Nuclear suppliers still hope for new Ontario reactors

Canada’s nuclear industry isn’t taking the province’s decision to scrap plans for two new reactors as final, says the spokesman for nuclear suppliers.

“I think the province will, in a year or two years time, once again open the file and look at new construction,” said Ron Oberth of the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries.

Oberth expressed the hope in an interview after speaking to the Toronto Star’s editorial board.

Energy minister Bob Chiarelli said earlier this month that Ontario won’t proceed with two new reactors at Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington nuclear station.

“It is not wise to spend billions and billions of dollars in new nuclear when that power is not needed,” Chiarelli said.

Over-all demand on Ontario’s power grid dropped 10 per cent from 2005 to 2012. (The figures don’t capture power supplied from some renewable energy projects).

But Oberth said he sees an increasing need for power to fuel a recovering economy in Ontario.

“Longer term the demand for power is increasing – not as quickly as we might like, but we don’t see anything in our province that’s going to lower the demand,” he said.

“And when I see the potential for the Ring of Fire, and the demand that’s going to come out of that, and with a rejuvenation of our manufacturing sector, hopefully we can start to grow that power sector again.”

(The Ring of Fire is a deposit of chromite and other minerals now being developed in northwestern Ontario.)

Oberth noted that along with higher demand, the province will see the shut-down of the Pickering nuclear station, which produces about 3,000 megawatts of power, at the end of this decade. That could sharpen the need for new supply, he argued.

The latest update of Ontario’s long term energy plan, due to be released soon, will contain the province’s demand projections, though predicting energy needs in the mid to long term has proven notoriously difficult.

Chiarelli has said that conservation and restraining demand for power will be the province’s priority, ahead of building new generators.

Oberth said that he was pleased Chiarelli indicated the province will likely refurbish 10 reactors at the Bruce and Darlington stations – projects that he said will cost $1billion to $1.5 billion per reactor.

“That’s going to provide a lot of jobs and a lot of opportunity for our members over the next 10 years,” he said.

Canadian nuclear companies are also looking for opportunities outside Canada, where Canadian-designed reactors need servicing, he said.

He noted that his association has changed its name: It used to be called the Organization of Candu Industries; it’s now the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries, in order to dispel the impression that its 180 members work only on Canadian-designed Candu reactors.

While Ontario questions the need for new reactors, Electricité de France will build Britain’s first nuclear reactors since 1995 after reaching a deal with the government on guaranteed prices for the power they’ll generate, Washington Post reports.

EDF, together with partners Areva SA and two Chinese nuclear companies, agreed to construct the plant at Hinkley Point in southwest England after the government offered a power price that’s almost double today’s market rate. The project will cost about 16 billion pounds ($26.6 billion) and take 10 years to build, the Paris-based company said in a statement.

Regulators have warned that the U.K. risks blackouts unless it speeds efforts to replace obsolete power plants.

“This decision could have a positive domino effect on the U.K. nuclear industry as an uncertainty that plagued the sector in recent years has finally been removed,” said George Borovas, head of international nuclear projects at law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittmann LLP. “Additional new-build projects are likely to follow.”

With files from Washington Post