gov.

Participants in the Solicitation

Spring Valley and its directors and officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies of Spring Valley’s shareholders in connection with the proposed business combination. Security holders may obtain more detailed information regarding the names, affiliations and interests of certain of Spring Valley’s executive officers and directors in the solicitation by reading Spring Valley’s final prospectus filed with the SEC on November 25, 2020, the proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials filed with the SEC in connection with the business combination when they become available. Information concerning the interests of Spring Valley’s participants in the solicitation, which may, in some cases, be different than those of their shareholders generally, will be set forth in the proxy statement/prospectus relating to the business combination when it becomes available.

No Offer or Solicitation

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction in connection with a proposed potential business combination among Spring Valley and NuScale or any related transactions, nor shall there be any sale, issuance or transfer of securities in any jurisdiction where, or to any person to whom, such offer, solicitation or sale may be unlawful. Any offering of securities or solicitation of votes regarding the proposed transaction will be made only by means of a proxy statement/prospectus that complies with applicable rules and regulations promulgated under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or pursuant to an exemption from the Securities Act or in a transaction not subject to the registration requirements of the Securities Act.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements included in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “should,” “would,” “plan,” “predict,” “potential,” “seem,” “seek,” “future,” “outlook,” and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. All statements, other than statements of present or historical fact included in this press release, regarding Spring Valley’s proposed business combination with NuScale, Spring Valley’s ability to consummate the transaction, the benefits of the transaction and the combined company’s future financial performance, as well as the combined company’s strategy, future operations, estimated financial position, estimated revenues and losses, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release, and on the current expectations of the respective management of NuScale and Spring Valley and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on as, a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction, or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from assumptions. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of NuScale and Spring Valley. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including changes in domestic and foreign business, market, financial, political, and legal conditions; the inability of the parties to successfully or timely consummate the proposed transaction, including the risk that any regulatory approvals are not obtained, are delayed or are subject to unanticipated conditions that could adversely affect the combined company or the expected benefits of the proposed transaction or that the approval of the shareholders of Spring Valley or NuScale is not obtained; failure to realize the anticipated benefits of the proposed transaction; risks relating to the uncertainty of the projected financial information with respect to NuScale; risks related to the expansion of NuScale’s business and the timing of expected business milestones; the effects of competition on NuScale’s business; the ability of Spring Valley or NuScale to issue equity or equity-linked securities or obtain debt financing in connection with the proposed transaction or in the future, and those factors discussed in Spring Valley’s final prospectus dated November 25, 2020 under the heading “Risk Factors,” and other documents Spring Valley has filed, or will file, with the SEC. If any of these risks materialize or our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. There may be additional risks that neither Spring Valley nor NuScale presently know, or that Spring Valley nor NuScale currently believe are immaterial, that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect Spring Valley’s and NuScale’s expectations, plans, or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this press release. Spring Valley and NuScale anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause Spring Valley’s and NuScale’s assessments to change. However, while Spring Valley and NuScale may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, Spring Valley and NuScale specifically disclaim any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Spring Valley’s and NuScale’s assessments of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.

Contacts

Spring Valley Acquisition Corp.:
www.sv-ac.com
Robert Kaplan
Investors@sv-ac.com

Investor inquiries:
Gary Dvorchak, The Blueshirt Group for NuScale
ir@nuscalepower.com

Media inquiries:
Diane Hughes, NuScale
media@nuscalepower.com

A New Generation of Nuclear Reactors Could Hold the Key to a Green Future


Andrew Blum

TIME
November 16, 2021·


A rendering of an Oklo Aurora power plant Credit - Courtesy Oklo/Gensler

On a conference-room whiteboard in the heart of Silicon Valley, Jacob DeWitte sketches his startup’s first product. In red marker, it looks like a beer can in a Koozie, stuck with a crazy straw. In real life, it will be about the size of a hot tub, and made from an array of exotic materials, like zirconium and uranium. Under carefully controlled conditions, they will interact to produce heat, which in turn will make electricity—1.5 megawatts’ worth, enough to power a neighborhood or a factory. DeWitte’s little power plant will run for a decade without refueling and, amazingly, will emit no carbon. ”It’s a metallic thermal battery,” he says, coyly. But more often DeWitte calls it by another name: a nuclear reactor.

