Ontario Nuclear Update: January 15th, 2024

[OVERKILL]

Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the Provincial Crown Corporation that owns all of Ontario's nuclear assets, has "entered into an agreement with Capital Power Corporation of Alberta to jointly assess the development and deployment of grid-scale small modular reactors (SMR's) to provide clean, reliable nuclear energy for Alberta."

On the day of Alberta's 4th level-3 grid emergency alert, this is timely.

Given this step, there will be pressure put on OPG to also pursue the partnership and construction of CANDU EC6 reactors.

You can watch a rerun of the livestream event here:
https://www.opg.com/events/live-stream-announcement-by-capital-power-and-ontario-power-generation/

OPG will have an ownership share, possibly majority ownership, and will primarily manage operation of the plants, with the expectation that this will slowly be transferred to Alberta as their own expertise in these areas develop.

 

[dubber09]

Sounds like Alberta is thinking and acting in their interests which is great news. The question is how far liberals will go to sabotage it.

 

[Snagglefoot]

There was a small attempt at one time to get a nuclear reactor built to provide steam for the oil sands plants and electricity for the grid. It got shot down and natural gas is used to this day. Things are changing in Alberta and a large rise in the price of natural gas would convince the governing party, whoever that might be, to take the giant step. There are no commercial reactors west of Ontario.

I think a reactor to share power with Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC and even North Dakota and Montana would be a good thing. There is already a grid that connects them all with power moving in both directions. The good people of Saskatchewan realize they produce large amounts of Uranium and it would just make sense to provide it to their neighbours in Alberta.

 

[oil pan 4]

Sounds like Alberta is thinking and acting in their interests which is great news. The question is how far liberals will go to sabotage it.

Yes I expect sabotage by the usual suspects. Nuclear obsoletes most renewable energy especially diffuse intermittent power sources like wind and solar. So I expect them to fight pretty hard to protect their clearly failing green agenda.

 

[Snagglefoot]

If I were an investor in the deregulated power grid in Alberta and was told my gas generator plant would be backed out by someone else’s solar plant during daylight hours, I would want compensation. Not sure how this is worked out.

 

[PandaBear]

Would be nice to install micro nuke in large campus / small city far off from the grid. Would be even better if heat can be used for district heating as well.

 

[k1xv]

People should not confuse CANDU heavy water reactors with the Light Water reactors, such as those at Three Mile Island and Fukushima that can suffer nuclear melt downs.

The Candu reactor is inherently much less subject to disaster. The light water reactors are scale ups of reactors used in submarines, where compactness was a necessary requirement to fit into the submarine.

 

[oil pan 4]

People should not confuse CANDU heavy water reactors with the Light Water reactors, such as those at Three Mile Island and Fukushima that can suffer nuclear melt downs.

The Candu reactor is inherently much less subject to disaster. The light water reactors are scale ups of reactors used in submarines, where compactness was a necessary requirement to fit into the submarine.

3 mile island was a PWR Fukushima were BWR and Chernobyl was the worst kind of BWR.
There was almost no radioactivity released from 3 mile island. If they would have followed most of the NRC regulations no one would have ever heard of 3 mile island.

 

[OVERKILL]

Would be nice to install micro nuke in large campus / small city far off from the grid. Would be even better if heat can be used for district heating as well.

That's the plan with the MMR being developed at Chalk River, to replace diesel currently used in remote communities and mining operations.

 

[OVERKILL]

Minister Smith's statement today, looks like we are all-in on new nukes, which will be supported by gas in the near-term as we build Bruce C:

https://news.ontario.ca/en/statemen...s-report-on-electrification-and-energy-future

Bruce will by far, be the largest thermal plant on earth once the C-site is complete (assuming China doesn't undertake something even more ambitious). With the existing site uprated to ~7,124MWe, the addition of up to 4,800MW of capacity means up to 11,924MW of nameplate capacity on one site (and there is still Bruce D that could be built).

 

[Albin]

Yes I expect sabotage by the usual suspects. Nuclear obsoletes most renewable energy especially diffuse intermittent power sources like wind and solar. So I expect them to fight pretty hard to protect their clearly failing green agenda.

JIC someone missed it the first time.

 

[Snagglefoot]

There was a small attempt at one time to get a nuclear reactor built to provide steam for the oil sands plants and electricity for the grid. It got shot down and natural gas is used to this day. Things are changing in Alberta and a large rise in the price of natural gas would convince the governing party, whoever that might be, to take the giant step. There are no commercial reactors west of Ontario.

I think a reactor to share power with Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC and even North Dakota and Montana would be a good thing. There is already a grid that connects them all with power moving in both directions. The good people of Saskatchewan realize they produce large amounts of Uranium and it would just make sense to provide it to their neighbours in Alberta.

This quick article might fit in here.

 

[oil pan 4]

This quick article might fit in here.

View attachment 199856

Depleted uranium maybe.