Nuclear power in Canada
The Indian IPHWR-line is an indigenized derivative of the CANDU while only a small number of pressurized heavy water reactors were built independent of the CANDU-line, mainly Atucha nuclear power plant in Argentina.
The nuclear industry (as distinct from the uranium industry) in Canada dates back to 1942 when a joint British-Canadian laboratory, the Montreal Laboratory, was set up in Montreal, Quebec, under the administration of the National Research Council of Canada, to develop a design for a heavy-water nuclear reactor.
It operated for 43 years, producing radioisotopes, undertaking fuels and materials development work for CANDU reactors, and providing neutrons for physics experiments.
From 1967 to 1970, Canada also developed an experimental miniature nuclear reactor named SLOWPOKE (acronym for Safe LOW-POwer Kritical Experiment).
The 20 MWe NPD started operation in June 1962 and demonstrated the unique concepts of on-power refuelling using natural uranium fuel, and heavy water moderator and coolant.
The first full-scale CANDU reactor entered service on September 26, 1968, at Douglas Point on the shore of Lake Huron in Ontario.
[5] As most of the development of nuclear energy was taking place in Ontario, Quebec nationalists were eager to benefit from a promising technology.
Hydro-Quebec initially planned to build as many as 40 reactors in the province, but the government chose to pursue hydroelectric mega-projects instead (see the James Bay Project).
The same year, another reactor began operation at Point Lepreau, New Brunswick, a province longing to diversify its energy sources since the oil crisis of 1973.
[8] After criticism of Ontario Hydro plants management and a series of incidents,[9] on December 31, 1997, the four A reactors at Pickering and unit 1 at Bruce A were abruptly shut down.
Over 5 GW of Ontario's electric capacity was abruptly shut down, but at this point, the reactors were supposed to restart at six-month intervals starting in June 2000.
Because of delays with the Point Lepreau rebuild, and for economic reasons in a province with hydroelectricity surpluses, the plant was permanently shut down in December 2012.
[13] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) later conducted a review of the CNSC's response to the events at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and concluded that it was "prompt, robust and comprehensive, and is a good practice that should be used by other regulatory bodies".
[18] In September 2006, OPG applied for a licence to prepare its Darlington site for the construction of up to four new nuclear power units.
Energy Alberta Corporation announced August 27, 2007, that they had applied for a licence to build a new nuclear plant in Northern Alberta at Lac Cardinal (30 km west of the town of Peace River), for two ACR-1000 reactors going online in 2017 as steam and electricity sources for the energy-intensive oil sands extraction process, which uses natural gas.
[26] Three months after the announcement, the company was purchased by Bruce Power[27] who proposed expanding the plant to four units for a total 4 GWe.
[28] These plans were upset and Bruce withdrew its application for the Lac Cardinal in January 2009, proposing instead a new site 30 km north of Peace River.
[31] The Government of Saskatchewan was in talks with Hitachi Limited's Power Systems about building a small nuclear plant in the province involving a five-year study beginning in 2011.
[36] In March 2016, the Oakville, Ontario-based company Terrestrial Energy was awarded a $5.7 million grant by the Government of Canada to pursue development of its small IMSR Molten Salt Reactor.
This made the southern part of the province one of the most nuclearized areas in the world with 12 to 20 operating reactors at any given time since 1987 inside a 120-kilometre radius.
2,739 litres of coolant oil (terphenyl isomer) leaked, most of it into the Winnipeg River, and three fuel elements broke with some fission products being released.
[61] CANDU type reactors operating in Canada have the particularity of being able to use natural uranium as fuel because of their high neutron economy.
[67] This purer form of uranium is the raw material for the next stage of processing happening in Port Hope, Ontario.
[69] Like in the USA or Finland, the policy of Canada is not to reprocess spent nuclear fuel but to directly dispose of it for economic reasons.
OPG proposed to build a deep geological repository adjacent to the WWMF to serve as a long-term storage solution for about 200,000 m³ of this waste.
[73][74] As of June 2019, Canadian reactors had produced 2.9 million spent fuel bundles or around 52,000 tonnes of high-level waste, the second largest amount in the world behind the US.
[75] In 2005, the NWMO decided to build a deep repository dedicated to store the spent nuclear fuel underground.
The $24 billion price tag of this 500- to 1000-metre underground vault is to be paid by a trust fund backed by the nuclear production companies.
Greenpeace was founded in Vancouver by former Sierra Club members to protest nuclear weapons tests on Amchitka Island.
The Crown corporation, BC Hydro, upholds this principle by "rejecting consideration of nuclear power in implementing B.C.
