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The background on Canada's plans for small modular reactors (of which this is just one of three projects) can be found here: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org

The background on Canada's plans for small modular reactors (of which this is just one of three projects) can be found here: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Canadian-provinces-release-strategic-plan-for-SMRs https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Canadian-provinc... Supposedly this is promoting clean energy and fighting climate change, but the details don't always match this rhetoric. In particular they're thinking they can use nuclear power to replace piped-in natural gas to mine the Alberta tar sands and make (very dirty) syncrude for export to refineries in the USA, maybe China too. Yes, that does reduce natural gas use... but you're still burning dirty tarsand oil. The better option is to just leave the tar in the ground. Otherwise, SMRs sound kind of interesting, but there's been a lot of failed innovation in nuclear reactors in the past. Some of us might remember when safe and reliable and innovative pebble bed reactors were going to be the thing that made nuclear acceptable everywhere, and that ended up going nowhere: https://thebulletin.org/2009/06/the-demise-of-the-pebble-bed-modular-reactor/ https://thebulletin.org/2009/06/the-demise-of-the-pebble-bed... > "For some, helium-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors such as the PBMR have always been the ultimate evolution of fission reactor design. The use of helium and graphite allows the reactor to burn the fuel efficiently and to operate at much higher temperatures than conventional light water reactors. It is hoped the temperatures would be high enough to allow for the reactor’s heat to be used directly for industrial processes such as hydrogen production and tar sands processing. High temperature reactors can also be designed to use thorium-based fuel as well as uranium and can be developed as fast neutron reactors that don’t need moderators." I was enthusiastic about nuclear 20 years ago... now, not so much, since solar/wind/storage really gives more watts per dollar invested, with less side issues (security, uranium supply, waste storage). Nuclear has a niche, but it's going to remain small.

