It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, September 04, 2025
CRTC creates new requirements for telecom providers experiencing major outages
People use Starbucks' provided Wi-Fi at a store in Toronto amid a nationwide Rogers outage, affecting many of the telecommunication company's services
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston
Canada’s telecommunications regulator is mandating service providers to notify it and other government authorities within two hours when they experience a major network outage.
After restoring service, carriers will also have 30 days to file a report detailing the causes, effects and steps taken to resolve the outage. The CRTC said it’s a measure meant to provide transparency to consumers and help the industry and government limit future disruptions.
The requirements take effect permanently on Nov. 4 after the CRTC implemented similar rules on an interim basis more than two years ago.
Previously, telecoms were required to submit their post-outage reports within two weeks of resolving the issue.
“With this information, (telecommunications service providers) can learn from what happened to avoid similar outages in the future, Canadians can learn the cause of an outage and other facts, and governments can develop policies to help limit outages going forward,” the commission said.
The mid-outage notification requirements vary somewhat depending on the nature of the disruption.
During a complete loss of internet, cellphone, data or landline service that lasts at least half an hour, providers must notify the CRTC, Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada, and local emergency management organizations.
When an outage affects 911 services -- regardless of the duration -- providers must also notify the local call centres that are responsible for answering emergency calls within half an hour.
The regulations are in response to a consultation launched by the CRTC in 2023.
At the time, the commission cited the Rogers outage of July 2022, when millions of customers were in the dark for up to 15 hours, as one of the events prompting its study.
Rogers has sought to strengthen the resiliency of its networks since that outage, which was caused by a configuration error during a network upgrade, according to a report by Xona Partners Inc. delivered to the CRTC last year.
The company said it completed a full review of its networks and implemented all recommendations contained in the independent report.
About a month after the Rogers outage, Canada’s major telecom companies reached a formal agreement to “ensure and guarantee” mobile roaming and other mutual assistance in the case of a future major outage.
Earlier this year, an outage lasting nearly two hours wiped out internet and cellular service for hundreds of thousands of Bell customers across Ontario and Quebec. Bell said the disruption was caused by a “technical issue” after it conducted an update that affected some of its routers.
Telus said some of its own customers were also affected by the Bell outage.
The CRTC said Thursday it is also launching two new consultations as part of its decision.
One of the studies will gather views on how providers can improve the resiliency of their networks and reliability of their services.
The other will consider potential new consumer protections when Canadians experience an internet, phone or television outage. That could include “measures to ensure customers receive meaningful and timely updates during an outage, as well as refunds or bill credits after an outage,” it said.
“Canadians need reliable internet, phone and television services. Disruptions to these services can have harmful effects, especially in emergency situations,” said CRTC chairperson and CEO Vicky Eatrides in a press release.
“Today’s actions will help reduce outages and introduce new ways to further help protect Canadians.”
Earlier this year, the regulator also announced improvements specifically for customers in Northern Canada, where remote residents have grown used to frequent outages.
That included a requirement for local provider Northwestel to automatically reduce customers’ bills when internet services are disrupted for at least 24 hours.
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Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Google facing US$425.7 million in damages for nearly a decade of improper smartphone snooping
a reporter uses his phone during a presentation for the Google
cultural institute in Paris, France. (AP / Jacques Brinon)
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal jury has ordered Google to pay US$425.7 million for improperly snooping on people’s smartphones during a nearly decade-long period of intrusions.
The verdict reached Wednesday in San Francisco federal court followed a more than two-week trial in a class-action case covering about 98 million smartphones operating in the United States between July 1, 2016, through Sept. 23, 2024. That means the total damages awarded in the five-year-old case works out to about US$4 per device.
Google had denied that it was improperly tracking the online activity of people who thought they had shielded themselves with privacy controls. The company maintained its stance even though the eight-person jury concluded Google had been spying in violation of California privacy laws.
“This decision misunderstands how our products work, and we will appeal it,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said Thursday. “Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honor that choice.”
The lawyers who filed the case had argued Google had used the data they collected off smartphones without users’ permission to help sell ads tailored to users’ individual interests — a strategy that resulted in the company reaping billions in additional revenue. The lawyers framed those ad sales as illegal profiteering that merited damages of more than US$30 billion.
Even though the jury came up with a far lower calculation for the damages, one of the lawyers who brought the case against Google hailed the outcome as a victory for privacy protection.
“We hope this result sends a message to the tech industry that Americans will not sit idly by as their information is collected and monetized against their will,” said attorney John Yanchunis of law firm Morgan & Morgan.
The San Francisco jury verdict came a day after Google avoided the U.S. Department of Justice’s attempt to break up the company in a landmark antitrust case in Washington, D.C., targeting its dominant search engine. A federal judge who had declared Google’s search engine to be an illegal monopoly ordered less radical changes, including requiring the company to share some of its search data with rivals.
Google ruling shows how tech can outpace antitrust enforcement
The rapid pace of development in the world of tech, particularly in AI, spurred a judge’s cautious approach to curbing Google’s online search monopoly, revealing a hurdle for U.S. antitrust enforcers’ efforts to win their other cases against Big Tech.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that Alphabet’s Google holds an illegal monopoly, saying its dominance in online search “has gone unchallenged for well over a decade.” But he declined on Tuesday to impose stringent requirements that the government had called for, saying the rise of AI companies in the past two years has already created competitive pressure.
