SaskPower signed a “master services agreement” with Ontario Power Generation and its subsidiary, Laurentis Energy Partners, on Monday, to develop small modular reactors in Saskatchewan. The most likely site is about six miles from my house in Estevan.
Later this morning, there will be a press conference where Saskatchewan lays out its case against the Clean Electricity Regulations. Watch for extensive coverage from Pipeline Online.
Bad move. Ontario and Saskatchewan will not be in the same country within a few decades.
If that’s the case, it will not matter in the slightest.
You say decades, I would say years. And I’d hope for months.
Why is it that these power projects are never where they are used?
OPG is a Bloated inefficient Utility. My Condolences Saskatchewan.
They are layered with USELESS Middle Management.
You just guaranteed overspending and missed deadlines.
These Utilities are filled with Sociopaths. I have 27 yrs in Nukes all over the world. OPG is the last people to put in charge of ANYTHING. OPG is a WOKE disaster. The Gay Sex Flag flies at the front of their property.
These are Unserious people. I bet a 27 yr old”Engineer” will lead them. They are that stupid.
Interesting perspective, since the most likely location is six miles from my house.
Upwind or down?
Also, it seems SNC-Lavalin (name changing to ATKINSRÉALIS, due to shaming) is involved in a lot of the construction and refurbishment of nuclear plants and the construction of battery/storage factories as well.. Cant escape the grift it seems, as soon as any potential to make money pops up, the cronies are all over it!
I hope the SaskPower folks take some time and do a little research on the failed US nuclear plants, particularly the ones that broke ground and were almost completed, but never operated. Like Midlands in MI, where their QC did not document the civil construction adequately, and the NRC was concerned about basic details like was all the rebar actually installed?
And Shoreham on Long Island NY. They actually got to low power testing before the plug was pulled. So they contaminated the entire reactor coolant system, really complicating decommissioning.
Then there are the two new Vogtle units too.
I want to see SaskPower succeed, and not repeating mistakes of others makes success more likely.
I have a large lot in Vonda. You’re welcome to park a reactor here. I want 200 amp service into my garage, though.
I am just as suspicious of this emphasis on small modular reactors as I was of the move to mRNA platforms for vaccines. This is an unproven, “pie in the sky” technology with some serious issues to deal with once the initial fuel load is exhausted.
What about the American Navy?
It’s a promising technology on paper. It could well turn out to be unfeasible from a practical engineering standpoint and small reactors in subs and aircraft carriers have very different operating and safety requirements from a land-based reactor close enough to consumers to be useful. I don’t want to see my tax dollars go down another grift-lined rathole, but the government can certainly improve things by getting the hell out of the way and jettisoning some of the 1980s Soviet agitprop safety regulations around nuclear power and let the SMR developers have an honest go at making a marketable solution.
Nuclear subs, nuclear aircraft carriers, it is not pie in the sky it has been used in those capacities for some time now.
People clutching their pearls because of the fact that SNC Lavalin and Ontario have all the expertise in nuclear power generation.
Stick a fork in us.