Fission isn’t for the faint of heart. Building a working reactor—even a very small one—requires precise and painstaking efforts of both engineering and paper pushing. Regulations are understandably exhaustive. Fuel is hard to come by—they don’t sell uranium at the Gas-N-Sip. But DeWitte plans to flip the switch on his first reactor around 2023, a mere decade after co-founding his company, Oklo. After that, they want to do for neighborhood nukes what Tesla has done for electric cars: use a niche and expensive first version as a stepping stone toward cheaper, bigger, higher-volume products. In Oklo’s case, that means starting with a “microreactor” designed for remote communities, like Alaskan villages, currently dependent on diesel fuel trucked, barged or even flown in, at an exorbitant expense. Then building more and incrementally larger reactors until their zero-carbon energy source might meaningfully contribute to the global effort to reduce fossil-fuel emissions.

At global climate summits, in the corridors of Congress and at statehouses around the U.S., nuclear power has become the contentious keystone of carbon reduction plans. Everyone knows they need it. But no one is really sure they want it, given its history of accidents. Or even if they can get it in time to reach urgent climate goals, given how long it takes to build. Oklo is one of a growing handful of companies working to solve those problems by putting reactors inside safer, easier-to-build and smaller packages. None of them are quite ready to scale to market-level production, but given the investments being made into the technology right now, along with an increasing realization that we won’t be able to shift away from fossil fuels without nuclear power, it’s a good bet that at least one of them becomes a game changer.

If existing plants are the energy equivalent of a 2-liter soda bottle, with giant, 1,000-megawatt-plus reactors, Oklo’s strategy is to make reactors by the can. The per-megawatt construction costs might be higher, at least at first. But producing units in a factory would give the company a chance to improve its processes and to lower costs. Oklo would pioneer a new model. Nuclear plants need no longer be bet-the-company big, even for giant utilities. Venture capitalists can get behind the potential to scale to a global market. And climate hawks should fawn over a zero-carbon energy option that complements burgeoning supplies of wind and solar power. Unlike today’s plants, which run most efficiently at full blast, making it challenging for them to adapt to a grid increasingly powered by variable sources (not every day is sunny, or windy), the next generation of nuclear technology wants to be more flexible, able to respond quickly to ups and downs in supply and demand.

Engineering these innovations is hard. Oklo’s 30 employees are busy untangling the knots of safety and complexity that sent the cost of building nuclear plants to the stratosphere and all but halted their construction in the U.S. ”If this technology was brand-‘new’—like if fission was a recent breakthrough out of a lab, 10 or 15 years ago—we’d be talking about building our 30th reactor,” DeWitte says.

But fission is an old, and fraught, technology, and utility companies are scrambling now to keep their existing gargantuan nuclear plants open. Economically, they struggle to compete with cheap natural gas, along with wind and solar, often subsidized by governments. Yet climate-focused nations like France and the U.K. that had planned to phase out nuclear are instead doubling down. (In October, French President Emmanuel Macron backed off plans to close 14 reactors, and in November, he announced the country would instead start building new ones.) At the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, the U.S. announced its support for Poland, Kenya, Ukraine, Brazil, Romania and Indonesia to develop their own new nuclear plants—while European negotiators assured that nuclear energy counts as “green.” All the while, Democrats and Republicans are (to everyone’s surprise) often aligned on nuclear’s benefits—and, in many cases, putting their powers of the purse behind it, both to keep old plants open in the U.S. and speed up new technologies domestically and overseas.

It makes for a decidedly odd moment in the life of a technology that already altered the course of one century, and now wants to make a difference in another. There are 93 operating nuclear reactors in the U.S.; combined, they supply 20% of U.S. electricity, and 50% of its carbon-free electricity. Nuclear should be a climate solution, satisfying both technical and economic needs. But while the existing plants finally operate with enviable efficiency (after 40 years of working out the kinks), the next generation of designs is still a decade away from being more than a niche player in our energy supply. Everyone wants a steady supply of electricity, without relying on coal. Nuclear is paradoxically right at hand, and out of reach.

For that to change, “new nuclear” has to emerge before the old nuclear plants recede. It has to keep pace with technological improvements in other realms, like long-term energy storage, where each incremental improvement increases the potential for renewables to supply more of our electricity. It has to be cheaper than carbon-capture technologies, which would allow flexible gas plants to operate without climate impacts (but are still too expensive to build at scale). And finally it has to arrive before we give up—before the spectre of climate catastrophe creates a collective “doomerism,” and we stop trying to change.

