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

ARC Clean Technology signs agreement on deployment of SMRs in Alberta

28 March 2023

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ARC Clean Technology Canada (ARC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Invest Alberta Corporation (IAC) for co-operation in the commercialisation in Alberta of ARC’s advanced Small Modular Reactor (aSMR) technology. The province of Alberta, along with New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan, has agreed to a joint strategic plan to support SMR development.

ARC will begin the process to expand its operations in Alberta with the aim of developing a fleet of ARC-100 reactors. With IAC support, ARC will begin engagement and partnership activities with industry and stakeholders. ARC said it will also develop the associated supply chains and manufacturing, operating and support services necessary for the construction and operation of multiple ARC-100 units.

The ARC-100 was earlier selected in 2018 for deployment at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station (PLNGS) in New Brunswick as part of Canada’s SMR Roadmap, with operation planned for 2029. The ARC-100 design completed the first of three phases of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) Vendor Design Review (VDR) in 2019. Also in 2019, ARC signed an agreement with US-based global infrastructure firm AECOM to continue its development of the ARC-100 technology.

In July 2022, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) entered into a collaboration agreement with ARC, funded through CNL’s Canadian Nuclear Research Initiative (CNRI), for work to advance the fuel development and manufacturing processes to produce fuel for ARC’s technology. The following December, Canada’s Belledune Port Authority also proposed using an ARC aSMR to generate a minimum of 1GW of heat and power for industrial users at the port’s Green Energy Hub. Pending feasibility studies, environmental approvals and CNSC licensing, the project is planned for commercial operation between 2030 and 2035.

The ARC-100 is a 100MWe integrated sodium-cooled fast reactor with a metallic uranium alloy core. The design is based on the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) fast reactor prototype which operated at the USA's Argonne National Laboratory from 1961 to 1994. ARC Nuclear signed an agreement with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy in March 2017 to collaborate on the development and licensing of an SMR using proprietary technology from GEH's PRISM reactor, which is also based on the EBR-II.

However, all fast reactor projects in Europe and North America were essentially abandoned in the 1970a and 1980s and had effectively ceased in Europe and the US by the 1990s. Although interest in fast reactor technology is now reviving in Europe and the USA, both through collaborative projects and government support for private company initiatives, it remains at the design phase. The projected operation dates for the ARC-100 may, therefore, prove to be optimistic. Currently fast reactor development continues apace only in Russia, China and India, where there are now five fast reactors in operation and five more under development.

William Labbe, president & CEO of ARC Clean Technology Canada, said early deployment of the company's SMR technology would bring high quality jobs, significant investment, and economic benefits. "With Alberta being Canada's energy and heavy industry leader, it is a natural market for ARC's industrial applications and will be a key stepping stone for the global deployment of Canadian SMR technology," he said.

IAC CEO Rick Christiaanse believes meaningful partnerships with leading cleantech innovators such as ARC bring "impactful net-zero solutions" to the province. He said: "Momentum is building in Alberta around SMR technology, with Invest Alberta signing MOUs with several companies that are on the path to launching proven sustainable energy supplies in the province."

Invest Alberta, a Crown corporation of the Government of Alberta, is also supporting other SMR projects. An MOU was signed with X-Energy Canada to develop economic opportunities supporting the potential deployment of the Xe-100 SMR. IAC has also supported Terrestrial Energy’s plans to expand its operations into Alberta to pursue commercial development of its Integral Molten Salt Reactor plant for industrial cogeneration in western Canada.

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Image: ARC Clean Technology and Invest Alberta have signed an agreement to support the deployment of advanced Small Modular Reactors in Canada (courtesy of ARC Clean Technology)

Map: Where are the asbestos cement pipes delivering drinking water in Canada?

Eric Szeto, Producer
W5
March 27, 2023 
W5 investigated aging asbestos pipes across Canada and the potential health hazards if it ends up in your tap water.

We spent several months trying to get to the bottom of two things: Where are these pipes, and is there asbestos in Canada’s water? We reached out and asked over 100 towns, districts and municipalities what types of pipes were in use, and whether there were maps of these networks. 'Canadians should be very concerned about their drinking water': W5 investigates asbestos cement pipes

Roughly 90 per cent of the places that responded still used asbestos cement pipes, with thousands of kilometres of them still underground.

Below is an interactive map and chart showing where in Canada these asbestos cement pipes are being used.