He noted that tens of millions of people use generative AI programs like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude in nearly the same way they look for information they previously found on Google.
“Innovation is a hare while antitrust law is a tortoise,” said Adam Kovacevich, head of the Big Tech-funded industry group Chamber of Progress.
Courtney Radsch, director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute, an anti-monopoly group, said the ruling sends the wrong signal to the AI sector.
“It’s really problematic. Because it means antitrust as it is being wielded now is too backward-looking, and it’s not looking at how to prevent illegal anticompetitive behavior,” she said.
Of the five high-profile ongoing antitrust lawsuits against Big Tech, several of which were initiated by investigations during the first Trump administration in 2019, the Google search case was seen as one of the strongest for U.S. antitrust enforcers.
Now, Big Tech companies facing antitrust lawsuits are likely to use the ruling to their advantage, said John Kwoka, an economics professor at Northeastern University.
“I think this gives an avenue, rightly or wrongly, for some of the other companies that are in the crosshairs to say that technology has made antitrust arguments irrelevant,” he said.
Competition from AI
Antitrust regulators have homed in on the tech industry because they saw it as a crucial juncture between entrenching the dominance of big players and allowing startups to thrive.
In a process that takes years, antitrust cases typically proceed in two phases: a judge first decides whether the company engaged in anticompetitive conduct, and next tackles the question of what it should do to restore competition.
Tuesday’s ruling was the first of the cases to impose requirements on a Big Tech company. Mehta largely adopted Google’s proposal.
“The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case,” Mehta said in the ruling, calling it “astonishing” how quickly billions of dollars have flowed in to the nascent industry.
ChatGPT was not released until 2022, two years into the case. A year later, when Google faced its first trial on the question of whether it held a monopoly, no witness cited AI as a near-term threat to search, the judge wrote.
Now, AI companies are such a factor that the judge said they should be allowed to access Google’s data to help boost competition with its search engine.
Limits of antitrust
Meta Platforms and Apple are likely to highlight the ruling in their own cases.
For example, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is seeking to make Meta sell off Instagram and WhatsApp, saying the acquisitions were aimed at neutralizing upstart competitors to Facebook’s supremacy in the market for platforms where users share updates with friends and family.
Meta has argued that the scene has shifted in the past five years since the case was brought, through the explosion in TikTok’s popularity and users’ growing preference for sharing in group chats instead of posting on social media platforms.
Apple, which faces allegations of using restrictions on third-party developers to make it harder for iPhone users to switch, has argued antitrust enforcers are threatening innovation by seeking control of its product design.
To be sure, even where judges are leery of going too far, pressure from antitrust cases has precipitated change.
Ahead of trial this year, Google dropped restrictions on device makers who receive advertising revenue in exchange for making its search engine the default on new devices, allowing them to load competitor products. In 2019, Amazon turned off what a
Google has already gamed out the possibility of selling off advertising technology – something that antitrust enforcers will ask a different court to order it to do at trial later this month.
“Judge Mehta’s remedies decision signals why the courts cannot be the end-all, be-all of antitrust,” said Elise Phillips, policy counsel at the Public Knowledge, a nonprofit that receives funding from Google and other tech companies, in a statement.
“The American people need sector-specific legislation that addresses these harms and breaks down barriers of entry into online markets, fostering competition, innovation, and choice.”
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Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York, Editing by Chris Sanders and Matthew Lewis
GM cuts output, delays work at major EV factories, citing weak demand
Vehicles move along the 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV assembly line at the General Motors Orion Assembly June 15, 2023, in Lake Orion, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)
DETROIT — General Motors is cutting output at one of its main electric-vehicle factories, the latest automaker to pull back on EVs as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration yanks federal support for green cars.
GM will stop production of two electric Cadillac SUVs at its assembly plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, during the month of December, according to a person familiar with the matter and communications to GM employees viewed by Reuters.
The plant produces the midsize Cadillac Lyriq - a relative hit and one of GM’s top-selling EVs - and the Vistiq, a larger electric SUV.
GM also plans to significantly curtail production of those vehicles during the first five months of next year by temporarily laying off one of its two shifts of workers, according to the sources. The company will additionally shutter the plants for one week in October and November.
The automaker is also planning to indefinitely delay the start of a second shift at an assembly plant near Kansas City, which is still slated to begin production of the Chevy Bolt EV later this year, the person familiar with the matter said.
Asked for comment, the company told Reuters: “General Motors is making strategic production adjustments in alignment with expected slower EV industry growth and customer demand by leveraging our flexible ICE (internal combustion engine) and EV manufacturing footprint.”
The Trump administration’s tax and spending law passed in July withdrew key support for EVs, including a US$7,500 consumer tax credit that had been in place for about 15 years. Car executives have said they expect a rough patch for EV sales after that subsidy expires Sept. 30.
“The US$7,500 tax credit is driving demand; without that, that’ll slow,” GM CEO Mary Barra said at an event in December 2024.
The legislation also froze penalties that automakers have long paid if the vehicles they sell fall short of federal standards for fuel efficiency. That is expected to entice car companies to build more gas-powered cars at the expense of electrics, analysts say.
EV sales have failed to meet bullish forecasts carmakers put forth just a few years ago, and most companies continue to lose money on them. Green-car backers say federal support is needed to broaden adoption and prevent the U.S. from falling further behind China -- the world’s EV leader -- and Europe.