Not everyone thinks nuclear can reinvent itself in time. “When it comes to averting the imminent effects of climate change, even the cutting edge of nuclear technology will prove to be too little, too late,” predicts Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)—the government agency singularly responsible for permitting new plants. Can a stable, safe, known source of energy rise to the occasion, or will nuclear be cast aside as too expensive, too risky and too late?

Laboratory personnel developing a fusion device in Project Sherwood at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1958

J R Eyerman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Trying Again

Nuclear began in a rush. In 1942, in the lowest mire of World War II, the U.S. began the Manhattan Project, the vast effort to develop atomic weapons. It employed 130,000 people at secret sites across the country, the most famous of which was Los Alamos Laboratory, near Albuquerque, N.M., where Robert Oppenheimer led the design and construction of the first atomic bombs. DeWitte, 36, grew up nearby. Even as a child of the ’90s, he was steeped in the state’s nuclear history, and preoccupied with the terrifying success of its engineering and the power of its materials. “It’s so incredibly energy dense,” says DeWitte. “A golf ball of uranium would power your entire life!”

DeWitte has taken that bromide almost literally. He co-founded Oklo in 2013 with Caroline Cochran, while both were graduate students in nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When they arrived in Cambridge, Mass., in 2007 and 2008, the nuclear industry was on a precipice. Then presidential candidate Barack Obama espoused a new eagerness to address climate change by reducing carbon emissions—which at the time meant less coal, and more nuclear. (Wind and solar energy were still a blip.) It was an easy sell. In competitive power markets, nuclear plants were profitable. The 104 operating reactors in the U.S. at the time were running smoothly. There hadn’t been a major accident since Chernobyl, in 1986.

The industry excitedly prepared for a “nuclear renaissance.” At the peak of interest, the NRC had applications for 30 new reactors in the U.S. Only two would be built. The cheap natural gas of the fracking boom began to drive down electricity prices, razing nuclear’s profits. Newly subsidized renewables, like wind and solar, added even more electricity generation, further saturating the markets. When on March 11, 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami rolled over Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, leading to the meltdown of all three of its reactors and the evacuation of 154,000 people, the industry’s coffin was fully nailed. Not only would there be no renaissance in the U.S, but the existing plants had to justify their safety. Japan shut down 46 of its 50 operating reactors. Germany closed 11 of its 17. The U.S. fleet held on politically, but struggled to compete economically. Since Fukushima, 12 U.S. reactors have begun decommissioning, with three more planned.

At MIT, Cochran and DeWitte—who were teaching assistants together for a nuclear reactor class in 2009, and married in 2011—were frustrated by the setback. ”It was like, There’re all these cool technologies out there. Let’s do something with it,” says Cochran. But the nuclear industry has never been an easy place for innovators. In the U.S., its operational ranks have long been dominated by “ring knockers”—the officer corps of the Navy’s nuclear fleet, properly trained in the way things are done, but less interested in doing them differently. Governments had always kept a tight grip on nuclear; for decades, the technology was under shrouds. The personal computing revolution, and then the wild rise of the Internet, further drained engineering talent. From DeWitte and Cochran’s perspective, the nuclear-energy industry had already ossified by the time Fukushima and fracking totally brought things to a halt. “You eventually got to the point where it’s like, we have to try something different,” DeWitte says.

He and Cochran began to discreetly convene their MIT classmates for brainstorming sessions. Nuclear folks tend to be dogmatic about their favorite method of splitting atoms, but they stayed agnostic. “I didn’t start thinking we had to do everything differently,” says DeWitte. Rather, they had a hunch that marginal improvements might yield major results, if they could be spread across all of the industry’s usual snags—whether regulatory approaches, business models, the engineering of the systems themselves, or the challenge of actually constructing them.
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In 2013, Cochran and DeWitte began to rent out the spare room in their Cambridge home on Airbnb. Their first guests were a pair of teachers from Alaska. The remote communities they taught in were dependent on diesel fuel for electricity, brought in at enormous cost. That energy scarcity created an opportunity: in such an environment, even a very expensive nuclear reactor might still be cheaper than the current system. The duo targeted a price of $100 per megawatt hour, more than double typical energy costs. They imagined using this high-cost early market as a pathway to scale their manufacturing. They realized that to make it work economically, they wouldn’t have to reinvent the reactor technology, only the production and sales processes. They decided to own their reactors and supply electricity, rather than supply the reactors themselves—operating more like today’s solar or wind developers. “It’s less about the technology being different,” says DeWitte, “than it is about approaching the entire process differently.”