Watch W5's 'Something in the Water' on W5's official YouTube channel

•  Map and chart created by Jesse Tahirali. 
• Can't see the map and chart above? 
• Click here

British-Korean partnership for fusion robotics

28 March 2023

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to cooperate in research and development for remote handling and the maintenance of future fusion power plants.

KFE researchers recently visited UKAEA's Culham campus (Image: UKAEA)

UKAEA's Joint European Torus (JET) has been configured to replicate the anticipated International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) set-up and is maintained using robotics and remote handling. KFE operates the Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), the only tokamak machine using superconducting technology like ITER.

The MoU signed by UKAEA and KFE - both government-funded organisations - will see risk-driven research and development prioritisation, knowledge-sharing involving welding, large-scale tendon driven arm operations, the development of robust electronic components, and skills transfer.

The technical and knowledge exchange will happen via lectures, seminars and workshops in both countries. This will also include training placements for KFE.

"Fusion could be transformative for energy security and is important in the global fight against climate change," said UKAEA CEO Ian Chapman. "The ground-breaking research and innovation being done in the UK, and with our partners across the globe, aims to make fusion energy a reality. We welcome KFE to UKAEA's Culham Campus and look forward to an evolving partnership driven by a shared quest to make fusion part of the world's future energy supply."

"We are thrilled to be teaming up with UKAEA, who are at the forefront of the challenge to demonstrate fusion energy on earth," said KFE President Suk Jae Yoo. "While UKAEA researchers have vast knowledge in developing robot arms for fusion maintenance, KFE researchers bring extensive expertise gained from constructing and operating the KSTAR. The collaboration between the two institutions will create a synergy in developing remote control systems for fusion demonstration machines. I hope this partnership leads to further collaborations in key research areas, advancing the development of fusion energy."

UKAEA conducts fusion energy research on behalf of the UK government. Since opening at Culham, Oxfordshire, in 2014, UKAEA's fusion robotics centre, Remote Applications in Challenging Environments, has conducted research and development into the use of robotics in extreme industrial environments where it is difficult to send people to work.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News\

Bulgaria 'close to signing Westinghouse and EDF pre-project studies'

28 March 2023

Bulgaria's energy ministry says agreements for pre-project studies are set to be signed with Westinghouse relating to two AP1000 reactors at Kozloduy nuclear power plant, and with EDF for two 1000 MW units at Belene.

Kozloduy 5 and 6 (Image: KNPP)

According to Bulgaria's official BTA news agency the Ministry of Energy said the purpose of the pre-project engineering studies was to look at the options for the projects "including the options for using the existing equipment by integrating it into a modern complete system" and the results would be passed on to the next parliament, which would take the final decision.

BTA said the energy ministry added that the projects were of "strategic importance for energy and national security, and before making a final decision, all options should be evaluated in detail".

Bulgaria has been in political deadlock in recent years, with four elections failing to result in a working coalition being established - a fifth election in two years is now set to be held next week.

Although there has been a clear majority in favour of new nuclear in the parliament, there have been different views about whether the new Kozloduy units should be prioritised, or whether completing the part-built Belene units should come first. In January, Bulgaria's parliament asked ministers to negotiate with the US government for a new AP1000 unit at Kozloduy. The vote urged action to be taken by 1 March which would speed up the process of approval and construction of what would be unit 7 of the Kozloduy plant, as well as initiating a licensing and environmental impact assessment procedure for what would be unit 8.

That led, earlier this month, to Westinghouse signing a memorandum of understanding to initiate planning for the potential deployment of one or more of its AP1000 reactors at Kozloduy.

Deputy Energy Minister Elenko Bozhkov told BTA, earlier on Tuesday, the proposed Westinghouse deal would seek to maximise participation of Bulgarian industry in the construction of the two units, adding that European Commission approval and an intergovernmental agreement will be needed.

Kozloduy 1-4 reactors were VVER-440 models which the European Commission had classified as non-upgradeable and Bulgaria agreed to close them down during their negotiations to join the European Union in 2007. It currently has two Russian-designed VVER-1000 reactors, Kozloduy unit 5 and unit 6 operating.

The Belene project in northern Bulgaria has been for the construction of two 1000 MWe units, using Russian VVER-1000 designs. Preliminary site works began in 2008, and contracts for components including large forgings and I&C systems were signed with suppliers, but the project was stymied by financing problems and was suspended in 2012. In 2019, the government advertised for a strategic investor to participate in the Belene project to build two large reactors, but said that neither funding guarantees nor long-term electricity sales contracts would be offered.

