9 ms·

Makes alot of sense. Canada has: - one of the largest uranium reserves - a well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU - experience with building and re

Makes alot of sense. Canada has: - one of the largest uranium reserves - a well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU - experience with building and refurbishing nuclear reactors(Darlington) and for Ontario itself A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years. Saskatchewan also now has a potential need for nuclear for industrial use now that wasn't present before from its existing population. if the government can clear the red tape by using a well tested reactor design then they could certainly get some of these reactors built in that time frame. 15 seems...ambitions, but if we're going to spend at a federal level this is probably one of the better things to invest in.

tonyedgecombe 3mo ago
>A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years. Once you have base load from nuclear why do you need solar and wind at all?
- Symbiote 3mo ago
  It's still cheaper, and especially solar production correlates well with increased electricity usage.
  - globular-toast 3mo ago
    In Canada? I would have thought winter had by far the highest energy usage.
    - mooncalf 3mo ago
      The sun still comes out in winter! It corresponds with solar generation in the sense that more electricity is used during the day, when the sun is out.
- kelseydh 3mo ago
  Because solar and wind are renewable, cheaper and cleaner than nuclear. They don't require destructive mining for enriched uranium or create the security implications of dealing with fissile material. Solar/wind do not create long term hazardous waste that's complicated to dispose or create the risk of widespread radioactive fallout. They also help to decentralise the energy grid making it less dependent on a single point of failure. Nuclear power has its advantages, and may be worth it short term because climate change is a threat to humanity, but nuclear is not a renewable resource. Solar/wind with proper recycling could in theory sustain itself into perpetuity. Humanity needs to find sustainable ways for powering itself in the long term.
  - Moldoteck 3mo ago
    Nuclear mining is mostly insitu nowadays and has low env impact. Env impact of nuclear is low in general https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/LCA_3_FINAL%20March%202022.pdf https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/LCA_3_FINAL%20... and mining requirements are minimal VRE do still create hazards, but at different supply chain steps - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6nly288j4o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6nly288j4o Decentralization is not a feature but a bug- it needs massive grid investments which drives up prices in a era where you want prices to be low for electrification. France has the best of both - decentralized grid but centralized groups of power. This way grid costs less Nuclear can be recycled. It's not done because it's cheaper not to. And ren alone are not sufficient. Countries that have both nuclear and ren are in best position. This can be seen today in case of Germany vs France/Sweden https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_minutes https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...
- Moldoteck 3mo ago
  you can get cheaper power if you play the cards well. By this I mean sacrificing a bit nuclear CF but not too much. Also VRE can be paired with hydro up to it's capacity and the rest would be nuclear. This will give better results vs nuclear only grid
mrbluecoat 3mo ago
Canada also has cold weather, which makes Nvidia's pairing of closed-loop liquid coolant and passive cooling datacenter design more attractive.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
cwillu 3mo ago
15 years, to be clear.
nancyminusone 3mo ago
Always amused me that on the face of things, a CANDU looks just like a sideways RBMK. At least in terms of plumbing. There's clearly more to it than that.
- 486sx33 3mo ago
  It’s not that far off, a major benefit is insitu refueling, so that’s a major reason it looks like that.
mixdup 3mo ago
>15 seems...ambitions, but if we're going to spend at a federal level this is probably one of the better things to invest in. If they can make them cookie cutter as much as possible and not unique snowflakes like has been the pattern at least in the US, they can probably do it both on the timeline and a somewhat reasonable cost basis If they build 15 individual projects instead of managing this as a single big project, yeah that is very ambitious
- OJFord 3mo ago
  > If they build 15 individual projects instead of managing this as a single big project, yeah that is very ambitious Surely it would increase variance of outcomes, but the expectation is the same of each and overall? Agree it would be mad though. Seems already a bit mad not to standardise internationally on a rough blueprint, or the modular thing in the news occasionally, and just churn out basically the same thing everywhere as needed.
