STOP SMALL MODULAR REACTORS IN CANADA
Small nuclear reactors in Canada: at what cost? / Petits réacteurs nucléaires au Canada : à quel prix ?
News Release - November 13 2023 - Montreal - The sudden cancellation last week of the first small nuclear reactor project in the United States, the NuScale project, calls into question the economic viability of Canada's plans to develop and deploy small modular reactors.
Potential customers in Utah balked at the soaring projections for the cost of electricity the NuScale reactor would generate, and the project was unable to recruit other customers to buy its power.
Today, in response, civil society groups across Canada are demanding transparency and accountability for the costs of other small nuclear reactor designs planned in this country. READ THE NEWS RELEASE HERE
Potential customers in Utah balked at the soaring projections for the cost of electricity the NuScale reactor would generate, and the project was unable to recruit other customers to buy its power.
Today, in response, civil society groups across Canada are demanding transparency and accountability for the costs of other small nuclear reactor designs planned in this country. READ THE NEWS RELEASE HERE
NB Power Applies for first license for ARC-100 Project at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station siteOn June 30th, 2023 New Brunswick Power submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment registration document to the New Brunswick Department of Environment and Local Government (DELG) and a Licence to Prepare Site Application to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for a 100 MW ARC-100 sodium-cooled fast reactor on the site of the existing Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station (PLNGS). Read more HERE
Ontario Power Generation has Submitted their Application to Construct the BWRX-300
October 31, 2022, OPG has submitted an application for a Licence to Construct to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). This licence application is the next step in the deployment of a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) at the Darlington site. The application was developed collaboratively between OPG and GE Hitachi, and is comprised of a number of information packages that will be submitted to the CNSC in sequence, over the next six months.
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Global First Power's "Micro-Modular Reactor" proposed for construction at Chalk River is underging an Environmental Assessement. Read more HERE.
Ontario Power Generation has applied for a License to Construct the BWRX-300 at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station. Read more HERE New Brunswick Power has applied for a license to prepare the site to construct the ARC-100 reactor at Point Lepreau. Read more HERE. |
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OPG and X-energy will pursue opportunities to deploy Xe-100 reactors in Ontario
13 July 2022 - Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and X-energy have signed a framework agreement to seek opportunities to deploy Xe-100 small modular reactors (SMRs) in Canada. Under the agreement, OPG and X-energy will pursue opportunities to deploy Xe-100 reactors in Ontario at industrial sites and identify further potential end users and sites throughout Canada. The Xe-100 is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, being deployed by X-energy under the US Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. There can be up to 12 reactor units at a single site, generating nearly 1 GWe of power. Read this news story HERE.
Review of Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) project by Global First Power (GFP) in 2022-2023
May 2022 - The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is offering participant funding to assist Indigenous Nations and communities, members of the public, and stakeholders in the review of the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) project by Global First Power (GFP), proposed for construction at Chalk River.. The public comment period for will be announced at a later date and is expected to begin in late 2022-early 2023. The deadline for applying for paricipant funding to support public participation in the draft EIS review is July 29, 2022. Read the news story HERE. Visit the web page about this project HERE. Visit Global First Power's page and "initial" site application HERE
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Follow us on Facebook for news stories and updates! We post news items and event notices regularly. Visit or follow the Stop SMRS in Canada page HERE
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"Nuclear Power and Climate Change: Can Small Modular Reactors Deliver?"
A must watch! The October 6th webinar presented by the University of British Columbia is now available for viewing.
Click HERE to watch.
A must watch! The October 6th webinar presented by the University of British Columbia is now available for viewing.
Click HERE to watch.
