'Ontario's moment:' Minister says Canada building blueprint for nuclear energy future

Stephen Lecce delivers remarks at Lakeshore Collegiate Institute in Toronto, on Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby

Ontario is selling itself as the nuclear North Star to guide the direction of American power as the United States looks to de-carbonize amid ever-increasing demand for energy.

"It really underscores both Canada and the U.S.'s national and economic interests — that we work together to harness this capability to produce clean energy," said Stephen Lecce, Ontario's minister of energy and electrification.

He was in Washington, D.C., early in his new mandate to speak at the Nuclear Energy Institute on the fringes of the NATO leaders' summit last month.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine casting a shadow over the defence alliance gathering, it was an important opportunity to highlight Canada's position as a reliable supplier of energy.

Russia is a major supplier of uranium, the fuel for nuclear reactors. The war has destabilized that supply. But Canada has skin in the game, too.

Saskatchewan has high-quality uranium deposits and is the home base for Cameco, one of the world's largest producers. For its part, Ontario is building a blueprint for the construction of more-affordable reactor technology.

The pitch to Western leaders: it's time to ""rid our economies of any dependence on these foreign states that ... do not share our democratic embrace," Lecce said.

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"This is Ontario's moment."

Nuclear power reactors provide about 14 per cent of Canada's total electricity. In Ontario, where most of the reactors are located, the proportion is more than 50 per cent.

Ontario Power Generation has plans to increase nuclear capacity by leaning into small modular reactors at the Darlington nuclear site. The new reactors, developed by General Electric Hitachi Nuclear Energy, are a fraction of the size of a conventional model.

Industry experts say it means they can be built at a faster pace for a much smaller price tag, although it's unclear how much Ontario is expecting to spend. The plan is to have the first reactor online by 2029.

Colossal costs and unpredictable timelines have slowed down development across much of North America to date.

Public skepticism has been a hurdle, too.

A partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 brought about demonstrations fronted by the likes of Jane Fonda and "No Nukes" concerts with Bruce Springsteen taking the stage against nuclear energy. It cooled popular support for decades.

Some of the concern has softened as global warming and greenhouse-gas emissions cause increasing worry.

At last year's international climate summit in Dubai, COP28, more than 20 countries signed on to a commitment to triple nuclear energy by 2050.

Canada and the U.S. were among them.

The pledge noted that nuclear energy could play a key role in achieving global net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions. But in the U.S., the pace and price tags of recent projects have made it difficult to build momentum.

An expansion of Plant Vogtle, the country's biggest nuclear facility, went online in Georgia seven years late and some $11 billion overbudget, for a cost of nearly $35 billion overall.

Another project from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is currently expected to cost up to $4 billion. With Gates chairing its board, energy company TerraPower recently started construction on the plant in Wyoming.

"Those kinds of prices, or anything close to it, means that nuclear is an extremely expensive alternative for addressing climate change," said David Schlissel, a director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

It would be better to invest in more cost-efficient renewable energies and batteries, Schlissel said, arguing that the nuclear industry is engaging in "a lot of hype."

The U.S. currently gets roughly 20 per cent of its electricity nationwide from a fleet of 94 nuclear reactors, mostly located east of the Mississippi River. It amounts to roughly half of the country’s carbon-free electricity.

Policies put in place under both former president Donald Trump and President Joe Biden's administrations have pushed the nuclear industry forward, said Jacopo Buongiorno, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Additional subsidies and incentives for clean-energy sources, including nuclear, were established with the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

Buongiorno, who is also the director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems, said there’s excitement about how nuclear energy can play a role in decarbonizing the power grid. But the industry growth is still not there.

The push for small modular reactors so far consists of "a lot of talk but not a lot of action" in the U.S., Buongiorno said.

That means American stakeholders will be watching Canada closely to see how Ontario's efforts play out, he added.

"If they can deliver it on time and on budget, I think the floodgates will be opened."

There's a demand around the world for more energy, said George Christidis, with the Canadian Nuclear Association.

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And nuclear power will play a critical role in maintaining close alignment between Canada and the U.S., he said — no matter who wins the November presidential election.

"Both Canada and the U.S. now are very much aligned in meeting these big policy goals," he said. "Energy, security and climate."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 2, 2024.