Ontario set to begin construction of Canada's 1st mini nuclear power plant
There's been a lot of talk about SMR's over the years, it's nice to see one finally being built.
Even if it comes in over budget, getting the first one done will be a great learning experience and could lead to figuring out how to do future ones cheaper.
Assuming it's on time, completion in 2029, connected to grid in 2030.
These are considered 'small' because of their footprint, not just their output. They are absolutely safe, since if they malfunction they just solidify, they do not go into melt down. It is the same technology that is used in the reactors in submarines and aircraft carriers, and believe me, those are SMALL. China is making them small enough to fit in shipping containers, to be shipped and assembled in remote communities. The one Canada is building is, however, on the larger scale of these SMR's. China is building them by the dozens.
It is actually the technology itself that makes them part of the SMR family - far removed from the technology used in conventional large scale nuclear reactors.
And the fact that they have been used in nuclear submarines for over 50 years does NOT make the technology 'new'. It is not just 'talk', it is proven, built, and tested over decades of continuous use, albeit top secret use.
It was even rumored by engineering students that there was one under the greenhouse of a Canadian university, operated in complete highest-level secrecy, been there since the '80's. Used in the development of the reactors used in the American submarines. But that was just an unfounded rumor.
As far as safety, deaths are laughably low from Nuclear. Hydro has had significantly more casualty, thousands of times more.
Counting long term emissions from coal or gas I'd assume you'd be higher as well.
Which is also why they might be snake oil. Similar problems to a full-size modern reactor, but without the savings of scale and not having to ship modules around.
The small modular reactor (SMR) would provide 300 megawatts of power, enough electricity to supply about 300,000 homes, according to briefing documents from Ontario's Ministry of Energy and Mines.
300MW isn't small at all. That's half a CANDU block! I thought they would be significantly smaller and therefore not too significant for the grid until we build more units. This is the equivalent of 20-30 of the largest wind turbines available. Not sure if we have that large units installed in Canada.
It's small compared to typical nuclear reactors which are usually 1GW, and these new units use much less land space.
Edit: They're also designed to be manufactured offsite at a manufacturing facility instead of the very large ones that are built on site.
enough electricity to supply about 300,000 homes The estimated construction cost of the initial reactor is $7.7 billion
Interesting. That comes out to just over $25,000 per home, assuming it's delivering power to 300,000 homes.
I wonder what it would cost to fit those 300,000 homes (or the roofs of large buildings) with solar, wind, and other green tech... interlinking communities to their wider municipality, and the rest of the province for redundancy.
Top end solar systems for the "average" home in Ontario would be around the same $25,000 price tag - one time - and would pay for itself in under 10 years, saving home owners from having to worry about rising energy costs.
Would it be most cost-effective? More sustainable? More eco-friendly?
You're forgetting that the SMR provides a baseload, while solar would only provide during the daytime hours. You'd need to tack on a battery system capable of running the house overnight which would increase costs further by at a minimum another 10-15k with installation for a small single family dwelling, or build a more centralized MW level scale battery system elsewhere. Wind doesn't really work too well for residential as the turbines aren't as cost effective at smaller sizes. (edit: You'd also need to over provision each house in order to ensure there's enough excess capacity to charge the batteries for the evening, increasing the cost further, and ensure it is over provisioned enough for winter)
The article mentions that IF it comes in on budget, it'd cost around the same as a centralized wind/solar project which would be cheaper than a home system, but home systems obviously provide better national security in terms of not a single point of failure.
Also the goal of these SMR projects is to just churn these things out of a factory which will make them cheaper in the long run. These things are brand new, and saying lets just forgo this new tech because solar, which has had decades to get to it's current cost, are cheaper is a mistake. SMRs could very well be cheaper than solar in the long run if we put the effort into it.
Edit: And I'm not trying to say putting home solar/battery is a bad idea, it's also a critical thing to do. It's not one or the other, it's both!
Edit: Also unless it's on a standing seam metal roof or other similar snap on install roof, assume at least one likely removal/reinstall for the solar panels per lifetime of the roof which would add another few thousand dollars.
The problem with using nuclear as baseload is that people have the wrong idea of what is required from a baseload power source.
A baseload power source's most important quality isn't constant output, it's rapidly adaptable output.
When it comes to cost, nothing beats solar. It's cheap, it's individually owned and especially with a battery the self-sufficiency basically means not paying for power anymore. So, people will adopt solar at greater numbers as the cost of solar panels is still dropping.
Solar and wind at peak times in several countries already exceed the demand. Nuclear, which is more expensive to run, now has a problem, because nobody wants to buy that energy. They'd rather get the cheaper abundant renewable power.
So, the nuclear reactor has to turn off or at least scale to a minimal power output during peak renewable hours. This historically is something nuclear reactors are just not good at. But even worse, it's a terrible economic prospect: nuclear is barely profitable as-is, having to turn it off for half the day kills the economic viability completely. Ergo, government subsidies are required to keep it operational.
Flexibility is king in the power network of the future. That means batteries or natural gas plants at the moment. Nuclear can be useful for nations without those and with a lagging renewable adoption, but it will be more expensive in the long run. It will also become more important to do heavy industrial tasks during peak renewable hours, so that the demand better matches the output.
I'm not pro-nuclear, but the baseload argument is compelling. We clearly need both more renewables, but sprinkling a few SMRs throughout the system seems to be a pretty good idea - especially if we don't want to integrate with the US grids.
The article mentions that IF it comes in on budget
That's one of the big ifs. It's new technology (kind of), so I'll be surprised if there aren't some overruns.
For comparison, the energy we get from Niagara Falls is 2400 MW, so this (300 MW) is very significant.
the energy we get from Niagara Falls is 2400 MW
Holy shit
Cool, we'll finally get to find out if it's actually even more complicated and expensive than the traditional kind.
They plan to build 4 of them at this site... at the very least I hope each one is progressively cheaper to build as they learn.
If each one is more expensive that'll be bad news bears heh.