The federal government considers nuclear energy—including small modular reactors (SMRs) that are touted as easier to build and run than traditional nuclear plants—as key to meeting energy needs while aiming for net-zero by 2050.

In Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s 2023 budget in March, investments for nuclear power and SMRs were included alongside hydropower and other “non-emitting electricity generation systems” eligible for a $25-billion, 15% tax break from the Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit.

And Trudeau has since made multiple public statements in support of nuclear energy. “Nuclear is on the table, absolutely,” he said, during a speech in British Columbia earlier this month. And at a University of Ottawa visit, he said investment in nuclear and SMRs is something Canada is “very, very serious” about, reported the Canadian Press.

“We’re going to have to be doing much more nuclear over the coming decades,” Trudeau said.

But on April 25, anti-nuclear activists and a cross-partisan group of MPs held a media conference on Parliament Hill, urging Ottawa to rethink its stance on nuclear and calling the energy source a dangerous distraction from climate action, reported CBC News.

Speakers in the group said Trudeau and his cabinet are getting bad advice about nuclear energy.

“The nuclear industry, led by the United States and the United Kingdom, has been lobbying and advertising heavily in Canada, trying to convince us that new SMR designs will somehow address the climate crisis,” said Prof. Susan O’Donnell, a member of the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB). The reality, she added, is that SMRs will produce “toxic radioactive waste” and could lead to serious accidents while turning some communities into “nuclear waste dumps”.

Moreover, there is “no guarantee these nuclear experiments will ever generate electricity safely and affordably,” O’Donnell said, since SMRs are still relatively untested.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May called government funding for nuclear projects a “fraud.”

“It has no part in fighting the climate emergency,” May said. “In fact, it takes valuable dollars away from things that we know work, that can be implemented immediately, in favour of untested and dangerous technologies that will not be able to generate a single kilowatt of electricity for a decade or more.”

Liberal MP Jenica Atwin, New Democrat Alexandre Boulerice, and Bloc Québecois MP Mario Simard also attended the media event, the National Post reports. Atwin, who was first elected as a Green in 2019 before crossing the floor, “is the only Liberal to publicly break ranks so far, but said she has had conversations with colleagues who appear to be ‘open-minded’ to learning more about her concerns,” the Post says.

Advocacy groups like the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) have also pushed back against SMRs, arguing they “pose safety, accident, and proliferation risks” akin to traditional nuclear reactors. CELA urged the federal government to “eliminate federal funding for SMRs, and instead reallocate those investments into cost-effective, socially responsible, renewable solutions.”

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says renewables will “lead the push to replace fossil fuels” but that nuclear can help in countries where it is accepted. As of 2022, there were only three SMR projects in operation—one each in Russia, China, and India, CBC News reported.

Canada’s first SMR passes pre-licencing

In Ontario, which currently produces 60% of its electricity from conventional nuclear stations, plans for one such SMR passed a regulatory checkpoint in March. Slated to be Canada’s first new nuclear reactor since 1993, the BWRX-300 is being built by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and North Carolina-based GE Hitachi.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) said it found “no fundamental barriers to licencing” the BWRX-300 after a pre-licencing vendor design review. As an assessment requested by the developer, the design review makes a preliminary identification of shortcomings. It is an integral part of the regulatory process, aimed at providing feedback to the vendor about “how it is addressing Canadian regulatory requirements and CNSC expectations in its design and design activities,” a CNSC spokesperson told The Energy Mix in an email.

The BWRX-300 is the first SMR to pass such a review, reported the Globe and Mail. It is also expected to be North America’s first grid-scale deployment of an SMR. The CNSC nod of approval is a checkpoint in OPG’s plans for the Darlington New Nuclear Project (DNNP), which will bring the BWRX-300 SMR to the existing Darlington nuclear station in Bowmanville.

Darlington is Canada’s second-largest nuclear facility by energy output, capable of meeting around 20% of Ontario’s current power demand. It is also the only site in Canada licenced for a new nuclear build with an accepted environmental assessment, thanks to a prior application process from 2006. The project that underwent assessment was cancelled in 2014, but OPG maintained the licence and resumed planning activities for the site in 2020, with operations set to begin in 2028.

It has no part in fighting the climate emergency.

 

– Elizabeth May, Green Party leader

CNSC staff concluded in their review that GE Hitachi “understands and has correctly interpreted the intent of regulatory requirements for the design of nuclear power plants in Canada” and that they “did not identify any fundamental barriers to licencing.”