That maverick streak raised eyebrows among nuclear veterans—and cash from Silicon Valley venture capitalists, including a boost from Y Combinator, where companies like Airbnb and Instacart got their start. In the eight years since, Oklo has distinguished itself from the competition by thinking smaller and moving faster. There are others competing in this space: NuScale, based in Oregon, is working to commercialize a reactor similar in design to existing nuclear plants, but constructed in 60-megawatt modules. TerraPower, founded by Bill Gates in 2006, has plans for a novel technology that uses its heat for energy storage, rather than to spin a turbine, which makes it an even more flexible option for electric grids that increasingly need that pliability. And X-energy, a Maryland-based firm that has received substantial funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, is developing 80-megawatt reactors that can also be grouped into “four-packs,” bringing them closer in size to today’s plants. Yet all are still years—and a billion dollars—away from their first installations. Oklo brags that its NRC application is 20 times shorter than NuScale’s, and its proposal cost 100 times less to develop. (Oklo’s proposed reactor would produce one-fortieth the power of NuScale’s.) NRC accepted Oklo’s application for review in March 2020, and regulations guarantee that process will be complete within three years. Oklo plans to power on around 2023, at a site at the Idaho National Laboratory, one of the U.S.’s oldest nuclear-research sites, and so already approved for such efforts. Then comes the hard part: doing it again and again, booking enough orders to justify building a factory to make many more reactors, driving costs down, and hoping politicians and activists worry more about the menace of greenhouse gases than the hazards of splitting atoms.

Nuclear-industry veterans remain wary. They have seen this all before. Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor, first approved by the NRC in 2005, was touted as the flagship technology of Obama’s nuclear renaissance. It promised to be safer and simpler, using gravity rather than electricity-driven pumps to cool the reactor in case of an emergency—in theory, this would mitigate the danger of power outages, like the one that led to the Fukushima disaster. Its components could be constructed at a centralized location, and then shipped in giant pieces for assembly.

But all that was easier said than done. Westinghouse and its contractors struggled to manufacture the components according to nuclear’s mega-exacting requirements and in the end, only one AP1000 project in the U.S. actually happened: the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia. Approved in 2012, its two reactors were expected at the time to cost $14 billion and be completed in 2016 and 2017, but costs have ballooned to $25 billion. The first will open, finally, next year.

Oklo and its competitors insist things are different this time, but they have yet to prove it. “Because we haven’t built one of them yet, we can promise that they’re not going to be a problem to build,” quips Gregory Jaczko, a former NRC chair who has since become the technology’s most biting critic. “So there’s no evidence of our failure.”

A guided tour in the control room of reactor No. 2 inside the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Georg Zinsler—Anzenberger/Redu​x

The Challenge

The cooling tower of the Hope Creek nuclear plant rises 50 stories above Artificial Island, New Jersey, built up on the marshy edge of the Delaware River. The three reactors here—one belonging to Hope Creek, and two run by the Salem Generating Station, which shares the site—generate an astonishing 3,465 megawatts of electricity, or roughly 40% of New Jersey’s total supply. Construction began in 1968, and was completed in 1986. Their closest human neighbors are across the river in Delaware. Otherwise the plant is surrounded by protected marshlands, pocked with radiation sensors and the occasional guard booth. Of the 1,500 people working here, around 100 are licensed reactor operators—a special designation given by the NRC, and held by fewer than 4,000 people in the country.

Among the newest in their ranks is Judy Rodriguez, an Elizabeth, N.J., native and another MIT grad. “Do I have your permission to enter?” she asks the operator on duty in the control room for the Salem Two reactor, which came online in 1981 and is capable of generating 1,200 megawatts of power. The operator opens a retractable belt barrier, like at an airport, and we step across a thick red line in the carpet. A horseshoe-shaped gray cabinet holds hundreds of buttons, glowing indicators and blinking lights, but a red LED counter at the center of the wall shows the most important number in the room: 944 megawatts, the amount of power the Salem Two reactor was generating that afternoon in September. Beside it is a circular pattern of square indicator lights showing the uranium fuel assemblies inside the core, deep inside the concrete domed containment building a couple hundred yards away. Salem Two has 764 of these constructions; each is about 6 inches sq and 15 ft. tall. They contain the source of the reactor’s energy, which are among the most guarded and controlled materials on earth. To make sure no one working there forgets that fact, a phrase is painted on walls all around the plant: “Line of Sight to the Reactor.”