After struggling with manufacturing problems earlier in the decade, GM’s EV sales have surged over the past year. The company said August was its best month ever for EVs, with 21,000 battery-powered vehicles sold across its brands.
Still, executives have stressed GM’s gasoline-powered production base as a key strength to navigating the coming years.
“As we adjust to the new EV market realities, the strength of our ICE portfolio will continue to separate our brands from the pack and give us flexibility and profitability that EV-only companies lack,” GM’s head of North America, Duncan Aldred, wrote in a release earlier this week.
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Reporting by Nora Eckert and Kalea HallEditing by Mike Colias, Tomasz Janowski and Philippa Fletcher
Doug Ford’s splashy call to boycott Crown Royal could hurt Canadian workers, farmers say
Some Canadians say they will boycott Crown Royal if the company continues plans to move some distilleries to the U.S. Adrian Ghobrial reports.
Farmers in the Prairies are reminding Canadians that a boycott on Crown Royal could hurt the very people they’re trying to protect, Canadian workers.
On Tuesday in Kitchener, Ont., Premier Doug Ford made headlines as he poured out his frustrations and a bottle of Crown Royal in front of news cameras.
“This is what I think about Crown Royal,” said Ford as he poured a full bottle of the Canadian whisky onto the pavement. He continued saying, “I think everyone else should do the same thing.”
The splashy spectacle followed the news last week that Crown Royal’s parent company, Diageo, is moving its bottling facility from Amherstburg, Ont., to the United States. The Ontario plant is Amherstburg’s largest employer.
Just a short drive from the Windsor-Detroit border, generations have worked at the facility, and now 160 could be out of work by February.
Some members of provincial parliament in the Windsor area are also raising their voices, calling for a boycott and for Crown Royal to be pulled from the shelves of Ontario liquor stores.
“It was a publicity stunt in a sense, it’s good TV,” remarked Stuart Trew, a senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who added that he can “see a potential boycott picking up steam, just as we saw when the United States put tariffs on us and we took (American) booze off of the shelves.”
Though some farmers say they’re concerned that if consumers stop buying Crown Royal, the spill over could drain the profits of farmers in the Prairies.
“There’s a rye field two miles away on my neighbour’s farm. In this area of southwest Manitoba, rye is a really important crop” shares Scott Day, who spoke to CTV National News from his farm field in Deloraine, Man.
Roughly 80 per cent of the rye used in Crown Royal is grown on Manitoba farms or sourced from neighbouring provinces, though Day says tariffs have already taken a bite out of the margins grain farmers rely on.
“If we lose the premium market, which is Crown Royal, then that is definitely a hit to the bottom line of rye growers,” said Day.
Trew doesn’t see it that way. Speaking from his home in Ottawa, he believes that Canadians and politicians need to have a lever to pull should large multinational companies, like Crown Royal’s parent company Diageo, try to close shop in Canada and leave Canadians without jobs.
“People are going to do what they’re going to do (when it comes to a boycott) and there’s lots of other good Canadian whisky on the shelves” that support Canadian farmers and workers, Trew said.
Diageo directly employs more than 500 people across Canada while supporting more than 9,700 jobs in different sectors from coast to coast to coast.
Diageo also has Crown Royal distilleries and bottling facilities in Gimli, Man. and Valleyfield, Que.
CTV National News asked Quebec Premier François Legault’s office if there was any concern that calls for a boycott in Ontario could hurt Quebec workers. Legault’s office declined to make the premier available and declined to answer our question.
Though in Manitoba, that province’s top politician reiterated that “Crown Royal is made in Gimli, Manitoba, that’s something Canadians should buy and continue to have access to” said a smiling Premier Wab Kinew.
Union leaders are also sharing their concerns that with one bottling facility being moved from Ontario to the United States, Diageo could eventually send its Manitoba distillery south of the border too and even use American grains to further cut costs. Though in an email to CTV National News, the company has repeated its commitment to its Canadian operations outside of its planned closure in Amherstburg, Ontario.
Logs are seen in an aerial view stacked at the Interfor sawmill, in Grand Forks, B.C
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
BURNABY — Forestry company Interfor Corp. says it’s planning to cut lumber production by about 12 per cent from normal levels until the end of the year.
The Burnaby, B.C.-based company says it’s due to persistently weak market conditions and ongoing economic uncertainty.
It says the curtailment equates to 145 million board feet of lumber overall.
Interfor says the cuts will be done through reduced operating hours, prolonged holiday breaks, shift scheduling changes and extended maintenance shutdowns.
All regions — both in the U.S. and Canada — are to be affected.
The company says it will continue to monitor market conditions and adjust plans accordingly.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2025.
Tariff trauma: Economist breaks down impact on Canada, U.S. economies
While the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to rule on the legitimacy of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, an expert says the damage has already been done as the trade war sets a new normal of higher but manageable tariffs that Canadian businesses and consumers need to adapt to.
Sal Guatieri, senior economist and director of BMO Capital Markets, said the Trump administration could impose duties under other trade acts if needed.
“One way or another, we’re going to get stuck with tariffs,” Guatieri told BNN Bloomberg in a Wednesday interview. “It’s just a question of what trade act is used to impose those tariffs.”
Last week, a U.S. appeals court ruled the tariffs were illegal, undercutting the U.S. president’s authority. The court allowed the tariffs to remain in place through Oct. 14 to give the Trump administration a chance to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Guatieri says casualties of the trade war are showing up on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, with businesses reporting lost revenue, laying off employees and closing in some instances, though he says the outlook has improved somewhat.