  - mixdup 3mo ago
    Yeah I mean obviously each one would be managed on its own to an extent but one big problem we have in the US at least is that we build so few reactors that each one is bespoke. They may be based generally on certain designs but they will vary enough that operators and maintenance engineers have to train and be certified on each one, and that training and certification does not carry over to any other facility. Parts are bespoke and can't be used from one to another If Canada builds them all similar enough that you only need one simulation/training facility, parts can be used between all of them, engineers can move from one to the other, and otherwise they are as close to each other as possible they will get incredible economies of scale that we don't typically get in North America in this industry
    - novok 3mo ago
      Could be a good way to kickstart a canadian nuclear industry that would expand into the US, exploiting the a big thing the US is bad at, coordinating infrastructure projects with multiple government groups, not making infrastructure builds incredibly overpriced and take an incredible amount of time and not being hyper litigious.
rickydroll 3mo ago
> Ontario itself A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years. Chasing baseload is a fool's game. You will always have a mismatch between power needed and power produced. Power storage is necessary to move excess power produced to times of excess power need. e.g., shave the peaks to fill the valleys. Any storage reduces the need for baseload and peaker plants. 4-6 hrs move daytime excess solar to fill evening needs. Overnight baseload excess can refill the batteries to cover the morning excess need before solar fully kicks in. Expanding battery capacity to 8-12 hours further reduces the need for expensive power sources such as nuclear and gas.
- phil21 3mo ago
  Your power storage is the Uranium fuel, which is a better battery than batteries. Much denser and lasts longer. In a sanely designed grid you overprovision non-reliable renewables like solar and wind to provide your peak daytime usage and nuclear (or hydro if you are lucky enough) takes up the rest during the night and when wind is not blowing. Batteries to further flatten the duck curve and provide grid firming as required. Then you have fallback to nuclear and load shedding programs for rare seasonal issues solving that last 1-3% that is incredibly expensive with non-dispatchable power sources. No need to build natural gas plants that sit idle 95% of the time. You overbuild solar since it's basically free from a capex standpoint and use that to charge your batteries when the sun shines. This lets you maximize capital investment over your entire generating fleet while still providing relatively cheap and - most importantly - reliable power for industrial usage. Of course, the choice society has made to make nuclear exceedingly expensive might make it pencil out that it's cheaper to subsidize natural gas. But I think that's naive and foolish for the long run. Nuclear waste would be the other large remaining issue, but again - society chose to create that problem and not solve it. It's not technical in nature. Batteries have no reasonable path forward for seasonal storage in many locations in the world. Nuclear does. Solving overnight storage is simply not interesting, as it's the easy problem to solve. tldr; Build it all. Nuclear, solar, wind, batteries, and hell - even natural gas as a last resort.
  - awesome_dude 3mo ago
jmyeet 3mo ago
I don't understand the online obsession with nuclear power in spite of all the evidence that it's simply not economical. Canada needs new power now. Not 15-20 years from now, which is how long it takes to build a new nuclear power plant. And it can be done today, incrementally with renewable sources and before anyone screams "baseload", that's what batteries are for if it really comes down to it. Nuclear power is the highest cost source of electricity in LCOE terms [1]. We just need to look at Hinkly Point C ("HPC") in the UK. HPC was proposed in 2010, approved in 2016, began construction in 2018 and is scheduled to completion currently somewhere between 2029 and 2031 for the first reactor with the second following 1-3 years after (IIRC). From an initial cost estimate of 15 billion pounds in 2015, it's ballooned to 31-35 billion and may well exceed 50 billion [2][3]. The contracted price per MWh is linked to inflation and currently pushing 140 pounds, about 50% more expensive than offshore wind that could be built in a fraction of the time. So there is a 35 year contract period for power but HPC has a lifespan of 60 years. What happens after? Market rates. Many will argue it'll get cheaper as the plant is paid off. If that's the case, why hasn't electricity from nuclear sources gotten cheaper as the