Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
In late January, Crown Investments Corp. Minister Jeremy Harrison announced that SaskPower would begin the process of technology selection for large, 1,000 megawatt-scale reactors.
That’s a fancy way of saying Saskatchewan is in the market to pick a big reactor design and quite possibly build them.
Pipeline Online will be digging deep into this, which could be the most expensive and consequential decision the Government of Saskatchewan makes in decades.
Two models in particular are under consideration. One is the CANDU Monark. In 2011, the Government of Canada under Stephen Harper sold the Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) and the intellectual property license of the Canadian designed CANDU reactor to Quebec engineering firm SNC-Lavalin. In 2023 SNC-Lavalin changed its name to AtkinsRéalis.
The second model is the US-designed Westinghouse AP1000 reactor. In 2023 Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management bought 51 per cent and Saskatoon-based Cameco bought 49 per cent of Westinghouse out of Bankruptcy.
On Feb. 16, the Pipeline Online Podcast featured Carl Marcotte, senior vice-president, Marketing & Business Development at CANDU Energy, to discuss why Saskatchewan should consider buying the CANDU reactor.
There were a lot of significant points brought up in that podcast, which you can watch in its entirety above. Pipeline Online will be breaking out several stories from that podcast, starting with this one, about security of fuel supply.
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Fuel considerations
A key consideration between the two designs is the fuel that goes into it. While both of the leading contenders will almost assuredly use Saskatchewan-produced uranium, the CANDU is designed to use “natural uranium,” uranium that has been refined, but not enriched. The AP1000, and indeed all other reactor designs, require enriched uranium.
Here’s part of that exchange, edited slightly for clarity, explaining the CANDU design and its fuel supply:
Brian Zinchuk: What is the CANDU reactor?
Carl Marcotte: The CANDU, in a nutshell, what you see on your screen here on the left is the Darlington Station. It’s a four unit station about 50 kilometers east of downtown Toronto. And the picture on the right is Qinshan in China. That one was built in 2002-2003 and two CANDUs, slightly smaller each than the ones you see at Darlington.
Canada is one of the six countries in the world that has its own native nuclear technology that we build at home and sell overseas. So only six countries can do this. Canada was one of the early pioneers in nuclear.
As a matter of fact, our National Nuclear Laboratories up at Chalk River, Ontario, where actually the site was cleared and the first building put up in 1944. So we were right at the beginning, with the UK and the US, in developing the concepts for the nuclear technologies that we know today.
And the CANDU was a design that was first conceived in the late 50s and perfected through the 1960s and the first station was commissioned in 1971 in Toronto. And the idea is it uses pressurized heavy water, different than most other reactor types, and it gives us some really unique benefits and features.
So there were 31 of them commercially built around the world. Twenty-five of those are operating today, and they’re being refurbished to run a second 30-35 year period. These reactors are incredibly robust, continuously being updated with new modern features. And as I said, the ones in Toronto now are going through their midlife refurbishment to extend them out to 2065 or so. They provide about 50 per cent of Ontario’s total electricity needs currently, just as one example. So really robust and really top quartile, top performing reactors of the entire reactor fleet around the world.
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Bronwyn Eyre: Just to be super absolutely clear, so Darlington runs on CANDU technology? Is that correct?
Marcotte: Correct.
So Darlington is a four pack, so it’s four units that all have shared services. And then there’s eight units at Bruce Power, which is about three hours west of Toronto, and another four units at Pickering, which is actually in central Toronto, central north.
(Editor’s note: Pickering is technically just east of Toronto city limits)
Eyre: Just on CANDU generally. I know we had Dr. Chris Keefer on a few months ago, and you’ll know of him, nuclear advocate…
Marcotte: I know him well.
Eyre: … very knowledgeable on the sector and the technology and so on. I think it’s fair to say he’s a huge proponent of CANDU. And I think that part of the takeaway for me of talking to him, was that he feels CANDU is sort of the natural go-to and makes the most sense on many fronts. And I’m sure you’re biased, and will agree with that
Marcott: Absolutely.
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Eyre: But is it fair to say that it’s taking some convincing, and that CANDU … has a little bit of an upward struggle when it comes to convincing that it is the way forward for future power plants run on nuclear? Just if you could talk a little bit about the CANDU versus maybe the other types of technologies out there, and why there’s come to be maybe a bit of a competition between models.