In a recent BMO report, he highlights the impact of duties on the U.S. and Canada. He states economic weakness is now showing up in the hard data as private nonfarm payroll gains in the U.S. averaged just 80,000 in the five months leading up to July, the second-weakest pace (apart from the COVID-19 pandemic) since 2010.
Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the U.S. averaged 1.4 per cent annualized in the first two quarters, the weakest rate in three years as the 30-year mortgage rates is still above six and a half per cent. Business investment however picked up in the first half of the year.
“Business investment remains very strong. It was surprisingly very strong in the first half of this year. There are several reasons because of that. One is just the dramatic, rapid adoption of AI. The build out of AI infrastructure is certainly supporting business investment, but where we are seeing slowing is consumer spending,” Guatieri said
“Overall, real GDP in the U.S. has down shifted to just under a one and a half per cent annualized rate in the first two quarters of the year, so well below what we were seeing growth close to three per cent last year. The economy is taking a bit of an impact.”
Canada’s economy, meanwhile, contracted in the second quarter as steel, aluminum and auto sectors were particularly hard hit with separate tariffs between 25 per cent and 50 per cent. Guatieri said that while it may avoid a technical recession, downside risks will persist until the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement is renegotiated next year.
“For Canada, it’s a tough one, because right now, really the only pain that we’re feeling right now we saw it in the second quarter, with our economy contracting, is all because of the tariffs imposed on those three sectors, steel, aluminum and motor vehicles,” said Guatieri.
Consumers are also showing some resiliency, with real spending up 4.5 per cent annualized in the second quarter and auto sales revving higher in July.
He said home sales are turning around after struggling for three years, but market conditions still vary widely by region.
Despite deals with some major U.S. trading partners, he says the trade war endgame remains unclear, as deals with Canada, Mexico and China remain elusive. He said if the U.S. were to walk away from the USMCA after giving six months’ notice, Canada’s economy could face a deep downturn. Joshua Santos Journalist, BNNBloomberg.ca
CARNEY SAYS AUSTERITY BUDGET COMING
Champagne says ‘adjustments’ coming to the public service as Ottawa reviews spending
Minister of Finance and National Revenue Francois Philippe Champagne speaks to the media, at the Liberal cabinet retreat, in Toronto, on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young TORONTO -- Finance Minister Francois Philippe Champagne acknowledged Thursday that “adjustments” are coming to the public service as Ottawa looks to trim its spending in the fall budget.
Champagne is in the Greater Toronto Area for the second day of meetings with Prime Minister Mark Carney and the rest of cabinet ahead of Parliament’s return in less than two weeks.
Champagne told reporters Thursday morning he has received responses from his colleagues to his request earlier this summer for cuts of 15 per cent in day-to-day spending over the next three years.
When asked whether the spending reduction plan might include public service layoffs, he said the government “will find adjustments.”
The pace of public sector growth during the COVID-19 pandemic was “not sustainable,” he said.
“I think a leaner and more efficient government to provide services to Canadians, that is needed as you’re looking to rebuild this nation,” Champagne said.
He said the spending adjustment will not affect services to Canadians, in part because the government is also looking to give public servants modern tools to make them more efficient.
“In many ways, we have systems of the 20th century to provide services in the 21st century. So we need to modernize things, we need to be more efficient,” he said.
Champagne’s comments come as departments continue to announce staffing reductions, with the latest cuts hitting employees at Library and Archives Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Unions like the Public Service Alliance of Canada have warned that cuts to the public service will affect both workers and services for Canadians. Disability advocates have said that budget cuts and job losses will jeopardize programs intended to promote the hiring of people with disabilities.
Champagne said earlier this week he had tasked the Canada Revenue Agency with implementing a 100-day action plan to address delays and service delivery issues at CRA call centres.
On Wednesday, Carney described the upcoming budget as both an austerity plan and one that will ramp up investments to strengthen the economy.
Since taking office, Carney has promised a significant increase in defence spending and faster development of major infrastructure projects.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has accused Carney of spending freely and dragging his feet on getting major projects approved since the spring federal election.
Champagne acknowledged there will be “turbulence” in the short term as Canada attempts to reorient its economy in the face of U.S. trade aggression.
He said the government will be able to trim daily spending while making investments in infrastructure and large capital projects that will set Canada up for future “prosperity.”
Champagne said that Canadians have had to rein in their household spending due to the cost-of-living crunch, and Ottawa should be expected to do the same.
“People understand, when you go to the grocery (store), you spend, when you buy a house, you invest. They know you need to do both at the same time,” Champagne said.
“We’re going to be ambitious in our investment and rigorous in how we manage our expenses.”
While the U.S. trade war remains a priority for cabinet, pollster Jean-Marc Leger, who gave a presentation to cabinet on Wednesday, said tariffs have slid down the list of public concerns to fourth place, with the cost of living now back at the top.
Leger said Canadians are less afraid of tariffs and Trump than they were last winter, but are still anxious about the state of the economy and the cost of living.
Industry Minister Melanie Joly told reporters Thursday that Canadians want the federal Liberals to be in “action mode” to build up the economy up in response to Trump’s global trade disruption.
Joly gave the example of retooling Canada’s steel sector -- traditionally oriented to the U.S. automotive supply chain -- to produce the kinds of inputs needed for Canadian infrastructure, homebuilding and defence and aerospace projects.