existing plants have aged? The answer is the same with any nuclear criticism: "this time it'll be different". Fukushima? "This time it will be different." Chernobyl? "This time it will be different." Spiralling costs? "This time it will be different." Massively delayed completion dates? "This time it will be different." And we haven't even touched the negative externalities yet. That is, the uranium fuel cycle. Processing uranium ore produces waste. Using fuel rods produces waste. We don't really have a good solution for dealing with that waste. There's a lot of hand-waving about "just store it underground and centuries from now we'll hope they've figured it out". Storage, particularly for the first decade or more is not as easy as the hand-waving makes it out to be. It requires cooling ponds because the waste still produces significant heat. So you need infrastructure from that. UF6/UF4 from procesing aren't a solved problem either. I will never understand why so many otherwise smart people keep trying to make nuclear happen in their minds. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity [2]: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/edf-announces-hinkley-point-c-delay-and-big-rise-i https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/edf-announces-hi... [3]: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/02/20/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-power-station-costs-rise-to-48bn/#comment https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/02/20/hinkley-poin...
crypttales 3mo ago
"A well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU" A very expensive to build with lower utilization rates than PWRs despite online refueling. A solution AECL has been trying to move away from for the last thirty years. And that online refueling? Looks a lot like a weapons grade Pu pipeline.
genxy 3mo ago
Always wanted to go to ... Uranium City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_City
- morkalork 3mo ago
  While you're at it, add Radium Springs and Asbestos to your itinerary!
  - 1over137 3mo ago
    Asbestos was renamed due to the negative connotations.
  - gnabgib 3mo ago
    Radium Hot Springs (BC), you mean? +Dildo (NF) +Dawson Creek (BC) +Regina (SK) +Snafu (YK) +Stoner (BC) +Climax (SK) +Radville (SK) +Emo (ON) +Crotch Lake (ON) +Sober Island (NS)
    - abejfehr 3mo ago
      Elbow, Eyebrow, Heart’s Content, Heart’s Desire, and Heart’s Delight
      - morkalork 3mo ago
        Misery Bay
PaulHoule 3mo ago
They don’t seem to have any plans to build more CANDU, in so many ways the world has moved on for instance those centrifuges have made uranium enrichment more economical for most countries except (seemingly) the US and Iran. What is exciting to me is that these just installed the first module of the BWRX 300 at Darlington. I was so afraid that BWRX was going to be another SMR that gets talked about for decades but it looks like they are really doing it. See https://www.autonocion.com/us/canada-tonne-grid-nuclear-reactor/ https://www.autonocion.com/us/canada-tonne-grid-nuclear-reac... !
- cindyllm 3mo ago
  [dead]
- kelseydh 3mo ago
  Exciting development. I really wish somebody would nail a commercially viable Thorium reactor but it seems there are real engineering complications around scaling molten salt reactors.
  - Animats 3mo ago
    The trouble with molten salt thorium reactors is that they need an attached chemical plant that processes molten sodium mixed with radioactive elements. This is not something a utility wants to own, maintain, and operate. Here are some studies on such plants.[1] No full scale long-running salt reprocessing plant has ever been built. The great thing about boiling water reactors is that you just have to handle water. The radioactive portion of the systems is simple. Which is good, because it can't be maintained much during the entire lifespan of the plant. When you look at the history of nuclear reactors, almost all the problems involve plumbing. The less that can go wrong with the plumbing, over 60 years or so, the better. For molten salt reactors, the physics is promising, the chemistry is a pain (fluorine, for starters), and the plumbing has major corrosion and clogging problems (high temperature radioactive molten salts and pipes just do not get along, even with really exotic alloys.) It's not impossible. But it's going to be prone to expensive problems, some of which probably will not be anticipated. Remember Ft. St. Vrain, the helium gas cooled reactor. Great idea. Ran for ten years. Even used some thorium. Troubles in the radioactive portion of the gas plumbing system meant it had to be shut down and dismantled.[2] That was sad, because it actually worked well for years. [1] https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1484689 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1484689 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain_Nuclear_Power...
jtbayly 3mo ago
