by chollida1
19 subcomments
- Makes alot of sense. Canada has:
- one of the largest uranium reserves
- a well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU
- experience with building and refurbishing nuclear reactors(Darlington)
and for Ontario itself A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years.
Saskatchewan also now has a potential need for nuclear for industrial use now that wasn't present before from its existing population.
if the government can clear the red tape by using a well tested reactor design then they could certainly get some of these reactors built in that time frame.
15 seems...ambitions, but if we're going to spend at a federal level this is probably one of the better things to invest in.
- OK, so when does the first one come online? "The strategy calls for construction to start on two new large-scale reactors by 2035, for five more to be planned or under development by 2040 and for at least one reactor to be under construction outside Ontario by 2035."
That's not serious. Construction start is too far away.
by gaiagraphia
0 subcomment
- Always thought it was weird that the Commonwealth Realm nations had never pooled resources to have standardised reactor designs and expertise. Canada and Australia have loads of uranium - seems like an obvious strategic move. Instead, the UK turns to China, lol.
- To my surprise Canada are actually quite ahead with the Darlington New Nuclear Project. There is a construction site [0] with work taking place. Not sure how Kairos Power are progressing in the USA. Nice job, Canada.
0 - https://www.neimagazine.com/news/darlington-smr-secures-fina...
- I’m not Canadian so news to me that Canada has built nuclear plants around the world.
As in the UK we were previously asking a French-Chinese partnership to build here so not sure why Canada didn’t get chosen for that.
by _heimdall
2 subcomments
- Interesting to see the general opinion on nuclear swing so far from environmental and safety concerns (whether warranted or not) to pretty broad support for energy independence.
I can't help but think its a sign that those concerns were easy to hold when energy was cheap and you could actually trust your neighbors. If that's the case, again huge speculation, it sure makes the concerns feel a bit hollow now.
- Perhaps relevant.
2005 ish - UK government release energy strategy and declares fission power plant intent.
2010 ish - UK government formally announces Hinkley Point site. It's declared the first reactor will come online 2019.
2019 - it does not.
2026 - best estimate is now 'around 2030'.
Historical cost estimates are an utter quagmire - but roughly estimated at £18 billion a decade ago, back when it was estimated to be online last year.
Current estimates - bring your own hubris - are roughly £46 billion.
This story has been beaten to death, I know - but recall, this is a country with some history of building and operating nuclear fission power plants, with convenient (2h by rail) access to a lot of expertise from France, and it's a joint-venture with China General Nuclear Power Group so presumably plenty of expertise to draw upon there.
- A nuclear reactor in the Alberta Oil sands would take care of a large amount of the CO2 produced in the production of crude.
- The Decouple podcast has taught me more about the Canadian Nuclear industry than I ever wanted to know.
https://www.decouple.media/
- These are a bunch of contradictory quotes. We'll have to wait till NRCan or whatever comes up with a real plan. "Up to 10 reactors built by 2040" doesn't really match "two new large-scale reactors by 2035, for five more to be planned or under development by 2040 and for at least one reactor to be under construction outside Ontario by 2035". Like, what is that. "planned or under development" seems like a big "or". Like how BART has 1500 lines completed or described in concepts online.
- It's obvious to me there will be a renaisance, but the question is which design will win.
There are so many companies building small modular reactors right and various different designs with different fuels and cooling mediums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_small_modular_reactor_...
- The idea is great, the timeline is super unrealistic. We'll see those reactors in 2070 the earliest, more likely in 2080.
by ungreased0675
1 subcomments
- This is great. Hopefully they can make enough to supply the US energy.
Because we seem to be incapable of building new reactors.
by BIGFOOT_EXISTS
1 subcomments
- Can't wait for this to get bogged down in legislation and never get done
by rangestransform
1 subcomments
- Maybe this would’ve made economic sense 20 or 40 years ago, but nuclear is too expensive now compared with renewables. I can’t help but think this is a covert plan to bcecome an “almost nuclear” state in response to threats from the US.
- >Unlike most other nuclear reactors, Candu reactors don't require enriched uranium. Ottawa says Western allies are turning away from Russia, one of the world's key suppliers of enriched uranium.
Even if Canada winds up relying more on CANDU reactors than SMR's, there is a case to be made for enriching domestically. There are a lot of potential customers looking for a reliable, ethical supplier. Canada has the raw minerals, political stability, and a long record of refusing to weaponize despite having the capability.
- 10 new reactos by 2040 is huge when you come to think of it, this is just in 14 years, this is about 0.72 reactors built each year. Knowing you need to build : the whole reactor building, the machines building, the whole plumbery system, the electrical system, the control command system, the reactor, reliability features, and all of that knowing you have to pass the nuclear regulation authorities controls.
- Did people really forget just how much nuclear power sucks? Storage may not be a problem now but that's pushing the problem onto future generations yet again
- Are we finally re-entering the Atomic Age? It seems that the Soviets extended the Oil Age by about 40 years, by blowing up the Chernobyl plant in 1986.
- From what I've seen out of Canada, this is likely overly optimistic and probably will not be possible in that time frame.