She said Ottawa wants Canadians working in the steel sector to feel confident that, no matter what happens south of the border, their jobs will be “resilient.”
“That’s the type of thinking we’re putting on the table,” Joly said.
By Kyle Duggan
With files from Craig Lord, Catherine Morrison and Sarah Ritchie in Ottawa
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2025.
Jellyfish Force another French Nuclear Reactor to Shut Down
For a second time in three weeks, a swarm of jellyfish has forced the closure of a nuclear reactor in France in another curious incident in which jellyfish entered the filters of the water cooling systems.
The Paluel nuclear power plant in Normandy, northern France, saw its electricity generation nearly halve by 2.4 gigawatts (GW) out of a total 5.2-GW capacity, due to the presence of jellyfish that have entered the filtering system, French operator EDF said on Thursday, as carried by Reuters.
One of four reactors at Paluel was shut down while power output at another reactor was curtailed to prevent further disruption due to the jellyfish swarm.
Today’s incident at Paluel occurred just over three weeks after a jellyfish swarm clogged the cooling system of the Gravelines nuclear power plant near Dunkerque and Calais. As a result, four of six units at one of France’s largest nuclear power plants automatically switched off, while the remaining two units were already shut down for planned maintenance. Gravelines has six reactors, each with a capacity of 900 megawatts (MW).
At the time, France’s EDF said there was “no impact on the safety of the facilities, the safety of personnel, or the environment.”
Reactors at the Gravelines power plant are cooled from a canal linked to the North Sea, where jellyfish are swarming near the coast during hot weather and warm waters.
Global warming can worsen the jellyfish problem in waters cooling reactors close to seas, scientists have warned.
In recent years, heatwaves and too hot waters in rivers have disrupted France’s nuclear power generation, too.
France’s nuclear power generation accounts for around 70% of its electricity mix, and when its reactors are fully operational, it is a net exporter of electricity to other European countries.
But in 2022 and 2023, EDF was forced to curb power generation at some nuclear plants as heatwaves raised the temperatures of rivers. The power plant operator had to limit electricity output because of environmental regulations for using river water for cooling nuclear reactors.
UK committed to nuclear expansion, conference told
Nuclear power is at the forefront of the UK government's acceleration to net-zero, Lee McDonough, Director General, Net Zero, Nuclear and International at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero told World Nuclear Symposium 50 in London on Thursday.
Lee McDonough (Image: World Nuclear Association)
"Here in the UK, the Department for Energy and Security Net Zero (DESNZ) is focused on delivering two key missions: kick-starting economic growth, and making Britain a clean energy superpower, rebuilding Britain, bringing bills down and accelerating towards net-zero. And nuclear is uniquely placed to deliver for both of those missions," she said.
McDonough noted that over the past few months, the government took important decisions, "which the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has hailed as decisive steps to usher in a new golden age of nuclear".
She said the UK's new nuclear energy programme includes signing a multi-billion-pound commercial deal for the Sizewell C power plant, "securing our home-grown nuclear supply far beyond our clean energy target of 2030".
McDonough added: "And for the first time, we have created a new funding model to successfully track world-class investments to run the project alongside us. This deal, which was agreed in July, will deliver clean power to consumers for decades to come and will open up new possibilities for the financing of future nuclear projects."
The government has also announced GBP2.5 billion (USD3.6 billion) for small modular reactors (SMRs) and in June selected Rolls-Royce SMR as the bidder to partner with Great British Energy - Nuclear to deliver SMRs at home and "to help realise our long-term ambition of delivering one of Europe's first small modular reactors".
In addition, it also committed GBP2.5 billion for nuclear fusion.
"These are plans for the future," McDonough said. "These are real significant amounts of investment over the course of this Parliament and beyond."
However, she added: "It's not just about announcing a big nuclear power station. That's great. We need to create the context for these projects to succeed and to be able to move rapidly. And so we've also taken significant steps to unlock the planning process. for all kinds of infrastructure, actually not just nuclear. So this will apply across the country and hopefully be vital to securing pace.
"The other thing we've done is create a context where nuclear can be deployed more broadly in different places across the country on top of the existing nuclear licence sites that we have. And that's really looking to the future to think about how we can enable both gigawatts but also advanced nuclear technologies that are coming down the line, whilst of course maintaining the highest standards of safety, security and environmental protection."
The government has also set up a nuclear regulatory task force. "This is really to look at how we can enable innovation, streamline regulatory processes and unlock the UK's full nuclear potential," McDonough said.
"Our government is totally clear. If we're going to kick-start the economy, if we're going to achieve clean power by 2030 and deliver on net-zero, then nuclear must play a central role. However, the golden age that the Secretary of State spoke of is not specific to the UK, as we have heard. Indeed, our achievements must be part of a wider global success story which depends entirely on effective collaboration with our like-minded partner governments and industries."
'Difficult to overstate demand from institutional investors' for nuclear
The growing interest from institutional investors in the nuclear sector, and the issues surrounding developing suitable private financing options for new nuclear projects were in focus at World Nuclear Association's Finance Summit.
(Image: World Nuclear Association)
Victoria Kalb, Managing Director, Global Head ESG & Sustainability Research, for UBS, said "the demand from the institutional investors that we speak to on nuclear - it's difficult to overstate how strong that is. We spend hours and hours and hours speaking to people, listed equity investors, infrastructure funds, looking for a way to be involved".
