The RAVEN project’s Susan O’Donnell and CCNR president Gordon Edwards published a commentary today in the NB Media Co-op: New nuclear plants (SMRs) in New Brunswick: Wild card or sure bet?
O’Donnell and Edwards analyze some of the recent claims about SMRs made to the Legislature’s Standing Committee on Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship, and review the history of SMR development in Canada and New Brunswick. Wild card or sure bet? Read it HERE.
JOIN US!
All are welcome to join us. No expertise or former experience necessary!
WHEN: February 7, 2022, from 6-7:30pm (AST)
WHERE: Virtually via Zoom. Registration is required.
WHO: CELA’s Theresa McClenaghan, Kerrie Blaise and Krystal-Anne Roussel
The Canadian Environmental Law Association and the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick invite you to an evening workshop on February 7 where the public will have an opportunity to learn about the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s intervention process.
NB Power is asking for a 25-year licence renewal for its Point Lepreau nuclear generating station. Learn more about your environmental rights and how citizens and groups can submit a written or oral ‘intervention’ at the hearing. Intervening before the Commission is the public’s way of participating in decisions relating to the licensing of Canada’s nuclear facilities
This workshop will prepare members of the public to provide written and oral comments to the Commission for the licence renewal hearing of NB Power’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station.
Comments to the Commission are due March 28, 2022. Part 2 of the hearing is scheduled to occur virtually May 11 – 12, 2022 via Zoom. (Part 1, on Jan 26 th involves only presentations by NB Power and CNSC staff.)
Commentary published in the Telegraph Journal, Moncton Times & Transcript and Fredericton Daily Gleaner on January 20, 2022
SMRs not worth the cost for our province
by Kim Reeder
In a recent op-ed contribution (“Progress at last on nuclear power,” Dec. 29), Norman J.D. Sawyer argued that 2021 was a year of overdue progress for the adoption of nuclear power in Canada. I must admit, I found this headline ironic, given how little real progress there has been on the nuclear front for many decades.
North America’s nuclear power industry has stalled. Two relatively recent projects initiated in Georgia and South Carolina, for instance, ended up costing many billions of dollars more than promised. The South Carolina project has been abandoned, leaving ratepayers with a US $9 billion debt, much of which will likely be included in their power bills. The former project has doubled in cost and in its construction timeline, and is still not complete.
Meanwhile, in Canada we are flooding taxpayer funds into the newest nuclear dream: Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). However, SMRs are not new, and commercially viable units are not in operation. SMRs date back to the 1950s, when the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission funded the construction of several reactors declared to be “suitable both for use in rural areas and for foreign export.”
Just as in 1977, Sawyer’s commentary offers messaging which would have readers believe SMRs exist on a commercially viable level. Yet a 2015 report by University of British Columbia Professor M.V. Ramana revealed these U.S. reactors ended up shutting down early because they were not economically competitive. This hurdle has yet to be overcome.
Nuclear advocates have claimed this technology can provide safe energy supplies that are virtually emissions-free. This may be true: First, if economically viable SMR technology actually existed, and second, if the supply chain, fuel source and toxic waste concerns related to these technologies are completely ignored.
Sawyer argues SMRs can be designed to solve energy issues where no grid exists or be used for small grid systems. This again reinforces the practice of portraying SMRs as a fix-all for energy challenges – a practice made much simpler because, once again, the technology simply isn’t viable.
In the U.S., the SMR model considered to be the most commercially advanced is referred to as “NuScale” – and the estimated costs of its reactor design have consistently increased. Just in the last five years, the estimated construction cost has risen from around US $3 billion in 2015 to US $6.1 billion in 2020, plus the initial investment of US $1.5 billion for the development of the ever-changing NuScale design. The most recent guess for NuScale’s operating date is 2029 – and all signs suggest it will not be commercially viable.
Sawyer proposes that SMRs will enable a just transition for fossil fuel workers. This inference is borne of unjustified speculation – although he prefers the term “visionary.”
A far more valid and defensible approach would instead turn to the existing opportunities in renewables. As Clean Energy Canada has made clear, in 2020, during the COVID pandemic, while the globe experienced the largest collapse in energy demand since World War II, renewable energy grew worldwide at its fastest pace in almost two decades. In Canada, between 2010 and 2017 the sector grew one-third faster than the Canadian economy as a whole.
