BONUS | Where Should Canada’s Nuclear Energy Go From Here? | Toronto Climate Week

Ed's new project, Critical Mass, starts with a deceptively simple question: if Canada decides it wants more nuclear power, can it actually deliver it? The answer turns out to be complicated.

As part of the project, we're hosting four live town halls across the country. The first was recorded at Toronto Climate Week on June 5, featuring Todd Smith (former Ontario Minister of Energy, now VP at Candu Energy) and Brendan Frank (VP of Policy at Clean Prosperity). Together they work through the project's core tensions - cost, democratic legitimacy, and standardization - with the kind of honest talk you've come to expect from EvC.

Thank you to Geoff Burt and The Consecon Foundation for helping make the evening possible. 

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[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Ed Whittingham and you're listening to Energy Versus Climate. Today's episode is a little different. Over the past few months, my team and I have been working on a new project called Critical Mass, an Exploration of Nuclear Power's Prospects in Canada. Through interviews with experts in Canada, China, the United States and elsewhere, we've been examining a deceptively simple question.

[00:00:23] If Canada decides it wants more nuclear power, can it actually deliver it? As part of that project, we're hosting a series of four live town halls across the country. This episode was recorded live at Toronto Climate Week on June 5th, and is the first of those events. It features two guests with very different vantage points on Canada's nuclear future.

[00:00:44] Todd Smith, former Ontario Minister of Energy, and now Vice President at Candu Energy, and Brendan Frank, vice President of Policy and Clean Prosperity. The discussion explores three themes that emerge repeatedly in our interviews, the challenge of building nuclear [00:01:00] affordably, the tension between speed and democratic legitimacy, and whether standardisation is important or not to nuclear's long-term prospects in Canada.

[00:01:09] And hey, unfortunately we had some audio issues, so you'll notice some minor patchwork throughout, unfortunately par for the course when you record live. So without any further ado, here's the show. Hi everyone, I'm Ed Winningham. Welcome to, uh, tonight's, uh, interesting event. I hope it's gonna be interesting, critical mass.

[00:01:29] We are looking at the future of nuclear energy in Canada, uh, and since, uh, we announced this project and this evening I've had two dominant questions. One of them is, why do something from four to 6:00 PM on a Friday? But all of you here are evidence that it actually isn't a bad slot. So thank you very much for starting your weekend with us.

[00:01:49] What could be a better way to start your weekend? And the other question is, why Ed? You know, this grizzled, uh, longtime climate activist or advocate and I was actually literally [00:02:00] called grizzled, uh, two days ago, and I thought, I've hit that stage in my career. Uh, why are you looking and poking into nuclear energy?

[00:02:07] And, uh, by way of background, uh, I was at the Emin Institute for a number of years. I was executive director there, and at that time when I was there, I was actually quite critical of nuclear energy. So it's long lead time technology, it's capital intensive. The waste is this difficult problem if not intractable needs state or country level insurance.

[00:02:27] And uh, you know, it always kind of reminded me of the old adage that building nuclear in Canada's like high school students and sex. Why we talk about it a lot more than we actually do it, and those who are doing it aren't doing it very well. But I came to have a different opinion and partly it was being exposed to Ontario, um, and looking at the long track record of, of, uh, on nuclear power in Ontario providing base load power and at any given time up to 50%.

[00:02:56] Um, and also I looked at it and said, well, kind of three things [00:03:00] have changed, and this is in the last few years. One is that we are just going to need a lot more electricity. Demand is going up. As we're looking to electrify mobility and heat and our modern industrial economy, we're gonna need a lot more electricity.

[00:03:14] And that means, uh, not just doubling demand, but that means we need to increase capacity by two or threefold, and we need to build it a lot faster. We need to build it sort of three to six times faster than what we've done in the previous decade. And we need that electricity. It's gotta be low carbon as well.

[00:03:32] And, uh, you know, I'm a big proponent of, uh, solar and wind and coupled with batteries, I've spent a good chunk of my career working on it. We still don't have a modern industrialised economy that runs solely on that. So we're looking at something that's in the mix. And so farka mine cycle natural gas with carbon capture and storage has sort of virtually been a failure to launch.

