Brian Zinchuk: How much might building SMRs cost Saskatchewan Hint: it’s not cheap.
This is a major piece talking about the costs that could be incurred building small modular reactors. Those costs could be unobtainable, which is why coal is back on the table in a big way.
The numbers come from the Tennessee Valley Authority, who already operate three nuclear plants and is the largest utility in the US. They plan on building the same model of reactor.
Also:
Moe proclaims pipeline projects “pre-approved,” Smith joins in.
I’m not sure how a provincial government can pre-approve something it has no regulatory power over.
Why the high price tag for SMR’s? Too many hands out for a piece of the pie?
No. The nature of all nuclear power is the same as hydraulic. Large up front costs to build, relatively small costs to operate and trivial fuel costs. This is true irrespective of the type of nuclear power station. If you build when interest rates are low, nuclear power can be very low cost.
This also depends on the amortization time. Ontario’s nuclear power plants were all completely amortized decades ago. They were financed on a plan of amortization of 20 years. Since they were all built 1972-1992, the capital construction cost has been long since paid off.
Provinces have the authority to approve pipelines within their borders.
Absolutely they do. But those magical borders are federal.
Saskatchewan, curiously, has for decades had an end-run around this when it comes to natural gas pipelines. Since we don’t want our domestic natural gas transmission utility – TransGas – or its parent – SaskEnergy – to be regulated by the federal government, SaskEnergy has a wholly-owned subsidiary named Many Islands Pipeline. https://www.miplcl.com/
It owns all the pipeline crossings between Saskatchewan and its neighbours. Each section is only a kilometre or two long. Once inside the province, there’s a valve and the pipe becomes wholly-Saskatchewan regulated TransGas.
None of this helps in getting something like an Energy East or Keystone XL built.
“None of this helps in getting something like an Energy East or Keystone XL built.”
Couldn’t other provinces (or the USA) do the same?
That way, the feds only have to approve little 1km pipes, and the rest is up to the provinces?
That’s true, but your statement suggests that provinces have no authority to approve pipelines….but they do. The concept of one province approving a pipeline to the border of another and then that province also approving the section within their boundaries looks like a good solution. Screw the feds.
It’s not. That one kilometre is regulated by the feds.
Why can’t a pipeline like Energy East loop down through the US and across to a consuming province? Higher cost yes but less hassle getting built.
Also, it wouldn’t have to cross the rugged Canadian Shield.
Still comes under fed jurisdiction at the border.
Drat.
Less hassle getting built?
It’s only easy for American pipelines going from American crude sources to American refineries.
But Canadian crude going through the U.S. It’s now a nonstarter. For example: Keystone. Is that finished yet?
Wisconsin and Michigan have been trying to shut down line 5 for ages.
Well, Trump’s Energy Emergency declaration may overcome that.
actually it could go through northern Quebec because the indians claim that land and the Laurentian elite would have no say
Could just ignore Ottawa too
No construction company will accept any sort of contract if it is contrary to any federal statutory or regulatory requirement. No financial institution will provide financing for any project in defiance of the above conditions.
All due respect, I agree no major pipeline construction company would do this, but given the go ahead by premiers there are a few companies I know that would love to do this.
Without a provincial financial sector, the feds would just freeze all the assets in any federally-regulated bank.
They might try.
The banks would NEVER do something like that!
I agree that this is indeed possible. But it comes after a host of other things. The very first action would likely be a court injunction bringing any construction activity at the site to a halt. The step you suggest could be done by the feds but only after a host of other measures such as court or regulatory actions failed.
Given the federal ramifications here, any company continuing to participate would find itself removed from any federal preferred suppliers list for anything. So no, no company would “love to do this”. No company ever willingly places itself in conflict with any government, particularly if this is a jurisdictional dispute.
Yeah, I’d be curious to see what happens if a pipeline starts getting put in the ground between AB and SK for example without CER/Trudeau approval. It would make for great optics provincially if he sent the RCmP in to shut down hoes and side booms laying pipe between two mutually agreed provinces. If he did nothing, even better, it would be a grand display of his impotence. Use the sovereignty act or some other made up thing to go ahead.
Smith and Moe should do this on principle even if they just build a 500m pipeline loop that circulates oil from one province to another and back again.
The move is political, meant to capitalize on the current discussion on interprovincial trade barriers. Trying to put heat on Quebec and BC for putting up roadblocks for projects outside of their jurisdiction.
It’s posturing and will amount to nothing.
L- Zinchuk wins the prize for Canadian Energy journalist of the year, maybe longer!!
Given we have 100s of years of supply of clean coal, and CO2 is good for the environment- I’d be guiding coal plants as quickly as China.
That would be my reply to the Feds. When China stops building them so will we.
I agree. But your problem of relying on coal is opposed by Carbon Tax Carney. China will simply point to the next Prime Minister and say, “talk to your own government.”
If your local dealer had to assemble a 2024 Ford expedition from retail parts, it would end up costing about 1,500,000 . This is true of the SMR as well – build these in a factory on an assembly line and truck the parts to the site and you can expect to drop the cost by a factor of about 10.
Of course, to create an assembly line product for these, you need to build an entire industry not one or two plants. So the recipe for success in nuclear is to have a partnership between provinces and build everything including fuel and transportation systems under a single regulatory umbrella, shielding the process from the federal government, and the enviro crazies
But that’s the whole point – the entire argument for SMRs is supposedly assembly line manufacture. And these are those numbers based on that assumption!
What’s also happening is that Ontario is building its own supply chain, TVA is talking about its own supply chain, and so has Saskatchewan. So the idea of one supply chain to rule them all appears to have flown out the window a long time ago.
Supply chain is only one aspect and not the most important. The major factor is modular construction. Assembly of components in a factory under controlled conditions allows much faster testing and verification of equipment than the old project management system of assembling a major system at the construction site. Modularization of nuclear assemblies into large packages that can then be lifted into position was done by Canadian nuclear industry for the first time at the Qinshan project completed in 2002. The result was 30 days ahead of schedule for Unit 1 and 100 days ahead for Unit 2.
Using modular assembly, quality control during construction is greatly simplified.
actually it could go through northern Quebec because the indians claim that land and the Laurentian elite would have no say
IMO Nuclear energy was the original boondoggle..
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Hatched in cold war propaganda.. A industry that writes its own checks.. Halfway out of the red and you need another expensive retrofit.. All in, you might as well burn paper money to create energy..
Over the life of a reactor, and the lower fuel costs, nuclear is competitive with coal and gas.
Brian’s numbers are pretty damning, but I’d like to see how it works out over the projected lifetime of the reactors vs coal/gas plants, in some kind of adjusted $/PW-hrs.
Fuel costs are generally lower for nuclear than fossil fuel.
Also, the construction costs cited here are pretty high, considering the old CANDUs were built for around 20-30% of the cost/Mw capacity in adjusted $.
Brian, Nukes will bring the most Progressive Woke mind virus
infected industry. Burn your Coal! Burn your Gas/Oil!!
You will be disappointed. They always overestimate the “Jobs”.
And Green Jobs are really Brown jobs.
Durka Durka
A lot of the costs built into Nuclear is for the environmental studies and safety protocols. When the nucs were first being built the envirofascists hit on the strategy of using regulations to price them out of feasibility. As a result much of the costs go into redundant redundancy where extended reporting and timelines drive costs up. A streamlining of regulations could address these costs without compromising safety or reliability. As a country we are rapidly regulating ourselves into paralysis.