Reactor disassembly work completed at Bruce 6
15 July 2021
Work has been completed to remove the internal components of the reactor at unit 6 of the Bruce nuclear power plant in Ontario. As part of a 48-month refurbishment project, replacement parts will be installed in the Candu reactor in order to extend the life of the unit by 40 years.
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Component removal work at the reactor of Bruce unit 6 (Image: Bruce Power)Bruce units 3-8 are to be refurbished under Bruce Power's Major Component Replacement (MCR), which will include the replacement of key reactor components such as steam generators, pressure tubes, calandria tubes and feeder tubes. The MCR is part of Bruce Power's Life-Extension Program, which started in January 2016 and involves the gradual replacement of older systems in the company's eight reactor units during regularly scheduled maintenance outages. Units 1 and 2 at the plant have already been refurbished.
Work to refurbish unit 6 began in January 2020 and is expected to be completed in January 2024. Work is scheduled to begin on unit 3 in 2023 and unit 4 in 2025, with each refurbishment planned to be shorter in duration, and ultimately more cost-effective, than the previous one. The refurbishment of the final reactor, unit 8, is scheduled to be completed in July 2033.
Team work
The MCR project team, alongside vendor partner Shoreline Power Group - a joint venture between Aecon, SNC-Lavalin and United Engineers & Constructors - spent about 10 months removing feeder tubes, pressure tubes, calandria tubes and other important internal components of the Bruce unit 6 reactor. The last of these removals was completed ahead of schedule on 9 July.
"This is an important moment for the MCR project," said Jeff Phelps, Bruce Power's vice president for major projects. "We're now turning our attention to the inspection and installation work, which will be much more hands-on for our tradespeople."
Shoreline Power Group is responsible for the fuel channel feeder replacement portion of the project, which involves all reactor removal, inspection and installation work. This includes the removal and replacement of 960 feeder tubes, 480 fuel channels and 480 calandria tubes. The project was supported by other key vendors and suppliers including SNC-Lavalin, Eclipse Automation, CANDU, Black & McDonald and Nuvia Canada Inc, and also received indirect support from industry experts Ontario Power Generation and Canatom, which offered collaborative assistance throughout the removal phase.
"To execute a project of this scale and complexity takes considerable collaboration and support from industry leaders and project partners, which we've unquestionably seen since the start of the project," said Eric Chassard, Bruce Power's executive vice president for projects and engineering. "It is through this teamwork and collaboration that the MCR Project will be able to provide Ontarians with stable, affordable, and clean energy for decades to come."
Nuclear power meets some 60% of the electricity needs of Ontario, which phased out the use of coal for electricity generation in 2014. Bruce Power's nuclear units provide 30% of the province's total electricity.
Hydrogen issue
Bruce Power noted that as part of its ongoing planned inspection, testing, analysis and maintenance activities, it has detected some higher measurements of hydrogen equivalent than predicted in the pressure tubes of units 3 and 6 at the Bruce plant. These levels exceed the limits set out in the power reactor operating licence conditions. Unit 3 is currently in a routine inspection and maintenance outage, while unit 6 is undergoing its MCR, in which all pressure tubes are being replaced.
The company concluded there was no impact on the safety of the units. "All six units that are currently operating have recently undergone similar inspections and demonstrated fitness for service," it said.
Bruce Power has informed the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), which issued formal notices to all nuclear power plant licensees in Canada requiring timely review and reporting on the continued safe operation of pressure tubes. The CNSC noted hydrogen content "is not a concern when reactors are shut down or when they have reached operating temperature".
Researched and written by World Nuclear News
Governments, utilities and the nuclear industry hope small modular reactors will power Canada’s future.
Can they actually build one?
LONG READ
MATTHEW MCCLEARN
PUBLISHED JUL 16.2021
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Senior government officials, most notably federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan, regard SMRs as indispensable tools for meeting Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions targets, by replacing coal-fired plants and by electrifying mining and oil and gas facilities. CANADIAN NUCLEAR LABRATORIES/HANDOUT
Ontario Power Generation plans to make a decision this year that might determine the future of Canada’s nuclear industry.
The utility, by far Canada’s largest nuclear power producer, promises to select a design for a 300-megawatt reactor it proposes to build at its Darlington Nuclear Generating Station by 2028. The estimated price tag: up to $3-billion. It would be the first new reactor built on Canadian soil in well over three decades. OPG won’t make that decision alone, because it’s intended to be the first of many reactors of the same design built across the country.
Canada’s nuclear industry desperately needs a next act. It employs 30,000 people (mostly in Ontario) and contributes $6-billion annually to the country’s economy, according to one federal government estimate. With a supply chain of more than 200 companies covering everything from uranium mining, to operating power plants, to decommissioning them, Canada is considered a Tier 1 nuclear country.
But lately, this machine has been devoted to squeezing more life out of old CANDU units, largely through Ontario’s $26-billion plan to refurbish its Darlington station, east of Toronto, and the Bruce Power complex, on Lake Huron. The industry has few, if any, exciting new products for sale.
This leaves it on the back foot as governments encourage electrification of cars, buildings and nearly everything else. Those efforts could double, even triple, electricity demand in the coming decades. But renewable forms of generation – hydro, wind, solar and biomass – have become preferred tools for decarbonizing electricity grids. And utilities can buy inexpensive wind turbines and solar panels today.
Seeking to catch up, dozens of nuclear vendors sprung up just in the past few years, promoting a dizzying assortment of next-generation models that have collectively been dubbed “small modular reactors” (SMRs).
Though the characteristics of individual designs vary widely, in brief, these compact new reactors promise to retain the main selling points of nuclear power generation – namely, low carbon emissions and predictable electricity output, rather than the intermittent power generated by wind and solar. The makers also hope to ditch the nuclear industry’s considerable baggage, which includes a long history of cost overruns and construction delays.
Most vendors seek to take advantage of mass production as well: These are to be highly standardized, factory-built reactors, produced in large quantities that will make them cheaper than traditional reactors while facilitating rapid deployment. Some vendors say SMRs are just around the corner: Candu Energy Inc. (owned by SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.) claims its model could be “shovel-ready” as early as 2023.
Senior government officials, most notably federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan, regard SMRs as indispensable tools for meeting Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions targets, by replacing coal-fired plants and by electrifying mining and oil and gas facilities. U.S. President Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson have also indicated they will also support SMR development, as have some prominent investors, notably Bill Gates.
Here’s the reality: Most SMRs exist only as conceptual designs and are not yet licensed for construction anywhere. (The international law firm White & Case says the only contemporary SMR in existence is located on a vessel anchored off Russia’s Arctic coast. According to reports, construction of China’s first SMR recently commenced on the southern island of Hainan.) The promised assembly lines that would churn them out like clockwork don’t exist; many vendors are early-stage companies with hardly any revenues.
