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Construction on the first of four small modular reactors at a nuclear station east of Toronto is set to begin this year with the entire project costing $21 billion.
The first reactor at the site of the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station should be completed by 2030, officials said.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved Ontario Power Generation's plan last month to build the first of four reactors.
"We're breaking ground on a project that, when complete, will produce power for 1.2 million homes, 1,200 megawatts of power," said Energy Minister Stephen Lecce.
The project will create 18,000 jobs, including 3,700 highly skilled jobs.
Lecce said 80 per cent of the spending on the entire project will go to Ontario companies that are providing skilled workers to build the new reactors.
"Our workers, our welders, our boilermakers, our heavy equipment operators will build this project with Canadian steel, Canadian concrete, and Canadian innovation," he said.
Once built, the small nuclear reactors will operate for 65 years, the province said.
OPG selected GE Hitachi's small modular reactor technology. The American-Japanese company has its headquarters in the United States.
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said it's a real gamble during an ongoing trade war with the United States.
"I think it's irresponsible for the government to be bringing in an SMR with U.S. technology that's going to lock us into needing enriched U.S. uranium to have it work," Schreiner said.
The province's nuclear generator fleet is CANDU reactors that do not need enriched uranium, but the SMR technology does.
The Independent Electricity System Operator said last year that electricity demand is expected to increase 75 per cent by 2050.
The moves are part of a larger push by Lecce to rely more heavily on nuclear generation to power the province's growing electricity demands.
The plan also includes exploring a new, large-scale plant at Bruce Power in Tiverton, Ont., considering a new nuclear plant near Port Hope, Ont., and refurbishing units at the Pickering nuclear plant to extend its lifespan.
Lecce is also bullish on exporting Ontario's nuclear know-how abroad. The province has signed agreements worth more than $1 billion with companies in Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Those agreements will see Canadian companies and workers build and operate reactors overseas, his office said.
Comments
If my research is correct, the company that produces enriched uranium in the US, Urenco, is actually based in England. Perhaps we could license the technology here, and then produce our own enriched uranium for SNRs.
This is an unbelievably stupid idea. For starters, Bent Flyvbjerg, in his book “How Big Things get Done”, studied 16,000 projects and divided them into 25 types. Nuclear power had the third largest cost overruns, with an average of 120%; 55% of them had a cost overrun of more than 50%, and the average cost overrun of these was 204%. So, the expected cost is over double stated in the article, i.e. over $40 billion.
Secondly there is the problem of the nuclear waste, which can not be disposed of, except possibly by shipping it to the sun. Nuclear storage has the highest average cost overrun in Flybbjerg’s list, at 238%.
Thirdly, any nuclear reactor produces plutonium that is present in the fuel after it has been used. It is easy to separate it chemically and make it into a bomb, if you do not care for the health of your workers. There is thus a huge danger of nuclear proliferation by bad people, or by other people with the money to do it properly.
Fourthly, as the writer points out the fuel for these reactors would be enriched uranium purchased from the USA. Bad idea as it would give the USA control, and as we know now that its agreements are worthless.
Fifthly, nuclear power stations tend to take a decade or more to build.
Finally, when something goes wrong, a large area of land becomes uninhabitable for many decades, as we have seen in Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Do not be deceived by the name “Small”. These are not small; they are the size of a medium-sized apartment building.
In contrast, solar power has the smallest average cost overrun at 1%. And, wind power has the third smallest at 13%. These are far superior options to nuclear power.
… and then there is the possibility of buying much cheaper hydroelectric power from Québec.
David Huntley
Professor Emeritus,
Physics Department,
Simon Fraser University.