a_square_peg 5y ago
I really don't know enough about this to know if it's a good idea or not (it sounds like it could be quite useful) but in any case I'm very glad to see Canada doing something new in technology.
- DennisP 5y ago
  Canada is turning out to be quite the country for nuclear innovation, because their regulators are much friendlier to new technology than the NRC in the US. Terrestrial Energy (a molten salt reactor company) has spoken highly of them, and Moltex (another MSR company) moved there as a result.
  - a_square_peg 5y ago
    Oh wow, I did not know that. I had only been aware of CANDU reactors and had the impression that there wasn't much else going on in Canada.
    - DennisP 5y ago
      Aside from those two, there's also Elysium, yet another MSR company, focusing on the fast spectrum. Handy links: https://www.elysiumindustries.com/ https://www.elysiumindustries.com/ https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/ https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/ https://www.moltexenergy.com/ https://www.moltexenergy.com/ Plus there's General Fusion, the craziest steampunk idea for fusion ever. It's gotten investment well into nine figures, and is building a reactor for a net power attempt around 2025. https://generalfusion.com/ https://generalfusion.com/
- ncmncm 5y ago
  It would be better if Canada could do something actually useful.
jseutter 5y ago
Good points. This design seems quite similar to the pebble bed reactor idea in that it relies on the fissile material being encased in a graphite mixture (stubby cylinders instead of spheres) as well as heat transfer using helium instead of water. The pebble bed reactors seemed to have stability issues created by graphite rubbing off of the spheres as the pebbles we loaded in the top and removed from the bottom. This newer design works around that by having the fuel in a cylinder and the fuel in the core not being changeable for its 20 year life. It seems to be one of the simplest designs yet and is likely cheaper as a result. If it turns out to be cheap power this would have a big impact on northern communities where there is little sunlight for several months, and low-angle sunlight during the summer months. It doesn't have to beat typical solar, it just has to beat diesel that is shipped or flown in. I'm from Alberta and I also wish they would leave the tarsands tar in the ground. I have little expectation they will, so nuclear seems like an improvement at least.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Nukes can never turn out to be cheap power. It is always, always, always heavily subsidized by taxation, thus sometimes masking true cost. It is fortunate that extracting tar sands produces very expensive oil. As demand for oil drops, cost for oil from tar sands will be unable to match prices offered.
  - jamincan 5y ago
    Nuclear technology has never really matured to be industry-led, and is quite obviously heavily subsidized now; surely it's not inevitably always going to be that way though. At one time, the wisdom re: solar power was that PVs were simply far too expensive to be used for large-scale power, and yet, here we are now.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Nothing about nukes can be expected to get cheaper, unlike solar and wind. Nukes are just inherently expensive, from refining fuel through massive construction, disaster insurance (always and everywhere subsidized), maintenance, to decommissioning.
belorn 5y ago
Solar/wind/storage is always a better option as long as the storage solution isn't replaced by burn fossil fuel, which like the tarsand oil detail, is the kind of detail that sadly pop up in practically all places where the solar/wind/storage solution is being promoted. The fossil fuel need to stay in the ground. I am fairly enthusiastic about both renewables and nuclear, but I am a bit pessimistic about storage. The holy grail would be green hydrogen as storage, and that has been the political aiming for in the last 10 years. However in the mean time, everyone just got to rely on that Russian gas and oil. Solar/wind/fossil fuel is the current model and I just can't get enthusiastic about that.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  There are dozens of storage methods that all work, the only remaining uncertainty being which will be cheapest, or otherwise most useful. Hydrogen and ammonia synthesis will not be cheapest, but will arguably be most useful. It is strange that people proposing storage methods frequently seem unable to reason about cost, so propose absurdly expensive realizations of their ideas. What will end up deployed will be the most sensible alternatives. We don't need to have storage built out until after we have enough renewable generating capacity for both peak load and to charge up the storage, at the same time. Until then, money is overwhelmingly better spent on the generating capacity. Given equipment to synthesize ammonia or hydrogen, we can then continue building out generating capacity, because all the hydrogen or ammonia produced after local storage is topped up can be sold for direct revenue.
  - belorn 5y ago
    I have read both government studies on energy storage solutions and studies done by financial advisors to people who invest in the energy sector. The issue is always the high cost, with only specific places and situations where it is economical viable. In particular, if you can discharge the storage 365 days a year from 100% to 0%, selling at fairly high peak price, and do so for a capacity of 1-6hrs (depending on location and peak price), then it can be made profitable to operate a storage solution (depend also a bit on subsidies). Every other solution has yet to be found economical viable, and all of those other solutions are significant more expensive than nuclear. There are some alternative use cases. If you can convert the energy directly to a substance that an industry consume, like hydrogen in steel production, then the economics start to shift a bit. Hydrogen is produce today through natural gas, and if we include the carbon tax and introduce some subsidies to those who want to use renewables, then green hydrogen can be made to price match grey hydrogen in steel manufacturing. It not perfect, and its not storage, but it does reduce the use of fossil fuels. Burning the hydrogen for power however is still several times more expensive than nuclear, and I don't think people are willing to pay that kind of money in order to avoid nuclear power. The current way most governments seem to operate is to build out renewable generating capacity while also build out equal or greater amount of fossil fuel generating capacity. Looking at the Ukraine war, looking at the climate, and just looking at air pollution or graphs over fossil fuel usage, I am not optimistic that the current strategy are working at all. If anything it look exactly what the fossil fuel lobbying are pushing which is a future where they still hold a significant position and where the high peak price results in about as much profits as in the past but for a significant less amount of actually product.
chaostheory 5y ago
Security is a bigger issue now that the world is moving away from globalism which means less trade. The major powers have less barriers to conflict including cyber warfare. So what would happen if a disaster somehow hit one of these mini plants?
- smiley1437 5y ago
  Which sort of disaster were you thinking? These new miniplants don't require power or water, loss of either causes shutdown.
  - chaostheory 5y ago
    I'm not very familiar with them; so they're immune to causing a sudden, ecological disaster?
mabbo 5y ago
> The better option is to just leave the tar in the ground. A town not too far from where I grew up had most of it's economy based around a single factory (Hershey Chocolate in Smith's Falls, Ontario). There were lots of other stores and whatnot, but money flowed into the town via the factory paying workers' salaries, then bounced between hands from in shops, services, whatever else. When I was in high school, that factory closed down. The inflow of money stopped. And so did the rest of the economy of the town. Hard to run a flower shop when nobody in town can afford to buy flowers, you know? Stopping mining of tarsands entirely would be a bit like doing that to the entire province of Alberta. The money enters the province via the dirty oil they sell. We should never have gotten into this situation, no doubt, but now that we're here it's politically impossible to stop. And being major exporters, they're also a big reason for the value of the Canadian dollar. Stop exporting all the dirty oil and the exchange rate goes to crap- now all the things we buy from the USA and China are more expensive. What political party wants to be elected on that promise?
- Tiktaalik 5y ago
  We've known about this impending problem for decades. That no Albertan political party has been honest with Albertans about the future is disappointing. Easier to kick the can down the road. Nuclear could be the thing that provides a route forward. Given BC's seismic issues, it's probably not a great place for nuclear power plants and there's really no more rivers to dam. Alberta should be pivoting away from oil and toward becoming a nuclear power provider to BC, the Prairies and the United States.