Marcotte: And competition is a good thing. I actually think, Bronwyn, that it is absolutely the best technology for Canada. It always has been, because it takes advantage of some really unique features that provide us energy security and energy sovereignty, most importantly.
But I’ll dig into a couple of different aspects of it. It is probably the strongest ecosystem in the world. So, as I said, six countries have developed their own native nuclear technology, and they sell and build them at home, and they build them around the world. So, if you’re looking for a new nuclear reactor, you can go to the US, you can go to France, you can come here to Canada. You can go to Russia, China or Korea. That’s it. You’re going to be working with one of those six countries.
So 32 countries today are producing electricity from nuclear power, and four of those outside of Canada are producing them from CANDUs. So 32 countries altogether, and about 30 additional countries are credibly and seriously trying to join that nuclear club.
And the reason for that is there are really no other good sources of baseload, strong baseload, clean energy. Wind and solar are terrific, but they’re add-ons to most grids. They have very low capacity factors, as you probably know, I think you’ve reported before, Brian…
Zinchuk: A lot.
Marcotte: … and so nuclear, nuclear and hydro are your strong baseload.
There’s a few other things that kind of sort of count as strong, clean baseload. And if you want to avoid carbon emitting sources, you don’t have too many good baseload challenges outside of nuclear and hydro.
And so hydro is complex to build, has a huge environmental impact if you’re building it from scratch, and nuclear has a lot of other benefits.
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So these countries are all seeking to join the nuclear club. And every one of those 30 countries is coming here to Canada. For the last five years, it has been an incredible parade of countries, of ministers, of secretaries, energy secretaries and industries coming here to Toronto, to Darlington Station, in particular, to see firsthand with their own eyes why our CANDU ecosystem works so well in Canada. And they’ve been just blown away by it. So almost every week, there’s another delegation from somewhere in the world coming here, benchmarking on why Canada is so successful.
And if you think of Bruce Power and Darlington stations as good examples going through midlife refurbishment. There’s a reason the Government of Ontario chose that, and we’ve just completed the Darlington Station. It was a 14 year process from early planning to final completion. Just two weeks ago, the Minister of Energy here in Ontario announced that the project was four months under schedule and $150 million under budget. I mean, you think about a $13 billion project over 14 years, that’s a pretty impressive feat, and I’m not going to say that it was just because of us. We were the leading firm on that, of course, with our great partner in AECON and of course, OPG and their team, the three of us worked so well together.
But there’s 250 companies behind us in the supply chain, making it all happen, innovating, bringing the ideas of their employees forward every day to save time, save schedule. That great reaction, that great result in Darlington, was through COVID as well. So you can imagine hundreds of millions of additional costs just because of COVID that had to be somehow recouped, recovered in some other way, and that was all through the innovation of this industry. So it’s an incredibly powerful, profitable and innovative industry, and I think that’s really the key to the success.
The technology is great. Those scientists back in the 60s and 70s and their original designs did an amazing work, and it’s continuously improved and updated by the people today.
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Zinchuk: So you’re doing Pickering, as well, coming up for refurbishment?
Marcotte: That’s coming up right now.
Zinchuk: Where is Bruce in that?
Marcotte: Bruce has eight reactors at that site that you’re showing there. Two of them were refurbished some time back 15-20 years or so ago. So it’s going through major component replacement, MCR, they call it for six of the eight units. And they’re getting close to being halfway there. They’re starting to work on the third unit now of the six, and that’s a really important project about the same size as the Darlington project, also well on track and well on time, it will be a terrific success. We’re working on that with many partners, and Darlington was four units.
Zinchuk: The reason this is so important and apropos for Saskatchewan here is that you have a hot supply chain, working on this stuff, building the gizmos and the gadgets and the whatnots. And they’re doing this right now. They’re not starting from scratch.
Marcotte: That’s right.
Zinchuk: So all the parts for that to do these rebuilds are applicable in new build, then?
Marcotte: Correct.
All the components, all the services, all the engineering work, all the planning, all the updates to control systems. It’s all being built and planned and done, today, for the refurbishments. Because in the process of refurbishing, you’re basically pulling it all apart. You’re replacing all the major components. You’re replacing control systems, you’re updating, you’re upgrading. There’s probably 200 different design changes that happen in the course of upgrading it. And so you take advantage of being down for two-year period, three-year period as you rebuild the station to provide all to do all kinds of upgrades that the utilities are looking for.
So it’s really a brand new station by the time you’re done.