To change this, the federal government will probably have to open wide the taxpayer’s wallet. And the industry must move quickly from bold marketing claims to commercially viable products.
OLD IDEAS, NEW PACKAGE
SMR is a marketing term, rather than a technical one, reflecting the industry’s aspirations rather than what it can deliver today.
In Canada, SMR has come to describe reactors that generate 300 megawatts or less. That isn’t exactly small – it’s enough to power a small city – but for comparison’s sake, Ontario’s largest current reactors generate around 900 megawatts. Some proposed SMRs would produce just a few megawatts. The industry pitches them for remote Indigenous communities, industrial use (at mines, for instance) and tiny island nations.
Small reactors aren’t new. They’ve been used in icebreakers, submarines and aircraft carriers. And many SMRs are based on concepts contemplated as long ago as the 1950s.
Open this photo in gallery/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/5OCHGNF6HFDIBDDMCD2GJHQVWU.jpg)
A SMR nuclear reactor.
HANDOUT
Oakville, Ont.-based Terrestrial Energy Inc., one of OPG’s potential partners, intends to use molten salt, rather than water, as a coolant. The company says its technology is a “game-changer”: The Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) would operate at much higher temperatures (about 700 C) than conventional reactors (about 300 C), greatly increasing efficiency and lowering costs per unit of electricity generated.
Open this photo in gallery/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/ZEPL7FMLVRB3HKFJEYL2RQHEPU.jpg)
Terrestrial Energy envisages a future where the company's Integral Molten Salt Reactor sits at the core of an energy complex, providing high-quality heat to drive electricity generation, hydrogen production, other industrial applications (such as ammonia production or other chemical production), and desalination plants, as well as supporting energy production from renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar panels.
TERRESTRIAL ENERGY/HANDOUT
As for the “modular” part, the notion is that SMRs would be mass-produced on assembly lines and shipped to where they’re needed, rather than custom-built onsite. This plug-and-play approach is intended to reduce purchase costs and accelerate deployment.
Some SMRs are also designed to rapidly adjust the amount of electricity they generate in response to changes in demand – a trait that could help compensate for sudden fluctuations in power generated from variable sources, such as wind and solar. Rockville, Md.-based X-energy, another prospective OPG partner, says its Xe-100 reactor can ramp up from 40 per cent of its generating capacity to 100 per cent and back within 12 minutes.
Other SMRs would consume spent nuclear fuel from other reactors, potentially reducing the volumes of nuclear waste that must be disposed of.
Like traditional large reactors, SMRs would provide power largely free of greenhouse gas emissions. SMRs would also require far less land per megawatt generated than solar or hydroelectric – no small advantage in a world of rapidly growing populations and land-use pressures. X-energy says the emergency planning zone for the XE-100 would be tiny because its fuel cannot melt down under any circumstances.
SMRs appeal to certain nationalist impulses as well: Canada is, after all, the world’s second-largest uranium producer.
But nuclear power has been thoroughly stigmatized by the catastrophes at Chernobyl and Fukushima. The industry has made limited progress in addressing wastes from decades-old reactors; it’s unclear how novel detritus from SMRs might be handled. Perhaps most damagingly of all, reactors have earned a reputation for being overpriced relative to other forms of generation, and often beleaguered by massive delays and cost overruns.
SMR GAME PLAN
The nuclear industry’s plan to reverse its flagging fortunes begins at Darlington. OPG announced late last year it was working with three SMR developers on preliminary design and engineering work: North Carolina-based GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Terrestrial Energy and X-energy. It promises to select a winner by year’s end.
By partnering with a well-financed, experienced nuclear operator, the winning SMR vendor will greatly increase its chances of building at least one reactor – not to mention leapfrog its competitors. Terrestrial Energy chief executive Simon Irish understands such an opportunity is exceedingly rare. “OPG represents a utility in North America, and probably in the Western world, that is in a leadership position, with clear intent and a clear set of motives: to select one of these SMRs, deploy and operate it,” he said.
Naturally, of course, no SMR developer aspires to be a one-hit wonder. So next up: Persuade Saskatchewan to build a fleet of the same reactors.
According to the Canada Energy Regulator, Saskatchewan generates more than four-fifths of its electricity by burning natural gas and coal. Don Morgan, the minister responsible for the province’s power utility, SaskPower, worries about the carbon taxes its fossil-fuel power plants will attract.
The province hopes to double its wind generation capacity, but needs other options for reliable baseload power. SaskPower is reviewing the same three SMR options as OPG, and has signalled it could build as many as four beginning in the 2030s.
Winning Saskatchewan would be a major coup: Jurisdictions that go nuclear tend to stay nuclear for decades. And getting multiple Canadian utilities behind a single SMR design could be crucial. “Deploying multiple SMR technologies in Canada with differing supply chains – as well as regulatory and operational know-how – could be problematic,” said a Conference Board of Canada report published in April. “It might limit economies of scale and the specialization needed to drive down costs.”
Saskatchewan is already an international centre for uranium production. It has flirted with nuclear power several times since the 1970s, but demurred each time. Mr. Morgan said one reason was the province couldn’t find a reactor to fit its particular size requirements – a problem SMRs might well address.
But another reason was that “it’s always been difficult to find a reactor that was a proven technology.” That quandary remains: Prospective SMR buyers such as SaskPower can only look at conceptual designs. “There’s been some small demonstration units built, but nothing of the size that we would expect to see in operational terms,” Mr. Morgan said.
“It would be an easier decision for us if there were five of them operating in different locations around the world.”
NUCLEAR GHOSTS
Twenty years ago, Canada’s nuclear industry staked its future on updating the venerable CANDU design. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), the Crown corporation that pioneered it, talked up the Enhanced CANDU 6, CANDU 9 and Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR) as safer, faster to construct, cheaper and better than previous models. The federal government pumped untold sums into their development.
None were licensed. None were ordered. None were built.
In 2011, the federal government sold AECL’s reactor business to SNC-Lavalin for a paltry $15-million. After six decades of development, and dozens of bona fide reactors built and operated in seven countries, the CANDU had become nearly worthless.
The proposed site for OPG’s first SMR, next to the existing Darlington Station, is an artifact of that era. In 2006, OPG began preparing to build up to four reactors at the same location. AECL’s Enhanced CANDU 6 and the ACR 1000 were candidates.
But the project was derailed in late 2013 when the Ontario government asked OPG to stand down, essentially because the province no longer needed the power. The viability of those “next-generation” CANDUs, however, was never clear.
It’s relatively easy to sketch a reactor design on the back of a napkin, or create promotional videos and brochures with snazzy renderings. Professor M.V. Ramana, of the University of British Columbia’s Liu Institute for Global Issues, says a few graduate students can develop a conceptual design for a few hundred thousand dollars.