As the epitome of critical infrastructure, this station has been buffeted by the crises the U.S. has suffered in the past few decades. After 9/11, the three reactors here absorbed nearly $100 million in security upgrades. Everyone entering the plant passes through metal- and explosives detectors, and radiation detectors on the way out. Walking between the buildings entails crossing a concrete expanse beneath high bullet resistant enclosures (BREs). The plant has a guard corp that has more members than any in New Jersey besides the state police, and federal NRC rules mean that they don’t have to abide by state limitations on automatic weapons.

The scale and complexity of the operation is staggering—and expensive. ”The place you’re sitting at right now costs us about $1.5 million to $2 million a day to run,” says Ralph Izzo, president and CEO of PSEG, New Jersey’s public utility company, which owns and operates the plants. “If those plants aren’t getting that in market, that’s a rough pill to swallow.” In 2019, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities agreed to $300 million in annual subsidies to keep the three reactors running. The justification is simple: if the state wants to meet its carbon-reduction goals, keeping the plants online is essential, given that they supply 90% of the state’s zero-carbon energy. In September, the Illinois legislature came to the same conclusion as New Jersey, approving almost $700 million over five years to keep two existing nuclear plants open. The bipartisan infrastructure bill includes $6 billion in additional support (along with nearly $10 billion for development of future reactors). Even more is expected in the broader Build Back Better bill.

These subsidies—framed in both states as “carbon mitigation credits”—acknowledge the reality that nuclear plants cannot, on their own terms, compete economically with natural gas or coal. “There has always been a perception of this technology that never was matched by reality,” says Jaczko. The subsidies also show how climate change has altered the equation, but not decisively enough to guarantee nuclear’s future. Lawmakers and energy companies are coming to terms with nuclear’s new identity as clean power, deserving of the same economic incentives as solar and wind. Operators of existing plants want to be compensated for producing enormous amounts of carbon free energy, according to Josh Freed, of Third Way, a Washington, D.C., think tank that champions nuclear power as a climate solution. “There’s an inherent benefit to providing that, and it should be paid for.” For the moment, that has brought some assurance to U.S. nuclear operators of their future prospects. “A megawatt of zero-carbon electricity that’s leaving the grid is no different from a new megawatt of zero carbon electricity coming onto the grid,” says Kathleen Barrón, senior vice president of government and regulatory affairs and public policy at Exelon, the nation’s largest operator of nuclear reactors.

Globally, nations are struggling with the same equation. Germany and Japan both shuttered many of their plants after the Fukushima disaster, and saw their progress at reducing carbon emissions suffer. Germany has not built new renewables fast enough to meet its electricity needs, and has made up the gap with dirty coal and natural gas imported from Russia. Japan, under international pressure to move more aggressively to meet its carbon targets, announced in October that it would work to restart its reactors. “Nuclear power is indispensable when we think about how we can ensure a stable and affordable electricity supply while addressing climate change,” said Koichi Hagiuda, Japan’s minister of economy, trade and industry, at an October news conference. China is building more new nuclear reactors than any other country, with plans for as many as 150 by the 2030s, at an estimated cost of nearly half a trillion dollars. Long before that, in this decade, China will overtake the U.S. as the operator of the world’s largest nuclear-energy system.

Civaux nuclear power plant, in Civaux, France, May 2018

Francesca Todde—contrasto/Redux

The future won’t be decided by choosing between nuclear or solar power. Rather, it’s a technically and economically complicated balance of adding as much renewable energy as possible while ensuring a steady supply of electricity. At the moment, that’s easy. “There is enough opportunity to build renewables before achieving penetration levels that we’re worried about the grid having stability,” says PSEG’s Izzo. New Jersey, for its part, is aiming to add 7,500 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035—or about the equivalent of six new Salem-sized reactors. The technology to do that is readily at hand—Kansas alone has about that much wind power installed already.

The challenge comes when renewables make up a greater proportion of the electricity supply—or when the wind stops blowing. The need for “firm” generation becomes more crucial. “You cannot run our grid solely on the basis of renewable supply,” says Izzo. “One needs an interseasonal storage solution, and no one has come up with an economic interseasonal storage solution.”