a_square_peg 5y ago

I really don't know enough about this to know if it's a good idea or not (it sounds like it could be quite useful) but in any case I'm very glad to see Canada doing something new in technology.

DennisP 5y ago
Canada is turning out to be quite the country for nuclear innovation, because their regulators are much friendlier to new technology than the NRC in the US. Terrestrial Energy (a molten salt reactor company) has spoken highly of them, and Moltex (another MSR company) moved there as a result.
- a_square_peg 5y ago
  Oh wow, I did not know that. I had only been aware of CANDU reactors and had the impression that there wasn't much else going on in Canada.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    Aside from those two, there's also Elysium, yet another MSR company, focusing on the fast spectrum. Handy links: https://www.elysiumindustries.com/ https://www.elysiumindustries.com/ https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/ https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/ https://www.moltexenergy.com/ https://www.moltexenergy.com/ Plus there's General Fusion, the craziest steampunk idea for fusion ever. It's gotten investment well into nine figures, and is building a reactor for a net power attempt around 2025. https://generalfusion.com/ https://generalfusion.com/
ncmncm 5y ago
It would be better if Canada could do something actually useful.

jseutter 5y ago

Good points. This design seems quite similar to the pebble bed reactor idea in that it relies on the fissile material being encased in a graphite mixture (stubby cylinders instead of spheres) as well as heat transfer using helium instead of water. The pebble bed reactors seemed to have stability issues created by graphite rubbing off of the spheres as the pebbles we loaded in the top and removed from the bottom. This newer design works around that by having the fuel in a cylinder and the fuel in the core not being changeable for its 20 year life. It seems to be one of the simplest designs yet and is likely cheaper as a result. If it turns out to be cheap power this would have a big impact on northern communities where there is little sunlight for several months, and low-angle sunlight during the summer months. It doesn't have to beat typical solar, it just has to beat diesel that is shipped or flown in. I'm from Alberta and I also wish they would leave the tarsands tar in the ground. I have little expectation they will, so nuclear seems like an improvement at least.

ncmncm 5y ago
Nukes can never turn out to be cheap power. It is always, always, always heavily subsidized by taxation, thus sometimes masking true cost. It is fortunate that extracting tar sands produces very expensive oil. As demand for oil drops, cost for oil from tar sands will be unable to match prices offered.
- jamincan 5y ago
  Nuclear technology has never really matured to be industry-led, and is quite obviously heavily subsidized now; surely it's not inevitably always going to be that way though. At one time, the wisdom re: solar power was that PVs were simply far too expensive to be used for large-scale power, and yet, here we are now.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Nothing about nukes can be expected to get cheaper, unlike solar and wind. Nukes are just inherently expensive, from refining fuel through massive construction, disaster insurance (always and everywhere subsidized), maintenance, to decommissioning.

belorn 5y ago

Solar/wind/storage is always a better option as long as the storage solution isn't replaced by burn fossil fuel, which like the tarsand oil detail, is the kind of detail that sadly pop up in practically all places where the solar/wind/storage solution is being promoted. The fossil fuel need to stay in the ground. I am fairly enthusiastic about both renewables and nuclear, but I am a bit pessimistic about storage. The holy grail would be green hydrogen as storage, and that has been the political aiming for in the last 10 years. However in the mean time, everyone just got to rely on that Russian gas and oil. Solar/wind/fossil fuel is the current model and I just can't get enthusiastic about that.

