Tag: nuclear power

Poland is planning on 20, possibly more, SMRs of the same design SaskPower chose

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 20 Comments

I’ve been waiting to see a story come out about this for a while. A few weeks ago I saw that Poland may be building as many as 79 of the General Electric Hitachi BWRX-300 reactors, the exact same design chosen as SaskPower. This story indicated 20 at this point, but hints it could be more.

Ontario Power Generation is building the first one. Tennessee Valley Authority is building the second. Saskatchewan may have thought we were all that and a bag of chips by announcing four. But we won’t finish our second until around 2038. In the meantime, Poland might have built all 79 by that time.

We might have thought we’d be driving the bus on this SMR rollout. We’re not. In other words, the instruction manuals will likely be written in Polish. But it also means a lot of confidence is being expressed by the Poles in the design, if they build 20, or 79, or whatever.

As for how much uranium will go into these, I sat at a banquet a few weeks ago with some Cameco reps. They explained that SMRs actually use very little uranium. You fill them up at the start, and basically that’s it. That was very insightful, I thought, because that’s exactly how current US nuclear submarines (with small reactors) work.

We’re going to build nukes, but today, Germany is shutting its last three down

Climate Cult Historical Events 68 Comments

France is building new nuclear reactors. So is the UK, Czechia, Finland, Canada and the U.S., to name a few. I’ve even seen an article that Poland intends on building 79 small modular reactors that are the same design SaskPower has chosen. 79! And they want to do it by 2038. But Germany? They know better. They had shut down all of their numerous reactors except three, and today, those last three are done. But hey, they just bulldozed another village to burn coal.

Why don’t you fight for what we have, and what works?

Climate Cult Great Reset Insufferable Twits 35 Comments
Existing interconnect with US

‘Why don’t you fight for what we have, and what works?‘ SaskPower holds open house in Estevan on $1 billion interconnect with US, solar and nuclear. The crowd was not at all happy.

This is real in-depth on what’s going on. Among the gems- we’re going to build up to 3,000 megawatts of wind and solar in Saskatchewan, stuff that totally fails on a irregular but frequent basis, and NOT build an accompanying 3,000 megawatts of natural gas generation to back it up for days (nights) the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.

And a related story – did you know that the 650 megawatt power interconnect, the one that’s the same size as coal-fired Boundary Dam Power Station, and will carry carbon tax-free power from the US, will cost us a billion dollars? It turns out the NDP SaskPower critic did the math, and she was correct.

New Mexico doesn’t want spent nuclear fuel

Little Known Facts 19 Comments

There’s a lot of talk about nuclear these days, but not so much about what to do with the spent fuel. Both Canada and the US still haven’t built final, permanent repositories. And New Mexico, it turns out, doesn’t want to be home to one.

By the way, there’s still a lot of potential with spent fuel. It can be reprocessed and used again in special reactors. Some people don’t think it’s that big of a problem, because with reprocessing, you can use it again and again.

We would have needed a whole lot of those spinny things on Feb. 23

Climate Cult Insufferable Twits 21 Comments
Every single square mile in the yellow box would have needed 2 wind turbines to make up for coal and natural gas that day.

On Feb. 23, when wind power generation produced an average of 10 megawatts throughout the day, you would have needed two wind turbines covering every single square mile south of Gravelbourg, from the Alberta to Manitoba borders, to provide the same amount of power as natural gas and coal did that day. Or, you could have around 10 reactors.

What the minister has to say about the Sask First Act, and not freezing in the dark

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 39 Comments

Here’s a deep dive interview with the minister behind the Saskatchewan First Act.

“So let’s take let’s take the power thing first of all,” Eyre said, noting the proposed Clean Electricity Standard, if adopted in its current form, would mean no fossil fueled power generation in this province by 2035.
According to SaskPower’s Where Your Power Comes From website, on any given day, coal and natural gas combined provide 65 to 84 per cent of the power in Saskatchewan. On Nov. 6, it was 77 per cent.
Eyre said, “That’s a federal policy which we hope will never see the light of day, but which is moving along. We will freeze in the dark. And we know that. Saskatoon (is) powered by the Queen Elizabeth, a natural gas-powered power station. The entire City of Saskatoon (would be) in huge trouble.”

Moe’s Drawing the Line: releases white paper with profound impact on energy.

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 37 Comments

It’s 6 a.m. and after pulling an all-nighter I am finally finishing writing these three pieces. Huge impact on energy policy in Saskatchewan, affecting oil, coal, nukes, farming, fertilizer, even manure. Moe even mentions possibility of carbon capture on Shand. But feds want to kill off all fossil fuel power generation by 2035. On Oct. 9, 82% of Saskatchewan’s power came from coal or natural gas.