More renewables means the need for more base load? This is the first I’ve seen anybody say that.
- 486sx33 3mo ago
  It shouldn’t be the first time, this is what natural gas peaker plants have been about for 20 years. Solar and wind can’t sync the grid, they require sync or the grid collapses. Sync (Hz) can only be provided by base load that quickly spin up or down to balance out the frequency of the grid
  - pfdietz 3mo ago
    > Solar and wind can’t sync the grid Grid-forming inverters, particularly with batteries, can totally do this job.
  - win311fwg 3mo ago
    That explains why Ontario built natural gas plants alongside its wind/solar rollout. That does not explain why Ontario needs more nuclear power generation some nebulous time in the future to support those same wind/solar installations per the original comment and parent reference.
    - Moldoteck 3mo ago
      It needs nuclear to avoid using gas. Ren will be curtailed anyway. May as well curtail them for nuclear. Germany is a prime example of fossils+ren combo https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_minutes https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...
      - win311fwg 3mo ago
        As a friendly reminder, we are talking about not just nuclear, but base load nuclear. The gas plants in Ontario are used as peaker plants and even if nuclear were to replace them in that role, as unlikely as that is, that would not see it operating as the base load we are talking about — that the earlier comment said Ontario needs more of because of wind/solar installations built over the past decade. Except that is exactly the role that nuclear plays in Ontario and is already sized appropriately to match anything needed from wind/solar. Ontario anticipates that electricity usage will climb in the future and is working to build more capacity to accommodate future demand. There will be need for increased nuclear capacity to service that. However, it remains uncertain what that has to do with a wind or solar install from 10 years ago?
kasey_junk 3mo ago
Will Alberta go along?
- jleyank 3mo ago
  Will Alberta go (away)? If/when the price of crude goes back down, they'll feel the cash crunch. Curiously, if they leave Canada, they need a path through a foreign country to get their oil out of Alberta.
  - TMWNN 3mo ago
    Alberta needs a pathway through a foreign country to get their oil out right now. Existing pipelines lead to the US, and the Keystone XL expansion Obama halted, Trump resumed, and Biden halted. An independent Alberta will likely join the US, and of course building a domestic-only pipeline is easier than doing so across national borders.
    - jleyank 3mo ago
      Alberta ships through BC now and I think they’ve gone from half to full capacity. That profit might not survive Hormuz opening and unfortunately much of it leaves Canada.
      - TMWNN 3mo ago
        >Alberta ships through BC now Yes, in minuscule amounts. As of 2025, 90% of Canadian crude and 100% of natural gas goes to the US. <https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/market-snapshots/2026/market-snapshot-overview-of-2025-canada-us-energy-trade.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma...>
tgtweak 3mo ago
Nuclear also works well with grid batteries to smooth demand curves, which Ontario is targeting 2700MW of scale by 2030.
ViewTrick1002 3mo ago
Ignoring that the last time Ontario attempted to build nuclear power the utility went into bankruptcy forcing the public to take on an absolutely enormous stranded debt.
stymaar 3mo ago
And you forgot the most important one, that justify nuclear over the alternatives: - is very far North and can't really use solar at all for 3 month per year because in winter the nights are long, the weather is terrible and the sun is always low in the sky.
- bildung 3mo ago
  Canada (at least the part with people) seems to be significantly more in the south than most of Northern Europe, where PV seems to work just fine?
  - mpweiher 3mo ago
    PV doesn't work "just fine" in Northern Europe.
  - Moldoteck 3mo ago
    Ren don't work just fine in Europe. There are serious challenges https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_minutes https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...
mpweiher 3mo ago
Canada just finished the Bruce Power refurbishment ahead of schedule and under budget, and that seems to generally be the track record in Canada. https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1007558/ontario-delivers-record-setting-nuclear-refurbishment-at-bruce-ahead-of-schedule-and-under-budget https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1007558/ontario-delivers-... France built 55 reactors in around 15 years during its first build-out and that wasn't an accident, we both know how to do this and Canada seems to be in a good place for that kind of performance.
blitzar 3mo ago
Winter district heating would be the icing on the cake.
Moldoteck 3mo ago
I just hope it'll be Candu and not bwrx

