Ontario wants to expand Bruce Power, Canada's first new large-scale nuclear build in 3 decades

Driven by clean energy goals and surging electricity demand, Ontario has announced it wants to add a third nuclear generating station to Bruce Power near Kincardine, which, if built, would be the first new large-scale nuclear plant construction in Canada in three decades. 

On Wednesday, Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith said the new construction would generate up to 4,800 megawatts, enough to power 4.8-million homes, nearly doubling the power plant's output. 

It would be located at Bruce Power's current facility on the rim of Lake Huron in Tiverton, Ont. The site currently has two generating stations with eight reactor units, but according to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, two reactors are currently being refurbished.  

Securing a third generating station at Bruce Power will be a lengthy process, one that may take a decade and require the province to clear a number of regulatory hurdles. Public input and consultations with nearby communities, including First Nations, are prerequisites for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's multi-stage licensing process.

Nuclear power has won new converts

With infamous accidents such as Three Mile Island, Chornobyl and Fukushima over the last five decades, nuclear power had earned a bad reputation.

But as nations look to slash emissions and de-carbonize their economies in preparation for climate change, nuclear energy has won over new converts, who see it as a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

"I don't think anyone would have seen this coming, certainly two or three years ago," said Dr. Chris Keefer, a Toronto emergency physician and the president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, a group that has long urged governments to build new CANDU reactors.

"Any investment in this technology leads to not only clean air, not only medical isotopes, not only climate action, but also really good things for Ontario working people."

Keefer, who began supporting nuclear power because of the nuclear isotopes used in medicine that are created as a byproduct of the energy-making process, said unlike the nuclear technology of other countries, Canada's CANDU reactors are known as some of the safest in the world. 

"We have, I think, the world's safest nuclear reactor," he said, adding the technology's passive safety systems rely on large amounts of water to keep the system cool for up to 12 days before energy officials must intervene.  

Canada doesn't have a perfect safety record

Despite having a solid international reputation, there have been a number of nuclear incidents involving Canadian reactors since the 1950s, including the world's first nuclear reactor accident in 1952, when an experimental reactor at Chalk River, Ont., experienced significant damage to its core caused by overheating fuel rods.

More recently, in the Greater Toronto Area, Darlington Nuclear Generating Station saw the release of 200,000 litres of water containing trace amounts of radioactive isotopes into Lake Ontario after workers accidentally filled the wrong tank with water in 2009. 

While potential safety issues are one thing, cost is another, according to critics like Jack Gibbons, the chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, an environmental group that doesn't see nuclear power as a viable solution for climate change. 

"The Bruce nuclear station is already the largest nuclear station in the world and it doesn't make any economic sense to make it bigger, since we've got much lower cost and cleaner and safer options to keep our lights on."

Gibbons said if Ontario's government really wanted to lower electricity costs, it would lift the moratorium on Great Lakes wind power the provincial government imposed by the then-Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty in 2011. 

"Great Lakes wind power could meet more than 100 per cent of our electricity needs at a much lower cost than a new nuclear reactor."

Gibbons adds that, if Ontario wants to do its part to help mitigate climate change, there are zero-emission options that are much less complicated. 

"A new nuclear reactor will take 10 to 15 years. We need to dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas pollution before 2030, and a new nuclear reactor can't do that, whereas wind and solar can be built in 12 months or less."

To build the plant, the province would need federal approvals. Smith, Ontario's energy minister, said Bruce Power would start community consultations on Wednesday and conduct an environmental assessment for federal approval to determine the feasibility of another nuclear plant.

The announcement is part of the province's wider "open for business" approach that casts itself as the supplier of jobs and opportunity into the future through the manufacturing of EV batteries, the mining of critical minerals in the north and reshaping the province's environmental safeguards to foster economic growth.