
Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology - frabbit
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/group-of-premiers-band-together-to-develop-nuclear-reactor-technology-1.5380316
======
StillBored
A few years ago Toshiba was going to build a small reactor in Alaska.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galena_Nuclear_Power_Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galena_Nuclear_Power_Plant)

But it got canceled, and for the life of me I can't understand why anyone
thinks its better to truck in heavy fuel oil for generators vs having a small
reactor buried in the ground for 30 years.

I've been saying for a few years now that green energy only advocates are
basically on the side of coal and natural gas plants because they scream
"green energy" and end up with a few MW of wind (ignoring the hydro built 50
years ago which to this day is still the majority "green energy" source) and a
bunch of natural gas or in the past coal plants.

If they said yes to fission 40 years ago we wouldn't be having the climate
crisis discussion today. We don't have 40 more years to overbuild wind/solar
and perfect battery technology at 2-5x the current price for natural gas.
Because if people don't start saying "yes" for carbon free power sources like
this we _WILL_ be trying to figure out how to built them in 50 years to
recapture all the carbon we burned into the atmosphere while trying to avoid
more and more of the forests/etc from burning.

~~~
thawaway1837
Only if the “green energy” people actually had that much power...

In reality there are 2 forces that have stopped nuclear. NIMBYism. And
terrible economics.

But the green energy people are an easy punching bag for the nuclear advocates
who are simply unwilling to face up to the reality of why nuclear keeps
failing to take off.

~~~
StillBored
The costs to built the plants dominates the price. Once built the actual
operation and fueling costs are best in class
[https://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-
energy/artic...](https://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-
energy/article/Nuclear-energy-in-doubt-amid-high-costs-11946922.php)

The majority of the cost to build the plants are due to the crazy uncertainty
about the design/build timeline every-time one is built. Given that
conceptually they aren't any more complex than your average coal plant those
costs are massively over inflated by a number of factors. Frankly if there was
a COTS design pre-certified, then it might be possible to wipe out a huge
fraction of the built cost.

~~~
cf498
Reading the article (and hoping i didnt just read over the part), they never
mention the word waste once when it comes to the cost calculation. Thats
rather convenient seeing as the number of functioning deep repository sites
today is rather limited. What good are small operating costs when the build
costs are this expensive and we dont have a viable solution for waste
management (yet?). In practice these costs are externalized to the tax payers
and next generations of tax payers. As long as we dont have a functioning
waste management, waste is a constantly running cost that wont stop at the end
of the reactors lifetime. As long as we dont realistically factor in the waste
management cost, nuclear is highly subsidized by the following generations who
have to pay for the running cost of waste management. That just doesnt make
sense.

Dont get me wrong, i am not anti- nuclear. It just doesnt make sense to me at
this point from an economics perspective. When factoring in the cost of waste
management and decommissioning the power plants after the end of its lifetime,
they are absurdly expensive. All this not to mention the absurd follow-up
costs of having to dig out collapsed long time storage yet again. I dont see
how nuclear today is not just another technology that offers a unsustainable,
quick and cheap energy source that externalized the costs to the next
generations. The running costs of all those waste management failures is
starting to add up, and when looking at Germany, who set an exit date for
nuclear power, the cost of decommissioning the power plants themselves is
going to be a massive loss for the tax payer, even if everything would work as
planed. Which, when looking at the history, we can be sure it wont.

I am not convinced yet that nuclear doesnt just look good on paper. Get me a
realistic calculation for the actual energy price without externalizing the
cleanup costs to the tax payer and we can talk. Dont factor in waste
management at a fixed price the state offers and dont just assume that no
meltdown cleanup will ever be necessary. But i have yet to see anyone make the
argument that way, which lets me assume, that nuclear is a wonderful
technology to research until someone finds out how to run plants economically
viable without just externalizing costs.

~~~
hvidgaard
Let's put some numbers to the initiation of this. The entire fleet of reactors
in France will after 50 year of operation have produced 5300m3 of high-level
waste (the kind you need to store long term). That amounts to less than 400
boxes able to contain a Tesla Model S. 50 years of operation generating
300-400 TWh yearly.

