this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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Ontario set to begin construction of Canada's 1st mini nuclear power plant (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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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.

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[–] Daryl@lemmy.ca 19 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] toastmeister@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

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.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 20 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 24 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Our reactors have lower output than the typical 1-1.5GW of foreign designs though. CANDU are in the the 500-800MW range. It's why compared to CANDU, 300MW is significant.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Ah, I didn't realize the CANDU's were also manufactured at a factory unlike the bigger built in place ones.

I guess it's just about getting them even smaller at that point, and the SMRs take up less land space as well.

A SMR-300 (maybe not this one specifically) can be as small as 3 hectares.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I don't know if CANDUs have pre-made components, I was just talking about their output power. I don't know exactly why it's lower than other designs but I know there are some fundamental differences like CANDU burning unenriched uranium as opposed to almost all other designs. It also uses heavy water to make that possible compared to the rest. I assume the lower power output is related to these differences. Or it could be arbitrary. We need someone working on nukes at OPG or SNC-Lavalin to chime in. πŸ˜‚

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Oh sorry I googled CANDU to learn a bit more and saw that they were also made in a factory offsite.

I imagine that's at least one of the reasons why its lower capacity per reactor. It can only be so big if built offsite.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So we had SMRs all along? I smell a grift. πŸ˜‚

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

The CANDU still take a much larger space I guess due to the overall design. You can fit one of these SMRs in 10-15 acres.

[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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?

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 20 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] nik282000@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

A baseload power source’s most important quality isn’t constant output, it’s rapidly adaptable output.

A baseload supply shouldn't need to throttle up and down, it's the Base Load. The load that exists 24hrs a day.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well that's exactly the popular misconception. The constant part of the baseload is the demand, not the supply. The total supply should always match that of course, but given the variable makeup of the supply, where renewable power sources are simply cheapest and at peak moments will supply the full demand, any other source will have to be variable as well to economically compete. Otherwise it's just making energy needlessly expensive.

[–] nik282000@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Look at the demand and supply graphs for the 6 day period: https://www.ieso.ca/power-data

The lowest demand is about 12K MW, that is the base load, the load never goes below that. Nuclear and hydro cover that 12K MW constantly, and even hydro is throttles up and down to cover the some of the load that varies throughout the day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load

Power plants that do not change their power output quickly, such as some large coal or nuclear plants, are generally called baseload power plants.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 0 points 2 days ago

I know that nuclear and hydro can constantly cover it, the point is that when it's very sunny out countries with good solar adoption will already 100% cover it (if not more). The nuclear power at those times has to compete with cheaper solar power, which it loses on price. And because the grid can't handle more supply than demand, it requires shutting something off. The cheapest power is solar so you'd prefer to keep that on for economic reasons, but since nuclear is bad at scaling up and down you have to pick the more expensive option. This increases energy prices beyond what is really necessary.

This also becomes even less tenable as battery adoption increases.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Just buy batteries for the nuclear power plant as well. If you have to turn it off, you're making a mistake with our current tech.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Assuming you still need the nuclear power to fill those batteries that is. Given the rate of solar adoption, that might well become unnecessary.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Assuming all power was handled by a single entity and not various businesses, there's no point in building new solar (or any new capacity) when you can just build batteries for the existing nuclear plant that you have to shut down in the evening.

You should only build new power generation once you are able to drain the nuclear plants battery each day (or have the logistical planning to know when that will be the case anyway)

edit: made up numbers example: If a 300mw plant can power 300,000 homes but has to shut down in the overnight, that same plant with batteries can maybe power 400,000 homes.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 3 points 3 days ago

Except people will just purchase their own solar, because it's cheaper than getting nuclear power from a battery. They won't wait for demand to catch up, they'll make sure their own demand is fulfilled so they won't have to purchase power anymore.

It's a simple economic rule, if there's a cheaper option people wi shift towards it. You can't force people to purchase your power. You can't stop it unless you ban buying solar, which won't be received well.

Nuclear fills a rapidly shrinking niche in the power mix of tomorrow, and it's economics that's squeezing it out. There's no point in fighting that unless you want to pay more for power than is necessary (which nobody does).

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Why would you use the batteries for nuclear when solar is so much cheaper?

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

If there's any excess capacity (solar/wind/geothermal/nuclear/coal/natural gas), batteries extend it's usefulness and help manage any peaks better and can help you avoid building another generation facility for peak times. It also takes much less land than solar and with SMRs can in theory be brought much closer to population centers reducing transmission losses.

Edit: 300mw of solar would be between 1,500 and 3,000 acres of land. 300mw SMR could be as low as 10-20 acres.

[–] MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

In theory you can setup electricity intensive operations that can use extra energy and power down when supply is tight. Things like water desalination or hydrogen production. You have the problem of capital not being used but desal plants are often cycled off already.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago

Rooftop solar takes basically no extra space and it's hard to get even closer to population centers than that.

[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

300mw of solar would be between 1,500 and 3,000 acres of land. 300mw SMR could be as low as 10-20 acres.

In that context, it may still be better to plan for solar panels on all roofs in new developments.

Just taking one example of Whitby, Ontario, which only has a population of around 140,000. Using a quick and dirty measurement of the developed area from the waterfont to Taunton Rd., there's over 12,000 acres of area used up by mostly homes and other buildings (schools, retail, etc.).

You may not even need to have EVERY roof covered to meet the demands of a municipality like that. This makes it even more compelling because you have room to expand the capacity, if needed. And it still comes with the benefit of having multiple redundancies, being self-sustainable, offering residents free or extremely low-cost electricity (or even be paid to put energy back into the grid!), etc.

Anyway, this fantasy is unlikely to happen in Ontario. LOL

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

It might happens eventually for new builds at least... It just did in the UK!

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

All you need to counter the baseload though is a shit ton of batteries.

It's doable, but it greatly increases the cost vs just solar. Going that route would still be very competitive price wise when centralized.

Edit: And even the baseload of an SMR might want batteries if there isn't enough usage overnight, so they can use it during the day rather than building another SMR. So we want batteries regardless.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's still kinda comparable:

According to that analysis, providing a similar level of base power as the SMRs by building wind and solar power with battery energy storage would cost in the range of 13.5 to 18.4 cents per kWh

At the lower end of the estimate, at least.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

At the lower end of the estimate, at least.

That will probably change for batteries as well as we come up with cheaper options. Lithium Ion ones can be expensive, but don't take up much space, but when you want grid scale, space isn't as big an issue. I have a lot of hope for the new Sodium Ion batteries. They're much cheaper, they just take up more space. Very new tech though.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

All you need to counter the baseload though is a shit ton of batteries.

This is not presently a practical option. That's why it's almost never attempted. The best "batteries" we have right now are things like reservoirs with a pump and a dam.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Except it is happening now. It wasn't happening before.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It happens now in rarefied cases, but in general, it is not a practical option. It doesn't merely have to be physically possible, it has to be economically competitive.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

But it is competitive now, we've reached that point. It's not "rarefied" cases anymore.

Tesla just installed 37GWh of capacity in the past year and recently bumped their capacity to 80GWh, and they're just one company.

We're going to start seeing GWh scale batteries now from the likes of Tesla, CATL, BYD and others.

Edit: This is a 15.3 GWh contract - https://www.intersectpower.com/tesla-provides-intersect-power-with-15-3-gwh-of-megapacks-for-solar-storage-projects/

[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

For comparison, the energy we get from Niagara Falls is 2400 MW, so this (300 MW) is very significant.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

the energy we get from Niagara Falls is 2400 MW

Holy shit

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