[00:03:53] So we need that low carbon electricity to come from somewhere. So two, I kinda looked at nuclear is having this moment in [00:04:00] Canada and you know, I'm, I'm old enough in my career that I've been through my third nuclear renaissance. You know, I'm not sure, uh, Todd, how many you've been through, but this is my, my third.

[00:04:10] So we've seen this story before, but I don't think we've ever seen the level of federal support that we have right now. And it seems that this federal government is very serious about nuclear energy, nuclear power. Uh, it's built, its, uh, into its Canada Strong fund. It's got the major projects office that is looking at how to streamline approvals.

[00:04:30] It's got a nuclear forthcoming nuclear energy strategy and it's got things like investment tax credits, it's clean electricity investment tax credit, the clean tech investment tax credit, which puts billions of potential tax credits on the table to build nuclear in Canada. So that's the second one. And then we've seen, um, different seen China, which is building nuclear at the rate of knots.

[00:04:54] Kind of do innovative things around cost and around timelines unlike what we've seen before. [00:05:00] And then here, uh, closer to home, we've seen the successful refurbishment of Darlington. Uh, and it came in on time on budget. So we've been able to pull it off in a way and demonstrate with Darlington refurbishment that we can actually do large, complex nuclear projects and deliver them on time.

[00:05:18] So I decided that through my podcasting platform and through what I like to do, which is hosting sort of public events and group discussions, uh, that I would try to add to the discussion on nuclear power in Canada. And that's what you're experiencing, that's what you're coming to be part of tonight. So we've got this series, it's a podcast series.

[00:05:37] Uh, we've got town halls for them around the country. This is the first one here, and I call it the bread basket of, uh, nuclear power in Canada, where nuclear power is just part of the picture. Uh, we're gonna do another in New Brunswick and then we're gonna do one in each of the two provinces that I think are seriously considering power, nuclear power.

[00:05:56] And that's Saskatchewan in Albert. So you're here for [00:06:00] the first town hall and we really want you to be part of it and we're gonna do it in a little bit of a different way. Uh, it's not just your usual talking heads panel. And I will introduce these two wonderful talking heads in a second who will join me.

[00:06:12] But we're also gonna take from the series that we've done, we've done a series of interviews with a bunch of interesting experts on nuclear power here in Canada and abroad. And we're gonna play some of them, clip their clips and we're gonna get our, uh, our panellists, our theme panellists to react to them.

[00:06:28] So we're gonna work off of three themes. Um, and these are themes that we drew from our interviews. So the first one is the cost paradox, and that's learning curves. We'll talk about unlearning curves and the price of firm power. The second one is democracy's dilemma, and that is the system working as designed, but is that actually compatible with building nuclear to scale and in a timeline that we need.

[00:06:53] And the third is the standardisation paradox. I call it the Candu. We forgot [00:07:00] because uh, other countries are showing the way to move forward as standardising reactor models. And now I will get to our highly esteemed panellists. So first we have the honourable Todd Smith. I'm sure you recognise him. Uh, he was, uh, uh, in politics, public life for 10 years.

[00:07:17] He held a number of ministerial portfolios, including critically. For tonight he was Minister of Energy from 2021 to 2024, and now he is serving as vice president of marketing and business development at Candu Energy. And there he leads the, uh, the global promotion deployment of Canadian owned Canadian Tech Candu.

[00:07:39] Uh, so let's hear it for Todd Smith. Thank you.

[00:07:45] And we also have Brendan Frank. So Brendan is Vice President of Policy at Clean Prosperity, which is a terrific think tank. Uh, check them out. They produce incredible work. Uh, he spent over a decade shaping energy [00:08:00] policy. He started his career in the energy sector in Alberta where I live, and he's been a regular commentator on nuclear power and is published in The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star and other fine publications.

[00:08:11] So welcome Brendan.