I'm not saying it's not problematic, but it's minuscule compared to all forms
of power. Even wind power have a serious waste problem when the blades need to
be decommissioned. It's not radioactive, but it needs to be stored, and there
is a lot of it.

~~~
cf498
Sure sounds great, what are the best and worst case costs of storing that
stuff for how long? And yes i know dry cask storage is much less problematic,
but i would still want a realistic plan of what is happening to that stuff and
what this is going to cost. What irks me so much is that i am not simply told,
look here it what it currently costs, how it would scale and what the
realistic liabilities are. If you were a nuclear lobbyist and those numbers
would make sense, all you would have to do is to argue with them. I, and i
think most reasonable people, would likely agree with you. But the problem
seems to be that the devil is in the detail, and while nuclear makes sense
with the best case, we dont seem to be at the best case most of the time. We
regularly have major fuckups when it comes to long term storage that are
incredibly pricey and just accepted as the cost of doing nuclear. All the
while nuclear is sold and profited on on a highly subsidized price.

So the question whether we should go full nuclear is, what is the real price
on nuclear per kwh with what liabilities? How does it scale? I think the post
i responded to first was on an excellent path if it hadnt ignored the waste
management problematic. I think research into bringing down cost of power
plants is a field worth researching, as well as how to drive down the price of
long term storage. But first we have to actually decide on the basis of
realistic data and not just hope the future will figure it out for us.

edit: My comment is coming across a bit to hostile, just so there are no
misunderstandings, i dont think this societal discussion can be approached by
convincing individuals on the internet who are to lazy to google
themselves(meaning me), but in parliament. I wasnt really trying to start a
discussion but giving my 2cents of where i think the problem in the discourse
we currently have lie. And thats more the lacking factual basis in arguments
on the topic then the actual costs.

~~~
hvidgaard
From this
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2968/065005003](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2968/065005003)

> A typical dry-storage cask holds 10 tons of spent fuel and costs about $1
> million–$2 million each. (The CASTOR is at the upper end of that range.)
> This translates to a cost of less than one-twentieth of a penny per
> kilowatt-hour—about 1 percent of the cost of generating nuclear power.

They last for anywhere between 30-100 years and I assume to be be processed
and put into new casks after that. So "less than one-twentieth of a penny per
kilowatt-hour" every 30-100 year.

Note this is for the worst of the waste. There is still low level waste and
long lived waste that need not be stored in dry casks. It still doesn't sound
as problematic. I think the main issue is finding a site and protecting the
casks/waste.

~~~
danbruc
But it is of course not only the price of buying a couple of those containers,
you also need a facility to store them, you may have to move them around, you
probably have to guard them, you have to monitor them, ...

~~~
hvidgaard
Of course it isn't, but at least the CASTORS can be safely transported by
train, and a processing facility is not orders of magnitude more expensive
than the power plants themselves. If we could forgo the nimbyism, we already
have a technical solution and a reasonable estimate of the cost now and in the
next 100 years. It could easily be factored in the cost of electricity from
nuclear and put in a fund for when it's needed.

------
eigenspace
Great news. Especially with the CANDU reactors being decommissioned it’s nice
to see that there’s still at least some political push to invest in nuclear,
even if I think Doug Ford is a cretin.

Fun fact, my father used to buy drugs in Doug Ford’s house when he was a
teenager.

~~~
Akababa
Was Doug Ford the one selling the drugs?

~~~
dmix
I think it's been well established Doug used to sell weed when he was a
teenager.

~~~
kenneth
Isn't that the crack smoking mayor of Toronto? Selling weed is almost quaint
by comparison.

~~~
selimthegrim
His late brother.

------
j9461701
I would much rather live near a nuclear power plant than a coal plant. I
thoroughly support this, and hope they dismantle the big smoke-belching power
plant in my city in favor of clean nukes.

My only concern is the scalability of this technology - mciro plants sound
fine for powering far off native settlements in the far north. But for
providing grid power to the urbanized south of the country, wouldn't it make
more sense to build bigger plants in fewer numbers? Chernobyl, for example,
was 4 reactors all hooked up to the same electrical generation equipment to
save money (high quality turbines are expensive).

~~~
lemmox
Saskatchewan is a little more than 1M with cities smaller that 250k and New
Brunswick is even smaller. Northern Ontario is also quite sparse. I think
these are pretty good areas for the tech!