tonyedgecombe 3mo ago

>A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years. Once you have base load from nuclear why do you need solar and wind at all?

Symbiote 3mo ago
It's still cheaper, and especially solar production correlates well with increased electricity usage.
- globular-toast 3mo ago
  In Canada? I would have thought winter had by far the highest energy usage.
  - mooncalf 3mo ago
    The sun still comes out in winter! It corresponds with solar generation in the sense that more electricity is used during the day, when the sun is out.
kelseydh 3mo ago
Because solar and wind are renewable, cheaper and cleaner than nuclear. They don't require destructive mining for enriched uranium or create the security implications of dealing with fissile material. Solar/wind do not create long term hazardous waste that's complicated to dispose or create the risk of widespread radioactive fallout. They also help to decentralise the energy grid making it less dependent on a single point of failure. Nuclear power has its advantages, and may be worth it short term because climate change is a threat to humanity, but nuclear is not a renewable resource. Solar/wind with proper recycling could in theory sustain itself into perpetuity. Humanity needs to find sustainable ways for powering itself in the long term.
- Moldoteck 3mo ago
  Nuclear mining is mostly insitu nowadays and has low env impact. Env impact of nuclear is low in general https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/LCA_3_FINAL%20March%202022.pdf https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/LCA_3_FINAL%20... and mining requirements are minimal VRE do still create hazards, but at different supply chain steps - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6nly288j4o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6nly288j4o Decentralization is not a feature but a bug- it needs massive grid investments which drives up prices in a era where you want prices to be low for electrification. France has the best of both - decentralized grid but centralized groups of power. This way grid costs less Nuclear can be recycled. It's not done because it's cheaper not to. And ren alone are not sufficient. Countries that have both nuclear and ren are in best position. This can be seen today in case of Germany vs France/Sweden https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_minutes https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...
Moldoteck 3mo ago
you can get cheaper power if you play the cards well. By this I mean sacrificing a bit nuclear CF but not too much. Also VRE can be paired with hydro up to it's capacity and the rest would be nuclear. This will give better results vs nuclear only grid

mrbluecoat 3mo ago

Canada also has cold weather, which makes Nvidia's pairing of closed-loop liquid coolant and passive cooling datacenter design more attractive.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

cwillu 3mo ago

15 years, to be clear.

nancyminusone 3mo ago

Always amused me that on the face of things, a CANDU looks just like a sideways RBMK. At least in terms of plumbing. There's clearly more to it than that.

486sx33 3mo ago
It’s not that far off, a major benefit is insitu refueling, so that’s a major reason it looks like that.

mixdup 3mo ago

>15 seems...ambitions, but if we're going to spend at a federal level this is probably one of the better things to invest in. If they can make them cookie cutter as much as possible and not unique snowflakes like has been the pattern at least in the US, they can probably do it both on the timeline and a somewhat reasonable cost basis If they build 15 individual projects instead of managing this as a single big project, yeah that is very ambitious

OJFord 3mo ago
> If they build 15 individual projects instead of managing this as a single big project, yeah that is very ambitious Surely it would increase variance of outcomes, but the expectation is the same of each and overall? Agree it would be mad though. Seems already a bit mad not to standardise internationally on a rough blueprint, or the modular thing in the news occasionally, and just churn out basically the same thing everywhere as needed.
- mixdup 3mo ago
  Yeah I mean obviously each one would be managed on its own to an extent but one big problem we have in the US at least is that we build so few reactors that each one is bespoke. They may be based generally on certain designs but they will vary enough that operators and maintenance engineers have to train and be certified on each one, and that training and certification does not carry over to any other facility. Parts are bespoke and can't be used from one to another If Canada builds them all similar enough that you only need one simulation/training facility, parts can be used between all of them, engineers can move from one to the other, and otherwise they are as close to each other as possible they will get incredible economies of scale that we don't typically get in North America in this industry
  - novok 3mo ago
    Could be a good way to kickstart a canadian nuclear industry that would expand into the US, exploiting the a big thing the US is bad at, coordinating infrastructure projects with multiple government groups, not making infrastructure builds incredibly overpriced and take an incredible amount of time and not being hyper litigious.

