It looks like there may be a typo with the estimated year of deployment in Ontario: the estimate is likely for 2028, not 2018.
The article was published on July 11, 2022, but opens with: "Saskatchewan and Ontario have each chosen GE-Hitachi as the supplier of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which could be deployed in the Prairie province by the 2030s and in Ontario by 2018." Then, the article concludes with: "GEH and Ontario plan to construct up to four 300 MWe small module reactors, with the first coming online by 2028."
A separate source by The Canadian Press [0] also reflects an estimate of 2028 for Ontario: "The governments of Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Alberta have put forward a nuclear plan that they say will transition them toward cleaner energy. The provinces’ energy ministers agreed today to a joint plan for small modular reactors, with the first 300-megawatt plant to be built in Darlington, Ont., by 2028."
I just came back from a few days up in Grey-Bruce and there are signs all over the place angry about the proposed NWMO waste diposal site up in Teeswater there. Very divided community about the issue. (Then again the same rough area or just east of it was extremely bitter about wind turbines some years ago, too, so can't please everyone...)
They looked at the price tags of these reactors vs solar and wind, and chose the lowest number, fine. But I've never heard of a nuclear project coming in at under multiple times its original estimate, and taking a decade or more longer than expected. Has any new nuclear power come online anywhere since Fukushima?
Mini nuclear reactors make a lot of sense especially in the areas with a lot of electricity-hungry industry, Polish copper producer KGHM is planning to build such reactors for their own needs (they use 1 GW a year) [1].
It will make their operations cheaper, saving on transfer losses alone on their scale is significant gain.
Will they provide the tritium required to bridge the gap to fusion? Canada provides almost all the world supply, but it's from stockpiles iirc. Once fusion is up and working, it can generate its own tritium, but ITERs tritium generation experiment has been massively scaled back, so we need more from nuclear reactors.
> As a comparison with other non-emission options, BC Hydro’s 1,100 Mwe Site C dam is expected to cost $16 billion.
I get that this is coming from a website whose name contains "investor". As combustible based options go, I think nuclear is the least worse, and a site-C equivalent in Sask is probably not even an option.
I find it dangerous to a) put nuclear and hydro/wind in the same "non-emission" category, especially when nuclear does emit radioactive solid waste and the occasional radioactive cloud when they go boom, b) to reduce the comparison to a price-tag, where indeed nuclear will win
IMHO the lie is to pretend that hydro is safe or has a low impact when it comes to greenhouse gasses. Dam failures have killed many more people than nuclear even if you throw in the intentional nuclear events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hydro would be almost as good as nuclear when it comes to climate costs if they would clear the reservoir footprint before flooding, but they do not and the decaying plant matter in the flood zone adds a greenhouse gas cost that takes decades for the dam to counter in “clean” energy.
The difficult thing is all types of power have their own externalities. Dams flood large areas of land in normal operation and can potentially collapse. Wind power is intermittent and can have 'calm spell', takes up a large area and is generally just really big. Nuclear has difficulties around permanent waste disposal, and possible risks of accident and proliferation.
All of these factors and more (except cost) are on different scales and dimensions, so comparing them requires human value judgements - inevitably people disagree.
> I find it dangerous to a) put nuclear and hydro/wind in the same "non-emission" category, especially when nuclear does emit radioactive solid waste and the occasional radioactive cloud when they go boom, b) to reduce the comparison to a price-tag, where indeed nuclear will win
It doesn't emit anything, radioactive waste is captured entirely on the other side. They also don't go boom.
They're in the same category because they're both zero-carbon power. If you want to compare safety, deaths per TWh has nuclear right in the same area as wind and solar - less than rooftop solar.
Nuclear does not "emit" solid waste, it returns it in nice sealed containers (in small quantities, over a long period of time). When the goal is to minimize environmental impact, it is absolutely fair to class it as "non-emission".
How much noxious chemical waste, and by volume, is produced in the manufacture of the many thousands of solar panels and wind turbines though for the same power?