But it’s quite another matter to advance a design to the point of actually building it. The real challenge, Prof. Ramana said, “is answering all the safety questions that any good regulator would ask: ‘How will this behave if there’s an earthquake or fire? What happens if there’s a complete blackout? What happens if this component fails?’ ” Answering such questions requires an intensive research program and countless hours of laboratory work, which can take decades. There’s no guarantee the answers will be favourable.
Portland, Ore.-based NuScale Power is a rare example of a vendor whose SMR design is backed by 20 years of research. According to published reports, it has spent around US$1-billion so far developing its product.
Even a mature design isn’t enough. Just as Ford wouldn’t build an assembly line for the Mustang Mach-E if it thought it could sell only a handful, SMR vendors need assurances they’ll receive enough orders to justify mass production. It’s unclear how many orders would be sufficient, but published estimates have ranged from as low as 30 to well into the hundreds.
“Our plan is to be building hundreds of these,” said Katherine Moshonas Cole, president of X-energy Canada. “There will be multiples in Canada and there’ll be multiples in the States ... and there will be multiples in Europe as well.”
Prof. Ramana said many of the earliest power reactors met the modern definition of SMRs. But their diminutive size was rarely a virtue: It meant they couldn’t take advantage of economies of scale, resulting in high costs per unit of electricity generated, not to mention disproportionately greater volumes of radioactive waste. Many were shut down early.
“The lesson that we learned from some of these experiences is that designs that might seem captivating on paper might not actually work so well in real life,” Prof. Ramana said. “SMRs are not going to be economical. You can see that from the outset.”
Terrestrial Energy’s Mr. Irish, though, is not counting on assembly-line manufacturing alone to bridge that gap. Rather, he says it’s the IMSR’s design that ensures it can compete with other forms of power generation. Its high-temperature operation, for him, is the ticket.
“That’s profoundly important for economics,” he said. “For the same amount of expensive capital kit, we generate 50 per cent more kilowatt hours. That surely must be the most important place you start to achieve your commercial objectives ... you want a much more efficient machine.”
FEDERAL SUPPORT - THE CRUCIAL INGREDIENT
In contrast with the CANDU, the nuclear industry promises SMRs will be funded largely by the private sector. Many observers are skeptical. “Without government programs and financial support promoting SMRs, industry alone is unlikely to invest in the high up-front costs,” opined lawyers at Stikeman Elliott in a recent commentary.
Nor are non-nuclear provinces likely to make the leap alone. Mr. Morgan confirmed Saskatchewan seeks federal support to deploy SMRs, although the form of that support has yet to be determined.
For several years, federal and provincial government officials have signalled they want Canada to be one of the earliest adopters of SMRs. They’ve partnered with industry to produce road maps for making that happen. The governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta have agreed to collaborate on advancing SMRs. Mr. O’Regan, the federal Natural Resources Minister, has fully embraced the industry’s claim that Canada’s clean-energy transition cannot succeed without them.
So far, however, such pronouncements haven’t translated into generous subsidies. The federal government has channelled just meagre amounts of funding to SMRs, such as $20-million last October toward development of Terrestrial’s IMSR, and $50.5-million to New Brunswick-based Moltex Energy in March.
The latest federal budget didn’t mention SMRs. Nevertheless, studying its fine print, lawyers at McCarthy Tétrault LLP noticed what they described as “exciting policy levers.” They pointed, for example, to an income tax break of up to 50 per cent for manufacturers of zero-emission technologies. There was also $1-billion offered for clean tech projects “where there is a perceived lack of patient capital or ability to scale up because of the size of the Canadian market.” SMR vendors could capitalize on such programs, the lawyers concluded, depending on how they’re implemented.
Meanwhile, SMR vendors seek relaxed safety requirements that could make SMRs more cost-competitive. Terrestrial, for instance, says that its IMSR will be “walk-away safe” thanks to “passive and inherent safety” features.
X-energy says its reactor’s safety radius is about a quarter of a mile, versus 10 miles for typical reactors. Ms. Cole said the Xe-100′s fuel, known as tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) particle fuel, cannot melt.
“We don’t actually need any emergency planning for our reactors, because there’s no plausible ... or even implausible ... accident that would result in any consequence to the surroundings outside the reactor’s perimeter,” she said.
It’s unclear to what extent the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) will acquiesce.
Rumina Velshi, the CNSC’s president, said in a speech late last year that the organization regards SMRs as “poised to potentially be the next chapter in the evolution of Canada’s nuclear industry.”
To facilitate their development, the CNSC introduced a special program that allows its staff to provide feedback on reactor designs prior to a formal license application. Since 2016, its staff have reviewed a dozen designs, and bills the process as a way for vendors to learn upfront about any potential regulatory roadblocks.
The CNSC has heard claims of “passive safety” many times before. Christian Carrier, now a consultant, was until recently the CNSC’s director of new major facilities licensing. He said some gas-cooled and molten salt reactors have demonstrated inherent safety characteristics. But reactor design is only one of many factors considered when setting licence conditions. Others include the capabilities and internal practices of the operator.
Obtaining a licence typically takes a few years. “Experience has shown that it will be dramatically affected by the [proponent’s] capability of submitting adequate and complete information on day one,” Mr. Carrier said. Only one SMR has so far commenced a full licensing review: Ottawa-based Global First Power Ltd. submitted documentation for its Micro Modular Reactor in March.
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An artist rendering of a cross section of the USNC-Power Micro Modular Reactor™ (MMR™) unit, in design for Chalk River. USNC-POWER/HANDOUT
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a long-time opponent of nuclear power, released a study in March which concluded that SMR designs, including molten salt reactors, are no safer than previous designs. It therefore urged regulators to maintain current requirements.
“The intense scrutiny, from policy makers and the public – given the safety and security angle combined with a nascent technology – will likely cause delays and conflicts” for SMR developers, lawyers from global law firm White & Case predicted in a recent commentary.
In short, SMRs’ future depends to a large extent on vendors delivering hard proof supporting their most ambitious promises about safety, efficiency, cost and other matters.
Dennis Langren is a regulatory lawyer with Stikeman Elliott. He says the earliest deployments of SMRs in Canada are at least a decade off. Nevertheless, he believes they ultimately will be built because they can support intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.
“Social and political pressures are driving us to decarbonize,” he said. “In the provinces that don’t have hydro, at some point there’s going to be a need for a shift, because you need to backfill that. And it’s that type of drive that’s going to get us to small nuclear.”
Yet a late arrival by SMRs could consign them to irrelevance. And right now, many observers regard them as too speculative to factor into forecasts. The federal government’s own Canada Energy Regulator projects the amount of power generated by nuclear reactors in Canada will continue on a declining trend.
Paris-based Mycle Schneider Consulting has reviewed the status of global SMR development three times since 2015. In the firm’s most recent review, published in September, 2020, it found little had changed over the period.