According to the BTA report, EDF executives will be visiting Bulgaria during April to inspect the Belene site and see the equipment already available there. Bozhkov said the intention would be for EDF to finish the construction of the units with French technology.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

IAEA's Grossi heading to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

27 March 2023

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi is to make his second visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant since the Russia-Ukraine war began. The six-unit plant is on the frontline of the conflict and Grossi has spent months seeking to get agreement on a safety and security zone around it.

The IAEA team on their way to Zaporizhzhia (Image: @rafaelmgrossi/Twitter)

Grossi said he had decided to travel to the plant again "to see for myself how the situation has evolved since September (his previous visit) and to talk to those operating the facility in these unprecedented and very difficult circumstances. I remain determined to continue doing everything in my power to help reduce the risk of a nuclear accident during the tragic war in Ukraine".

His visit in September marked the start of the permanent stationing of an IAEA team of experts at the plant. On his visit this week, which involves crossing the frontline of the conflict, he will be accompanied by IAEA colleagues as they rotate - for a seventh time - the team at the plant.

Grossi said: "Despite our presence at the site for seven months now, the situation ... is still precarious. The nuclear safety and security dangers are all too obvious, as is the necessity to act now to prevent an accident with potential radiological consequences to the health and the environment for people in Ukraine and beyond. I’m therefore continuing to work on a proposal to protect the plant."

Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the director general of Russia’s Rosenergoatom nuclear power engineering company, told Tass on Sunday that Grossi was expected at the Zaporizhzhia plant on Wednesday "leading an IAEA delegation of 18 ... concurrently, the IAEA inspectors will be rotated".

Grossi tweeted on Monday: "On my way to #Zaporizhzhya NPP to assess first-hand the #nuclear safety & security situation at the facility. I will continue my efforts to protect the nuclear plant during the ongoing military conflict, & lead our next regular rotation of @iaeaorg experts to & from the site."

Later on Monday he tweeted a photograph after meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is about 60 kilometres from the nuclear power plant.

The IAEA director general met Ukraine's president ahead of visiting the nuclear plant (Image: @rafaelmgrossi/Twitter)

Grossi said the two men "had a rich exchange on the protection of" the nuclear power plant and its staff. "I reiterated the full support of the @IAEAorg to #Ukraine’s nuclear facilities."

Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine and Europe, and has been under Russian military control since early March 2022. It has suffered some shelling during the conflict, with each side blaming the other, and has had to rely on backup diesel generators for essential safety functions on a number of occasions when external power to the site was lost.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Belgian research reactor tests high-performance LEU fuel

27 March 2023

Three low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel test assemblies have successfully been tested in Belgium's BR2 research reactor. The Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK-CEN) plans to fully convert the reactor from using highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in 2026.

An LEU test assembly for the BR2 research reactor (Image: SCK-CEN)

The BR2 is one of three operating research reactors at SCK-CEN in Mol, northeast Belgium. In operation since 1963, the BR2 is one of the oldest research reactors in Western Europe. The reactor is permitted to operate until its next periodic safety review in 2026, when a decision on operation for a subsequent 10 years may be taken.

SCK-CEN is developing a completely new LEU fuel type in close collaboration with the USA aimed at delivering the same performance as HEU fuel. It plans to switch BR2 from using HEU to the new LEU in 2026 if a decision is made to continue operating the reactor.

"By removing the highly-enriched uranium from the fuel, it helps to prevent the possible spread of that material," SCK-CEN said. "In this way, SCK-CEN contributes with a proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel, thus contributing to a safer world."

"The nuclear fuel cannot simply be changed overnight," SCK-CEN noted. "The switch to this fuel requires extensive testing and the preparation of a significant safety file. SCK-CEN must prove to the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC) – the nuclear regulatory authority in Belgium – that the new fuel type is just as safe as the current one. Moreover, the research reactor must deliver the same technical performance using this new fuel type."

"In highly-enriched uranium, we can split almost all uranium atoms. In low-enriched uranium, only one atom in five is fissile," said project leader Jared Wight. "However, the nuclear fuel must be able to perform to the same level, so that BR2 can perform its vital missions. It's like a driver filling their car's tank with 20% petrol, and still wanting to travel the same distance at the same speed as they would on a full tank."