The nuclear dream in all its forms has proven to be a financial boondoggle from day one. As a home-grown example: Last year, New Brunswick’s auditor general reported $3.6 billion of NB Power’s $4.9 billion debt is directly attributed to the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station. This amounts to a staggering debt load of more than $4,500 for every adult and child in New Brunswick.
Yet since 2018, the federal and provincial governments have promoted and continue to support new nuclear development in New Brunswick. So far, taxpayers have “only” invested approximately $86 million into SMRs. Based on the evidence provided by Nu-Scale, perhaps we should cut our losses now, while we still can.
The catchphrase for nuclear proponents seems to be that the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. However, we know for certain the sun will travel across the sky each day, wind patterns will persist over time, water will always flow downhill and geothermal heat will always dissipate.
We also know from long experience that the costs associated with nuclear power are always higher than expected, the performance is always poorer than expected, and expensive, unexpected repairs crop up. That’s the story of nuclear power.
Kim Reeder is a senior policy advisor for the Rural Action and Voices for the Environment (RAVEN) project at the University of New Brunswick-Fredericton.
Former heads of nuclear regulatory agencies and senior government advisors in the US, Germany, France and the UK published a statement outlining why new nuclear reactors – including SMNRs – are not a solution for climate change.
Their statement lists 10 reasons why nuclear is not a solution. The first three are:
• Too costly in absolute terms to make a relevant contribution to global power production
• More expensive than renewable energy in terms of energy production and CO2 mitigation, even taking into account costs of grid management tools like energy storage associated with renewables roll-out.
• Too costly and risky for financial market investment, and therefore dependent on very large public subsidies and loan guarantees.
Read the full statement HERE:
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) dismissed the licence application for the “first advanced reactor … with full private funding backing for a commercial project” because the application lacked information on safety and other key issues. Read the story HERE.
CRED-NB’s take on this story above: In contrast to the US nuclear regulator, In Canada we have the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) with a much more accommodating process: pre-licence “Vendor Design Reviews” or VDRs. The VDRs certify that the nuclear proponents applying for a licence understand the CNSC licence process. It’s impossible to “fail” this largely instructional/advisory process, intended to assist in the subsequent licence process.
Passing a pre-licence VDR allows the nuclear proponent (the company with a design for a so-called small modular nuclear reactor) to promote the “success” of its design. The multiple nuclear companies currently in the CNSC’s VDR process are in serious competition for private investors. Advertising their “success” in a VDR gives the impression that the CNSC has approved the design’s technical readiness, which is not the case.
The pre-licence VDR seems to promote the industry in Canada. An expert in the US has said that the pre-licence VDR process makes Canada like a tax haven for start-up SMR companies. Judging by the high number of SMR start-ups in Canada from other countries, this is believable.
The CNSC publishes the executive summary of the VDR reports on its website. The conclusion section of each summary identifies safety and performance aspects of the proposed design needing more information for the next VDR phase. All of the VDR reports we’ve read end with the astonishing phrase: “Notwithstanding the above, these issues are foreseen to be resolvable and will be followed up on in future phases of the VDR.”
How can a regulator state that core issues related to novel nuclear reactor safety and performance “are foreseen to be resolvable”? A logical conundrum!?
The following article was published on Dec. 9, 2021 by Corporate Knights. Author Angela Bishoff works with the Ontario Clean Air Alliance and has worked with CRED-NB on several national initiatives.
We don’t have time to wait for the emissions-reduction nuclear power could bring
by Angela Bishoff
Nuclear power has become a low-carbon energy choice for some countries looking to lessen their reliance on fossil fuels. France is looking to build on its already massive nuclear program; the U.K. is investing in small modular nuclear reactor technology; and even Japan, which shut down its 54 nuclear reactors after the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, has turned nine of them back on.
Proponents of nuclear power argue that we will need it to meet our greenhouse gas emissions targets. But to paraphrase Australian feminist and activist Irina Dunn, the world needs nuclear energy to address climate change like a fish needs a bicycle.
It’s a bad fit given our need to dramatically and quickly reduce our greenhouse gas pollution at the lowest possible cost.
