Cameco closed its purchase of 49% of nuclear reactor company Westinghouse. So if Saskatchewan chooses to build Westinghouse reactors, is that “buying local? even though those reactors were never designed here, nor were any of those parts made here, either?
Vertical integration, baby!
Gosh it’s like ‘buying local’ is just really stupid value destruction.
I don’t believe we’re on the eve of value destruction.
India didn’t buy local when it purchased CANDU reactor technology. It seems to have worked out for them.
Nobody will likely be able to buy moduler nuclear until the Laurentian Elite have corned the market. That’s the way Canada rolls.
For years it was stated that a 1000MW reactor would be too big for Saskatchewan. My understanding is that part of the problem is that if a single 1000MW nuclear unit went offline (regular maintenance or unscheduled shutdown) it would be difficult to find 1000MW of reserve power supply. Has something changed?
Anyway, I found this interesting:
“Cost to construct new AP1000 reactor in US based on MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) study: $6 billion to $8 billion (US), although it can vary significantly depending on in-country labour and construction productivity rates.”
If the federal government spent 10 billion per year building Alberta and Saskatchewan 1000MW nuclear plants, Canada would be closer to carbon free electricity system and there would be far less animosity between the prairies and the federal government. But,instead, the Trudeau Liberal-NDP government gave 32 billion in taxpayer dollars to EV plants in Ontario and Quebec. Or, the money for nuclear energy could have come from the billions given to other countries.
That argument used to apply, and currently does, but soon won’t. The most SaskPower has ever produced is 3910 megawatts. The federal government says the grid needs to expand by 2.5x. That’s 9775 MW. Call it 10,000 MW. So now, one 1,000 unit is 10% of the grid, not a third. And it would be the same proportion currently today – our biggest generators are 300 MW on a typical daily demand of 3000 MW.
I raised this with the SaskPower CEO about 2 months ago and he basically concurred.
Interesting. A 1000MW unit in either torquay or elbow would be a big employment bump for whichever town gets the build.
There is no such thing as carbon free electricity, period.
If Finland, Hungary, India, Turkey and other countries have contracted for Russian nuclear plants, and the US gets a lot if its nuclear fuel from Russia, perhaps someone should give Rosatom a call to see what they can offer.
A major component of the cost is dealing with banana (build anything near anywhere never again) regulations. These regs were demanded by the first ecofascists to delay and push costs into uneconomic heights. A review of these regs is a first priority. Anything beyond what is really required for safety should be pruned.
It will take 10 years to get permitting. Green jesus will make it longer if he is still around after the next election.