ncmncm 5y ago
There are dozens of storage methods that all work, the only remaining uncertainty being which will be cheapest, or otherwise most useful. Hydrogen and ammonia synthesis will not be cheapest, but will arguably be most useful. It is strange that people proposing storage methods frequently seem unable to reason about cost, so propose absurdly expensive realizations of their ideas. What will end up deployed will be the most sensible alternatives. We don't need to have storage built out until after we have enough renewable generating capacity for both peak load and to charge up the storage, at the same time. Until then, money is overwhelmingly better spent on the generating capacity. Given equipment to synthesize ammonia or hydrogen, we can then continue building out generating capacity, because all the hydrogen or ammonia produced after local storage is topped up can be sold for direct revenue.
- belorn 5y ago
  I have read both government studies on energy storage solutions and studies done by financial advisors to people who invest in the energy sector. The issue is always the high cost, with only specific places and situations where it is economical viable. In particular, if you can discharge the storage 365 days a year from 100% to 0%, selling at fairly high peak price, and do so for a capacity of 1-6hrs (depending on location and peak price), then it can be made profitable to operate a storage solution (depend also a bit on subsidies). Every other solution has yet to be found economical viable, and all of those other solutions are significant more expensive than nuclear. There are some alternative use cases. If you can convert the energy directly to a substance that an industry consume, like hydrogen in steel production, then the economics start to shift a bit. Hydrogen is produce today through natural gas, and if we include the carbon tax and introduce some subsidies to those who want to use renewables, then green hydrogen can be made to price match grey hydrogen in steel manufacturing. It not perfect, and its not storage, but it does reduce the use of fossil fuels. Burning the hydrogen for power however is still several times more expensive than nuclear, and I don't think people are willing to pay that kind of money in order to avoid nuclear power. The current way most governments seem to operate is to build out renewable generating capacity while also build out equal or greater amount of fossil fuel generating capacity. Looking at the Ukraine war, looking at the climate, and just looking at air pollution or graphs over fossil fuel usage, I am not optimistic that the current strategy are working at all. If anything it look exactly what the fossil fuel lobbying are pushing which is a future where they still hold a significant position and where the high peak price results in about as much profits as in the past but for a significant less amount of actually product.

chaostheory 5y ago

Security is a bigger issue now that the world is moving away from globalism which means less trade. The major powers have less barriers to conflict including cyber warfare. So what would happen if a disaster somehow hit one of these mini plants?

smiley1437 5y ago
Which sort of disaster were you thinking? These new miniplants don't require power or water, loss of either causes shutdown.
- chaostheory 5y ago
  I'm not very familiar with them; so they're immune to causing a sudden, ecological disaster?

mabbo 5y ago

> The better option is to just leave the tar in the ground. A town not too far from where I grew up had most of it's economy based around a single factory (Hershey Chocolate in Smith's Falls, Ontario). There were lots of other stores and whatnot, but money flowed into the town via the factory paying workers' salaries, then bounced between hands from in shops, services, whatever else. When I was in high school, that factory closed down. The inflow of money stopped. And so did the rest of the economy of the town. Hard to run a flower shop when nobody in town can afford to buy flowers, you know? Stopping mining of tarsands entirely would be a bit like doing that to the entire province of Alberta. The money enters the province via the dirty oil they sell. We should never have gotten into this situation, no doubt, but now that we're here it's politically impossible to stop. And being major exporters, they're also a big reason for the value of the Canadian dollar. Stop exporting all the dirty oil and the exchange rate goes to crap- now all the things we buy from the USA and China are more expensive. What political party wants to be elected on that promise?

Tiktaalik 5y ago
We've known about this impending problem for decades. That no Albertan political party has been honest with Albertans about the future is disappointing. Easier to kick the can down the road. Nuclear could be the thing that provides a route forward. Given BC's seismic issues, it's probably not a great place for nuclear power plants and there's really no more rivers to dam. Alberta should be pivoting away from oil and toward becoming a nuclear power provider to BC, the Prairies and the United States.