She said that "interest level is increasing as we get more and more noise around" the industry on the predicted future electricity demand growth, led by AI in particular, as well as energy security issues.
However, along with other speakers, she said that there was a complex choice to be made to make the investments, with issues cited being the high capital expenditure, the long-term nature of investments, uncertainty over project costs and timelines, and the associated allocation of risks.
Seb Henbest, Group Head of Climate Transition at HSBC, said that investing in nuclear aligned with environmental missions but cautioned against the energy industry and finance industry "talking past each other" and said that large-scale nuclear was essentially like any other large-scale infrastructure project and should not be proposed as if it was a science project - "the industry's got to present the proposition to commercial financial institutions as something that looks really, really attractive".
The risks to be managed included whether there was offtake, the technology design risk, the construction risk and the reputational risk - "these are the same with any other project", he said. But given the long-term nature of returns from investing in new nuclear capacity - compared with renewables - the role of government becomes more important. And he cited HSBC's role at Sizewell C, where risks on design were reduced by it echoing the Hinkley Point C units on the technology design side, and also the Regulated Asset Base financing model which mitigates the risk of cost overruns.
Mark Muldowney, Managing Director, Energy, Resources and Infrastructure, at BNP Paribas, said they wanted to deploy "very large amounts of our capital to the energy transition, and to us, nuclear is a key part of that". He said that new GW-scale projects were "so large and so significant, they are inherently political projects" and he said that, with the uncertainty over the cost and time to build new nuclear, "the risks in building new large-scale nuclear are not going to be taken by the private sector".
He said the risks could also not be taken on by contractors, so the answer would be governments or the electricity consumers in a country, with utilities maybe involved in some places, or some combination of those parties. A key role of government was to take measures to drive down the cost of capital by taking on the "appropriate level of risks".
Jake Jurewicz, CEO and Co-Founder, Blue Energy, said the demand was now greater than it had been for 70 years and said the issue was to create a new financiable product for new nuclear capacity. He said that looking at the data on cost overruns, it was not from the reactor, but rather from the construction, where a new workforce has to be trained and infrastructure built in new areas. He said the experience of offshore oil and gas and offshore wind showed the benefits of modular construction - mass production at a site and moving it to the project, rather than having to move 10,000 workers from site to site.
In her closing remarks to the day-long summit, which came at the start of World Nuclear Symposium, World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León said that the key messages were that financing needs to be thought about from the start of a project "and not be an afterthought". She said there needed to be further conversations "about sharing benefits, costs and risks in all these projects". She said that there was a "massive appetite for nuclear investment" in the banking and finance industry alongside government support, and there was work ahead to develop financing frameworks.
She stressed that opportunities exist throughout the nuclear value chain, and added "there is nothing inherently unique about nuclear projects ... so let's demystify them", adding that World Nuclear Association was planning to launch a Nuclear Investment Guide which would "take many of the themes we discussed today and boil them together into something that is digestible and actionable to move forward".
Consumers cluster around nuclear energy
Large energy consumers are teaming up with the nuclear industry to develop energy clusters on private grids in what could be a mutually beneficial model, delegates heard at World Nuclear Association’s Energy Users Summit in London.
(Image: World Nuclear Association)
The energy cluster model would see large consumers take their electricity or heat directly from one or more co-located reactors, large or small. While the consumers benefit from energy that is more reliable, resilient, secure and clean than grid supply, the nuclear developer would benefit from the simplified project finance that comes with having such committed partners.
It would also be a benefit for both the consumers and the nuclear developer to avoid long transmission lines and to reduce the burden the cluster's grid connection would place on grid resources, which are at a premium in most markets.
Surging demand from data centres to meet the needs of artificial intelligence and other cloud services are one main driver of the trend. Co-location is already happening in some places, notably where data centres have been built alongside existing nuclear power plants at Susquehanna in the US and in recent years at Kalinin in Russia. Looking ahead, several small reactor companies are vying for data centre supply contracts and X-energy’s Ben Reinke noted that the surety of its 1 GWe contract with Amazon gave its supply chain the confidence to make necessary capital investments.
In Poland, five of the six locations identified by Orlen Synthos Green Energy would be based on clustering, said company CEO Rafał Kasprów. He noted that Poland also consumes some 55 GWt of district heating nationally, including 4.6 GWt in Warsaw. “It is not feasible to build cables and electrify,” he said, “Easier to replace the source of energy and that’s why we focus on SMRs for heat production.”
In the Netherlands a study by developer ULC looked at the co-location of two Rolls-Royce SMRs with a hydrogen production facility using high temperature electrolysis. Company CEO Dirk Rabelink said it found this to be feasible, especially when compared with strategies based on enormous overbuilding of variable renewables.
As well as producing hydrogen towards the European Union’s targets, the facility could provide other services, said Rabelink. By keeping the electrolyser in a hot standby using nuclear heat in the form of steam, the system could respond to grid fluctuations “in milliseconds”, said Rabelink, thereby supporting grid stability.
Given that the Netherlands' grid will probably be dominated by offshore wind in decades to come, Rabelink said the nuclear hydrogen facility could also generate revenue by switching to put some of its electricity onto the grid when market conditions are favourable.
One very serious advantage of energy clusters to those countries that develop them is energy security, said Kasprów. The potential to give key industries the most resilient and secure energy supply possible, which is free from the influence of fossil fuel markets, is strategically attractive.