“Overall, there are few signs that would hint at a major breakthrough for SMRs, either with regard to the technology or with regard to the commercial side,” the firm observed. “Delays, poor economics, and the increased availability of low-carbon alternatives at rapidly decreasing cost plague these technologies as well, and there is no need to wait with bated breath for SMRs to be deployed.”
Ralph Torrie is a partner at Torrie Smith Associates, an energy and environmental consultancy. He says he’s focused on power generation options that can be built this decade to address a warming climate – a criterion that, in his view, disqualifies SMRs.
“They’re a long way off.”
LONG READ
MATTHEW MCCLEARN
PUBLISHED JUL 16.2021
Senior government officials, most notably federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan, regard SMRs as indispensable tools for meeting Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions targets, by replacing coal-fired plants and by electrifying mining and oil and gas facilities. CANADIAN NUCLEAR LABRATORIES/HANDOUT
Ontario Power Generation plans to make a decision this year that might determine the future of Canada’s nuclear industry.
The utility, by far Canada’s largest nuclear power producer, promises to select a design for a 300-megawatt reactor it proposes to build at its Darlington Nuclear Generating Station by 2028. The estimated price tag: up to $3-billion. It would be the first new reactor built on Canadian soil in well over three decades. OPG won’t make that decision alone, because it’s intended to be the first of many reactors of the same design built across the country.
Canada’s nuclear industry desperately needs a next act. It employs 30,000 people (mostly in Ontario) and contributes $6-billion annually to the country’s economy, according to one federal government estimate. With a supply chain of more than 200 companies covering everything from uranium mining, to operating power plants, to decommissioning them, Canada is considered a Tier 1 nuclear country.
But lately, this machine has been devoted to squeezing more life out of old CANDU units, largely through Ontario’s $26-billion plan to refurbish its Darlington station, east of Toronto, and the Bruce Power complex, on Lake Huron. The industry has few, if any, exciting new products for sale.
This leaves it on the back foot as governments encourage electrification of cars, buildings and nearly everything else. Those efforts could double, even triple, electricity demand in the coming decades. But renewable forms of generation – hydro, wind, solar and biomass – have become preferred tools for decarbonizing electricity grids. And utilities can buy inexpensive wind turbines and solar panels today.
Seeking to catch up, dozens of nuclear vendors sprung up just in the past few years, promoting a dizzying assortment of next-generation models that have collectively been dubbed “small modular reactors” (SMRs).
Though the characteristics of individual designs vary widely, in brief, these compact new reactors promise to retain the main selling points of nuclear power generation – namely, low carbon emissions and predictable electricity output, rather than the intermittent power generated by wind and solar. The makers also hope to ditch the nuclear industry’s considerable baggage, which includes a long history of cost overruns and construction delays.
Most vendors seek to take advantage of mass production as well: These are to be highly standardized, factory-built reactors, produced in large quantities that will make them cheaper than traditional reactors while facilitating rapid deployment. Some vendors say SMRs are just around the corner: Candu Energy Inc. (owned by SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.) claims its model could be “shovel-ready” as early as 2023.
Senior government officials, most notably federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan, regard SMRs as indispensable tools for meeting Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions targets, by replacing coal-fired plants and by electrifying mining and oil and gas facilities. U.S. President Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson have also indicated they will also support SMR development, as have some prominent investors, notably Bill Gates.
Here’s the reality: Most SMRs exist only as conceptual designs and are not yet licensed for construction anywhere. (The international law firm White & Case says the only contemporary SMR in existence is located on a vessel anchored off Russia’s Arctic coast. According to reports, construction of China’s first SMR recently commenced on the southern island of Hainan.) The promised assembly lines that would churn them out like clockwork don’t exist; many vendors are early-stage companies with hardly any revenues.
To change this, the federal government will probably have to open wide the taxpayer’s wallet. And the industry must move quickly from bold marketing claims to commercially viable products.
OLD IDEAS, NEW PACKAGE
SMR is a marketing term, rather than a technical one, reflecting the industry’s aspirations rather than what it can deliver today.
In Canada, SMR has come to describe reactors that generate 300 megawatts or less. That isn’t exactly small – it’s enough to power a small city – but for comparison’s sake, Ontario’s largest current reactors generate around 900 megawatts. Some proposed SMRs would produce just a few megawatts. The industry pitches them for remote Indigenous communities, industrial use (at mines, for instance) and tiny island nations.
Small reactors aren’t new. They’ve been used in icebreakers, submarines and aircraft carriers. And many SMRs are based on concepts contemplated as long ago as the 1950s.
Open this photo in gallery
A SMR nuclear reactor.
HANDOUT
Oakville, Ont.-based Terrestrial Energy Inc., one of OPG’s potential partners, intends to use molten salt, rather than water, as a coolant. The company says its technology is a “game-changer”: The Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) would operate at much higher temperatures (about 700 C) than conventional reactors (about 300 C), greatly increasing efficiency and lowering costs per unit of electricity generated.
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Terrestrial Energy envisages a future where the company's Integral Molten Salt Reactor sits at the core of an energy complex, providing high-quality heat to drive electricity generation, hydrogen production, other industrial applications (such as ammonia production or other chemical production), and desalination plants, as well as supporting energy production from renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar panels.
TERRESTRIAL ENERGY/HANDOUT
As for the “modular” part, the notion is that SMRs would be mass-produced on assembly lines and shipped to where they’re needed, rather than custom-built onsite. This plug-and-play approach is intended to reduce purchase costs and accelerate deployment.
Some SMRs are also designed to rapidly adjust the amount of electricity they generate in response to changes in demand – a trait that could help compensate for sudden fluctuations in power generated from variable sources, such as wind and solar. Rockville, Md.-based X-energy, another prospective OPG partner, says its Xe-100 reactor can ramp up from 40 per cent of its generating capacity to 100 per cent and back within 12 minutes.
Other SMRs would consume spent nuclear fuel from other reactors, potentially reducing the volumes of nuclear waste that must be disposed of.
Like traditional large reactors, SMRs would provide power largely free of greenhouse gas emissions. SMRs would also require far less land per megawatt generated than solar or hydroelectric – no small advantage in a world of rapidly growing populations and land-use pressures. X-energy says the emergency planning zone for the XE-100 would be tiny because its fuel cannot melt down under any circumstances.
SMRs appeal to certain nationalist impulses as well: Canada is, after all, the world’s second-largest uranium producer.
But nuclear power has been thoroughly stigmatized by the catastrophes at Chernobyl and Fukushima. The industry has made limited progress in addressing wastes from decades-old reactors; it’s unclear how novel detritus from SMRs might be handled. Perhaps most damagingly of all, reactors have earned a reputation for being overpriced relative to other forms of generation, and often beleaguered by massive delays and cost overruns.
