OVERKILL
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In light of the recent news on Darlington B finally starting construction, I figured it might make sense to share some history, and some pictures, about the newest, and most contentious, nuclear power plant in Ontario.
In 1981, under the government of Bill Davis, Ontario Hydro broke ground on 4x CANDU 9 units at Darlington A. This was the culmination of the design and expertise gleaned from the build of the two 4-packs constructed at the Bruce site in Kincardine, which was, for the longest time, the largest nuclear power plant in the world, with a nameplate capacity of 6,440MWe (Bruce B in the foreground):
Bruce was the "beta test" for the design that would become the CANDU 9, a design that would never be exported due to the crash of the nuclear export industry on the heels of Chernobyl, despite the extensive research and documentation that demonstrated that such an even was wholly impossible with our unique and wholly Canadian CANDU technology.
Darlington A was the result of the experience at Bruce, but further updated with both deep water inlet and outlet diffusers. Darlington B, a mirror of the A plant, was supposed to be constructed on the heels of Darlington A, but due to the industry pause as a result of Chernobyl and the end of the Conservative dynasty that had built 20 nuclear reactors in Ontario, was never built.
Darlington A under construction:
It seems now, wholly fitting, that the resumption of the construction of Darlington B, 30 years later, would proceed under the Conservative government of Doug Ford, who has already directed OPG to investigate the refurbishment of Pickering B, something Canadians For Nuclear Energy (C4NE), a non-profit for which I'm a director, has fought hard for.
It won't be CANDU 9's this time, as the current focus is the success of SMR's, which OPG, our publicly owned generator, is looking to be a world leader on. But, we ARE looking to build new CANDU's, and have several sites that are already slated to receive new generation, including that of a former dual fuel facility at Wesleyville that was never completed:
Momentum is building in the nuclear sector and Ontario is on the edge of the wave. If our organization has any say in the matter, we'll have new CANDU's as part of Darlington B, Wesleyville and Nanticoke and we'll be picking up where Davis left off in '81. Ontario's future is nuclear and this time, we are going to push that through the rest of Canada. Where there is coal, we can build CANDU's and, the plan is, we will.
In 1981, under the government of Bill Davis, Ontario Hydro broke ground on 4x CANDU 9 units at Darlington A. This was the culmination of the design and expertise gleaned from the build of the two 4-packs constructed at the Bruce site in Kincardine, which was, for the longest time, the largest nuclear power plant in the world, with a nameplate capacity of 6,440MWe (Bruce B in the foreground):
Bruce was the "beta test" for the design that would become the CANDU 9, a design that would never be exported due to the crash of the nuclear export industry on the heels of Chernobyl, despite the extensive research and documentation that demonstrated that such an even was wholly impossible with our unique and wholly Canadian CANDU technology.
Darlington A was the result of the experience at Bruce, but further updated with both deep water inlet and outlet diffusers. Darlington B, a mirror of the A plant, was supposed to be constructed on the heels of Darlington A, but due to the industry pause as a result of Chernobyl and the end of the Conservative dynasty that had built 20 nuclear reactors in Ontario, was never built.
Darlington A under construction:
It seems now, wholly fitting, that the resumption of the construction of Darlington B, 30 years later, would proceed under the Conservative government of Doug Ford, who has already directed OPG to investigate the refurbishment of Pickering B, something Canadians For Nuclear Energy (C4NE), a non-profit for which I'm a director, has fought hard for.
It won't be CANDU 9's this time, as the current focus is the success of SMR's, which OPG, our publicly owned generator, is looking to be a world leader on. But, we ARE looking to build new CANDU's, and have several sites that are already slated to receive new generation, including that of a former dual fuel facility at Wesleyville that was never completed:
Momentum is building in the nuclear sector and Ontario is on the edge of the wave. If our organization has any say in the matter, we'll have new CANDU's as part of Darlington B, Wesleyville and Nanticoke and we'll be picking up where Davis left off in '81. Ontario's future is nuclear and this time, we are going to push that through the rest of Canada. Where there is coal, we can build CANDU's and, the plan is, we will.
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