rickydroll 3mo ago

> Ontario itself A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years. Chasing baseload is a fool's game. You will always have a mismatch between power needed and power produced. Power storage is necessary to move excess power produced to times of excess power need. e.g., shave the peaks to fill the valleys. Any storage reduces the need for baseload and peaker plants. 4-6 hrs move daytime excess solar to fill evening needs. Overnight baseload excess can refill the batteries to cover the morning excess need before solar fully kicks in. Expanding battery capacity to 8-12 hours further reduces the need for expensive power sources such as nuclear and gas.

phil21 3mo ago
Your power storage is the Uranium fuel, which is a better battery than batteries. Much denser and lasts longer. In a sanely designed grid you overprovision non-reliable renewables like solar and wind to provide your peak daytime usage and nuclear (or hydro if you are lucky enough) takes up the rest during the night and when wind is not blowing. Batteries to further flatten the duck curve and provide grid firming as required. Then you have fallback to nuclear and load shedding programs for rare seasonal issues solving that last 1-3% that is incredibly expensive with non-dispatchable power sources. No need to build natural gas plants that sit idle 95% of the time. You overbuild solar since it's basically free from a capex standpoint and use that to charge your batteries when the sun shines. This lets you maximize capital investment over your entire generating fleet while still providing relatively cheap and - most importantly - reliable power for industrial usage. Of course, the choice society has made to make nuclear exceedingly expensive might make it pencil out that it's cheaper to subsidize natural gas. But I think that's naive and foolish for the long run. Nuclear waste would be the other large remaining issue, but again - society chose to create that problem and not solve it. It's not technical in nature. Batteries have no reasonable path forward for seasonal storage in many locations in the world. Nuclear does. Solving overnight storage is simply not interesting, as it's the easy problem to solve. tldr; Build it all. Nuclear, solar, wind, batteries, and hell - even natural gas as a last resort.
- awesome_dude 3mo ago

jmyeet 3mo ago

I don't understand the online obsession with nuclear power in spite of all the evidence that it's simply not economical. Canada needs new power now. Not 15-20 years from now, which is how long it takes to build a new nuclear power plant. And it can be done today, incrementally with renewable sources and before anyone screams "baseload", that's what batteries are for if it really comes down to it. Nuclear power is the highest cost source of electricity in LCOE terms [1]. We just need to look at Hinkly Point C ("HPC") in the UK. HPC was proposed in 2010, approved in 2016, began construction in 2018 and is scheduled to completion currently somewhere between 2029 and 2031 for the first reactor with the second following 1-3 years after (IIRC). From an initial cost estimate of 15 billion pounds in 2015, it's ballooned to 31-35 billion and may well exceed 50 billion [2][3]. The contracted price per MWh is linked to inflation and currently pushing 140 pounds, about 50% more expensive than offshore wind that could be built in a fraction of the time. So there is a 35 year contract period for power but HPC has a lifespan of 60 years. What happens after? Market rates. Many will argue it'll get cheaper as the plant is paid off. If that's the case, why hasn't electricity from nuclear sources gotten cheaper as the existing plants have aged? The answer is the same with any nuclear criticism: "this time it'll be different". Fukushima? "This time it will be different." Chernobyl? "This time it will be different." Spiralling costs? "This time it will be different." Massively delayed completion dates? "This time it will be different." And we haven't even touched the negative externalities yet. That is, the uranium fuel cycle. Processing uranium ore produces waste. Using fuel rods produces waste. We don't really have a good solution for dealing with that waste. There's a lot of hand-waving about "just store it underground and centuries from now we'll hope they've figured it out". Storage, particularly for the first decade or more is not as easy as the hand-waving makes it out to be. It requires cooling ponds because the waste still produces significant heat. So you need infrastructure from that. UF6/UF4 from procesing aren't a solved problem either. I will never understand why so many otherwise smart people keep trying to make nuclear happen in their minds. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity [2]: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/edf-announces-hinkley-point-c-delay-and-big-rise-i https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/edf-announces-hi... [3]: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/02/20/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-power-station-costs-rise-to-48bn/#comment https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/02/20/hinkley-poin...