The new LEU fuel has already completed several demonstration phases. In the first phase, small samples were tested in moderate conditions, with the power and burnup fraction limited. In the second phase, full-size, individual fuel plates were exposed to higher power and a higher burnup fraction. In the third phase, these fuel plates were incorporated into future fuel assemblies and tested in real conditions. Each step in this process has been closely monitored by FANC.

Wight said that three LEU fuel assemblies have now been tested in real conditions over the past two BR2 cycles.

"After each cycle, we thoroughly check each fuel assembly," he said. "We are curious to obtain the [latest] results, but we expect them to be acceptable, just like the previous tests, demonstrating that the fuel assemblies remained perfectly undamaged, even under high power."

"SCK-CEN's successful completion of the second irradiation cycle using low-enriched uranium fuel for BR2 is a major milestone," said Corey Hinderstein, Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Non-proliferation at the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. "This is the first time this high performance low-enriched uranium fuel has been used and is a crucial step toward the conversion of BR2 by 2026. Their progress sets a global example for reactor conversions to low-enriched uranium and demonstrates our ability to achieve non-proliferation goals while maintaining scientific excellence."

The BR2 accounts for about a quarter of the global production of radioisotopes for medical and industrial purposes, including for cancer therapy and medical imaging. It also produces doped silicon, which forms a semiconductor material that provides the basic substance for electronic components.

Most of the world's research reactors were built in the 1960s and 1970s using technology that required HEU - with enrichment levels as high as 98% - to perform experiments. HEU targets have also been used in the production of medical radioisotopes. However, such HEU could potentially be used to make a nuclear weapon and is therefore seen as a proliferation risk. Much of this research can now be carried out using LEU, of which uranium-235 accounts for less than 20%.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Rubbish to be removed from streets of Paris after collectors strike is suspended 

By Euronews with AFP • Updated: 29/03/2023 - 

Rubbish on the streets of Paris - 

 Copyright Thomas Padilla/Copyright 2023 

The AP. All rights reserved.

A three-week-long rubbish collection strike in Paris has been suspended.

The announcement from the CGT trade union came after the number of workers following the strike call dwindled.

Tons of rubbish that have been piling up in the streets of the French capital are now set to be removed.

A blockade of the incinerators serving the city has also been lifted.

The union said it would be discussing with members about returning with a more powerful strike in the future.

But it also admitted in a written statement that the movement was being suspended because there were "almost no strikers left".
France protests: Did diners continue eating their meal surrounded by flames?

The strike of the agents, and in particular the blockading of the three incinerators that serve the capital, had led to a spectacular piling up of uncollected waste.

Almost 7,000 tonnes of rubbish remain uncollected, despite authorities requisitioning an incineration plant to make waste removal possible.

Alberta’s Oil Patch Regulator Changes Tune on Earthquakes

After saying Peace River temblors were natural, AER blames Obsidian Energy, raising big questions.

Andrew Nikiforuk 27 Mar 2023TheTyee.ca

The town of Peace River lies 45 kilometres from the epicentre of the largest recorded earthquake in Alberta history, caused by Calgary’s Obsidian Energy Ltd. 

Photo by awmcphee, Creative Commons licensed.

When one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in Alberta rocked the Peace River region at the end of November, the province’s regulator waved away concerns it might have been industry-triggered.

Now, after a Stanford University study confirmed those fears, the Alberta Energy Regulator has named Obsidian Energy Ltd. responsible and ordered it to change its practices.

The magnitude of the tremblor, which knocked people off their feet and is one of a string caused by Obsidian Energy, raises big questions.

Some are about the actual risks associated with injecting wastewater underground employed by many other fossil fuel extractors.

But the risk implications go wider, to the vaunted but unproven carbon capture and storage method of collecting carbon emissions from oilsands projects and then storing them beneath the earth indefinitely.

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Obsidian Energy didn’t mention any seismic problems in its February corporate presentations despite being under investigation by the provincial regulator since Dec. 22.

Last Thursday the Alberta Energy Regulator belatedly revealed the mid-sized Calgary based company is the owner of a deep wastewater disposal well that the regulator says has triggered 11 felt earthquakes in November 2022 and March 2023 in the bitumen oil fields of Peace River country.