Existing nuclear’s best pitch—aside from the very fact it exists already—is its “capacity factor,” the industry term for how often a plant meets its full energy making potential. For decades, nuclear plants struggled with outages and long maintenance periods. Today, improvements in management and technology make them more likely to run continuously—or “breaker to breaker”—between planned refuelings, which usually occur every 18 months, and take about a month. At Salem and Hope Creek, PSEG hangs banners in the hallways to celebrate each new record run without a maintenance breakdown. That improvement stretches across the industry. “If you took our performance back in the mid-’70s, and then look at our performance today, it’s equivalent to having built 30 new reactors,” says Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s main lobbying organization. That improved reliability has become its major calling card today.

Over the next 20 years, nuclear plants will need to develop new tricks. “One of the new words in our vocabulary is flexibility,” says Marilyn Kray, vice president of nuclear strategy and development at Exelon, which operates 21 reactors. “Flexibility not only in the existing plants, but in the designs of the emerging ones, to make them even more flexible and adaptable to complement renewables.” Smaller plants can adapt more easily to the grid, but they can also serve new customers, like providing energy directly to factories, steel mills or desalination plants.

Bringing those small plants into operation could be worth it, but it won’t be easy.”You can’t just excuse away the thing that’s at the center of all of it, which is it’s just a hard technology to build,” says Jaczko, the former NRC chair. “It’s difficult to make these plants, it’s difficult to design them, it’s difficult to engineer them, it’s difficult to construct them. At some point, that’s got to be the obvious conclusion to this technology.”

But the equally obvious conclusion is we can no longer live without it. “The reality is, you have to really squint to see how you get to net zero without nuclear,” says Third Way’s Freed. “There’s a lot of wishful thinking, a lot of fingers crossed.”

Nuclear power isn't going away, but where will we keep its toxic waste?


Ryan Flanagan

CTVNews.ca Producer
Thursday, May 6, 2021 

TORONTO -- This material first appeared in The Climate Barometer, our weekly email newsletter covering climate and environmental issues.

Four provinces are pondering the nuclear option.

Nuclear power is already a major part of Canada's energy arsenal. According to Natural Resources Canada, nuclear is the source of approximately 15 per cent of Canada's electricity. There are 19 nuclear reactors in operation at six power plants, all but one of which are located in Ontario.

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Now, Alberta has joined Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick -- yes, the same quartet that most strongly opposed the federal carbon tax -- in studying small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs.

Heralded by their proponents as a powerful, cheap and adaptable form of clean energy, these reactors are much simpler to set up than traditional power plants -- making them potentially advantageous for settings such as remote communities and temporary work sites.

They received their first approvals in the United States last fall, and the four provinces announced last month that they want to move forward with them here. An initial project, built at a nuclear site in Ontario, could be live by 2026.

But while the premiers of those four provinces sound optimistic about the future of SMRs in Canada, and business leaders seem equally convinced that these reactors can truly be a sustainable part of Canada's energy future, they'll face significant opposition in getting any sort of wider adoption off the ground.

Dozens of environmental and public advocacy groups signed a letter denouncing SMRs last year, arguing that they are more expensive to build than wind or solar power sources, create fewer jobs, and do less to address the climate crisis.

Another major issue with nuclear power, at any scale, is what happens to the surrounding area if something goes wrong. Think of Japan, where in 2011 a tsunami and earthquake prompted a major accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Anyone living within 20 kilometres of the plant was ordered out of their home, and adverse health effects have been reported in nearby wildlife.

That disaster was back in the news recently, when the Japanese government announced that it will start sending contaminated water from Fukushima to the sea in 2023, in the process downplaying the concerns of environmental groups and fishery operators, among others.

Theoretically, something like this can happen in any country that produces nuclear power. But there's a much more tangible concern that affects all nuclear nations: its waste.

Unlike hydroelectric or coal power, nuclear energy does not produce greenhouse gas emissions. It does, however, create radioactive waste that can remain toxic for thousands of years.

Government regulations require this waste to be stored in ways that minimize the risk it could ever pose to the health of Canadians or the environment. It is kept in a pool for up to a decade, then transferred to dry containers and buried deep underground.

Understandably, though, nuclear waste isn't exactly something many Canadians want near their homes or their drinking water.

And that brings us to South Bruce, a rural community bordering Lake Huron in western Ontario. It's located two municipalities over from the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant, which is the largest nuclear facility in Canada and was once the biggest in the world.

