Ontario is emerging as the nuclear North Star to guide the direction of energy in North America as the United States seeks to decarbonize amid ever-increasing energy demand.
“This really highlights the national and economic interests of Canada and the United States: we are working together to harness this capacity to produce clean energy,” said Stephen Lecce, Ontario Minister of Energy and Electrification.
He was in Washington, early in his new term, to speak at the Nuclear Energy Institute on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders’ summit last month.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine casting a shadow over the defence alliance gathering, it was an important opportunity to highlight Canada’s position as a reliable supplier of energy.
Russia is a major supplier of uranium, the fuel for nuclear reactors. The war has destabilized this supply. But Canada is also in the game.
Saskatchewan has high-quality uranium deposits and is home to Cameco, one of the world’s largest producers. Ontario, meanwhile, is developing a plan to build more affordable reactor technology.
” [Il est temps de] to rid our economies of any dependence on these foreign states which […] do not share our democratic tradition,” Lecce told Western leaders. “This is the right time for Ontario.”
Nuclear reactors provide about 14% of Canada’s total electricity. In Ontario, where most of the reactors are located, the proportion exceeds 50%.
Ontario Power Generation plans to expand its nuclear capacity by relying on small modular reactors at the Darlington nuclear site. The new reactors, developed by General Electric Hitachi Nuclear Energy, are a fraction of the size of a conventional model.
Industry experts say they can be built at a faster pace for a much more affordable price. The plan is to have the first reactor up and running by 2029.
Reluctant public
So far, colossal costs and unpredictable delays have slowed their growth in much of North America. Public skepticism is also an obstacle.
A partial meltdown at a reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 led to protests by figures such as Jane Fonda and concerts called “No Nukes,” with Bruce Springsteen taking the stage against nuclear power. It dampened popular support for nuclear power for decades.
Some of the concern has eased as climate change and greenhouse gas emissions become more of a concern.
At last year’s international climate change conference in Dubai, COP28, more than 20 countries committed to tripling their nuclear power production by 2050. Canada and the United States were among them.
Difficult expansion in the United States
The commitment underscores that nuclear power could play a key role toward zero greenhouse gas emissions globally. In the United States, building momentum is difficult because of prices.
The expansion of the Vogtle plant, the country’s largest nuclear facility, has been launched in Georgia, but seven years behind schedule and about $11 billion over budget, for an overall cost of nearly $35 billion.
Another project by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is expected to cost up to $4 billion. Under Gates’ chairmanship, energy company TerraPower recently began construction on a power plant in Wyoming.
“These kinds of costs, or something close to them, mean that nuclear is an extremely expensive alternative to combating climate change,” said David Schlissel, director of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
It would be better to invest in renewable energy and more cost-effective batteries, Schlissel said, arguing that the nuclear industry has “a lot of excitement.”
The United States currently gets about 20 percent of its national electricity from a fleet of 94 nuclear reactors, most of them located east of the Mississippi River. That’s about half of the country’s green electricity.
Policies put in place under the administrations of former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden have advanced the nuclear industry, said Jacopo Buongiorno, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Additional subsidies and incentives for clean energy sources, including nuclear, were established with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
Mr. Buongiorno, who is also director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems, said there is excitement about the role nuclear power can play in decarbonizing the electricity grid, but the industry growth is still not there.
So far, the push for small modular reactors has been “a lot of talk and not a lot of action” in the United States, Buongiorno said. That means American stakeholders will be watching Canada closely to see how Ontario’s efforts play out, he added.
“If they can deliver on time and on budget, I think the floodgates will open.”
There is a global demand for more energy, said George Christidis of the Canadian Nuclear Association.
Nuclear energy will play a vital role in maintaining close alignment between Canada and the United States, he said, regardless of who wins the November presidential election.
“Canada and the United States are now fully aligned to achieve these major policy objectives,” he said. “Energy, security and climate.”