I think it's better to just outsource it to Koreans at least that way you can stay on budget and on time.
by MeteorMarc
0 subcomment
- Lets see if there will be any private investments unless gov guarantees fixed minimum price of MWh.
- I am baffled why Canada don't have massive data centres yet? It is cold with abundant water and energy. Why not?
by AugustusCrunch
0 subcomment
- Alberta has energy. Canada wants energy without Alberta. The Candu reactor program is so defunct that the feds have been trying to sell it for about a decade. Candu makes plutonium and was responsible for a lot of nuclear weapons proliferation in the 1980s, but again, Candu isn't Alberta. Also it's a way to spend an enormous amount of money, and Canada isn't quite bankrupt yet.
I say go for it.
by cmrdporcupine
2 subcomments
- The Ontario government is terrible at creating a structure which is capable of finishing any infrastructure project on time ...(see Eglinton Crosstown) and mostly seems to work as a funnel for moving public funds through public-private-partnerships to feed contractor/consultant income for projects that grow to many multiples of their time and budget.
So, yeah, it makes sense that they love nuclear now -- blank cheque to drag on for multidecades over budget. Likely the right people donated the right funds to the PC party and/or attended/funded Ford Fest
The first thing this government did when it got into power was pay out hundreds of millions in penalties for cancelling large wind projects, and for breaching its contract and exiting the cap and trade agreement with California and Quebec.
Ford loves to waste money and then wag his finger about how everyone else is fiscally irresponsible.
- So we're willing to put our greatest national asset (the environment) at risk in the name of "moar power". Well that's just great.
I hope Jimmy Carter's ghost will be just as willing to help us out the next time a reactor goes into meltdown as his physical self was the first time that happened. RIP Jimmy Carter.
- That’s great news !
Have they also solved the nuclear waste problem?
Honest question; here in the USA we have not.
- Im surprised they haven't doubled down on deep drill geothermal.
by martinbfine
6 subcomments
- But what do they do with the waste? And how much fresh water is that going to use?
by TurdF3rguson
0 subcomment
- I wonder if anyone will tell them that's an oxymoron.
- Totally unnecessary : I did the Math to cross-verify - Elon Musk is 100 % right !
Just ONE square mile of batteries and a TOTAL of 100 x 100 square miles of Solar can power the entire USA 24/7. Area required will be much lesser for Canada.
See : https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/energy/articles/elon-musk-...
- Hopefully this will kick Australia into gear.
- Society grows great when old men build nuclear plants whose power they will never get to enjoy.
by WhereIsTheTruth
0 subcomment
- That's fire! pun intended, IYKYK
Jokes aside, Canada is well positioned to lead a nuclear renaissance, now that they have easy access to raw materials, easy access to cooling facilities and they can export surplus to energy hungry neighbor, it also makes it a good candidate for hosting lots of datacenters
- We are trying.
by thelonelyborg
0 subcomment
- would be good
- to begin in 2035, eh?
just join the US already
by motohagiography
1 subcomments
- new micro reactor tech makes this much more appealing. We probably don't need Darlington scale plants, we just need a capacity to add new ones. Diversifying the ownership and management of them would also improve the economic benefits. We would need a leverage cap on securitization of energy as debt collateral. Something akin to banking leverage limits of 10-20x for them to be operated responsibly.
We should have more nuclear, but they should be run for profit to hold them to account instead of massively indebting them to create public sector crony slush funds the way the current hydroelectric system has been run into the ground.
by shevy-java
1 subcomments
- Canada needs its own nuclear arsenal.
Relying on Trump or any other clown, makes no more sense.
by mentalgear
0 subcomment
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by hitanshu326
0 subcomment
- [dead]
by sleepyguy
4 subcomments
- Should look at the the historical record and consider the scale of cost overruns and delays that major nuclear projects have experienced. While everyone involved may have good intentions, the reality is that these projects often end up costing significantly more and taking much longer than originally projected.
Wind and solar could be deployed for a fraction of the proposed $100 billion investment and should be considered as part of the interim solution, while nuclear remains a long-term strategic project.
Rather than pursuing such an ambitious build out, a more practical approach might be to scale back the plan and focus on constructing one reactor each in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba as an initial phase.
by stefantalpalaru
0 subcomment
- [dead]
- [flagged]
by bluefirebrand
3 subcomments
- [flagged]
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by preisschild
1 subcomments
- CANDUs are cool, hope to see more in the world
- Isn't it interesting? Now that power generation is seen as the deciding factor between who wins/loses AI, nuclear is back on the table again.
- Oh my god, yes, please. It should be 100 over the next 10 years but this is a great start. We should be cranking these out and building cities in the north with clean unlimited power.
- Title is misleading, they want to start building not “build” (I.e. be operational).
Though that only moves the needles from impossible to laughable.
> If our goal is to double our grid and build a low-carbon economy in less than 25 years, there is no credible plan to do that without nuclear energy
There are plenty of credible plans, they all involve wind and solar. But as anyone watching clean energy news will know, Alberta is trying its hardest to get rid of all wind and solar development from the province.
As for the baseload argument, they already get >60% of the electricity from hydro and nuclear. How much more baseload do you really need? 100%?
by anotheraccount9
1 subcomments
- Hopefully, Canada will not get bullied by US for selling it cheaply.
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