SMR GAME PLAN
The nuclear industry’s plan to reverse its flagging fortunes begins at Darlington. OPG announced late last year it was working with three SMR developers on preliminary design and engineering work: North Carolina-based GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Terrestrial Energy and X-energy. It promises to select a winner by year’s end.
By partnering with a well-financed, experienced nuclear operator, the winning SMR vendor will greatly increase its chances of building at least one reactor – not to mention leapfrog its competitors. Terrestrial Energy chief executive Simon Irish understands such an opportunity is exceedingly rare. “OPG represents a utility in North America, and probably in the Western world, that is in a leadership position, with clear intent and a clear set of motives: to select one of these SMRs, deploy and operate it,” he said.
Naturally, of course, no SMR developer aspires to be a one-hit wonder. So next up: Persuade Saskatchewan to build a fleet of the same reactors.
According to the Canada Energy Regulator, Saskatchewan generates more than four-fifths of its electricity by burning natural gas and coal. Don Morgan, the minister responsible for the province’s power utility, SaskPower, worries about the carbon taxes its fossil-fuel power plants will attract.
The province hopes to double its wind generation capacity, but needs other options for reliable baseload power. SaskPower is reviewing the same three SMR options as OPG, and has signalled it could build as many as four beginning in the 2030s.
Winning Saskatchewan would be a major coup: Jurisdictions that go nuclear tend to stay nuclear for decades. And getting multiple Canadian utilities behind a single SMR design could be crucial. “Deploying multiple SMR technologies in Canada with differing supply chains – as well as regulatory and operational know-how – could be problematic,” said a Conference Board of Canada report published in April. “It might limit economies of scale and the specialization needed to drive down costs.”
Saskatchewan is already an international centre for uranium production. It has flirted with nuclear power several times since the 1970s, but demurred each time. Mr. Morgan said one reason was the province couldn’t find a reactor to fit its particular size requirements – a problem SMRs might well address.
But another reason was that “it’s always been difficult to find a reactor that was a proven technology.” That quandary remains: Prospective SMR buyers such as SaskPower can only look at conceptual designs. “There’s been some small demonstration units built, but nothing of the size that we would expect to see in operational terms,” Mr. Morgan said.
“It would be an easier decision for us if there were five of them operating in different locations around the world.”
NUCLEAR GHOSTS
Twenty years ago, Canada’s nuclear industry staked its future on updating the venerable CANDU design. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), the Crown corporation that pioneered it, talked up the Enhanced CANDU 6, CANDU 9 and Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR) as safer, faster to construct, cheaper and better than previous models. The federal government pumped untold sums into their development.
None were licensed. None were ordered. None were built.
In 2011, the federal government sold AECL’s reactor business to SNC-Lavalin for a paltry $15-million. After six decades of development, and dozens of bona fide reactors built and operated in seven countries, the CANDU had become nearly worthless.
The proposed site for OPG’s first SMR, next to the existing Darlington Station, is an artifact of that era. In 2006, OPG began preparing to build up to four reactors at the same location. AECL’s Enhanced CANDU 6 and the ACR 1000 were candidates.
But the project was derailed in late 2013 when the Ontario government asked OPG to stand down, essentially because the province no longer needed the power. The viability of those “next-generation” CANDUs, however, was never clear.
It’s relatively easy to sketch a reactor design on the back of a napkin, or create promotional videos and brochures with snazzy renderings. Professor M.V. Ramana, of the University of British Columbia’s Liu Institute for Global Issues, says a few graduate students can develop a conceptual design for a few hundred thousand dollars.
But it’s quite another matter to advance a design to the point of actually building it. The real challenge, Prof. Ramana said, “is answering all the safety questions that any good regulator would ask: ‘How will this behave if there’s an earthquake or fire? What happens if there’s a complete blackout? What happens if this component fails?’ ” Answering such questions requires an intensive research program and countless hours of laboratory work, which can take decades. There’s no guarantee the answers will be favourable.
Portland, Ore.-based NuScale Power is a rare example of a vendor whose SMR design is backed by 20 years of research. According to published reports, it has spent around US$1-billion so far developing its product.
Even a mature design isn’t enough. Just as Ford wouldn’t build an assembly line for the Mustang Mach-E if it thought it could sell only a handful, SMR vendors need assurances they’ll receive enough orders to justify mass production. It’s unclear how many orders would be sufficient, but published estimates have ranged from as low as 30 to well into the hundreds.
“Our plan is to be building hundreds of these,” said Katherine Moshonas Cole, president of X-energy Canada. “There will be multiples in Canada and there’ll be multiples in the States ... and there will be multiples in Europe as well.”
Prof. Ramana said many of the earliest power reactors met the modern definition of SMRs. But their diminutive size was rarely a virtue: It meant they couldn’t take advantage of economies of scale, resulting in high costs per unit of electricity generated, not to mention disproportionately greater volumes of radioactive waste. Many were shut down early.
“The lesson that we learned from some of these experiences is that designs that might seem captivating on paper might not actually work so well in real life,” Prof. Ramana said. “SMRs are not going to be economical. You can see that from the outset.”
Terrestrial Energy’s Mr. Irish, though, is not counting on assembly-line manufacturing alone to bridge that gap. Rather, he says it’s the IMSR’s design that ensures it can compete with other forms of power generation. Its high-temperature operation, for him, is the ticket.
“That’s profoundly important for economics,” he said. “For the same amount of expensive capital kit, we generate 50 per cent more kilowatt hours. That surely must be the most important place you start to achieve your commercial objectives ... you want a much more efficient machine.”
FEDERAL SUPPORT - THE CRUCIAL INGREDIENT
In contrast with the CANDU, the nuclear industry promises SMRs will be funded largely by the private sector. Many observers are skeptical. “Without government programs and financial support promoting SMRs, industry alone is unlikely to invest in the high up-front costs,” opined lawyers at Stikeman Elliott in a recent commentary.
Nor are non-nuclear provinces likely to make the leap alone. Mr. Morgan confirmed Saskatchewan seeks federal support to deploy SMRs, although the form of that support has yet to be determined.
For several years, federal and provincial government officials have signalled they want Canada to be one of the earliest adopters of SMRs. They’ve partnered with industry to produce road maps for making that happen. The governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta have agreed to collaborate on advancing SMRs. Mr. O’Regan, the federal Natural Resources Minister, has fully embraced the industry’s claim that Canada’s clean-energy transition cannot succeed without them.
So far, however, such pronouncements haven’t translated into generous subsidies. The federal government has channelled just meagre amounts of funding to SMRs, such as $20-million last October toward development of Terrestrial’s IMSR, and $50.5-million to New Brunswick-based Moltex Energy in March.