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70 groups call to include a moratorium on new nuclear in cabinet mandate letters
October 2021 - Seventy groups and organizations have called on the Prime Minister to include a moratorium on federal funding for nuclear expansion in the mandate letters to cabinet. Prime Minister Trudeau is expected to announce his new cabinet next week. In their letter the groups cite the latest expert analysis in the 2021 World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Read the RELEASE Read the LETTER |
New Nuclear Power Production Too Slow for Climate Response
The 2020 World Nuclear Industry Status Report concludes that developing new nuclear energy production is too slow to address the climate crisis, and much more expensive, compared to renewable energy and energy efficiency. The number of operating reactors in the world has dropped by nine over the past year to 408 as of mid-2020, which is below the 1988 level, and 30 units away from the historic peak 438 in 2002. Read HERE |
Canada, Weapons Proliferation, and Small Modular Reactors
July 2021 - The recent effort to persuade Canada to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has stimulated a lively debate in the public sphere. At the same time, out of the spotlight, the start-up company Moltex Energy received a federal grant to develop a nuclear project in New Brunswick that experts say will undermine Canada’s credibility as a nonproliferation partner. READ HERE |
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Nuclear waste from small modular reactors
May, 2022 - The low-, intermediate-, and high-level waste stream characterization presented in this report reveals that SMRs will produce more voluminous and chemically/physically reactive waste than LWRs, which will impact options for the management and disposal of this waste. Groups urge feds to ban polluting nuclear technologies from budget’s Clean Power Fund
OTTAWA, April 7, 2021 – Citizen and environmental groups urge the federal government not to fund polluting nuclear technologies in the upcoming budget, and to instead invest in truly clean and renewable energy solutions across the country. |
Public Interest Groups Locked Out While CNSC Gives Meeting Time to SMR Promoters
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CNSC staff were scheduled to make a presentation called an "Update on CNSC Readiness for the Regulation of Small Modular Reactors and Advanced Reactor Projects" at the January 2021 Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission meeting, but the surprise act was the line up of SMR proponents who were pre-arranged to speak - not on the agenda, but definitely orchestrated, promoting small modular reactors and the CNSC's "readiness. Public interest groups have written to the Commission that they are deeply disappointed in the use the Commission’s virtual meeting as a promotional platform for experimental small modular nuclear reactors, and requesting equal time for public interest groups and independent experts.
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New Nuclear Reactors are a “dirty, dangerous distraction” from tackling climate change
Read the Joint Statement on Small Modular Reactors
Follow the news about SMRs in Canada on our public Facebook page HERE
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No plan that gets us to net zero in a reasonable time frame includes new nuclear reactors. Nuclear is far too slow and expensive to deal with the climate emergency. Sign the Sierra Club Petition HERE
Sign up for the SMR email list HERE
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Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O'Regan (and friends) officially launched Canada’s SMR Action Plan on Friday, December 18th, 2020, from 12:00-12:45 p.m. (EST). The event was livestreamed on the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) YouTube page.
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Can small nuclear reactors help Canada reach its net-zero 2050 goals? Some experts are skeptical. 'Nuclear power is like fighting world hunger with caviar,' says researcher Benjamin Sovacool. Click on the link "What On Earth 38:16" to listen.
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Small Modular Reactor (SMR) development is too slow to address the climate crisis: The 2020 World Nuclear Industry Status Report says that developing new nuclear energy is too slow to address the climate crisis – as well as more expensive – compared to renewable energy and energy efficiency. No SMRs have yet been built and the models being proposed will take a decade or more to develop.
SMRs are more expensive than renewable energy: A Canadian study found that energy from small nuclear reactors would be up to ten times the cost of renewable energy. In the past decade, the cost of building solar, wind power and battery storage has gone down dramatically, while the cost of building new nuclear reactors has gone up. Small reactors will be even more expensive per unit of power than the current large ones. Nuclear power creates fewer jobs than renewable energy: Renewable energy is one of the fastest-growing job sectors in North America. An American study found that solar energy leads to six times as many jobs as nuclear power for each gigawatt-hour of electricity generated. |
There are better sources of energy: Minister O’Regan has said repeatedly, without providing evidence, that there is no path to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions without nuclear energy. In fact, on the contrary a new study of 123 countries over 25 years found that countries that invested in renewable energy lowered their carbon emissions much more than those reliant on nuclear energy.
SMRs are dirty and dangerous : The new “small” reactors, proposed to be built across Canada, will produce radioactive waste of many kinds. Some of the proposed models would extract plutonium from irradiated fuel, worsening concerns about weapons proliferation and creating new forms of radioactive waste that are especially dangerous to manage. The federal government currently has no detailed policy or strategy for what to do with radioactive waste, and no design or location for a deep underground repository where industry proposes to store high-level radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years. The federal government has never consulted the public about small modular reactors, which would create environmental risks and financial liabilities for Canadians. Read letter to Prime Minister HERE |
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FEATURED VIDEOS
More nuclear reactors (SMRs) for New Brunswick?