The review is not binding on the commission and does not involve the issuance of a licence, but its completion does give OPG “a head start on licencing,” said GE Hitachi spokesperson Jonathan Allen.

However, the pre-licencing review also revealed “some technical areas that need further development,” CNSC said. The commission will require OPG to supply further details on severe accident analysis and the engineered features credited for mitigation. OPG must also demonstrate that the reactor’s design meets the requirement for two separate and diverse means of reactor shutdown (or an alternative approach) and provide further information “on the protective measures for workers in the event of an out-of-core criticality accident.”

“From the list of areas needed for further development, it looks like [GE Hitachi] has some work to do,” said Allison Macfarlane, director of the University of British Columbia’s public policy school, who chaired the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) between 2012 and 2014.

BWRX-300 raises safety questions

But Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Mix he has concerns about the design. He pointed to a joint CNSC-NRC review that identified several issues associated with reactor containment, including a potential for “reverse flow” of steam from the containment back into the reactor vessel under certain accident conditions. The review also found that the reactor’s reliance on isolation condensers may not always be effective to remove heat from the reactor during loss-of-coolant accidents.

“The consequences of a failure of isolation condensers is apparent from the fate of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1, which experienced a core melt only hours after the system was lost,” Lyman said, citing the 2011 nuclear disaster in Ōkuma, Japan.

He added he is “extremely skeptical” that the BWRX-300 design will mature quickly enough to allow CNSC to make a meaningful determination of its safety in time for the anticipated 2028 start date. SMR designs need to undergo further testing and analysis before they can be considered safe, and yet vendors are rushing to deploy new, untested reactor designs without going through the necessary stages of technology development, including testing of full-scale prototypes, Lyman said.

“History has shown that shortcuts in this process are an invitation to disaster,” he added.

SMRs fall under the same Class 1A Nuclear Facilities Regulations as traditional reactors, so they do receive the same level of CNSC scrutiny. With its mandate to ensure the safe conduct of nuclear activities in Canada, the commission “will only issue a licence if the applicant has demonstrated the reactor can be operated safely,” the spokesperson said.

Next steps for the DNNP include a CNSC assessment, already under way, to review OPG’s licence application. This will result in a Commission Member Document that offers results and recommendations to an independent commission. Then there will also be two public hearings. The first is slated for January 2024 and will consider the applicability of the previous environmental assessment to the BWRX-300. A separate, future hearing will determine whether to issue a construction licence for the DNNP.

“It is the independent commission who will make the decision as to whether the licensee or applicant is qualified to carry on the proposed activities and in a safe manner that protects the public and the environment,” the CNSC spokesperson said.

This article by The Energy Mix is published here as part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.

The post Are small modular reactors a dangerous distraction from climate action? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Now Canada is seeing yet another promised resurgence for the nuclear industry. And this time, it comes in a size small. On December 1, Ontario Premier Doug Ford participated in a groundbreaking at Darlington nuclear facility, where provincially owned Ontario Power Generation (OPG) plans to build a small modular reactor (SMR).

If the Darlington project gets a green light on the final investment decision, the unit will be the first new reactor built in Canada in nearly 40 years, as other companies are pursuing plans to build SMRs across the country. (The nuclear sector has, however, been buoyed by massive reactor refurbishment projects at Darlington and Bruce Power’s eight-reactor site on Lake Huron.)

The industry’s latest hope, SMRs have a capacity of up to 300 megawatts and modular design features that are meant to keep construction costs under control (nuclear projects are notorious for their multibillion-dollar cost overruns). Micro reactors can be as small as five megawatts and are touted as an energy solution for remote communities and industrial sites like mines.

That’s in sharp contrast with the 1,000-megawatt behemoths that were marketed around the world in the first decade of the century by reactor manufacturers, including then federally owned AECL, Westinghouse Electric Co. and others.

The federal government and four provinces – Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta – are lining up to support the commercial deployment of SMRs as low-carbon sources of electricity.

However, big questions remain about SMRs as the technology is largely untested. It’s unclear what the electricity from SMRs will cost and whether the technology can compete with cheap renewable sources like wind and solar backed up by storage. The prospect of micro reactors dotting remote Canadian landscapes also raises serious issues around safety and management of highly radioactive wastes.

Corporate Knights does not consider new nuclear power projects to be “green” in its Sustainable Economy Taxonomy. In July, the European Union overturned a draft proposal and included nuclear in its taxonomy for the purposes of green investing, though that controversial decision is being challenged in court by Austria, backed by several environmental groups.