The latest federal budget didn’t mention SMRs. Nevertheless, studying its fine print, lawyers at McCarthy Tétrault LLP noticed what they described as “exciting policy levers.” They pointed, for example, to an income tax break of up to 50 per cent for manufacturers of zero-emission technologies. There was also $1-billion offered for clean tech projects “where there is a perceived lack of patient capital or ability to scale up because of the size of the Canadian market.” SMR vendors could capitalize on such programs, the lawyers concluded, depending on how they’re implemented.
Meanwhile, SMR vendors seek relaxed safety requirements that could make SMRs more cost-competitive. Terrestrial, for instance, says that its IMSR will be “walk-away safe” thanks to “passive and inherent safety” features.
X-energy says its reactor’s safety radius is about a quarter of a mile, versus 10 miles for typical reactors. Ms. Cole said the Xe-100′s fuel, known as tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) particle fuel, cannot melt.
“We don’t actually need any emergency planning for our reactors, because there’s no plausible ... or even implausible ... accident that would result in any consequence to the surroundings outside the reactor’s perimeter,” she said.
It’s unclear to what extent the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) will acquiesce.
Rumina Velshi, the CNSC’s president, said in a speech late last year that the organization regards SMRs as “poised to potentially be the next chapter in the evolution of Canada’s nuclear industry.”
To facilitate their development, the CNSC introduced a special program that allows its staff to provide feedback on reactor designs prior to a formal license application. Since 2016, its staff have reviewed a dozen designs, and bills the process as a way for vendors to learn upfront about any potential regulatory roadblocks.
The CNSC has heard claims of “passive safety” many times before. Christian Carrier, now a consultant, was until recently the CNSC’s director of new major facilities licensing. He said some gas-cooled and molten salt reactors have demonstrated inherent safety characteristics. But reactor design is only one of many factors considered when setting licence conditions. Others include the capabilities and internal practices of the operator.
Obtaining a licence typically takes a few years. “Experience has shown that it will be dramatically affected by the [proponent’s] capability of submitting adequate and complete information on day one,” Mr. Carrier said. Only one SMR has so far commenced a full licensing review: Ottawa-based Global First Power Ltd. submitted documentation for its Micro Modular Reactor in March.
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An artist rendering of a cross section of the USNC-Power Micro Modular Reactor™ (MMR™) unit, in design for Chalk River. USNC-POWER/HANDOUT
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a long-time opponent of nuclear power, released a study in March which concluded that SMR designs, including molten salt reactors, are no safer than previous designs. It therefore urged regulators to maintain current requirements.
“The intense scrutiny, from policy makers and the public – given the safety and security angle combined with a nascent technology – will likely cause delays and conflicts” for SMR developers, lawyers from global law firm White & Case predicted in a recent commentary.
In short, SMRs’ future depends to a large extent on vendors delivering hard proof supporting their most ambitious promises about safety, efficiency, cost and other matters.
Dennis Langren is a regulatory lawyer with Stikeman Elliott. He says the earliest deployments of SMRs in Canada are at least a decade off. Nevertheless, he believes they ultimately will be built because they can support intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.
“Social and political pressures are driving us to decarbonize,” he said. “In the provinces that don’t have hydro, at some point there’s going to be a need for a shift, because you need to backfill that. And it’s that type of drive that’s going to get us to small nuclear.”
Yet a late arrival by SMRs could consign them to irrelevance. And right now, many observers regard them as too speculative to factor into forecasts. The federal government’s own Canada Energy Regulator projects the amount of power generated by nuclear reactors in Canada will continue on a declining trend.
Paris-based Mycle Schneider Consulting has reviewed the status of global SMR development three times since 2015. In the firm’s most recent review, published in September, 2020, it found little had changed over the period.
“Overall, there are few signs that would hint at a major breakthrough for SMRs, either with regard to the technology or with regard to the commercial side,” the firm observed. “Delays, poor economics, and the increased availability of low-carbon alternatives at rapidly decreasing cost plague these technologies as well, and there is no need to wait with bated breath for SMRs to be deployed.”
Ralph Torrie is a partner at Torrie Smith Associates, an energy and environmental consultancy. He says he’s focused on power generation options that can be built this decade to address a warming climate – a criterion that, in his view, disqualifies SMRs.
“They’re a long way off.”
UK cross-sector report plans zero-carbon hydrogen from nuclear
14 July 2021
A new report published today by the UK's Nuclear Sector Deal’s Innovation Group presents a series of recommendations for realising the opportunity of zero-carbon hydrogen from nuclear energy. Its findings follow a Nuclear Hydrogen Roundtable event, which brought together over 80 experts and industry leaders from across the hydrogen value chain.
The report, Unlocking the UK’s Nuclear Hydrogen Economy to Support Net Zero, is a cross-sector action plan for consideration by the Nuclear Industry Council. It is aimed at offering "maximum value", its authors say, ahead of the UK government’s anticipated Hydrogen Strategy.
"The production of hydrogen from nuclear energy only requires today’s technologies to generate hydrogen with zero emissions," Fiona Rayment, chair of the Innovation Group and chief science & technology officer at National Nuclear Laboratory, says in the report. "Driving nuclear hydrogen production today will de-risk the UK energy transition as we strive for net zero. A cross-sector approach, working collaboratively across the entire hydrogen value chain, will enable us to achieve economic prosperity and global leadership in delivering a nuclear hydrogen economy. The opportunity is enormous and this is the backbone of our action plan."
The report sets out 10 actions for industry and 10 commitments for government. These recommendations are grouped into five areas.
In 'economic', it says appropriate measures should be created now to deliver "an immediate term use case" for nuclear-derived zero carbon hydrogen that will activate the market. Next, support schemes should be established to incentivise the full hydrogen value chain for a range of markets, building on the first use case.
In 'technical', it says the UK supply chain capability should be enhanced to its full potential across the entire hydrogen value chain and capitalise on enormous future export markets for hydrogen based products. Next, funding should focus on innovation to accelerate technology innovation that delivers increased efficiencies and scalability, utilising heat and electricity from nuclear power plants, and includes innovation in demand side technology.
In 'regulatory', innovative regulation and active collaboration between regulators and industry should be driven to enable accelerated deployment of technologies in the delivery of nuclear-derived hydrogen. International collaboration should be enabled to harmonise the UK with international standards, creating an increased export market.
In 'policy', a comprehensive siting strategy should be created that ensures maximum contribution to the 'levelling up agenda' that drives high-skilled, high-value jobs across multiple UK regions. Policy that will embrace the potential for nuclear to decarbonise sectors such as heavy industry, transport (including through synthetic fuels) and direct heat should be enabled.
And in 'finance', a focused effort should be established on communicating the benefits of nuclear hydrogen products to demonstrate the societal value of nuclear-derived hydrogen. And a low (and zero) carbon hydrogen standard should be defined, to ensure consistent access to finance and market mechanisms for all relevant technologies as they come to commercialisation.