In the 31-minute video below, Susan O’Donnell gives an overview of the proposed nuclear reactors, their links to climate action, the financial risks involved, and radioactive waste |
SMRs - Facts and Fictions
"This bilingual, narrated, on-line presentation examines SMRs in the light of current knowledge and research. It provides you with the ability to make your own evaluation of the efficacy of SMRs and decide if they are essential for reaching zero global warming emissions by 2050, or are a dangerous distraction from climate change mitigation |
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KEY LINKS
Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB) Canadian Environmental Law Association Beyond Nuclear TAKE ACTION!
This web pageThis is a "starter" web page to provide a repository of key information about the push for "small modular reactors" in Canada. It may morph into a real web site, it may not, but for now it is a place to share information and event notices about the push - and the push back - on Small Modular Reactors in Canada. If you have an item to post, please email the document (or better yet, email the link) to smrs-canada@gmail.com. Thanks.
Key Resources
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KEY REPORTS
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Small Modular Nuclear Reactors - Not Clean, Not Small, Not Green, Not Affordable Webinar with Dr. Gordon Edwards. Watch it or read it.
Webinar on Small Modular Reactors in Canada, March 7 2019, M.V. Ramana. Click HERE
CNSC Draft Regulatory Document on Licensing SMRs - - including submissions by the nuclear industry, CELA, Northwatch, and Greenpeace
Webinar on Small Modular Reactors in Canada, March 7 2019, M.V. Ramana. Click HERE
CNSC Draft Regulatory Document on Licensing SMRs - - including submissions by the nuclear industry, CELA, Northwatch, and Greenpeace
Articles, Reports"Eyes Wide Shut: Problems with UAMPS' Proposal to Construct NuScale Small Modular Nuclear Reactors" by M.V. Ramana. Read the Read the full report, the press release and statements by author M. V. Ramana, PhD, and from Edwin S. Lyman, PhD, Director of Nuclear Power Safety with Union of Concerned Scientists, and View video of a news conference. Septmeber 2020 Policy Options: "Small modular reactors aren’t the energy answer for remote communities and mines. The energy costs associated with small modular reactors exceed those of diesel-based electricity. Policy-makers should focus on renewables." August 2020 Small Modular Reactors in Canada: Eroding Public Oversight and Canada’s Transition to Sustainable Development. This paper explores the barriers to SMR development in the context of past failures to commercialize new innovative reactor designs, and considers how industry-based policy and law reform requests undermine public oversight of nuclear safety in Canada and impedes Canada’s transition to sustainable development. January 2020 Prospects for Small Modular Reactors in the UK & Worldwide, STEVE THOMAS, PAUL DORFMAN, SEAN MORRIS & M.V. RAMANA, JULY 2019 Scotland's Energy Future has no need for Nuclear, Nuclear Consulting Group, July 2019 Accident Scenarios Involving Pebble Bed High Temperature Reactors, Matthias Englerta, Friederike Frießb, and M. V. Ramana, SCIENCE & GLOBAL SECURITY, 2017 Small nuclear power reactors: Future or folly? M.V. Ramana in "The Conversation", July 24, 2017 7.18pm EDT The checkered operational history of high temperature gas-cooled reactors M. V. Ramana, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 2016 SMRS: the Second Make Believe Nuclear Renaissance, by Dr. Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility |
Things to Look Out For
Terrestrial Energy’s IMSR® small modular reactor (in graphic form...)
Note: The fake transportation images are from NuScale's promotional materials.Nuclear Industry Summaries
Feasibility of Small Modular Reactors, prepared for Ontario Power Generation, Bruce Power, Sask Power and New Brunswick Power, 2021 eVinciTM Micro-Reactor Deployment in Mining and Remote Canadian Communities Feasibility Study, Bruce Power and Westinghouse, 2021 Perspectives on Canada's SMR Opportunity, CNL, undated, October 2017 Spin piece from the Canadian Nuclear Association: Small Modular Reactor Basics |