~~~
tonyarkles
And we (SK) have massive high-quality Uranium deposits up north. I haven't
gone too deep into the full plans here for these SMRs, but I have high hopes
that other parts of the value chain will pop up here. We have a terrible habit
in this province of growing/mining/drilling/whatever natural resources and
then shipping them away unprocessed. Maybe we'll actually have a reason to
start processing the Uranium here beyond just cleaning it up and getting it
ready for export.

------
trasneoir
Support for nuclear power has become my acid-test. If somebody is serious
about making urgent and effective change, fission has to be on the table.

Volume is the key to price - we need an internationally-vetted medium-sized
design, with a supply chain that can crank out hundreds of complete "just add
concrete" systems per year.

As well as improving up-front costs, a ubiquitous design makes training and
maintenance easier. This should improve the operation of these systems safer
and cheaper.

~~~
pfdietz
Support for CO2 taxes is my acid-test. If a nuclear advocate uses a climate
argument, but doesn't support a CO2 tax, they're just hopping on a bandwagon
hoping for a handout.

BTW, CO2 taxes would have to exceed $300/ton for new nuclear construction in
the US to be competitive with natural gas. Do you support that high a CO2 tax?

~~~
trasneoir
I'd quibble with the price point - economies of scale can reduce the cost of
nuclear pretty dramatically.

That said, I've got no problem with it in principle. Pricing externalities
properly seems the simplest way to solve the tragedy of the commons, but it's
complicated in this case by the fact that climate is a _global_ commons.

A revenue-neutral carbon tax would make it a more manageable political lift.
AFAIK the US is the only country to have "solved" the bigger political problem
of long-term nuclear waste storage?

~~~
pfdietz
The nuclear waste disposal problem is a can that is very kickable down the
road. The "solution" in the US, and I think elsewhere, is (after ten years or
so of cooling) just put the spent fuel in dry casks. This is simple and cheap
and safe, and does not foreclose any future options for dealing with it.

One might criticize this for foisting the problem on future generations, but I
suggest this is a truly minor problem compared to others we're foisting on
them, and they'll be in a better position to deal with it that we are. It
would be a poor solution compared to immediate reprocessing if we lived in a
High Nuclear scenario where uranium was running low, but we don't live in that
world.

------
throw0101a
With regards to Ontario, who are part of this announcement, the nuclear plant
with the largest operating output is located in the province:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Nuclear_Generating_Stati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Nuclear_Generating_Station)

There are a couple that have larger installed capacity, but some of it is
shutdown:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_stations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_stations)

Interestingly, Bruce Power has a 'special forces' / SWAT team that seems to
fairly well-regarded in skill:

* [https://www.brucepower.com/bruce-power-team-wins-u-s-nationa...](https://www.brucepower.com/bruce-power-team-wins-u-s-national-swat-championship/)

~~~
0xffff2
Off topic, but does anyone else notice that Lake Huron doesn't seem to exist
on the Wikimedia map tiles used for the map in the first link?

~~~
throw0101a
Noticed that as well. They're using OpenStreetMap, so it may be a rendered bug
(?).

------
killjoywashere
The topic is small modular reactors, which are defined as reactors producing
less than 300 MW.

The Voyager RTGs generate "a few hundred watts"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator)).

The Virginia class submarines use a GE S9G, which produces 150 MWt. Power
output is a mix of electric and shaft torque
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S9G_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S9G_reactor))

The Los Angeles class submarines use a GE S6G, which produces 165 MWt
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S6G_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S6G_reactor)),
power output is a mix of electric and shaft torque.

The Ohio class submarine uses an S6G, rated at 220 MWt
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S8G_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S8G_reactor)).

The Nimitz class aircraft carrier use two Westinghouse A4Ws, which produce 550
MWt each
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4W_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4W_reactor)).
Power output is a mix of electric and shaft torque.

Chernobyl had 4 RBMK-1000 reactors which produced 3200 MWt each producing 1000
MWe ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBMK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBMK))

Hinkley Point B has 2 reactors at 2 x 1494 MWt, 2 x 655 MWe
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_B_Nuclear_Power_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_B_Nuclear_Power_Station))

Fukushima has multiple reactors, mainly four 784 MWe GE BWRs
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant)).

So, you're looking pretty solidly at things on the scale of a fast attack
submarine after shielding, turbine, management and maintenance systems, etc.

These are of course not on Wikipedia's list of SMR designs:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_small_modular_reactor_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_small_modular_reactor_designs)

~~~
SECProto
Nuclear submarines use highly enriched uranium as a fuel. That's not a
practical thing to use in civilian reactors.

~~~
acidburnNSA
You can still make that size reactor with low-enriched fuel. It just doesn't
last 30 years like it does in subs. Instead, it lasts 3-5 years.

