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- Hacker News
- These are a bunch of contradictory quotes. We'll have to wait till NRCan or whatever comes up with a real plan. "Up to 10 reactors built by 2040" doesn't really match "two new large-scale reactors by 2035, for five more to be planned or under development by 2040 and for at least one reactor to be under construction outside Ontario by 2035". Like, what is that. "planned or under development" seems like a big "or". Like how BART has 1500 lines completed or described in concepts online.by arjie
- The Decouple podcast has taught me more about the Canadian Nuclear industry than I ever wanted to know. https://www.decouple.media/by totetsu
- A nuclear reactor in the Alberta Oil sands would take care of a large amount of the CO2 produced in the production of crude.by mig39
- Doesn’t help with the burning part. Or the stranded infrastructure once the demand goes away.by _aavaa_
- Perhaps relevant.
2005 ish - UK government release energy strategy and declares fission power plant intent.
2010 ish - UK government formally announces Hinkley Point site. It's declared the first reactor will come online 2019.
2019 - it does not.
2026 - best estimate is now 'around 2030'.
Historical cost estimates are an utter quagmire - but roughly estimated at £18 billion a decade ago, back when it was estimated to be online last year.
Current estimates - bring your own hubris - are roughly £46 billion.
This story has been beaten to death, I know - but recall, this is a country with some history of building and operating nuclear fission power plants, with convenient (2h by rail) access to a lot of expertise from France, and it's a joint-venture with China General Nuclear Power Group so presumably plenty of expertise to draw upon there.
by Jedd - Also relevant - all recent Canadian refurbs were on time and budgetby Moldoteck
- These day's it's a common problem in all of the Anglosphere, but it does seem especially bad in the UK; they appear to have just given up the ability to build literally anything.by gottorf
- From what I've seen out of Canada, this is likely overly optimistic and probably will not be possible in that time frame.
I think it's better to just outsource it to Koreans at least that way you can stay on budget and on time.
by zuzululu - Interesting to see the general opinion on nuclear swing so far from environmental and safety concerns (whether warranted or not) to pretty broad support for energy independence.
I can't help but think its a sign that those concerns were easy to hold when energy was cheap and you could actually trust your neighbors. If that's the case, again huge speculation, it sure makes the concerns feel a bit hollow now.
by _heimdall - From the article:
"If our goal is to double our grid and build a low-carbon economy in less than 25 years, there is no credible plan to do that without nuclear energy and the clean, reliable baseload power it provides,"
Reduction in burning carbon and producing greenhouses is the number one concern of environmentalists and is a major driver of the increased acceptability of nuclear power production, especially if safety concerns are met. Also from the article:
> Unlike most other nuclear reactors, Candu reactors don't require enriched uranium. Ottawa says Western allies are turning away from Russia, one of the world's key suppliers of enriched uranium.
The problem of course is that safety has costs and people cut corners, leading to events like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.
by jibal - I think its mainly just different "environmentalist" subgroups: You have the oldschool environmentalists that are more "holistically" concerned with sustainability, ecological footprint, species preservation, pollution, etc.
I'd argue that this subgroup already achieved *tons* of goals over the last half century, and are nowadays playing second fiddle to the subgroup that is first and foremost concerned about climate change: Because those goals are far from met and much more urgent.
Those subgroups tend to have a very different outlook on nuclear energy: Nonsustainable superfund sites in the making for the first group, and highly useful emission stopgap for the second...
by myrmidon - The Ontario government is terrible at creating a structure which is capable of finishing any infrastructure project on time ...(see Eglinton Crosstown) and mostly seems to work as a funnel for moving public funds through public-private-partnerships to feed contractor/consultant income for projects that grow to many multiples of their time and budget.
So, yeah, it makes sense that they love nuclear now -- blank cheque to drag on for multidecades over budget. Likely the right people donated the right funds to the PC party and/or attended/funded Ford Fest
The first thing this government did when it got into power was pay out hundreds of millions in penalties for cancelling large wind projects, and for breaching its contract and exiting the cap and trade agreement with California and Quebec.
Ford loves to waste money and then wag his finger about how everyone else is fiscally irresponsible.