crypttales 3mo ago

"A well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU" A very expensive to build with lower utilization rates than PWRs despite online refueling. A solution AECL has been trying to move away from for the last thirty years. And that online refueling? Looks a lot like a weapons grade Pu pipeline.

genxy 3mo ago

Always wanted to go to ... Uranium City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_City

morkalork 3mo ago
While you're at it, add Radium Springs and Asbestos to your itinerary!
- 1over137 3mo ago
  Asbestos was renamed due to the negative connotations.
- gnabgib 3mo ago
  Radium Hot Springs (BC), you mean? +Dildo (NF) +Dawson Creek (BC) +Regina (SK) +Snafu (YK) +Stoner (BC) +Climax (SK) +Radville (SK) +Emo (ON) +Crotch Lake (ON) +Sober Island (NS)
  - abejfehr 3mo ago
    Elbow, Eyebrow, Heart’s Content, Heart’s Desire, and Heart’s Delight
    - morkalork 3mo ago
      Misery Bay

PaulHoule 3mo ago

They don’t seem to have any plans to build more CANDU, in so many ways the world has moved on for instance those centrifuges have made uranium enrichment more economical for most countries except (seemingly) the US and Iran. What is exciting to me is that these just installed the first module of the BWRX 300 at Darlington. I was so afraid that BWRX was going to be another SMR that gets talked about for decades but it looks like they are really doing it. See https://www.autonocion.com/us/canada-tonne-grid-nuclear-reactor/ https://www.autonocion.com/us/canada-tonne-grid-nuclear-reac... !

cindyllm 3mo ago
[dead]
kelseydh 3mo ago
Exciting development. I really wish somebody would nail a commercially viable Thorium reactor but it seems there are real engineering complications around scaling molten salt reactors.
- Animats 3mo ago
  The trouble with molten salt thorium reactors is that they need an attached chemical plant that processes molten sodium mixed with radioactive elements. This is not something a utility wants to own, maintain, and operate. Here are some studies on such plants.[1] No full scale long-running salt reprocessing plant has ever been built. The great thing about boiling water reactors is that you just have to handle water. The radioactive portion of the systems is simple. Which is good, because it can't be maintained much during the entire lifespan of the plant. When you look at the history of nuclear reactors, almost all the problems involve plumbing. The less that can go wrong with the plumbing, over 60 years or so, the better. For molten salt reactors, the physics is promising, the chemistry is a pain (fluorine, for starters), and the plumbing has major corrosion and clogging problems (high temperature radioactive molten salts and pipes just do not get along, even with really exotic alloys.) It's not impossible. But it's going to be prone to expensive problems, some of which probably will not be anticipated. Remember Ft. St. Vrain, the helium gas cooled reactor. Great idea. Ran for ten years. Even used some thorium. Troubles in the radioactive portion of the gas plumbing system meant it had to be shut down and dismantled.[2] That was sad, because it actually worked well for years. [1] https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1484689 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1484689 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain_Nuclear_Power...

jtbayly 3mo ago

More renewables means the need for more base load? This is the first I’ve seen anybody say that.