"With decades of nuclear experience, the UK sits on a wealth of skills, talent and capability that can deliver nuclear derived hydrogen at scale," Rayment said in a statement announcing publication of the report. "This capability can create the world’s first nuclear derived hydrogen economy, delivering net zero at lower cost to consumers. The UK could spur a future global commodity market for hydrogen, enhancing exports of skills and innovative technology."
Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, added: "Nuclear power should be right at the heart of zero-carbon hydrogen production, alongside renewable technology. Nuclear reactors, both large and small, offer the innovative solutions we need to decarbonise sectors beyond electricity as part of a robust net zero mix, starting today and going into the future. The government has already recognised that potential, and we look forward to working with them and other partners to create a strong framework for a nuclear derived hydrogen economy. It is an opportunity that cannot be missed."
Separately, Greatrex responded to National Grid’s newly published 2021 Future Energy Scenarios Report, saying: "National Grid’s scenarios show that we need new nuclear to hit net zero, including replacing existing capacity by the mid-2030s, and expansion thereafter. But to meet the growing demand for clean power, the UK should have even more ambitious targets for nuclear, our only proven source of firm, emissions-free power.
"We should also strive to produce as much of that power ourselves, to safeguard Britain’s energy security. Interconnectors have a key role in stabilising our energy system, but we should not make our road to net zero dependent on other countries’ energy policies. Nuclear investment is a sure path to better jobs, lower emissions, and security of supply."
Researched and written by World Nuclear News
Canadian firm enters US uranium sector with mine purchases
16 July 202
Vancouver-based International Consolidated Uranium (CUR) has agreed to buy the Tony M, Daneros and Rim conventional uranium mines in Utah, as well as the Sage Plain property and eight Department of Energy leases in Colorado from Energy Fuels Inc. In addition, the companies have agreed to enter into toll-milling and operating agreements with respect to the projects. The transaction positions CUR as a potential near-term US uranium producer.
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The mines purchased by CUR from Energy Fuels (Image: CUR)Under a definitive asset purchase agreement announced yesterday, CUR will pay Energy Fuels USD2 million at the closing of the transaction, CAD6 million (USD4.8 million) of deferred cash payable over time, up to CAD5 million of deferred cash payable on commencement of commercial production, and such number of CUR shares that results in Energy Fuels holding 19.9% of the outstanding CUR common shares immediately after closing. CUR will also pay Energy Fuels a management fee, along with a toll milling fee for ore produced at the acquired projects in the future.
The portfolio of projects being acquired by CUR includes, among other assets, three permitted, past-producing mines in Utah: Tony M, Daneros and Rim.
The Tony M mine in southeastern Utah is a large-scale, fully-developed and permitted underground mine. Located about 127 road miles west of Energy Fuels' White Mesa Mill, the mine was operated by Denison from September 2007 to November 2008, when it was placed on care and maintenance. In June 2012, Energy Fuels acquired all of Denison's uranium properties in the USA.
The Daneros mine - located about 70 miles west of the White Mesa Mill - is a fully-developed and permitted underground mine. It operated from 2009 until October 2012 when the mine was placed on standby by Denison.
The Rim mine is a permitted, formerly producing mine located approximately 62 road miles from the White Mesa Mill. The mine has operated historically on a periodic basis starting in the mid-1960s. Mining last occurred in early 2008 by Denison and ceased in late 2010. Energy Fuels acquired the property in 2012 and has maintained it on care and maintenance since that time.
The transaction also includes CIR's acquisition of the Sage Plain property in Utah and eight Department of Energy (DOE) leases in Colorado. The project area - some 54 road miles from the White Mesa Mill - is at the location of the historic Calliham mine. The DOE leases are located in the historically productive Uravan Mineral Belt in Colorado. The leases are located 80-175 road miles from the White Mesa Mill. New 10-year leases for these lease tracts were executed by Energy Fuels in January 2020.
Strategic alliance
CUR and Energy Fuels have also entered a strategic alliance for the projects, which involves three key components: a toll-milling agreement, operating agreements and an investor rights agreement.
Under the toll-milling, Energy Fuels will toll-mill ore mined from the projects at the White Mesa Mill, subject to payment by CUR of a toll-milling fee and certain other terms and conditions. With this agreement, CUR will become the only current US uranium developer - other than Energy Fuels itself - with guaranteed access to the White Mesa Mill, which is the only permitted and operating conventional uranium mill in the USA.
Through the operating agreements, Energy Fuels will provide ongoing services for a fee to maintain the projects in good standing, as well as additional services as agreed to by the parties.
Under the investor rights agreement, for so long as Energy Fuels' equity ownership in CUR remains at or above 10%, it will be entitled to equity participation rights to maintain its pro rata equity ownership in CUR and to appoint one nominee to the CUR Board of Directors.
Growth strategies
"Our strategy has been to acquire uranium projects around the world, create critical mass, and target the acquisition of larger, more advanced projects," said CUR President and CEO Philip Williams. "While the recently announced acquisition of the high-grade Matoush Project in Quebec was a big step forward for CUR, today's acquisition and alliance with Energy Fuels represents a giant leap. In one transaction, we are entering the important US uranium sector by acquiring past producing mines which are permitted and well positioned for a rapid restart when market conditions are right."
CUR has acquired a 100% interest or has entered into option agreements to acquire a 100% interest in seven uranium projects, in Australia, Canada and Argentina, each with significant past expenditures and attractive characteristics for development.
Energy Fuels holds three of the USA's key uranium production centres: the White Mesa Mill in Utah, the Nichols Ranch ISR Project in Wyoming and the Alta Mesa ISR Project in Texas. The White Mesa Mill is the only conventional uranium mill operating in the USA today, has a licensed capacity of over 8 million pounds of U3O8 per year and has the ability to produce vanadium when market conditions warrant.
"The assets we are selling to CUR are proven US uranium mines, and in fact production from these mines since 2006 has accounted for over 1,050,000 lbs of US uranium production, which would rank those mines as fifth among all current uranium producers in the US over those years," said Energy Fuels President and CEO Mark Chalmers.
"However, because Energy Fuels is focusing its attention on its core projects - the Nichols Ranch and Alta Mesa ISR properties and the Pinyon Plain, La Sal and other conventional properties - we do not believe markets have properly valued the projects within our expansive portfolio of exceptional assets," he added. "We believe that, in order to realise the full value of our expansive portfolio, certain assets, such as the projects, can be repositioned to the benefit of Energy Fuels and its shareholders, provided we find the right vehicle to unlock the value of these assets. In this transaction, we believe we have found that vehicle in CUR."
Researched and written by World Nuclear News
‘I’m very pleased she’ll be leaving’: Australian government cancels Katie Hopkins’ visa
The federal government has cancelled the visa of far-right British commentator Katie Hopkins.
Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews says Ms Hopkins will be kicked out of the country as soon as possible.