In a Monday statement to the media Obsidian Energy disputed AER’s findings that its disposal well was responsible for the earthquakes. “Since we have not seen any data or other evidence for the AER’s conclusions, we cannot — and do not — agree with these conclusions.”

“The disposal of produced water into subsurface reservoirs is a standard industry practice necessary for the responsible production of hydrocarbons, and the Company’s Water Disposal Well is both approved and licensed by the AER,” said the company’s release. A bevy of companies operate deep injection wells in the region.*

Heavy oil production in the Peace River area generates high volumes of briny wastewater that is reinjected 2,000 metres into the ground.


Researchers have known since the 1970s that such fluid injection can cause severe earthquakes. Recent research has concluded that even shallow injection can cause quakes and that some injecting wells can cause tremors up to 20 kilometres away.

Studies by earthquake experts in Kansas discovered that the cumulative pressure from multiple injection wells by multiple operators over time can change the pressure exerted on basement rock in the ground and cause seismic activity up to 90 kilometres away.

The Alberta Energy Regulator revealed in a March 23 order to Obsidian that it had been monitoring activity at the Obsidian well since December but neither the regulator nor the company told the public about its investigation.

Nor did Obsidian mention the record quake possibly being connected to its operations in a Feb. 23 presentation.

Obsidian directors include former RBC vice-chair

On its website Obsidian boasts that it produces close to 7,000 barrels of oil a day from its Peace River cold well heavy oil operation with “low royalty rates.” Former vice-chair of Royal Bank of Canada, Gordon Ritchie, sits on the company’s board of directors.

The November and March quakes shook homes in Peace River and were felt as far away as Edmonton. The largest recorded quake, 5.6 magnitude, could have caused extensive property damage had it occurred in an urban area, say seismic experts.

Even so it rattled homes, knocked pictures off walls and cracked foundation throughout the municipal district of Peace River.

When Carmen Langer, a local rancher and former oil and gas worker phoned the AER to report the record 5.6 magnitude quake last November, he said a representative denied oil and gas activity had anything to do with them.

Former Royal Bank of Canada vice-chair Gordon Ritchie sits on the board of Obsidian Energy, the Calgary-based company the Alberta Energy Regulator says is the owner of a deep wastewater disposal well that has triggered 11 earthquakes in November 2022 and March 2023 in the Peace River region. Such operations are likely tied to November’s largest ever recorded earthquake in Alberta, according to a new Stanford University study. Photo via LinkedIn.

Langer argued that industry had extracted too much bitumen and injected too much wastewater to be an innocent player.

“You’re a troublemaker,” Langer said he was told by the AER representative, who said of the most recent and other earthquakes in the region, “I can assure you they are all natural.”

Langer had historical and scientific support for his accusation. The Western Canadian sedimentary basin has a long record of industry-triggered tremors caused by rapid gas extraction, water flooding, deep well injection and hydraulic fracturing.

The regulator claimed that the felt seismic events were too deep to be triggered by industry. However data including detailed wavelength modelling from Earthquakes Canada strongly suggested otherwise.

Shortly after the 5.6 quake, Canadian seismic hazard expert Gail Atkinson, who has extensively studied tremors caused by industry, told The Tyee that industry fluid injection mostly likely triggered the cluster, and she was proven right.

When the regulator didn’t answer questions about what bitumen injection wells or disposal wells were under investigation, The Tyee approached geological engineer Grant Ferguson at the University of Saskatchewan.

Ferguson confirmed that there were scores of bitumen injection wells and deep disposal wells in the area affected by the quakes. The Tyee approached two companies capable of making seismic events, Baytex Energy Corp. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., but neither answered our queries.

The AER didn’t change its tune about the quakes until the Stanford study last week identified a deep disposal well at a bitumen operation 40 kilometres south of Peace River as the most likely cause.

The study found that the disposal well owned by Obsidian Energy (formerly Penn West) had injected under great pressure one million litres of wastewater 1.9 kilometres deep into the ground, just 2.3 kilometres from the epicenter of the quakes. The injection started to create small seismic swarms about five years ago leading to the record quake last November and, in early March, more quakes greater than magnitude 4.

The study also identified two other unreported clusters of earthquakes caused by deep disposal wells north and east of the town of Peace River in 2014 and 2019. These seismic swarms had not been identified by the regulator due to inadequate seismic monitoring.