Open Group
Separately, the conversation around energy clusters expanded on 2 September with the formation of the Industrial Advanced Nuclear Consortium. Under the banner of The Open Group, founder members Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Freeport-McMoRan, Nucor, Rio Tinto, and Shell said they would "leverage their integration and project delivery expertise to define the requirements for the application of nuclear technology to provide process heat and power for their respective industries". They plan to engage with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
"There is an urgent need to better leverage nuclear energy to address the application of heat and power solutions. We believe that an open architecture approach can enable cost effective solutions that can be replicated to drive this adoption," said Steve Nunn, President and CEO of The Open Group. "By bringing together large industrial end users and the supplier community, we can draw on the huge amount of industry expertise in project delivery, reduce cost and schedule uncertainty, and effectively deliver nuclear projects that serve the needs of the industry."
EBRD's 'evolving view' on new nuclear projects
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has traditionally only invested in safety-related nuclear projects, but "views are evolving" and investments in small modular and advanced reactors could follow, a conference has heard.
From right: Mark Bowman, Lauren Culver and Serge Ekué
Mark Bowman, vice president for policy and partnerships at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), told World Nuclear Association's Finance Summit in London, that across its 35-year history the bank had been involved in donor and loan funding in the field of nuclear safety, decommissioning and environmental remediation.
This work included long-running involvement with the Chernobyl site, with the giant New Safe Confinement probably the best known EBRD nuclear safety-related project. That work continues, including to repair the damage caused to its roof by a drone in February.
Speaking at the event, alongside fellow multinational development banks, he said that with nuclear emerging as a "key contribution to the transition to low carbon economies" and to energy security, the bank "can add significant value with our long experience in nuclear safety to ensure safety and sustainability remain top priorities".
"As a bank with a private sector mandate, we have limited capacity to support large sovereign projects, but we are very keen to engage with private companies throughout the sector and through supply chains," he said.
"There is nothing in our mandate that prevents us investing in nuclear energy. Historically, though, traditionally our board has taken a cautious approach and restricted our activities to the nuclear safety space. But I think it is important to note that views are evolving. There is a change in the balance of views in our board amongst our shareholders. And I think it's very likely in the not-too-distant future we will be bringing projects to our board," he said.
These would not be just the traditional type of areas EBRD has supported but could include long-term operation, supporting safety uprates and also looking at small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced modular reactors "where we're engaging early with developers and regulators, very much monitoring developments and assessing where and whether investments could be made".
There would also be involvement with reconstruction in Ukraine as well as considering investment in helping countries diversify nuclear fuel supplies and supply chains and supporting newcomer countries with areas such as regulatory frameworks and helping with decommissioning planning and waste management to help ensure sustainability.
He said the EBRD was developing its coordination with organisations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and with other multinational lenders such as the World Bank, which earlier this year ended its long-standing ban on investing in nuclear projects.
Lauren Culver, Senior Energy Specialist at the World Bank, outlined the ways in which it could develop its financing policies for nuclear projects in the coming years. But she stressed that in the near term the bank would likely focus on helping countries with financing for the infrastructure required to support a future nuclear power project - including grids - and the institutions required to manage all aspects, from the nuclear fuel cycle supply chain onwards.
Serge Ekué, President, West Africa Development Bank, said that energy should be treated as an enabler rather than as a "sector" and nuclear energy could be a key part of the solution to provide the energy Africa requires. But he said that innovative financing and working with the World Bank would be needed. He added that SMRs were a possible solution because of their agility and their ability to be implemented more quickly.
TVA, ENTRA1 Energy team up for SMR deployment
ENTRA1 Energy has signed a collaborative agreement with TVA to deploy up to 6 GW of NuScale SMR capacity at sites across TVA’s seven-state service region in south-eastern USA.
How an ENTRA1 Energy Plant could look (Image: ENTRA1)
The six ENTRA1 Energy Plants, each powered by multiple NuScale Power Modules, could provide enough energy to power the equivalent of some 4.5 million homes or 60 new data centres, TVA said.
ENTRA1 is NuScale Power Corporation's strategic partner and has exclusive global rights to the commercialisation, distribution, and deployment of NuScale’s products and services, acting as a one-stop-shop and hub for the deployment, financing, investment, development, execution, and management of ENTRA1 Energy Plants. The plants - containing NuScale’s small modular reactors (SMR) -would be owned and financed by ENTRA1.
NuScale's small pressurised water reactor is the first - and, so far, only - small modular reactor (SMR) design to receive certification by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
NuScale President and CEO John Hopkins described the agreement as "historic", and added that ENTRA1's combined energy and finance sector experience will support the next phase of commercialising and deploying the technology. "Together, we are ready as partners to meet America’s surging demand for reliable, carbon-free baseload power - powering AI data centres, critical mining, semiconductor manufacturing, and the energy-intensive industries that are driving our nation’s economic future," he said.
TVA - the Tennessee Valley Authority - is the largest public power supplier in the USA, providing electricity across seven southeastern states from a diverse portfolio including nuclear, hydro, coal, gas, solar and advanced technologies. Earlier this year, it submitted an application for a permit to construct an SMR at Clinch River, near Oak Ridge in Tennessee, using GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy's BWRX-300 technology. Recently, it signed a power purchase agreement with Kairos Power for up to 50 MW of electricity from Kairos Power's Hermes 2 demonstration reactor, which is to be built alongside the Hermes low-power demonstration plant currently under construction at Oak Ridge.