I don't see how nuclear is any more dangerous than any other renewable sources of electricity. The law of conversation of energy dictates that the residual waste energy has to go somewhere for any process. Any and all energy production mechanism are going to cause some disturbance in the natural order of things. It just turns out that the emissions due to "renewable" sources isn't something that does widespread ecological or societal damage. A hydroelectricity plant's "emissions" are in the form of riverbed erosion however, we can optimize around that by putting it in places which minimizes ecological and societal damage. For nuclear, we minimize this damage by placing the waste matter in large indestructible concrete bins.
Well yes, everything emits something. Solar, wind, bananas; they all emit radiation as well. “Non-emission” is short hand for “non-emission of carbon dioxide” or perhaps more generally “greenhouse gases”.
If you’re concerned about human health, nuclear waste disposal is well studied and so are nuclear reactor safety. In fact, these small reactors are designed to be too small to create any catastrophic event in the astronomically unlikely event of a critical malfunction.
It’s odd to me that we all take planes despite the fact historically many have gone boom, and many a life has been lost. Must be something to do with no other viable alternatives…
If a wind turbine catches fire it emits pollutants too. I think we're defining on the (usually reasonable) assumption all goes well and there isn't catastrophic failure.
Site C should not have been built. It is in a relatively remote area, so the government was able to strong-arm local residents. Hydro has major impacts on the environment, river ecology, eliminates farmland, but this is all greenwashed away.
> A 300W-solar power farm would require 1.5 million solar panels and cost approximately $300 million, provided the 1,500- to-1,800 acres of land needed was free and the sun shone steadily,
It's worse than that. Let's say you get 12 hours of steady sunshine every day.
What to do the other 12 hours? For that you'll need storage.
Therefore, you will need to double the capacity of the solar array so that during that 12 hours you can both store power and deliver power to people who need it.
But then no power store is 100% efficient, so you'll also need to add more panels for that.
But then you're never going to get 12 hours of steady power every day. You're going to have to increase storage and panels to account for that too.
Keep in mind that wind and solar power figures typically quoted are for max effect. For solar that means noon on a cloud-free day. Most hours of most days, and all the nights, are not like that. So if you want a realistic comparison with something like a nuclear reactor, which can run steadily for months on end, you need to apply a significant multiplier for additional area and batteries.
Canada is a surprisingly unconnected federation of almost independent provinces. We don't have a great east-west interconnection between the provinces.
I mean, we have trade barriers between provinces. It's insane.
A big reason that Ontario can't / doesn't is that the demand centers in Southern Ontario are ridiculously far from the generation centers in Manitoba. Toronto is 1800 km straight from the new Keeyask Dam. This is over unpopulated muskeg that is expensive to build on in the first place and difficult to access for maintenance.
> A 300W-solar power farm would require 1.5 million solar panels and cost approximately $300 million, provided the 1,500- to-1,800 acres of land.
I assume 300W is actually 300MW. If that's correct, solar panels are still much more convenient, also considering that power plant will require many acres of land for the building, pipes, etc. Solar panels have zero waste too. What am I missing?
Until night hits. Then it turns out you need a ton more solar panels to overproduce in the day to store energy in your expensive energy storage system. Which is inconvenient.
Even if Saskatchewan was in the middle of the desert the solar panels had perfect efficiency, it would still produce half the power of a similarly rated base load nuclear plant. And Canada isn’t a desert and some places don’t receive sunlight for weeks at a time.
What happens when after 5 or 10 years of the deployment of a dozen of these one of these shows signs of a critical part getting cracks, for example a pipe. Then all the remaining reactors will have to be shut down as well until the part is not only replaced, but the replacement has been certified.
Isn't it better to put more effort into a big one instead?
Large reactors are generally much harder to maintain and keep safe - there are a lot of reasons why they become significantly more difficult to keep safe, so I think that's the reasoning behind this.
> The IC [Isolation Condenser] pool has an installed capacity that provides 7 days of reactor decay heat removal capability. The heat rejection process can be continued indefinitely by replenishing the IC pool inventory.
It would be nice if we were building reactors that could shut down without any external input. NuScale seems to be closest to production with a walk-away safe design. In other words, change "7 days" to "infinity days".
What I don't understand is why they are still not done at scale, i.e. build 10 of these in the same spot and get the economic advantage and especially keep the security and risk things isolated.