What Caused Alberta’s Record Quake? Check Drilling, Experts Say

\READ MORE

The lead researcher of the Stanford study, Ryan Schultz, told The Tyee that he was not sure how the felt tremors at Obsidian’s disposal well “will affect other disposal wells.” There are scores of them in the region. “Most of the Canadian cases of induced seismicity have been more isolated, in comparison to the American cases that seem to have long-range communication” with other injection wells, he said.

He added that “More seismic monitoring would be helpful to better identify cases like this in the future.”

A challenge to carbon capture plans?

The study also raised serious concerns about public subsidized plans to store vast volumes of carbon dioxide underground in Alberta and B.C. The high cost and high energy process of carbon capture and storage requires liquefying carbon and then injecting it deep into the ground similar to salt water disposal. The researchers warned that CO2 injection could trigger quakes as serious as the one that broke Alberta’s records.

“Ideally, operations would be sited in locations that are remote from critical infrastructure, residential homes and industrial operations — to balance the earthquake consequences with the costs/risks of waste transportation,” warned the study.


Oilsands Projects Likely Triggered Mysterious Alberta Quakes: New Research

READ MORE

Other research has warned that storing CO2 underground is inherently reckless: “Because even small to moderate-sized earthquakes threaten the seal integrity of CO[2] repositories, in this context, large-scale CCS is a risky, and likely unsuccessful, strategy for significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

On March 23 the AER ordered the company to produce in the next 15 days “a plan to reduce the magnitude and frequency of induced seismic events caused by the Disposal Operation,” as well as install more seismic monitoring equipment. The company must also supply the regulator with data on water injection rate, and cumulative water injected data from the well over the last decade.

Allan Chapman, a former senior geologist with the BC Energy Regulator (formerly the Oil and Gas Commission) has repeatedly warned authorities that there are no upper limits on the magnitude of tremors industry can cause and that regulators remain in a state of denial about the growing hazards.


More Reason to Take Fracking Quakes Seriously

READ MORE

In a recent science paper Chapman called for frack-free zones, a more stringent traffic light system and legislation that requires companies to make their own seismic monitoring public as a condition of operation. Currently, much seismic information in the oil patch is considered proprietary and may not be made public for a year after a quake.

He’s also advocating for an enhanced earth monitoring system that collects more real-time data with a much larger network of seismographs than currently exists.

“Let’s say we get a 5.5 magnitude quake and there are deaths and damages and the Peace River Bridge is underwater,” said Chapman in a 2021 Tyee interview. “And four companies are found to be fracking in the same area at the same time. Having clear and transparent information on these events will help with accountability.”

Such a system would have immediately alerted regulators of the seismic issues in Peace River.

* Story updated on March 27 at 2:16 p.m. to include information from an Obsidian Energy statement released after publication. 

Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist whose books and articles focus on epidemics, the energy industry, nature and more.

Oil and gas drilling caused the biggest earthquake in Alberta's history, seismologist says

A seismologist says with "89 to 97 percent" confidence that a record-setting quake was man-made

By MATTHEW ROZSA

Staff Writer, SALON
PUBLISHED MARCH 27, 2023 

Oil drilling rig (Getty Images/sasacvetkovic33)

Last November the Canadian province of Alberta experienced the largest earthquake in its recorded history. Shortly thereafter a geologist from the University of Calgary claimed that the series of seismic events — which registered a 5.6 on the Richter scale as it rattled homes down to their bones and knocked residents to their knees — told a local publication that the earthquake was "probably natural. Natural events typically occur at those depths."

"Earthquakes of similar magnitude to the Peace River event could be damaging, even deadly, if they happened in more populated areas. It is important that we understand the mechanics involved and how to avoid inducing more of these events."

Now, a seismologist from Stanford University has reached a different conclusion — namely, that the earthquake was caused by wastewater disposal produced by nearby fracking, a controversial drilling method for natural gas and oil that involves injecting liquid at high pressure deep beneath the Earth.

"This event was caused by wastewater disposal," seismologist Ryan Schultz told The Canadian Press on Thursday. The publication reports that there is a deep disposal well near the earthquake site. At that location, businessmen use oil patch techniques including injecting wastewater miles under the ground for fracking, and these methods can indeed induce earthquakes. This particular site has already had more than one million cubic meters of wastewater injected beneath the Earth's surface.