In its fall fiscal update, the federal government introduced an investment tax credit of up to 30% for clean energy technologies, including SMRs. Ottawa has also committed $970 million in low-interest financing through the Canada Infrastructure Bank for the Darlington SMR project.

A bad day to go nuclear

Last decade was not kind to the nuclear industry, as Japan’s Fukushima meltdown after a tsunami in 2011 was the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl accident of 1986 and led to the shutdown of all the country’s reactors. Those safety threats loom large today as Russia has attacked Ukraine’s nuclear energy site.

As well, the economic case for large new reactors has taken a beating over the years, as projects have been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Two signature projects in recent years have been particularly poorly managed: Areva’s plant in Finland and Westinghouse’s effort to build an advanced power reactor in Georgia. Westinghouse, which was then owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp., was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2017 and was purchased by Toronto-based Brookfield Business Partners in 2018 for US$4.6 billion for its ongoing maintenance business.

But industry hopes are rising again, as the energy crisis in Europe has pushed Germany to extend the life of three nuclear plants it was set to close. And even Japan is looking to restart around 30 decommissioned reactors in pursuit of decarbonization.

And then there are SMRs. At the National Energy Roundtable’s conference at the end of November, several speakers argued for the inclusion of nuclear in Canada’s strategy to electrify the economy. Energy ministers from Ontario and New Brunswick touted the benefits of SMRs, saying the technology can provide affordable, continuous, non-emitting power.

The two provinces – in addition to Alberta and uranium-rich Saskatchewan – have agreed to work together on the commercialization of SMRs.

Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith said the province is facing an energy supply shortage toward the end of the 2020s and sees SMRs as one of several generation technologies that will be needed to address it. (This expected electricity crunch in Ontario is in large part due to the Ford government ripping up contracts for more than 700 renewable energy projects.)

“It’s going to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to meet the demands of the future,” Smith said. And he urged the federal government to ensure that projects don’t get stalled in lengthy environmental assessment hearings.

SMRs have been a decade away from deployment for the last 30 years, while wind and solar are actually being deployed.

-Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace

At Darlington, OPG expects to receive a construction licence in 2024 and will release detailed cost estimates as design and regulatory work proceeds, OPG spokesman Neal Kelly said in an email.

Former mayor of Iqaluit Madeleine Redfern said at the roundtable discussion that SMRs can help northern communities and industry end their reliance on expensive, dirty and often unreliable diesel generators. Small reactors, she said, would be more reliable than intermittent electricity production from wind or solar projects. (Redfern is also chief operating officer of CanArctic Inuit Networks and an Indigenous advisor to nuclear energy developer USNC-Power, which is partnering with OPG on a demonstration reactor project, as it seeks approvals from the federal nuclear regulator.)

Critics argue that SMRs pose the same problems of safety and waste disposal that have bedevilled the nuclear industry for decades. The future “lies in capturing the sun and wind, not in splitting atoms,” Greenpeace campaigner Keith Stewart said in an email. “SMRs have been a decade away from deployment for the last 30 years, while wind and solar are actually being deployed.”

Still, Ontario is betting heavily on nuclear to decarbonize the electricity grid even as demand for power could double or even triple as we move to electrify transportation, home heating and industrial energy needs.

Ontario will continue to rely on natural gas in the medium term to keep electricity costs down while the refurbishments at Darlington, Bruce and possibly Pickering can be completed. The Ontario plan anticipates that SMRs would also help end the reliance on natural gas. The Progressive Conservative government is even reviving conservation programs after killing them when Premier Ford first came to power in 2018.

Smith said Ontario is committed to electrification but will need the federal government to be a reliable partner to help keep costs down. “If the price of electricity soars, we’re not going to see electrification unfold,” he said.

However, whether SMRs can be a timely source of cheap and low-carbon electricity for Ontario and beyond remains to be seen.

The post Will small modular reactors seed a nuclear renaissance? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“Canada can be a world leader in this promising, innovative, zero-emissions energy technology, and this is our plan to position ourselves in an emerging global market,” Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said in a statement.

The governments of New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta, together with the federal government, advocate that small modular reactors (SMRs) are essential if Canada is to achieve a net-zero economy by 2050. According to the feds’ 2018 Call to Action report on the mini nuclear reactors, “SMRs are a reliable, clean, non-emitting source of energy, with costs that are predictable and competitive with other alternatives.” 

