ONTARIO
'At age 79, I will probably never buy an electron from this new (reactor). But most of you reading this could be buying this power,' says columnist
Peter Bursztyn
BARRIE TODAY
Recently, the Ford government announced that Ontario would build a “small modular reactor” (SMR) at the site of the Darlington nuclear power reactor in Bowmanville. Immediately, alarm bells began to sound.
First of all, this seems to be a contract with no competitive price quotes, definitely at odds with the PC “For the People” promise of greater accountability, transparency and fiscal responsibility. But leave that aside for the moment.
The word “small” might almost be perceived as “cuddly," but that would be quite wrong in this case. This “small” reactor is around 30 per cent the typical size for a nuclear reactor and 40 per cent the size of several Ontario CANDU units. Its 300MW output is definitely not “small" and that matters, too.
“Modular” makes it sound as if you could assemble the device from off-the-shelf modules. That’s simply not possible for a design, which now exists only in blueprint form. Instead of a well-tested electricity generator, Ontario would be building one of the first example of this GE-Hitachi design.
We did this before, with our CANDU “fleet” of reactors. These provide Ontario with almost 60 per cent of our electricity. All of them took longer to build and cost far more than expected. After many rebuilds and retubing exercises, they are now reliable, but it took three decades and pots of money to get there. Are the people of Ontario clamouring to do it all again?
I believe Ontarians want good “value-for-money” performance guarantees, particularly with respect to the future cost of electricity. I would love to know what’s in the contract with GE-Hitachi. And why do we, the taxpayers, not know what we are signing up to build and how much its power output will cost?
When first proposed decades ago, SMRs were meant for niche markets. They were originally intended for communities and industries too remote to justify connecting to the electricity grid. Specifically, they would replace the diesel generators, which now supply Arctic and sub-Arctic towns, mining and petroleum extraction operations, etc.
Depending on the cost of shipping diesel fuel, electricity from these generators could be very expensive: Nunavut – 60 cents to $1.10/kWh, Alaska – 30 cents US to $1.10 US/kWh, Siberia – 50 cents US to $1.50 US/kWh. A small nuclear power plant would only need refuelling every decade or so, simplifying supply issues and reducing costs.
As initially conceived, SMRs were designed to be shipped as sealed, pre-fuelled units. On arrival, they only needed to be connected to plumbing and the local micro-grid. Every decade or so, the old unit would be replaced and shipped back to the factory where it could be refuelled and refurbished if necessary. A “plug-and-play” operation.
Most of the world's SMRs are in naval ships and submarines, plus nine Russian icebreakers. Very few SMRs are in operation in Russia’s Arctic. Planned decades ago, the fact that so few have been built (mostly military naval ships) is not a ringing endorsement for the concept’s economics.
One frequently cited complaint is the large amount of (low-enriched) uranium, which must be packed into such sealed units to fuel them for a decade. Some worry terrorists might try to steal the fuel, particularly since security would be poor in remote communities.
However, a neat feature of nuclear reactors is that after an hour or two of operation, their inner workings become so radioactive that nobody can touch these without serious protective clothing. Refuelling would be carried out by remote control. Opening up the welded casing would expose any would-be thief to deadly radiation, making them “self-policing” and safe from terrorists.
A key to economic operation is the ability to warm a community with waste heat. Far North settlements need heat 10 months a year. (The diesel generators currently used also heat their Arctic communities.) Heat is supplied by circulating a fluid like radiator anti-freeze.
It is worth understanding that the farther this fluid is pumped, the more of its heat is lost. In practice, an SMR can distribute heat within a radius of about two kilometres; beyond that, costs rise and efficiency suffers.
Siting such a unit at Darlington puts it around five kilometres from Oshawa, where its abundant waste heat might be used. That’s a long way to move heat without serious loss. Moreover, the north shore of Lake Ontario only needs heat a few months a year. An SMR at that site cannot hope to make much money from waste heat.
SMRs are nuclear reactors creating highly radioactive wastes. All countries with nuclear power plants wrestle with this problem. Spent fuel rods remain dangerously radioactive for more than 100,000 years. We cannot imagine what our world will look like 100,000 years from now. Looking back, homo sapiens (modern humans) were just arriving in Europe then. That’s 20 times longer than the entire span of recorded human history.
We don't know how to make containers capable of storing radioactive waste that long. We could dissolve the wastes in molten glass, but exposed to water on such a longtime scale glass actually dissolves. Of course, we would tunnel into dry rock, but could we guarantee it would remain dry for 100,000 years?
If we did bury radioactive waste, how could we communicate the hazard to future generations? The English of just 1,000 years ago is almost unintelligible. Even Hebrew, probably the oldest language still in use, dates back just 5,000 years.
