In 1963, Prince Edward County made a serious bid to host a nuclear reactor.

“Facing directly on Lake Ontario, the Townships of Ameliasburg, Hillier, Hallowell, Athol, South Marys- burgh, in Prince Edward County…could all readily qualify to accommodate this type of utility,” argued M.P. Douglas Alkenbrack in a brief sent to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

Nothing came of this proposal, and, six decades later, as our Letters page in this and previous issues confirms, the County is again alight with debate about energy technologies.

The County has already narrowed down the kinds of en- ergy generation it will accommodate. Wind turbines are out: the 2021 Official Plan does not support them. It does support “compatible alternative energy development, including solar and bio-digesters.” Both of these forms demand more acreage than wind turbines, in ratios of 2:1 and 5:1, respectively, but solar is still an excellent option to pursue. Energy from bio-digesters emits three times the carbon of either wind or solar.

One thing the Official Plan does not mention at all is nuclear power.

As Ontario’s Energy Minister Todd Smith’s comments in this issue indicate, Ontario is on the way to becoming both a national and a world leader in nuclear power. It is developing an innovative industry in Small Modular Reactors (SMR).

The province endorses this technology as a “green” solution. Nuclear power was recognized for the first time as a zero- or low-emission technology at COP 28. Its huge plus is that it does not emit CO2 while generating terrific amounts of electricity.

It does create radioactive waste, which some countries have found ways of “recycling”—that is, using some of its remaining energy after it has served its purpose in a generator. Ultimately, however, such waste must be carefully stored and supervised for hundreds of thousands of years.

Just as with fossil fuels, the uranium that powers nuclear fission is not a renewable resource: there is a finite supply. One estimate is about 230 years worth. (This is not that different from the timeline for fossil fuels, which, beginning in the mid 1800s, are predicted to be exhausted this century.)

There is a pressing short-term need to stop emitting C02, though. Perhaps we are willing to sign off on a solution which we know will present problems for future generations, in order to save the present.

SMRs are both safer and more flexible than traditional large nuclear reactors in terms of where they can be installed. The original White Pines plan for 29 wind turbines, which would have produced approximately 60 megawatts, required 37 acres. An SMR can produce up to 300MW in half that space. A tradi- tional nuclear reactor can produce 1000-1600 MW, but requires about 640 acres to do that. Base31’s acreage is 750, for reference. There are also “micro” reactors that generate less power with even smaller footprints.

The “modular” in the title refers to the way that the reactors are manufactured: the idea is that, like a pre-fab house, they can be built at a factory and installed anywhere. This reduces the time and cost of building a reactor and universalizes the components. It also allows for scaling a reactor to specific sites, as modules can be added or taken away.

So far so good. But SMRs are a new and untested technology. Four SMRs are underway at Darlington, the only site in Canada authorized for new nuclear production. The project is over half- way through the ten-year timeline required to construct an SMR. OPG is still awaiting the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s License to Construct. Those reactors will not come online for another five years. At least.

Worldwide, the only SMRs in service are in China and Russia. Everywhere else, they are still in the research and development stage. In Canada, both the federal and provincial governments are pouring money into university-based research programs. One of the advantages of an SMR is supposed to be its universal design, but at least 80 different designs are in development around the globe.

At the moment, then, SMR tech is a speculative long-term investment detracting from funding for better-proven energy sources. It may pay out, but by the time we get to the test, we will have lost the opportunity to build out renewable power generating opportunities in wind and solar. Rather than do that, Ontario wants to build more gas plants while it waits for its SMRs to come online.

There are things to think about when it comes to going nuclear.

Mining. You can’t get away without it, whether your energy comes from lithium, cobalt, copper or coal. The uranium required by SMRs is of a very high grade: one of the pressing concerns around their international deployment is that the same grade of uranium powers nuclear weapons.

The environment. An indirect cost to any nuclear power generation is the need to isolate the waste from pretty much everything, pretty much forever. The local environmental im- pact includes intense water usage. Water is the most common method for cooling. That’s why SMRs are on lakes.

Scale. Traditional nuclear reactors produce huge amounts of power, which compensates for the capital costs involved. Four or five SMRs produce the power of a traditional reactor. Building four or five reactors to generate the same power doubles the cost. Nuclear energy is already more expensive than that of renewables (at least double). SMRs are 4x the cost of renew- ables in the shorter term. Bringing SMRs online will increase the cost of electricity.

There are always economies of scale. As has already happened with wind and solar, successful wide adoption brings down the cost. That also means that in the short term, at the very least, wind and solar are already much cheaper, never mind incalcu- lably faster to build and install.

Would you support an SMR in the County?

If not, what would you support?