I made once an estimate that to power the whole energy( not power,current,ampere) of the world we need a surface of the sice of spain. And I took bad Sunlight into account. …. So I wonder why for most countries … why not go all in solar? Nuclear seems so much expensive and wastefull compared to solar.
I know there is the storage problem. But most energy is directly consumed or has to be stores for a short period . Heat for example. And heat is stored in water.
I'm always shocked by how many anti-nuclear power people are on HN. So many have bought into fearmongering and lies about safety that oil and gas companies are happy to encourage. It's a non-reweable but quite clean and incredibly safe method of power generation.
It produces far less harm to the environment than fossil fuel generation, which should be decommissioned as quickly as possible. Every time a government chooses too replace nuclear generation with fossil fuels out of choice (I'm looking at you, Germany), they're a traitor to their own people, and to all humans.
And I'll never understand "green" people who actively protest against nuclear power. Yes, renewable power is better. But most of the power generated comes from fossil fuels, that needs to stop as soon as possible, which isn't happening in the short term via only renewable power.
[+] [-] foldedcornice|3 years ago|reply
The article was published on July 11, 2022, but opens with: "Saskatchewan and Ontario have each chosen GE-Hitachi as the supplier of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which could be deployed in the Prairie province by the 2030s and in Ontario by 2018." Then, the article concludes with: "GEH and Ontario plan to construct up to four 300 MWe small module reactors, with the first coming online by 2028."
A separate source by The Canadian Press [0] also reflects an estimate of 2028 for Ontario: "The governments of Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Alberta have put forward a nuclear plan that they say will transition them toward cleaner energy. The provinces’ energy ministers agreed today to a joint plan for small modular reactors, with the first 300-megawatt plant to be built in Darlington, Ont., by 2028."
[0] https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/renewables/onta...
[+] [-] mabbo|3 years ago|reply
https://www.ieso.ca/power-data
Nuclear is the base load, alternatives supply what they can, and hydroelectric dams and gas plants act as the variable load supply.
If we can just lose the gas plants, we'd be pretty close to zero carbon. And I think that achievable.
[+] [-] cmrdporcupine|3 years ago|reply
e.g. refurbishement of Darlington was hundreds of millions over budget: https://globalnews.ca/news/3795801/darlington-refurbishment-...
I just came back from a few days up in Grey-Bruce and there are signs all over the place angry about the proposed NWMO waste diposal site up in Teeswater there. Very divided community about the issue. (Then again the same rough area or just east of it was extremely bitter about wind turbines some years ago, too, so can't please everyone...)
[+] [-] throw0101a|3 years ago|reply
Another 2500-3000 MW of nuclear would take up some more of the base load, and allow hydro to deal with most of the variable load.
[+] [-] throwaway81523|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] piokoch|3 years ago|reply
It will make their operations cheaper, saving on transfer losses alone on their scale is significant gain.
[1] https://media.kghm.com/en/news-and-press-releases/kghm-plans...
[+] [-] woleium|3 years ago|reply
see https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run... for more info.
[+] [-] pj_mukh|3 years ago|reply
I forget which company, but I know one of these were sold as being tested to be safe under a direct missile hit in case of an attack! Super cool.
Edit: Territories, not provinces. All three of them.
[+] [-] charles_f|3 years ago|reply
I get that this is coming from a website whose name contains "investor". As combustible based options go, I think nuclear is the least worse, and a site-C equivalent in Sask is probably not even an option.
I find it dangerous to a) put nuclear and hydro/wind in the same "non-emission" category, especially when nuclear does emit radioactive solid waste and the occasional radioactive cloud when they go boom, b) to reduce the comparison to a price-tag, where indeed nuclear will win
[+] [-] evgen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HPsquared|3 years ago|reply
All of these factors and more (except cost) are on different scales and dimensions, so comparing them requires human value judgements - inevitably people disagree.
[+] [-] arcticbull|3 years ago|reply
It doesn't emit anything, radioactive waste is captured entirely on the other side. They also don't go boom.
They're in the same category because they're both zero-carbon power. If you want to compare safety, deaths per TWh has nuclear right in the same area as wind and solar - less than rooftop solar.