But back to economics. Two decades ago, Price Waterhouse estimated the output of a proposed Florida nuclear plant to cost 25 cents/kWh – plus transmission, distribution and taxes. For comparison, electricity costs me 18 cents/kWh inclusive of transmission and distribution (10 cents/kWh) and GST (13 per cent). Remember, Ontarians believe we pay too much. It has been suggested — although I am not sure how this was determined — that the proposed SMR would make electricity at 16 cents/kWh. Adding the costs I now pay would give us electricity at 29 cents/kWH. Sound appealing?
Meanwhile, our wind turbines produce power at 12 cents/kWh or less — delivered to us for 25 cents/kWh). But Quebec sells hydroelectricity to New England for four cents per kWh. If we could buy it at that price, it would come to 16 cents/kWh, including tax and distribution.
But that’s close to what we pay for power now.
We do pay four cents per kWh for power from our existing nuclear plants. But, that’s because former premier Mike Harris took the immense debt ($38 billion) which the old Ontario Hydro carried and transferred it to the Province of Ontario’s books. (Largely borrowed to build the CANDU “fleet.”)
Relieved of debt, the nukes could compete with other generators and undercut wind turbines, which enjoy no such advantage.(Imagine how you would feel if a rich uncle took over your mortgage.) Of course, that debt hasn’t disappeared. At the time, it roughly doubled Ontario’s total debt, and taxpayers were on the hook, but it made the price of electricity look better... Do you prefer to pay for electricity on your utility bill or your tax bill?
The Bottom Line
I cannot guess what GE-Hitachi promised Premier Ford regarding the price of electricity from their SMRs. I also cannot guess what it might cost to build transmission lines to bring Quebec’s four cents per kWh power to Ontario in sufficient quantity to replace our nuclear electricity and to charge the electric cars we will have on our roads in two decades, plus the heat pumps we are meant to use to heat our homes.
I would like to think that Premier Ford has taken the trouble to cost these and other options, compared nuclear, or more wind and hydroelectricity from Quebec and Manitoba, and has chosen wisely.
Before we give him our votes in six months, shouldn’t we ask him what GE-Hitachi’s SMR (likely their first) electricity will cost us? Shouldn’t we also ask what guarantee he has that GE-Hitachi will be responsible for cost overruns and construction delays?
At age 79, I will probably never buy an electron from this new SMR. But most of you reading this could be buying this power. Wouldn’t you like to know what it will cost? Don’t you have the right to know? Or will you simply accept government’s reluctance to reveal what has been contracted with GE-Hitachi?
I can honestly say that it will not affect me. Can you?
Recently, the Ford government announced that Ontario would build a “small modular reactor” (SMR) at the site of the Darlington nuclear power reactor in Bowmanville. Immediately, alarm bells began to sound.
First of all, this seems to be a contract with no competitive price quotes, definitely at odds with the PC “For the People” promise of greater accountability, transparency and fiscal responsibility. But leave that aside for the moment.
The word “small” might almost be perceived as “cuddly," but that would be quite wrong in this case. This “small” reactor is around 30 per cent the typical size for a nuclear reactor and 40 per cent the size of several Ontario CANDU units. Its 300MW output is definitely not “small" and that matters, too.
“Modular” makes it sound as if you could assemble the device from off-the-shelf modules. That’s simply not possible for a design, which now exists only in blueprint form. Instead of a well-tested electricity generator, Ontario would be building one of the first example of this GE-Hitachi design.
We did this before, with our CANDU “fleet” of reactors. These provide Ontario with almost 60 per cent of our electricity. All of them took longer to build and cost far more than expected. After many rebuilds and retubing exercises, they are now reliable, but it took three decades and pots of money to get there. Are the people of Ontario clamouring to do it all again?
I believe Ontarians want good “value-for-money” performance guarantees, particularly with respect to the future cost of electricity. I would love to know what’s in the contract with GE-Hitachi. And why do we, the taxpayers, not know what we are signing up to build and how much its power output will cost?
When first proposed decades ago, SMRs were meant for niche markets. They were originally intended for communities and industries too remote to justify connecting to the electricity grid. Specifically, they would replace the diesel generators, which now supply Arctic and sub-Arctic towns, mining and petroleum extraction operations, etc.
Depending on the cost of shipping diesel fuel, electricity from these generators could be very expensive: Nunavut – 60 cents to $1.10/kWh, Alaska – 30 cents US to $1.10 US/kWh, Siberia – 50 cents US to $1.50 US/kWh. A small nuclear power plant would only need refuelling every decade or so, simplifying supply issues and reducing costs.
As initially conceived, SMRs were designed to be shipped as sealed, pre-fuelled units. On arrival, they only needed to be connected to plumbing and the local micro-grid. Every decade or so, the old unit would be replaced and shipped back to the factory where it could be refuelled and refurbished if necessary. A “plug-and-play” operation.
