Quote:
Originally Posted by Changing City
SMR studies are already taking place in Canada, but not in BC. It's planned for Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick, with Alberta joining in. Various designs have already been submitted for approval. At this stage BC has no involvement, and BC Hydro see no short to medium term need to even consider a nuclear plant. There is apparently some potential to increase production from existing hydro locations, if it is needed.
This recent paper from UBC gives the background to why nuclear is falling internationally in the mix of power production, (mostly because of cost, but also concerns about waste and security of materials).
It specifically looks at SMRs, which are reactors designed to produce less than 300 Mw. They are not expected to produce energy any cheaper than existing large plants - in fact it will cost more. (The paper explains why in detail).
"The costs of nuclear energy, especially from SMRs, are prohibitively high and rising, whereas the costs of renewables are low and declining. More narrowly, renewables benefit from the almost zero marginal costs of solar and wind energy because they don’t incur any fueling costs and operator costs are minimal"
Technological innovation in battery design, large-scale storage, and co-generation of renewables (like the German Sinnpower module as one example) are happening far faster, on a much greater international scale, and offer far more localized solutions to any potential shortfall in electricity BC might face in the medium to long term. |
The non-proliferation/safeguards issues associated with nuclear should be a non-issue in the context of Canada. In other parts of the world yes, but not here.
Waste is tricky. The Canadian strategy is quite feasible.
I do agree cost of a 300 MWe reactor is going to be challenging. These new reactor designs promise to be far more cost effective than older designs. However that still has to be proven. The nuclear industry also has a track record or going over budget on new designs. Building a proven design is a very different situation.
The big cost with the classical CANDU 6 was always the heavy water. Canada has closely guarded how big of an inventory it has of heavy water. I have been out of the industry for a number of years. I don't know how cost effective it would be to build a CANDU 6 or CANDU 9 in BC today.
I don't see the business case for battery storage in BC. BC Hydro has a track record of controlling flow on its hydro assets to adjust to changing demand through the day.
As a said earlier, I think we need to exhaust our undeveloped hydro sites first before nuclear. But then nuclear becomes the next logical choice.