Nuclear is no bargain, as the skewed ratio of nuclear shutdowns to start-ups worldwide amply proves. Of 13 nuclear reactors scheduled to come online in 2020, only three actually did. The others were all delayed. In the U.S., we see a growing lineup of nuclear operators looking for bailouts, while in Ontario, only the willingness of our governments to absorb huge cost overruns has kept nuclear afloat.
Nuclear energy’s heavy costs and long timelines matter because we all know we’re at the 11th hour on climate action. If we don’t drastically reduce emissions now, we stand no chance of keeping warming to even an uncomfortable 1.5°C. So what’s Ontario’s plan? Increase gas plant use by 500% or more by 2040 while new and rebuilt reactor projects are underway. This may be just about the most backward approach we could take at a time when Ontario is nowhere near meeting even the Ford government’s unambitious climate targets.
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) recently announced it’s teaming up with U.S.-based GE Hitachi to develop a $3-billion reactor that will not be particularly small (300 megawatts) or in any way modular (this remains a completely custom product). The result is that the projected cost, according to the Canadian nuclear industry itself, of power from this reactor will be an astronomical 16.3 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) – at a time when the global average cost of new solar and wind energy is hovering between 3 and 7 cents per kWh. And the currently unapproved reactor likely won’t be operational until 2030 at the earliest.
Currently, OPG charges 9.6 cents for power from its reactors. That’s after Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers spent years paying off the enormous debt racked up by our nuclear projects, which essentially bankrupted the old Ontario Hydro. This is roughly double what Alberta is now paying for solar energy, and almost double what Quebec has offered to charge Ontario for power from its vast waterpower system. And OPG acknowledges that its price for nuclear power will have to rise to 13.7 cents per kWh to pay for the rebuilding of reactors at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, east of Toronto. In 1975, Ontario Hydro estimated the cost of building the Darlington station would be $3.2 billion. The actual cost was $14.3 billion.
Nuclear is no bargain, as the skewed ratio of nuclear shutdowns to start-ups worldwide amply proves.
The nuclear industry’s answer to its long and troubled history of massive cost overruns, premature shutdowns and accidents is to promote a new type of “friendlier” nuclear – small modular reactors (SMRs). But to date they’re all in the development or research stage.
This fall, the U.K. government announced at the UN climate summit in Glasgow that it was handing luxury car manufacturer Rolls-Royce more than £200 million to develop its SMR technology. Given the massively over-budget and years-late Hinkley Point conventional nuclear project, it’s clear why the British government is eager to change horses. But with offshore wind power now costing Brits half of what power from Hinkley will cost, it’s not surprising that there is no big rush by the EU to follow in Britain’s footsteps when it comes to its investments in SMRs.
Nuclear has already shrunk from 26% to 17% of the European Union’s power supply since 2015. Germany continues to work its way toward a full nuclear phase-out and is integrating ever-higher levels of renewable energy into its grid. Germany, like all countries that have used nuclear power for decades, will have to find a home for millions of tonnes of radioactive waste, but at least they won’t continue to produce it as the British and Canadians seem determined to do.
Ontario’s dedication to nuclear power is unnecessary. Quebec keeps offering to supply its neighbour with power at a third of the cost of juice from OPG’s dream reactor. Ontario has enough transmission capacity right now to triple its electricity imports from Quebec and could also dramatically increase its interprovincial transmission capacity, using Hydro One’s existing transmission corridors, at a very small fraction of OPG’s budget for its various nuclear projects.
In addition, Hydro-Québec’s hydroelectric reservoirs can act like a giant battery for our wind and solar energy. By integrating our wind and solar energy with Hydro-Québec’s reservoirs, we can convert our intermittent renewable power into a firm 24/7 source of baseload electricity supply for Ontario. The previous Liberal government made two smallish deals with Quebec to purchase their surplus water power and storage. In 2020, Ontario’s net electricity imports from Quebec amounted to just 3% of our total.
But that’s just one way to store intermittent renewable power. We are seeing rapid advances in battery technology, and costs for battery storage are sliding down the same cost curve that solar and wind already have. We have the potential to use our electric vehicles’ (EV) batteries to store surplus wind and solar energy and to provide this power back to our electricity grid during peak demand hours to help phase out our gas and nuclear plants. After all, our cars sit idle for 95% of the hours of the day and we don’t want our EVs to be an underused resource in the battle against climate change.