In other words, Bruce Nuclear generates a lot of nuclear waste -- and it all has to go somewhere. That's where South Bruce comes in. Nuclear waste officials say they've narrowed their search for a new depository down to two locations: there, or a 1,700-kilometre drive northwest in Ignace, Ont. No decision is expected until 2023, but exploratory work is underway.

In South Bruce, there is both support for and opposition to the idea. Proponents note that the project would bring thousands of jobs to the municipality, which is three-quarters the size of Toronto but has a population of less than 6,000. Opponents are concerned about even the remote possibility of a leak, especially given the proximity of Lake Huron, and the possibility that opening their land to Bruce Nuclear's waste might encourage other nuclear plants to try their luck in South Bruce as well.

If this all sounds a little bit familiar, it may be because you're thinking of a completely separate 15-year battle over a nuclear waste depository even closer to the Bruce Nuclear plant. That plan, which was vociferously opposed by Indigenous groups, environmentalists and literally hundreds of communities in Canada and the U.S., was pulled off the table last year.

However, there is no direct connection between that plan failing and this one popping up. The previous proposal came from Ontario Power Generation (OPG), and involved low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. South Bruce and Ignace, on the other hand, are in the running for a federal facility to hold waste with a higher level of radioactivity.

Some of those opposed to OPG's plan have also come out against the idea of building the federal facility in South Bruce, suggesting officials may also have a hard time selling the public on this proposal.

Whatever happens, though, all sides can agree on a few things: Canada will keep producing nuclear waste, it will remain highly toxic, and it will have to go somewhere.


A container imitating one that would hold nuclear was is pictured at a protest in Novi Grad, Bosnia on Friday, Sept. 27, 2019. (AP Photo/Radivoje Pavicic)

Experts weigh in on possibility of nuclear energy in Saskatchewan

By Mandy Vocke Global News
Updated February 19, 2021 

WATCH: Experts said it would take time for nuclear energy to make its way into Saskatchewan, but it could be worthwhile. – Feb 18, 2021

As different levels of government try to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it has people wondering what alternate forms of energy should be explored.

The Johnson Shoyoma School of Public Policy hosted a virtual lecture Wednesday evening, where nuclear experts explained what small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are and how they could work to create an alternate form of energy in Saskatchewan. More than 200 people across the country attended.

READ MORE: Are small nuclear reactors really better? Here are the pros and cons

There are currently four nuclear generating stations in Canada, three of which are in Ontario.

“The nuclear reactors in the province of Ontario provide over 60 per cent of the electricity in the province, which is an enormous amount of electricity,” federal nuclear energy division director Diane Cameron said.

Canada hasn’t built any SMRs yet, but could within the next ten years. They have a few differences from nuclear plants currently in the country, including being physically smaller and producing less energy.

“These plants would be built purposely so they can have dispatchable power, like a natural gas plant has right now,” Bob Walker with the University of Ottawa’s Institute for Science Society and Policy said.

READ MORE: SaskPower sending electricity to southern parts of United States amid storm

Advantages of having SMRs in Saskatchewan include being close to uranium mines and producing affordable energy once they’re built.

They would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as opposed to coal or natural gas.

“All the provinces and federal government have committed to get off coal by 2030. Well, it’s 2020 that’s ten years from now,” Walker said.

Walker said ideally, nuclear energy would work alongside wind and solar energy, which would also need further investments.

However, there could still be an environmental impact.

“Although we’ve been looking for solutions for many decades, we still have no demonstrated safe way of looking after nuclear waste,” Saskatchewan Environmental Society board member Ann Coxworth said.

2:36 Debate brews over small modular reactors in Canada – Dec 18, 2020

It would still be a long process for SMRs to be built in Saskatchewan. Billions would need to be invested, and further consultations with experts and Indigenous communities are needed.

The province has been clear it doesn’t want to be the first in the country to build them. SaskPower has been in consultation with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) as it hopes to build the first SMR in Darlington by 2028.

“That will allow Saskatchewan to sort of learn through the experience of OPG so that it becomes an option. Those decisions still need to be taken but it becomes an option for Saskatchewan probably in the early 2030s,” Cameron said.

READ MORE: Feds investing $12M into Saskatchewan schools for energy efficiency programs

While nuclear energy would be new to Saskatchewan, it is something that has been used in Ontario for decades, and for many years to come.

According to Cameron, Ontario is restoring ten reactors which will cost $25 billion over 15 years, extending the life of the reactors for 30 years. It’s being invested privately and the sectors expect profits in the long-run.