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Zinchuk: How did AtkinsRéalis become responsible for the CANDU reactor technology developed by AECL, and how did SNC Lavalin become AtkinsRéalis?
Marcotte: So long, long history to the nuclear industry in Canada.
As I said, it started going back to ’44. I actually worked at AECL as part of the last executive team running AECL prior to its current incarnation. And I spent three years at the labs at Chalk River, so I was steeped in the history of all of this. But essentially, the entire 250 company supply chain has been working all the way through since that period, since its first inception.
And the former SNC-Lavalin always had a nuclear division, always had a nuclear business, and was involved in all of these projects over the course of time, but usually as a small player, because, of course, AECL did the vast majority of the work as the OEM of the stations and the designer.
And we were lucky in 2010 into 2011, the then-SNC-Lavalin was able to acquire the commercial reactor division of Atomic Energy of Canada.
If you remember, back in ’08-‘09, there was a bit of an isotope crisis, medical isotope crisis in the country where the reactor at Chalk River went down unexpectedly, and it caused a great deal of embarrassment for Canada, because we were producing about three quarters of one particular medical imaging isotope. It was very important for the whole world. Three quarters of all the global supply was coming from that reactor at Chalk River.
And so it was a bit of an embarrassment and a bit of a wakeup call for the Government of Canada, and they had some issues with how AECL was being run in the day, and in its current incarnation. So they decided to make some changes and how the science half was done. And they decided to sell off the commercial reactor division, and this was in 2010. And then the transaction closed in 2011. So the then-SNC-Lavalin was able to acquire the commercial reactor division, which was about 1,500 employees based where I am today, in the very building I’m in today in Mississauga. And that was in the core of AECL commercial division.
Zinchuk: I mean, it was basically given away. It was only $15 million. I mean, that’s chump change.
Marcotte: Correct, factually, Brian, for sure. It was at a time when the industry was low. There was not a lot of opportunity. There was not a great expectation that the industry was going to build anything new again. We’d just come off of, you know, 10-15 years of a lot of building, and then a quiet period, and this is before Fukushima happened, as well.
But I would say that at the time, there was very, very minimal prospects, and the Government of Canada decided that it wasn’t an asset they wanted to keep, I think, inappropriately, quite frankly. But it was a competitive bid and tendering process, and we were the winner. So as you say, a very modest amount.
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Zinchuk: I have to ask you the big question: why should Saskatchewan buy the CANDU reactor versus another design like the Westinghouse AP1000?
Marcotte: So one thing we can dig into a little bit, is CANDU is specifically designed for the energy sovereignty of Canada.
And the original mandate that was given to the scientists back in the ’60s, they were told develop a reactor technology that where Canada can build all the components at home, and that uses natural uranium as its fuel. And that was really important, because Canada knew it was not going to have an enrichment capability. We had sworn off nuclear weapons, and what that really meant was we were going to swear off any kind of enrichment. There was no need for it. And so, the scientists designed a reactor that uses natural uranium; comes out of the ground in Saskatchewan, gets two basic levels of refinement, which I won’t go into the technical details, and really just gets put into the fuel bundle, just about as is, and goes into the reactor that way. And it’s a very unique process, and only the CANDU can do that.
And what that means is we have fuel safety, security and sovereignty. We have our own fuel supply. We don’t have to import fuel from anywhere else. We don’t have to count on anyone else to provide us that enrichment capability. And so, the CANDUs have a tremendous natural advantage. The supply chain is already all here, so you build a brand new CANDU in Canada, 92-93 per cent of it is going to be Canadian source goods and services. Right off the bat, the only thing Canada doesn’t make is the steam turbine, and you can only get those in Korea, France or the US. So you have to pick one of those countries as your as your turbine partner.
But everything else that goes into any new reactor like that is going to come from different sources, but in Canada, it all it’s all Canadian.
So it’s a great opportunity for economic development that comes with enhancing and moving the supply chain to different provinces, doing more in different provinces, and to have the security of having your fuel at home.
And then the last thing is, the CANDU have a unique side benefit, I might call it, is because of the nature of the reactor design and technology, we can produce huge quantities of medical isotopes day in, day out, while the reactor is running. So we have isotope production facilities built in as a bolt-on to the reactor without affecting how it generates power. And no other reactor type can do that. So it has some really unique benefits that are that’s really about saving lives as well, and enhancing the size of the isotope business in Canada.
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