~~~
lrem
That sounds like defeating the selling point of those small reactors? Can it
still be cost effective with such short service cycles?

~~~
akvadrako
I don’t think he means the plant needs to be rebuilt, just that the fuel
doesn’t last as long.

~~~
lrem
Right, but the sales pitch I've seen somewhere (probably here) was pretty much
"bury one in your back yard and enjoy free electricity for your community for
decades" (two decades, if I remember correctly). This does not fit here, I'm
just trying to reconcile.

------
WalterBright
Bill Gates' foundation was ready to build a thorium reactor. Canada should
investigate using that design.

~~~
wolco
Thorium would be better in situations requiring small spaces and power where
the cost could be justified.

Still like the idea.

~~~
AYBABTME
As an uninformed person, I'm curious why parent might have been down voted. Is
what they said wrong or misleading? The parent's post seems equal to other
ones here. It's not obvious to me, and I think it would be useful if
detractors would explain their disagreement when they downvote.

------
emsign
My bet: They will run out of money. I mean it's tax payer's money, so they
can't really run out of it. But it will be cancelled before the prototype
phase, because it goes horribly overbudget.

------
dghughes
Those not up on Canadian politics may not see what a Canadian would see here.
These are three politically conservative premiers (think US state governor)
that are often aggressive in their policies; cuts to social programs, anti-
environmental, no carbon tax.

Knowing their policies it makes this out-of-the-blue project seem suspicious.
I'm all for nuclear power especially if it's using CANDU reactors and thorium.
But these guys ream the carbon tax or anything remotely environmental or
socially progressive.

In Canada only Ontario (Ford) and New Brunswick (Higgs) have nuclear reactors
generating electricity. Saskatchewan (Moe) doesn't have any reactors but they
do have oil from the tar sands sharing it with Alberta on their border.
Saskatchewan also has an abundance of uranium.

So colour me surprised and a bit suspicious these guys would push for this.
Imagine if Trump suddenly swore off coal and wanted to build more solar and
wind farms. Saskatchewan has more to gain than the other two premiers.

~~~
ghomrassen
Or they have a better working relationships because they same similar goals.

Conservatives aren't evil bogeymen who want to destroy the environment
wholesale, they want to find a realistic solution to the problem. Add to the
fact that Ontario has a history of failed green projects in wind power that
have eaten billions of dollars. If these conservative premiers can throw some
money together, cut some red tape and get projects moving in the right
direction, we should all be applauding.

~~~
bwood
I can't speak for the other provinces, but New Brunswick has a track record of
throwing money at ridiculous energy projects that don't have a chance of
working. For a recent example, this:

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/joi-
scientific-...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/joi-scientific-
technology-update-1.5340245)

Summary: New Brunswick's energy utility NB Power (a crown corp) spent $12M to
license a nonexistent tech that violates the second law of thermodynamics.

------
arcticbull
Nuclear technology needs to be part of our arsenal, it’s the safest (an order
or magnitude fewer desths per terawatt hour than solar) and the lowest carbon.
Looking forward to seeing the results!

------
jhh
Imteresting SMR ideas in my view: Nuscale [1] and the GE BW-RX 300 [2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power)
[2] [https://nuclear.gepower.com/build-a-
plant/products/nuclear-p...](https://nuclear.gepower.com/build-a-
plant/products/nuclear-power-plants-overview/bwrx-300)

------
walkingolof
There is a funding project started in Sweden to build smaller, led cooled
reactors, by 2032,

[https://www.leadcold.com/newclear-
leadcold.html](https://www.leadcold.com/newclear-leadcold.html)

------
ttul
The three worst premiers actually did something smart. It’s mind boggling.