With the cost of renewables continuing to drop, we can get far more climate bang for our buck by investing in energy efficiency, wind and solar energy, two-way chargers for our EVs, and by expanding our east–west electricity grid – rather than sticking with high-cost nuclear and polluting gas plants. The last thing we need now are costly and delaying distractions from real action on climate.
Angela Bischoff is the director of Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Here is the original link: https://www.corporateknights.com/energy/no-time-for-nuclear-power/
The Dec. 10 webinar featuring Gordon Edwards, Lorraine Rekmans and Tracy Glynn is now on video. Read the NB Media Co-op story for background, the video link and links to further resources:
https://nbmediacoop.org/2021/12/12/uranium-and-nuclear-energy-in-new-brunswick-and-beyond-video/
This message was sent today to the Canadian Nuclear Association, the lobby for the nuclear industry in Canada:
The top five reasons why the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB) is not buying your small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) fantasies
5. With 120 other groups across Canada, CRED-NB signed a public statement calling SMRs a “dirty, dangerous distraction” from climate action. Nobody believes we can build an SMR that could produce electricity commercially in this country before 2040. It will take that long to turn the SMR drawings into engineered designs that could safely contain the dangerous radioactive gasses nuclear energy emits. If an SMR is actually built, only then will we learn if it works to produce energy. Climate change will not wait to see if miracles can happen. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel said we have until 2030. Let’s not waste the time we have.
4. Your proposal to build a machine in New Brunswick to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel is dodgy at best. You call it “recycling,” a ridiculous label for a process that could only re-use less than one percent of the spent nuclear fuel. The scientists that we consulted say your process would produce new and dangerous forms of liquid nuclear waste and be wildly expensive. Nine eminent US non-proliferation experts have raised alarms about your plan, calling for a weapons non-proliferation international review. We also want a review, but you are dismissing our concerns. What are you afraid of?
3. Nuclear power is the most expensive way to produce electricity. New Brunswick Power’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station – the only operational nuclear power plant outside Ontario in Canada – is a financial fiasco. The New Brunswick Auditor General reported that the Lepreau nuclear plant is responsible for $3.6 billion of NB Power’s $4.9 billion debt. That’s a nuclear debt load of more than $4,500 on every person, including babies, living in our province. Enough already!
2. We want renewable energy. New research by the Conservation Council of New Brunswick found little social licence for SMRs in our province. Most New Brunswickers want our electricity to come from clean, renewable sources that do not create radioactive waste. Building new nuclear reactors will take billions of public dollars and many decades. We want the subsidies to go instead toward wind and solar energy, energy efficiency, and building the Atlantic Loop to share electricity across the region. We can build, right now, a robust electricity transmission system that will meet our needs. We want sustainable infrastructure connected to renewable energy generation, not nuclear white elephants.
1. We read peer-reviewed research. Our opposition to SMRs is based on science. You – a lobby for the nuclear industry – are responsible for stoking the climate crisis over many decades, since the beginning of commercial nuclear power generation, with your empty promises of electricity too cheap to meter. Now you’re promising to help end the climate crisis! We’re not buying it anymore. We have science on our side, and the science says SMRs are a waste of time and money and the nuclear industry is dying for good reason. Let’s all get real and work together for the next two decades on an orderly wind-down of nuclear power in New Brunswick and across Canada. Let us introduce you to some of the many scientists who have charted a path to net zero without new nuclear. You can put your SMR fantasies to rest – it’s time.
The Conservation Council of New Brunswick hosted a webinar featuring speakers from the Pembina Institute, moderated by the CCNB’s Louise Comeau. The presentations include a comparison of the costs of new nuclear energy vs renewable energy. Recommended. The slides and recording are HERE.
On November 30, the Wolastoqey Nation claimed title to parcels of land that includes the key NB Power facilities of the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station and the Mactaquac Dam. Read the story HERE in the NB Media Co-op.
The case will take more than a decade to wind its way through the courts although the Wolastoqey say they prefer a negotiated settlement.