Part 1

Drawing the Line: Saskatchewan releases white paper defining how federal climate change regulation is choking this province

Part 2

From food and fuel to cow crap: How 9 federal climate change policies will suck Saskatchewan dry over the next 12 years

Part 3:

Brian Zinchuk: There’s only one word for all the greenhouse gas programs the feds have or will impose on Saskatchewan: strangulation

 

Nuclear power is Estevan’s to lose, if Saskatchewan goes ahead with small modular reactors

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 37 Comments

There’s a pretty obvious choice for where nuclear power development should go in Saskatchewan.

And it’s not Elbow.

On Sept. 20, SaskPower announced they were considering two areas as possible sites for Saskatchewan’s first two nuclear reactors. One is at Lake Diefenbaker, near Elbow, and the other is Estevan, with three nearby reservoirs under consideration.

When it comes to choosing between Estevan and Elbow for future nuclear power development, Estevan would have to try really hard to lose.

Really, really hard.

Remember when the NDP hated nuclear? Now that talk has changed

Uncategorized 39 Comments
Aleana Young

NDP SaskPower critic Aleana Young says small modular reactors can play a role in our energy future.

The New Democratic Party has a history of some of its MLAs being voraciously against nuclear power development. In particular, Peter Prebble, who was Corrections and Public Safety Minister from 2003-2006 under Premier Lorne Calvert, threatened to quit cabinet if the province did anything along those lines. In a 2005 CBC article, Prebble was quoted as saying, “I would have to step down from cabinet … in the theoretical event that cabinet was to endorse a reactor or a nuclear waste disposal facility.”

When asked what the current NDP stance was on nuclear power, Young said, “Technology changes, and times change. While I know people had strong opinions on that, I know people are going to have strong opinions today. While I’m not one of them, I know it’s important that we don’t dismiss people who have concerns and ask questions out of hand. But if the question is, for the Saskatchewan NDP, can SMRs play an important role in our energy future in Saskatchewan? Absolutely, they can.”

 

If Estevan is going to lose coal, it better focus on nuclear, says leading local advocate

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 13 Comments

Jim Wilson was one of the people who helped get carbon capture built in Estevan. If the province isn’t going to do more, he thinks Estevan should focus on nuclear.

One of the leading advocates for clean coal in Estevan says the community should turn to nuclear, now that SaskPower may not do more carbon capture

“I was very much involved in trying to get it built. I was proud of what we achieved. Everything was good. I remember hearing (Catherine) McKenna in Paris make the announcement,” he said, adding, “Carbon pricing and all that has changed our world.”

He said, “You know, their decisions were not science-based, or business-based. They were politically-based. They were clearly political. And that’s what (Morgan) answered to you. It’s sad for you and I, and the community that built the first clean coal facility of its type. And it was probably a transition solution more than anything, right?

“That’s the point: they’re ignoring this technology. And it works. And to my knowledge, and we’ve developed it and built the first.”

 

 

When it comes to shutting down coal in Saskatchewan, they need to just stand up and say, ‘No,’ says RM of Estevan Reeve Jason LeBlanc

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 6 Comments
Jason LeBlanc, now reeve of the RM of Estevan, speaking on Parliament Hill in 2019.

In PipelineOnline.ca’s continuing series on the apparent end of additional carbon capture implementation on this province’s coal-fired power plants, leading to the eventual death of the coal industry, today’s story is reaction from the reeve of the RM of Estevan, Jason LeBlanc.

When it comes to shutting down coal in Saskatchewan, they need to just stand up and say, ‘No,’ says RM of Estevan Reeve Jason LeBlanc

Back in 2019, before he became reeve of the Rural Municipality of Estevan No. 5, Jason LeBlanc was standing in deep snow on Parliament Hill, protesting the carbon tax imposed by the Liberal federal government. And now the largest industry in his RM will likely be largely shut down by the end of this decade, due to that government’s policies against coal-fired power.

And

“The government is knocking on our own people,” he said, speaking of Saskatchewan. “The government is who’s buying into this? And they need to just stand up and say, ‘No.’

“The pendulum always swings. Our ancestors looked for any way to heat the house and to do stuff. And they figured out a way, and it was coal.”

“Other parts of the world are starting to go back. They know it’s not sustainable. It can’t be done. And we have it here. It’s already producing,” he said.

 

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