Hopkins criticises Australia's response to COVID-19, saying lockdowns are the greatest hoaxes in history.
Ms Hopkins was dumped from an upcoming series of Channel Seven’s Big Brother on Sunday, a day after boasting about flouting infection controls while in hotel quarantine in Sydney.
The provocative post came as 12 million Australians were locked down in NSW and Victoria.
“It is despicable that anyone would behave in such a way that puts our health officials and community at risk,” Ms Andrews said in a statement.
“There is no place in Australia for visa holders who would deliberately endanger others. Entry to Australia brings responsibilities and the community rightly expects better. Those who don’t live up to the standards can expect to have their visas cancelled and to be removed.”
Speaking on ABC News Breakfast, Ms Andrews added that the flaunting of quarantine breaches was a “slap in the face for all those Australians who are currently in lockdown”.
“Personally, I’m very pleased she’ll be leaving,” the Home Affairs Minister said.
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“We will be getting her out of the country as soon as we can possibly arrange that. So I’m hopeful that it will happen imminently.”
“Personally, I’m very pleased she’ll be leaving,” Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said.CREDIT:ALEX ELLINGHAUSEN
Ms Hopkins has previously called for a “final solution” (a reference to the Nazi policy of murdering Jews) and labelled migrants “cockroaches”. Asked why she was given a visa in the first place over an Australian trying to return home, Ms Andrews said the far-right commentator was allowed in under “established processes and procedures” given she was due to film a TV show.
“So she came in here on the basis of potential benefit to the economy,” the Home Affairs Minister said. “[But] she’s clearly not someone that we want to keep in this country for a second longer than we have to.”
Ms Hopkins told her 261,000 Instagram followers she had opened her door to guards naked and not wearing a mask to “call out” Australia’s quarantine system and lockdowns.
“What I want is the sergeant in the foyer to come up and tell me off so that I can stand there naked while he tells me off,” she said.
She said it was her way of “calling out” lockdowns, which she described as being the “greatest hoax in human history”.
On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce on the ABC’s Insiders told Ms Hopkins to “pack your bongo and get out”.
Health Minister Greg Hunt described the boast as “dangerous, irresponsible and apparently deliberate”.
Amid a growing political storm, Channel Seven issued a statement saying Ms Hopkins was not part of Big Brother VIP.
“Seven and Endemol Shine strongly condemn her irresponsible and reckless comments in hotel quarantine.”
Ms Hopkins hosted a national talkback show on British radio station LBC but left in 2017 after posting on Twitter there should be a “final solution” in the aftermath of the Manchester terrorist attack.
She was permanently banned from Twitter last year for what the company described as “violations of our hateful conduct policy”, and was detained in South Africa in 2018 for allegedly spreading racial hatred.
But she has found a home on Australian television screens, having appeared on Sky News’ Outsiders program six times last year and this year.
The right-wing commentator’s arrival came as American celebrity Caitlyn Jenner also landed in Sydney this week to appear on Big Brother, according to celebrity news website TMZ. Big Brother contestants have received a travel exemption from the NSW state government, which is accepting them above the existing quarantine cap.
To date, Australian border officials have removed seven non-citizens found to have breached COVID-19 health directions.
At least 35,000 Australians remain stranded overseas and passenger caps for those returning have been halved to about 3000 a week.
With Bianca Hall, Jennifer Duke, Zoe Samios
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Cardboard Beds at Olympics Designed to Be 'Anti-Sex' Put to the Test
TOKYO OLYMPICSIT'S CARDBOARD BEDS FOR ATHLETES ...Deterrent for Banging???
7/18/2021 4
4:53 PM PT -- It looks like the no-sex hypothesis has (possibly) been debunked ... by none other than an Olympian who's on the scene, and did a little in-room test to see how the cardboard holds up under pressure.
Irish gymnast, Rhys McClenaghan, posted a video in response to reports the cardboard beds are meant to dissuade athletes from doing it in the village ... and he's calling BS, because the frames can apparently withstand his own bodyweight jumping up and down.
Check out his demo ... the dude hops up and down on his own cardboard cutout, and the thing stays intact. Pretty interesting, but we're not so sure that clears it up. Fact is ... two bodies are heavier than one -- even one that's jumping. More testing is likely needed. 🤔
The sleeping arrangements for the Olympics have surfaced -- athletes will crash on boxes, limit 1 per customer ... something honchos apparently don't want tested with bedroom shenanigans.
Check out the beds that have been set up all throughout the Olympic village in Tokyo, where world-class athletes will arrive by the end of next week for the start of the games. As you can clearly see, these babies are made out of good old-fashioned cardboard ... seriously.
The beds' frames and modest mattresses are designed by a company called Airweave -- and they've cranked out upwards of 18,000 for the Olympics. Yes, they're somewhat intricate in their structure and configuring ... able to be adjusted to an individual's liking/contortion.
However, a running theory is that the beds are made this way for a reason -- namely, the International Olympic Committee and other organizers supposedly want to discourage sex among athletes ... a pastime at the games that's getting pooh-pooh'd this year due to COVID.
A handful of Olympic athletes -- some who've already touched down in Tokyo, and others who haven't -- are testing positive for the virus ... including U.S. tennis player Coco Gauff.
Still, U.S. track and field star Paul Chelimo got in on the joke, explaining that it was clear to him the Olympic powers that be don't want any banging going on ... because these beds, theoretically, only support the weight of one person. NBD for runners, though!!!
He writes, "I see no problem for distance runners,even 4 of us can do😂." The implication being ... runners are light, so a couple of them probably wouldn't break the bed.
There's also the tradition of handing out condoms, which got a 2021 asterisk. The Tokyo Olympics Organizing Committee reportedly told a Japanese outlet the condoms aren't supposed to be used, but brought back to an athlete's home country for safe sex education.
In other words ... keep it in your pants this time around. That, or risk hitting the floor.
Originally Published -- 12:26 PM PT
Paul Chelimo responds to cardboard beds in the Olympic Village
The beds are designed to discourage "intimacy among athletes", but the Olympic silver medallist says that won't be a problem for the distance runners
RELATED: Olympic organizers will increase COVID-19 testing at Games
Anyone who remembers traveling to a cross-country meet and having to share a hotel bed with two or three of their teammates will know exactly what Chelimo is talking about, but he didn’t stop there. He continued, noting the risks involved in sleeping on a cardboard box:
He added that now he has two fears heading into the Olympic Games: fear of getting boxed-in during his race, and fear of getting boxed-in in the Village.
Chelimo has now added another element to his training regime: he will now have to start practicing sleeping on the floor in case his bed collapses the night before his race.
RELATED: Tokyo chefs to cook 48,000 meals per day for Olympic athletes
Now the real question is, how many bed-related injuries will be sustained during this year’s Games? We will have to wait to find out.