486sx33 3mo ago
It shouldn’t be the first time, this is what natural gas peaker plants have been about for 20 years. Solar and wind can’t sync the grid, they require sync or the grid collapses. Sync (Hz) can only be provided by base load that quickly spin up or down to balance out the frequency of the grid
- pfdietz 3mo ago
  > Solar and wind can’t sync the grid Grid-forming inverters, particularly with batteries, can totally do this job.
- win311fwg 3mo ago
  That explains why Ontario built natural gas plants alongside its wind/solar rollout. That does not explain why Ontario needs more nuclear power generation some nebulous time in the future to support those same wind/solar installations per the original comment and parent reference.
  - Moldoteck 3mo ago
    It needs nuclear to avoid using gas. Ren will be curtailed anyway. May as well curtail them for nuclear. Germany is a prime example of fossils+ren combo https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_minutes https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...
    - win311fwg 3mo ago
      As a friendly reminder, we are talking about not just nuclear, but base load nuclear. The gas plants in Ontario are used as peaker plants and even if nuclear were to replace them in that role, as unlikely as that is, that would not see it operating as the base load we are talking about — that the earlier comment said Ontario needs more of because of wind/solar installations built over the past decade. Except that is exactly the role that nuclear plays in Ontario and is already sized appropriately to match anything needed from wind/solar. Ontario anticipates that electricity usage will climb in the future and is working to build more capacity to accommodate future demand. There will be need for increased nuclear capacity to service that. However, it remains uncertain what that has to do with a wind or solar install from 10 years ago?

kasey_junk 3mo ago

Will Alberta go along?

jleyank 3mo ago
Will Alberta go (away)? If/when the price of crude goes back down, they'll feel the cash crunch. Curiously, if they leave Canada, they need a path through a foreign country to get their oil out of Alberta.
- TMWNN 3mo ago
  Alberta needs a pathway through a foreign country to get their oil out right now. Existing pipelines lead to the US, and the Keystone XL expansion Obama halted, Trump resumed, and Biden halted. An independent Alberta will likely join the US, and of course building a domestic-only pipeline is easier than doing so across national borders.
  - jleyank 3mo ago
    Alberta ships through BC now and I think they’ve gone from half to full capacity. That profit might not survive Hormuz opening and unfortunately much of it leaves Canada.
    - TMWNN 3mo ago
      >Alberta ships through BC now Yes, in minuscule amounts. As of 2025, 90% of Canadian crude and 100% of natural gas goes to the US. <https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/market-snapshots/2026/market-snapshot-overview-of-2025-canada-us-energy-trade.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma...>

tgtweak 3mo ago

Nuclear also works well with grid batteries to smooth demand curves, which Ontario is targeting 2700MW of scale by 2030.

ViewTrick1002 3mo ago

Ignoring that the last time Ontario attempted to build nuclear power the utility went into bankruptcy forcing the public to take on an absolutely enormous stranded debt.

stymaar 3mo ago

And you forgot the most important one, that justify nuclear over the alternatives: - is very far North and can't really use solar at all for 3 month per year because in winter the nights are long, the weather is terrible and the sun is always low in the sky.

bildung 3mo ago
Canada (at least the part with people) seems to be significantly more in the south than most of Northern Europe, where PV seems to work just fine?
- mpweiher 3mo ago
  PV doesn't work "just fine" in Northern Europe.
- Moldoteck 3mo ago
  Ren don't work just fine in Europe. There are serious challenges https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_minutes https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...

mpweiher 3mo ago

Canada just finished the Bruce Power refurbishment ahead of schedule and under budget, and that seems to generally be the track record in Canada. https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1007558/ontario-delivers-record-setting-nuclear-refurbishment-at-bruce-ahead-of-schedule-and-under-budget https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1007558/ontario-delivers-... France built 55 reactors in around 15 years during its first build-out and that wasn't an accident, we both know how to do this and Canada seems to be in a good place for that kind of performance.

blitzar 3mo ago

Winter district heating would be the icing on the cake.

Moldoteck 3mo ago

I just hope it'll be Candu and not bwrx