------
xorfish
I think one of the most promising reactors in this area is the untegral molten
salt reactor. It operates at low pressures, is passively cooled and has
already mounted some regulatory hurdles.

~~~
pfdietz
And if you let the fuel salt cool off enough, the radioactivity in it makes
fluorine gas. Yum!

~~~
xorfish
Why would the radioactivity make fluorine gas?

~~~
pfdietz
Radiolysis.

[https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4109510](https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4109510)

The MSR saw some of the fluorine react with UF4 to make UF6, which is
volatile. There is the potential for fuel to be volatilized and transported
elsewhere in the reactor system, causing possible concern for criticality
accidents.

~~~
xorfish
Apparently this only happens if the salt gets below 80°C. A temperature that
the salt would reach around a year after every external heating is turned of.
At this time the radioactivity will also be much lower. Furthermore uranium
235 has a very long halve life and radiates very little.

~~~
pfdietz
Yes, but consider what this means: in a MSR, reprocessing is not optional.
Unlike a conventional oxide fueled reactor, the spent fuel cannot just be
stored and ignored. So the cost of reprocessing has to be paid, even if it's
not otherwise economically advantageous to have reprocessed the fuel, as it is
not for today's reactors.

~~~
xorfish
I don't understand the full implication of it. What exactly is the problem
when a sealed used core starts to have some small quantities of UF6?

~~~
pfdietz
There are two implications.

First, the free fluorine will cause corrosion of the structure in which the
spent salt is stored.

Second, this UF6 will be enriched, possibly mostly 233U if this is a thorium
cycle reactor. If that condenses out somewhere you can achieve a critical
mass. Unintentional nuclear chain reactions in spent fuel are a total no-no.

~~~
xorfish
I mean it happens very slowly and only if the spent fuel is kept below 80° C.
The vast majority of the waste decays in the first few years. This seems to be
such a non-issue.

Furthermore the IMSR isn't a thorium cycle reactor.

------
lemmox
This looks like a particularly good fit for Saskatchewan with very small
cities (largest is pop. ~ 250k) and almost half of the electricity currently
being provided by coal plants.

------
joshlemer
Why doesn't Saskatchewan just buy more energy from Manitoba?

~~~
JamesCoyne
Manitoba Hydro's major export market is the US, with ~10x more transmission
capacity compared to SK.

Transmission capacity to SK is a 150MW. See here:
[https://www.gov.mb.ca/sd/environment_and_biodiversity/energy...](https://www.gov.mb.ca/sd/environment_and_biodiversity/energy/initiatives/transmission.html)

Out west, the provinces are not heavily interconnected, all prefer to sell to
the US. Alberta is easiest to look at. Here is their real-time supply/demand
report:

[http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServle...](http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServlet)

Interchange is at right. Couldn't find a source for interchange capacity in
Alberta as transmission is not outright owned by the government like in MB.

------
swarnie_
I assume America will be invading Canada shortly? Seems to be the pattern when
anyone else in the world wants to develop nuclear tech.

------
moltar
Not sure what they are gonna research, but my understanding that the problem
is not a tech one, but a NIMBY one.

~~~
ekianjo
Canada is pretty empty (huge area and low density of people) so wouldn't that
be easy to find a place where the NIMBY problem is non-existent?

~~~
casefields
I understand it Canada but if this were the US, it wouldn’t matter how far out
into nowhere in nature you try to build. The Sierra Club and similar orgs,
will be in the nearest federal/state court at each step of the way.

------
tyzerdak
Good that someone at last making it.

------
anoplus
Isn't it realistic for nuclear disaster to have environmental damage that will
last 1000's of years without repair?

~~~
trasneoir
Some designs currently in use, if catastrophically mismanaged, yes.

OTOH, some newer designs (eg LFTR) are walk-away safe: Nuclear
explosions/meltdowns are physically impossible short of deliberate sabotage.

------
sunkenvicar
If we don’t build it China will.

~~~
tiborsaas
Well, they are testing a fusion reactor next year, the HL-2M:

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/27/china-readies-
nu...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/27/china-readies-nuclear-
reactor-bid-harness-sun-box-technology/)

------
Mrdarknezz
Great!

