SPLIT DECISION | FOCUS ON CANADA
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The McArthur River site in Saskatchewan has a production capacity of 7,700 tonnes of uranium per year Source: Orano
like steel. By way of an example, a November 2023 report by the Canadian Steel Producers Association (CSPA) and the Nuclear Innovation Institute (NII) calculated that making green steel in Canada would require more than four times the amount of electricity currently used by the sector.
What new nuclear will actually look like in Canada
really depends on the vantage point. Below are some key jurisdictions and their status:
Ontario Canada has been a Tier-1 nuclear nation dating back to the first half of the 20th Century with the heart of its technology design and generation program in Ontario. Most recently, Energy and Electrification Minister Stephen Lecce says the province’s ambition is to become an energy “superpower” with enough electricity to meet its own rapidly growing demands and to ramp up exports of energy and technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs). In announcing a new integrated energy strategy, Oct. 23, the minister stated, “For the first time in legislation the province will prioritise the role of reliable, affordable and zero-emissions nuclear power generation to meet future increases in demand.” As the country’s most populous province with its large
business and industrial base, the use of baseload electricity from nuclear has made sense since the first Pickering Nuclear commercial unit started operation in 1971. In recent years, as much as 60% of the province’s electricity has come from the province’s three nuclear plants: Ontario Power Generation’s Pickering and Darlington Nuclear stations in Durham Region, adjacent to Toronto and the Bruce Power site in southwestern, Ontario. Chalk River Laboratories, where CANDU (PHWR)
technology was developed through a partnership between researchers at federally owned Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. and the province’s electric utility operator in the 1940s to 1960s, is also located in Ontario, a couple of hours outside Ottawa, the country’s capital. Today, Ontario has 12,844 MW of CANDU generation
capacity. One other province (New Brunswick) and six other countries also operate CANDU reactors, helping provide the economies of scale to support research, education and supply chain infrastructure. The sector employs about 89,000 people in Canada’s nuclear industry, many of those jobs based in Ontario. It’s a history the current Ontario government has been
keen to leverage for their low-carbon economic strategy. Over a decade and a half, the province has been working
through a series of choreographed mid-life refurbishments on the Darlington and Bruce reactors, some of which will operate into the mid-2060s. That work will continue well into the next decade with the latest plan to also refurbish the four newest Pickering reactors that came online in the early-to-mid 1980s. With new technologies and increasing expertise in refurbishment project management, everything old is new again.
But CANDU is no longer the full story for Ontario. It is
also home to the most advanced SMR project of any OECD country at its Darlington Nuclear site. If completed to plan, four GE Hitachi 300 MW BWR reactors will operate alongside Darlington’s existing (and soon fully refurbished) four CANDU reactors, with the first SMR coming online in 2029. Accomplishing a first-of-a-kind SMR deployment is part of the provincial government’s export strategy. But refurbishments and the Darlington SMRs are still
not nearly enough. In an October 2024 report, Ontario’s electricity system operator said the province’s electricity demand will grow by 75% by 2050. It had already predicted at least an additional 17,800 MW of nuclear energy would be needed in that timeframe to meet demand growth. The latest estimates and the government’s “superpower” plans could push that higher. The projections, domestic and global have caught
the attention of large nuclear players. AtkinsRéalis, the license holder of CANDU technology has been ramping up its nuclear division engineering staff and working on the design and marketing of its CANDU MONARK reactor. Westinghouse, now owned by two major Canadian energy players, Cameco (uranium mining and processing) and Brookfield (asset management and renewable energy), has also headquartered in Ontario, marketing a range of designs from its micro reactor geared to remote and industrial applications right up to its APR 1000. Both companies’ reactors are being examined as part of
the Bruce C nuclear expansion, now undergoing an impact assessment in consideration of an additional 4,800 MW of nuclear energy. Bruce Power is currently the largest operating site in Ontario with eight CANDU units, expected to produce up to 7,000 MW when fully refurbished. In between micro and massive, sit several other vendors, including X-energy with reactor options that include the 80 MW Xe-100 (with potential for a 320 MW four pack) that could be ideal for regional or industrial uses, as illustrated by its partnerships with both Dow and Amazon in the United States. X-energy signed a framework agreement with OPG in 2022 to explore opportunities for industrial applications. All of
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