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"The clusters of earthquakes were right on top of a deep disposal well," Schultz told the publication, referring to a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that he co-authored with scientists at the University of Alberta as well as Natural Resources Canada. The new study argues that the injected water, which wound up being forced into a deep fault under the Earth's surface, reduced enough of the friction holding the two sides together that slippage eventually occurred, shaking the surface.

"We had a confidence somewhere between 89 and 97 per cent just in the timing," Schultz explained. "There is enough information to start making these kinds of links."

Co-author William Ellsworth, a research professor of geophysics and co-director of the Stanford Center for Induced and Triggered Seismicity, said in a statement that "the Peace River earthquake caught our interest because it occurred in an unusual place. Multiple lines of compelling evidence point to this quake as being man-made."

Perhaps the most compelling evidence is that which can be seen by the naked eye. According to a public statement regarding the study, satellite observations picked up "a dramatic 3.4-centimeter uplift in the ground at the time of the November quake," one was produced as the "high volume of disposed wastewater had increased water pressure on the fault, weakened it, and made it prone to slip."

Schultz even offered an ominous prediction: "Earthquakes of similar magnitude to the Peace River event could be damaging, even deadly, if they happened in more populated areas. It is important that we understand the mechanics involved and how to avoid inducing more of these events."

The revelation has implications for climate change. One popular proposal for mitigating the effects of carbon pollution is to capture carbon dioxide waste and pump it deep underground. The theory is that, in so doing, industries can continue to engage in practices that produce this type of waste without harming the environment. Yet if carbon capture and storage triggers the same seismic dynamics as the wastewater from fracking, there could indeed be harm through that method.

"If carbon capture is going to be done at a scale that is going to combat climate change, then significant amounts of volume need to be put in the ground," Schultz explained. "You might expect then also getting these types of earthquakes the more volume that you store."

In November Rebecca Salvage of the University of Calgary working with the Alberta Geological Survey argued that the earthquake began at least six kilometers underground and was therefore likely too deep to have been artificially caused.

"The depth infers that it's probably natural. Natural events typically occur at those depths," Salvage said at the time.

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Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

Obsidian Energy Comments on Alberta Energy Regulator order regarding water disposal well

March 27, 2023 

Calgary, Alberta – 

OBSIDIAN ENERGY LTD. (TSX: OBE) (NYSE American: OBE) (“Obsidian Energy“, the “Company“, “we“, “us” or “our“) confirms that the Alberta Energy Regulator (“AER“) issued an order (the “Order“) regarding the Company’s 14-18-082-17W5 water disposal well (the “Water Disposal Well“), located approximately 40 kilometres Southeast of the Town of Peace River.

Obsidian Energy is cooperating with the AER and intends to comply with the Order, including establishing seismic monitoring at the Water Disposal Well. The Order confirmed that the AER was not aware of any adverse effects related to the seismic events near the Town of Peace River between November 29, 2022, and March 16, 2023. The Company has requested the data and analysis that the AER relied on when making its decision to issue the Order. The Alberta Geological Survey’s analysis of the seismic events on November 29, 2022 attributed the seismic activity to natural causes and stated there was not a clear correlation between the seismic events and Obsidian Energy’s disposal operations.

“Obsidian Energy has a strong history of responsible operations and takes seriously our commitment to safeguarding the environment,” said Stephen Loukas, Obsidian Energy’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We meet or exceed regulatory requirements to reduce the potential impact on our local communities, our people, and the areas in which we operate. However, since we have not seen any data or other evidence for the AER’s conclusions, we cannot – and do not – agree with these conclusions. We have requested data from the AER and intend to engage independent third-party experts to help us better understand the AER’s reasoning. We believe that this additional evaluation and further monitoring are required before a proper conclusion can be reached regarding the cause of the seismic events.”

The disposal of produced water into subsurface reservoirs is a standard industry practice necessary for the responsible production of hydrocarbons, and the Company’s Water Disposal Well is both approved and licensed by the AER. Obsidian Energy ensures that all of our operations are in compliance with regulatory requirements and operates the Water Disposal Well at pressures far below licensed rates. The Water Disposal Well does not involve hydraulic fracturing or high-pressure pumping activities. Obsidian Energy’s Water Disposal Well has operated safely for more than a decade, as have, to the best of the Company’s knowledge, similar water disposal wells operated by other oil producers in the vicinity.

At this time, we anticipate no impact on the Company’s production due to the Order.