- Nuclear industry in Canada is federally-regulated, not provincial.by stackghost
- Darlington nuclear refurbishment finished ahead of schedule and under budget
https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/projects/2026/0...
by wmoxam - I’m not Canadian so news to me that Canada has built nuclear plants around the world.
As in the UK we were previously asking a French-Chinese partnership to build here so not sure why Canada didn’t get chosen for that.
by fsuts - Because the Candu is insanely expensive.by crypttales
- UK's regulations are so bad that even Hitachi pulled out from building ABWRby Moldoteck
- So France and Canada both build nuclear plants. Must be something in the french language that makes folks just want to do the cool stuff.
If it is anything like all my french cookware, it will be done wonderfully.
by HerbManic - The French are undoubtedly a good choice considering nuclear produces the majority of their electricity and EDF already operates in the UK.
- >As in the UK we were previously asking a French-Chinese partnership to build here so not sure why Canada didn’t get chosen for that.
Its crazy how fast britain has fallen off nuclear, the original british nuclear rollout should have stood the UK up as a permanent nuclear energy powerhouse but France took it from them.
by protocolture - To my surprise Canada are actually quite ahead with the Darlington New Nuclear Project. There is a construction site [0] with work taking place. Not sure how Kairos Power are progressing in the USA. Nice job, Canada.
0 - https://www.neimagazine.com/news/darlington-smr-secures-fina...
by p2detar - Unfortunately its just a small boiling water reactor. More capacity is needed in most parts of the world. Lager reactors are needed.by preisschild
- Always thought it was weird that the Commonwealth Realm nations had never pooled resources to have standardised reactor designs and expertise. Canada and Australia have loads of uranium - seems like an obvious strategic move. Instead, the UK turns to China, lol.by gaiagraphia
- OK, so when does the first one come online? "The strategy calls for construction to start on two new large-scale reactors by 2035, for five more to be planned or under development by 2040 and for at least one reactor to be under construction outside Ontario by 2035."
That's not serious. Construction start is too far away.
by Animats - It's hard not to fully agree with this take. The facts are obviously putting the actual timelines into fantasy territory, where projects fizzle and die. Even a 10-year plan should be flagged as high-risk as solar and wind builds tied to grid battery continues to explode in growth.by 1970-01-01
- Ok, I was kind of excited about this, until you pointed out the dates.
Of all Western developed countries, Canada is pretty much the last hope for a country with the skills to build nuclear at something that's within spitting distance of being economical.
The US and France have shat the bed royally over the past two decades, they're out of the game of construction competence. The UK stopped doing their own and outsourced to overpriced and unreasonable French reactors, that are only going forward with what be massive amounts of corruption in order to justify such expensive energy when there's cheaper batteries + offshore wind. Finland had France build them a reactor, and wisely negotiated a fixed price up front, and the construction overruns bankrupted the French company which is now really French in the sense that it bankrupted itself on Olkiluoto and had to be nationalized in the name of national security.
That leaves Canada, with their famous CANDU reactors and can-do attitudes. But 9 years of planning before construction? Perhaps that's what's actually needed, and they'll have a chance of actually constructing it in five years, but.... super super doubtful.
Canada, do not fall into the same trap as the rest of the nuclear frauds in the Western world. Five years for construction? Don't kid yourselves, even China breaks ridiculous timelines like that, and as good as you are, Canada, you're no China when it comes to massive massive construction projects. Just look at how hard it is to build in Vancouver, for example...
by epistasis - Makes alot of sense. Canada has:
- one of the largest uranium reserves
- a well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU
- experience with building and refurbishing nuclear reactors(Darlington)
and for Ontario itself A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years.
Saskatchewan also now has a potential need for nuclear for industrial use now that wasn't present before from its existing population.
if the government can clear the red tape by using a well tested reactor design then they could certainly get some of these reactors built in that time frame.
15 seems...ambitions, but if we're going to spend at a federal level this is probably one of the better things to invest in.
by chollida1 - Always amused me that on the face of things, a CANDU looks just like a sideways RBMK. At least in terms of plumbing. There's clearly more to it than that.
- Ignoring that the last time Ontario attempted to build nuclear power the utility went into bankruptcy forcing the public to take on an absolutely enormous stranded debt.
- Nuclear also works well with grid batteries to smooth demand curves, which Ontario is targeting 2700MW of scale by 2030.by tgtweak