Most of the world's SMRs are in naval ships and submarines, plus nine Russian icebreakers. Very few SMRs are in operation in Russia’s Arctic. Planned decades ago, the fact that so few have been built (mostly military naval ships) is not a ringing endorsement for the concept’s economics.
One frequently cited complaint is the large amount of (low-enriched) uranium, which must be packed into such sealed units to fuel them for a decade. Some worry terrorists might try to steal the fuel, particularly since security would be poor in remote communities.
However, a neat feature of nuclear reactors is that after an hour or two of operation, their inner workings become so radioactive that nobody can touch these without serious protective clothing. Refuelling would be carried out by remote control. Opening up the welded casing would expose any would-be thief to deadly radiation, making them “self-policing” and safe from terrorists.
A key to economic operation is the ability to warm a community with waste heat. Far North settlements need heat 10 months a year. (The diesel generators currently used also heat their Arctic communities.) Heat is supplied by circulating a fluid like radiator anti-freeze.
It is worth understanding that the farther this fluid is pumped, the more of its heat is lost. In practice, an SMR can distribute heat within a radius of about two kilometres; beyond that, costs rise and efficiency suffers.
Siting such a unit at Darlington puts it around five kilometres from Oshawa, where its abundant waste heat might be used. That’s a long way to move heat without serious loss. Moreover, the north shore of Lake Ontario only needs heat a few months a year. An SMR at that site cannot hope to make much money from waste heat.
SMRs are nuclear reactors creating highly radioactive wastes. All countries with nuclear power plants wrestle with this problem. Spent fuel rods remain dangerously radioactive for more than 100,000 years. We cannot imagine what our world will look like 100,000 years from now. Looking back, homo sapiens (modern humans) were just arriving in Europe then. That’s 20 times longer than the entire span of recorded human history.
We don't know how to make containers capable of storing radioactive waste that long. We could dissolve the wastes in molten glass, but exposed to water on such a longtime scale glass actually dissolves. Of course, we would tunnel into dry rock, but could we guarantee it would remain dry for 100,000 years?
If we did bury radioactive waste, how could we communicate the hazard to future generations? The English of just 1,000 years ago is almost unintelligible. Even Hebrew, probably the oldest language still in use, dates back just 5,000 years.
But back to economics. Two decades ago, Price Waterhouse estimated the output of a proposed Florida nuclear plant to cost 25 cents/kWh – plus transmission, distribution and taxes. For comparison, electricity costs me 18 cents/kWh inclusive of transmission and distribution (10 cents/kWh) and GST (13 per cent). Remember, Ontarians believe we pay too much. It has been suggested — although I am not sure how this was determined — that the proposed SMR would make electricity at 16 cents/kWh. Adding the costs I now pay would give us electricity at 29 cents/kWH. Sound appealing?
Meanwhile, our wind turbines produce power at 12 cents/kWh or less — delivered to us for 25 cents/kWh). But Quebec sells hydroelectricity to New England for four cents per kWh. If we could buy it at that price, it would come to 16 cents/kWh, including tax and distribution.
But that’s close to what we pay for power now.
We do pay four cents per kWh for power from our existing nuclear plants. But, that’s because former premier Mike Harris took the immense debt ($38 billion) which the old Ontario Hydro carried and transferred it to the Province of Ontario’s books. (Largely borrowed to build the CANDU “fleet.”)
Relieved of debt, the nukes could compete with other generators and undercut wind turbines, which enjoy no such advantage.(Imagine how you would feel if a rich uncle took over your mortgage.) Of course, that debt hasn’t disappeared. At the time, it roughly doubled Ontario’s total debt, and taxpayers were on the hook, but it made the price of electricity look better... Do you prefer to pay for electricity on your utility bill or your tax bill?
The Bottom Line
I cannot guess what GE-Hitachi promised Premier Ford regarding the price of electricity from their SMRs. I also cannot guess what it might cost to build transmission lines to bring Quebec’s four cents per kWh power to Ontario in sufficient quantity to replace our nuclear electricity and to charge the electric cars we will have on our roads in two decades, plus the heat pumps we are meant to use to heat our homes.
I would like to think that Premier Ford has taken the trouble to cost these and other options, compared nuclear, or more wind and hydroelectricity from Quebec and Manitoba, and has chosen wisely.
Before we give him our votes in six months, shouldn’t we ask him what GE-Hitachi’s SMR (likely their first) electricity will cost us? Shouldn’t we also ask what guarantee he has that GE-Hitachi will be responsible for cost overruns and construction delays?
At age 79, I will probably never buy an electron from this new SMR. But most of you reading this could be buying this power. Wouldn’t you like to know what it will cost? Don’t you have the right to know? Or will you simply accept government’s reluctance to reveal what has been contracted with GE-Hitachi?
I can honestly say that it will not affect me. Can you?
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