Like a phoenix, nuclear energy is rising from its ashes. Companies and governments are investing large sums to relaunch the sector of this “clean energy” in order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Canada intends to take advantage of this revival to position itself as a “leader” in the sector.
Mid-April 2022. National and international players in the nuclear industry met at The Westin hotel, a few meters from the Parliament of Canada. In a vast room, their kiosks display posters with images of large green spaces that are enough to make outdoor enthusiasts dream. Their slogans: “We need clean energy”, “For a new energy era”, “Together for carbon neutrality”.
The greenhouse gas reduction targets of countries and industries are now giving a second wind to this sector marred by the Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima disasters in recent decades and by the debates surrounding waste management. radioactive. “But the truth is that we will not be able to achieve carbon neutrality without nuclear energy”, maintains in an interview with the To have to on the sidelines of the event Rory O’Sullivan, CEO for North America of Moltex Energy.
A promising market
The British company is currently developing a small modular reactor (SMR) in New Brunswick, a model of lower-power nuclear power plants that could be deployed in remote regions in the coming years. The Irish engineer does not hide it: he himself doubted a few years ago the choice of nuclear power to fight against climate change.
When he left university in the 2000s, “I was anti-nuclear”, confides the man who began his career at Airtricity, an Irish wind producer. Since then, he has changed his tune. “I realized that unless there is a miracle, it will not be possible to achieve the goals [de réduction de gaz à effet de serre] relying solely on renewable energies such as solar and wind. »
From then on, converted to the energy of the atom, he found himself at the head of the North American division of Moltex Energy in 2018. In addition to developing a PRM, the company is currently working on a process that would allow recycle and reprocess up to 50% of radioactive waste from large power plants.
“Our process makes it possible to separate radioactive waste, part of which consists of plutonium, in order to reuse this material as fuel to power reactors,” he explains. The avenue is promising, he says. Alone, the nuclear waste from Ontario power plants would produce 5.5 GW of electricity by “powering our reactors for 60 years,” he notes.
Moltex is part of this constellation of energy companies that want to position themselves in the promising market of SMRs, presented by some as the future of the industry. Globally, the market could grow 15.8% annually over the decade, rising from an estimated valuation of $3.5 billion in 2020 to $18.8 billion in 2030, according to Valuates projections. Reports, an Indian firm specializing in market research.
The excitement is real. And it is not only measured by promises of growth. It is also gauged by the sums invested by both venture capital companies and the wealthy in the technology sector, which is increasingly interested in the sector.
The American Commonwealth Fusion Systems recently raised 1.8 billion of dollars with the participation of major investors, including Google, Soros Fund Management and Bill Gates. The founder of Microsoft is also chairman of the board of directors of another company, TerraPower, which is developing a PRM model and which is very active in Canada.
The American Helion Energy – supported by the billionaire and co-founder of Paypal Peter Thiel – for its part raised 2.2 billion in recent months to finance a system which could as early as 2024 produce electricity from nuclear fusion.
Ditto in Canada where the British Columbian General Fusion, supported by the big boss of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, closed in December a round of financing of 130 million dollars. Co-founded by Quebec physicist Michel Laberge, this company does not develop PRMs strictly speaking, but cutting-edge nuclear fusion technology.
To this new nuclear ecosystem are added the multinationals established in the sector for decades: GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Toshiba, Westinghouse. They too want their share of the pie. And the Montreal multinational SNC-Lavalin is one of them. Present in the nuclear industry since the 1970s with CANDU reactors, the company is developing a 300 MW PRM model which it presents as the “only entirely Canadian reactor”: the CANDU SMR.
“But at the moment we don’t have a specific customer who is interested in it, so we’re focused on helping other vendors try to deploy their own technologies,” explains the To have to Julianne den Decker, vice-president of Candu Energy, SNC-Lavalin’s nuclear subsidiary.
The company has multiplied partnerships in recent months. In February, it won a major contract to support Rolls-Royce in the development of small power plants which could see the light of day in the United Kingdom as early as 2030. The financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed.
In April, SNC-Lavalin confirmed an agreement with Moltex for the development of its nuclear waste reprocessing process. A few days later, it announced in quick succession partnerships with Ontario Power Generation and Bruce Power to support them in the development of technologies.
Nuclear is essential to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, argues Mme den Decker: “The case of Canada is interesting. It will be necessary to produce 2 to 3 times more electricity than what is produced today to replace fossil fuels which represent 75% of our consumption. »
The demand for electricity will jump both to electrify sectors such as heating and transport and to produce energy carriers such as hydrogen.
A global race
But the competition is fierce. Not only are dozens of companies jostling to bring their PRMs to market as quickly as possible, but countries are deploying strategies to position themselves in the sector.
And in this regard, the approaches differ. In Russia, the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, Rosatom, offers direct funding to countries wishing to develop the nuclear industry against an agreement to build and operate power plants.
In Finland, large industrial companies have for their part said they are ready to finance new reactors in exchange for access to electricity at cost price. In the United States, nuclear power plants that will be built will receive loan guarantees and tax credits in order to eventually attract more private investment for future projects.
In its most recent budget, the Government of Canada announced that it wanted to support the development of the SMR sector to become a world leader in clean energy. Ottawa plans to fund the industry to the tune of $120.6 million over five years. Sums that will be used to adapt the regulations to the PMR, to improve the management of radioactive waste, to strengthen international agreements and to support the fuel supply chain.
Because Canada is certainly one of the only countries to have control over the entire nuclear industry production chain. Substantial reserves of uranium, the fuel needed to run nuclear power plants, lie deep in Canadian soil.
Second producing country after Kazakhstan, Canada, through its active mining companies, extracts nearly 7,000 tonnes of uranium each year from mines concentrated in northern Saskatchewan.
“We have to remember that we are playing on a global stage. Many players are nation states. This is the case for the Chinese and the Russians, but also for the Koreans, the Indians, and the French to a certain extent. In the Western world, we often say: the market would take care of itself, let capitalism do its job. But in the nuclear sector, there are advantages to having technologies that are designed and developed here,” says Julianne den Decker.