[+] [-] dTal|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrBazza|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muds|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jszymborski|3 years ago|reply
If you’re concerned about human health, nuclear waste disposal is well studied and so are nuclear reactor safety. In fact, these small reactors are designed to be too small to create any catastrophic event in the astronomically unlikely event of a critical malfunction.
It’s odd to me that we all take planes despite the fact historically many have gone boom, and many a life has been lost. Must be something to do with no other viable alternatives…
[+] [-] veltas|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dade_|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomohawk|3 years ago|reply
It's worse than that. Let's say you get 12 hours of steady sunshine every day.
What to do the other 12 hours? For that you'll need storage.
Therefore, you will need to double the capacity of the solar array so that during that 12 hours you can both store power and deliver power to people who need it.
But then no power store is 100% efficient, so you'll also need to add more panels for that.
But then you're never going to get 12 hours of steady power every day. You're going to have to increase storage and panels to account for that too.
[+] [-] fefe23|3 years ago|reply
We really have come a long way in bringing down prices for wind and solar!
[+] [-] T-A|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nixass|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] multiplegeorges|3 years ago|reply
Per the article, they estimate wind and solar to produce at ~40%. The reactors will operate at ~98%, some downtime for maintenance.
[+] [-] naasking|3 years ago|reply
Add 50% to the nuclear cost because they always go over cost and time budgets.
That's probably a fairer overall estimate.
[+] [-] JohnJamesRambo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fenk85|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raydiatian|3 years ago|reply
In case this hasn’t already been shared
[+] [-] thereddaikon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshlemer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epgui|3 years ago|reply
Why would it?
[+] [-] multiplegeorges|3 years ago|reply
I mean, we have trade barriers between provinces. It's insane.
[+] [-] xrendan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brutusborn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UberFly|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rippeltippel|3 years ago|reply
I assume 300W is actually 300MW. If that's correct, solar panels are still much more convenient, also considering that power plant will require many acres of land for the building, pipes, etc. Solar panels have zero waste too. What am I missing?
[+] [-] ErikVandeWater|3 years ago|reply
We're also talking Canada, which isn't the best for consistent sunlight.
[+] [-] orthecreedence|3 years ago|reply
Until night hits. Then it turns out you need a ton more solar panels to overproduce in the day to store energy in your expensive energy storage system. Which is inconvenient.
[+] [-] rdsubhas|3 years ago|reply
Edit: I wonder why you had to copy/paste only part part of the line. They literally address this in the next word:
> ...provided the 1,500- to-1,800 acres of land needed was free and the sun shone steadily
[+] [-] oceanplexian|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Krssst|3 years ago|reply
Storage cost.
[+] [-] inasio|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwertox|3 years ago|reply
Isn't it better to put more effort into a big one instead?
[+] [-] djaychela|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p1mrx|3 years ago|reply
> The IC [Isolation Condenser] pool has an installed capacity that provides 7 days of reactor decay heat removal capability. The heat rejection process can be continued indefinitely by replenishing the IC pool inventory.
It would be nice if we were building reactors that could shut down without any external input. NuScale seems to be closest to production with a walk-away safe design. In other words, change "7 days" to "infinity days".
[+] [-] jollybean|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bratwurst3000|3 years ago|reply
I know there is the storage problem. But most energy is directly consumed or has to be stores for a short period . Heat for example. And heat is stored in water.
[+] [-] walrus01|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 0xTJ|3 years ago|reply
It produces far less harm to the environment than fossil fuel generation, which should be decommissioned as quickly as possible. Every time a government chooses too replace nuclear generation with fossil fuels out of choice (I'm looking at you, Germany), they're a traitor to their own people, and to all humans.
And I'll never understand "green" people who actively protest against nuclear power. Yes, renewable power is better. But most of the power generated comes from fossil fuels, that needs to stop as soon as possible, which isn't happening in the short term via only renewable power.
I highly recommend watching this video by Kurzgesagt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhAemz1v7dQ.
[+] [-] Tepix|3 years ago|reply
• our past failures to get long-term storage of nuclear waste right
• the cost and time overruns for building nuclear plants in the last several decades
• the possible catastrophic failures even in a country like Japan
• the long term storage issue and its cost.
These serious unsolved issues are being hand-waved away again and again.