In February, the authority signed a cooperative agreement with US fusion energy developer Type One Energy to jointly develop plans for a potential fusion power plant project.
"TVA is leading the nation in pursuing new nuclear technologies, and no utility in the US is working harder or faster than TVA," TVA President and CEO Don Moul said. "This agreement with ENTRA1 Energy highlights the vital role public-private partnerships play in advancing next-generation nuclear technologies that are essential to providing energy security - reliable, abundant American energy - and creating jobs and investment across the nation."
Kairos, BWXT team up for commercial TRISO fuel production
The two companies have announced an agreement to collaboratively explore technical and process opportunities to optimise commercial production of TRISO nuclear fuel to supply Kairos Power's advanced reactor fleet and other potential customers.
A TRISO fuel pebble (Image: Kairos Power)
The joint team will explore opportunities to use the TRISO Development Lab at Kairos Power's Albuquerque campus, the BWXT Innovation Campus in Lynchburg, Virginia, and BWXT's existing TRISO production line, to optimise TRISO fuel manufacturing and process automation. The companies have also agreed to explore opportunities to jointly develop a TRISO fuel fabrication facility with newly developed technology for commercial fuel production.
TRISO - for tri-structural isotropic - fuel particles are made up of a uranium, carbon, and oxygen fuel kernel encapsulated by three layers of carbon- and ceramic-based materials that prevent the release of radioactive fission products. These extremely robust particles can then be fabricated into "pebbles" of reactor fuel. Kairos is combining TRISO fuel with molten fluoride salt coolant in its fluoride salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor known as the KP-FHR. A low-power demonstration reactor called Hermes is currently under construction in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Hermes is to be followed by Hermes 2 - a 50 MWe power-producing demonstration plant - for which the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction permit last year.
The collaboration agreement brings together Kairos Power's capabilities in annular graphite pebble production with BWXT's more than 20 years of experience in TRISO fuel manufacturing, Kairos said, and will consider possible paths to deliver fuel for Hermes 2 and subsequent Kairos Power reactor deployments.
Kairos Power Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Ed Blandford said the collaboration is an opportunity to develop a secure pathway to commercial TRISO fuel production, which is the next step in the development of Kairos Power's fuel supply chain. "With BWXT as a trusted strategic partner, we have a clear path to produce the high-quality fuel products that will unlock advanced nuclear energy's potential," he said.
Josh Parker, Senior Director, BWXT Advanced Fuels, said the collaboration creates an "industry-leading" TRISO development and manufacturing team. "Together, we believe we have the opportunity and skills to speed up the development process and provide more economical TRISO fuel that ensures supply for Kairos, BWXT, and the wider advanced reactor community," he added.
BWXT Advanced Fuels was launched as a subsidiary of BWXT in August, to leverage the company's experience manufacturing TRISO fuel at its Lynchburg facility for the commercialisation of advanced nuclear fuel.
The announcement coincided with World Nuclear Association’s Energy Users Summit in London, where Jeffrey Olson, Vice President of Business Development & Finance for Kairos Power, took part in a panel session called Partnerships for progress: In conversation with technology developers and energy partners.
Open Group focuses on nuclear for industrial applications
The Open Group, a global vendor-neutral technology and standards organisation, has launched the Industrial Advanced Nuclear Consortium, a collaborative initiative to accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear heat and power solutions for industrial applications.
(Image: The Open Group)
The consortium founding members - Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Freeport-McMoRan, Nucor, Rio Tinto, and Shell - represent large industrial users of power and heat. These members will leverage their integration and project delivery expertise to define the requirements for the application of nuclear technology to provide process heat and power for their respective industries.
The primary objectives of the Industrial Advanced Nuclear Consortium (IANC) include: standardising interfaces and sourcing terminology; adopting risk-appropriate design practices; and developing open frameworks and business guidelines.
"These efforts are designed to encourage competition, lower costs, reduce regulatory and scheduling risks, and ultimately deliver diversified, dependable, and decarbonised heat and power solutions for industry," The Open Group said.
Working together with technology providers, Engineering, Procurement, Construction (EPC) companies, and the wider industry, the consortium plans to advocate for aligning and streamlining nuclear regulatory approval and permitting processes with industrial facility project timelines, collaborate across the nuclear ecosystem to standardise interfaces between nuclear and industrial facilities, and promote business models for the delivery of nuclear generated heat and power to reduce costs and improve schedules.
"There is an urgent need to better leverage nuclear energy to address the application of heat and power solutions," said Steve Nunn, President and CEO of The Open Group. "We believe that an open architecture approach can enable cost effective solutions that can be replicated to drive this adoption.
"By bringing together large industrial end users and the supplier community, we can draw on the huge amount of industry expertise in project delivery, reduce cost and schedule uncertainty, and effectively deliver nuclear projects that serve the needs of the industry."
The IANC said it is "welcoming new members from across the ecosystem including technology providers, academia, EPCs, and government agencies".
The Open Group, is a global consortium with over 900 members that enables the achievement of business objectives through technology standards and open source initiatives by fostering a culture of collaboration, inclusivity, and mutual respect among its members. Its membership includes customers, systems and solutions suppliers, tool vendors, integrators, academics, and consultants across multiple industries.
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