The first problem with these claims is that SMRs don’t yet exist and aren’t expected to exist for a decade, making these claims dubious. It’s not the only questionable claim made by proponents.

Are SMRs a clean, zero-emission source of power? 

Nuclear reactors emit much lower concentrations of carbon than fossil fuels, so one could claim they are zero-emission. But they have their own, uniquely harmful, emissions. From thousands of tonnes of spent fuel to hundreds of thousands of tonnes of mine tailings, nuclear power leaves a radioactive trail that is an immediate threat to waterways and water tables and is lethal for hundreds of thousands of years. SMRs will only add to that.

In 2010, Ad Standards Canada ruled that an ad claiming CANDU reactors were emission-free was “inaccurate and unsupported.” The Power Workers’ Union was expected to remove all ads containing the “emission-free” statement and to qualify any future claims. 

In response to concerns raised about SMR waste, Minister O’Regan said the federal government is working to ensure that Canada has “a clear plan in place for the safe, long-term management of all of our nuclear waste, including any future waste from SMRs. At the same time, we’ll continue to look at new and innovative technologies that can reduce or eliminate waste.”

After 70 years, the nuclear industry still hasn’t found a way to keep habitable environments safe from spent fuel for anything close to the time frames required for it to be harmless. There have been many plans in the past and there are current plans but all have one thing in common: they are unfit for purpose.

Some SMR technologies promise to use CANDU spent fuel in the SMR, claiming this will reduce both the radioactivity and quantity of the spent fuel. This claim is theoretical, based on proprietary data, and a report published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said doing so would be “playing with fire,” noting that the process, called pyroprocessing, will exacerbate the spent fuel storage and disposal challenges, not mitigate them. 

Will SMRs be safe?

Canadians have been lulled into a sense of security about nuclear reactors, and for good reason: the Canadian CANDU reactor design is hands-down the safest in the world. However, fissionable material in a self-sustaining chain reaction is never entirely safe. Though a nuclear reactor has layers of controls, the control must be continuous and flawless. Accidents happen – equipment failure and human error have been the causes of all nuclear accidents. And, as Fukushima demonstrated, natural disasters can precipitate both.

Unlike CANDU reactors that use natural uranium as fuel, SMRs will require fuel that has been “enriched,” increasing the concentration of plutonium. Since plutonium is the “active ingredient” in nuclear weapons, the potential for nuclear proliferation increases, and SMR fuel production and transportation will require increased security. Concerns over safety are not limited to the actual fuel and its reactions. Many of the SMR designs being considered in Canada have a much higher operating temperature than existing reactors, and some have a much more corrosive environment. The materials required to house the reaction, the reactor itself, do not exist yet and their development is in its infancy. 

Will SMRs be a cost-effective source of power?

Projects for constructing and refurbishing nuclear power stations have a solid track record for coming in years behind schedule and billions over budget. It appears that SMRs are following the same trajectory: NuScale Power, an SMR development firm based in Portland, Oregon, may be the closest to having a functioning, approved SMR. To date, the U.S. government has invested $1.6 billion. In 2015, the estimated total development cost was $3 billion; today it is $6.1 billion. In 2008, NuScale predicted that its SMR would be online in 2016; today, it predicts that it will be 2029.

Nonetheless, SMR proponents have suggested that the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for SMRs will be on par with renewables. However, there is a plethora of independent, peer-reviewed papers that indicate much higher costs, including a recent Canadian report that concludes the LCOE of an SMR could be 10 times the cost of wind, solar or diesel. With the costs of renewable energy quickly plummeting, and given the rapid evolution of renewable generation and storage technologies, it’s unlikely SMRs will be competitive. 

A range of power-generation and storage technologies that are clean, emissions-free, safe and low cost, is imminent. Within 10 years, these technologies will be widespread, fully incorporated into all levels of society, and deployed to all regions – all before the first SMR comes online. In all likelihood, by the time an SMR comes to market, there will be a more economical and environmentally responsible alternative in place.

While the rhetoric is persuasive, the case for SMRs doesn’t stand up to objective scrutiny. Allocating climate-change funds to them is a travesty. 

Rick Cheeseman is author of SMR Facts & Fictions / PRM Faits et Fictions. He has degrees in Physics and Education and has worked in the nuclear industry.

The post Feds’ Small Modular Reactor Action Plan is a dangerous distraction from climate change mitigation appeared first on Corporate Knights.