[00:08:16] And as I say, it's not just the two of them. We're gonna bring in voices from afar through the magic of technology. So you're gonna hear, um, some of the people that we talk to as part of this series. Okay. I'm gonna move from this podium. I'm gonna sit down with these, uh, these panellists and we'll take it away.

[00:08:33] Okay, gentlemen. Let's, uh, let's unpack the first theme we talked about, and that's the cost paradox, learning curves, and the price of firm power. So the problem with nuclear to date has been, it doesn't, it hasn't gone through a learning curve. It's gone through an unlearning curve. And the unlearning curve is each successive project is more expensive.

[00:08:57] Not less expensive. And it's almost [00:09:00] like nuclear looked at Moore's law and said, I'm gonna do the opposite of that. So fine with everyone we talk to. Like that's the biggest limitation to trying to build new power, is that cost and will it actually come down and can we manage it? So, uh, we had to show with energy versus climate, uh, with Jason Donev, the University of Calgary, and one of my co-host David Keith, who some of you might know, had this provocative thing to say, take it away, clip number one.

[00:09:28] The costs are frankly a joke. A fair way to summarise it is in the western world at least, we just do not know how to build reactors at a cost is not a joke. People were building reactors at a reasonable price in kind of $2,500 a kilowatt in current terms back in the day, but we've completely forgotten how to do that.

[00:09:45] So the actual cost of the completions in the western world are, you know, well over 10,000, uh, of course $20,000 a kw, which is just a joke and nobody can really say clearly what fix would [00:10:00] be needed to change that. So I want to go first to Todd as former energy minister of Ontario. So you heard David's critique right now, his, his provocation.

[00:10:12] What gives you the confidence that, and as minister, what gave confidence that Ontario could break that unlearning curve problem? You touched on it right off, uh, the top in your opening remarks, ed, when you talked about the Darlington refurbishment project. And I understand that, uh, refurbishing a nuclear reactor isn't exactly the same as building a greenfield reactor, a brand new reactor, uh, but it's very much the same.

[00:10:37] Uh, you're pulling essentially everything out of the reactor housing and then rebuilding the reactor, uh, from the inside. Uh, so it's a massive, massive project. In the case of Darlington, it was a $13 billion project. You are gonna get another, uh, 35 years out of the Darlington reactor is at about the cost, 20% the cost of building brand new [00:11:00] reactors.

[00:11:00] So it makes a lot of sense from a dollars and cents perspective. You know, there's a, a report or a a, a paper that was written by a Oxford University and it's called the Unicorn of a Nuclear Project. And, uh, it talks about Darlington and it interviews the folks that were working on the Darlington Project for OPG.

[00:11:18] And that includes a lot of my colleagues now at uh, Candu Nuclear who, um, were involved in planning for that project. And then. You know, finishing the project, which was a multi-year, multi-billion dollar project, as I mentioned. I think over the course of that project, um, you know, the fleet approach, which you also mentioned off the top is, is a big part of it.

[00:11:38] You're doing the same thing over and over and over, uh, which gives you that repeatability, which gives you the history, recent history of, of improving on those projects each and every time. So each time we did a unit, uh, it came in ahead of the previous unit and under the budget that had been set, uh, for those, uh, nuclear [00:12:00] refurbishment projects.

[00:12:00] So that was a big part of, uh, what gave me the, the comfort, uh, to move forward. You know, there also is the Candu history internationally, uh, which is something that I talk about a lot now in my current role with Candu selling internationally in different places where they have to get rid of coal-fired power plants.

[00:12:19] Uh, in places like the Asan region, for instance, uh, 53% of the world's global emissions are coming from those countries down in Southeast Asia. The, the projects that we built with Candu back in the nineties and early two thousands, uh, all came in on time and on budget, whether it was in China or Korea or other parts of, uh, of that international build out.

[00:12:43] Uh, those projects also came in on time. Now that was over 20 years ago, so we haven't built a new plant since 2007 in Romania, but we have the history of, and the repeatability of the major component replacements at Bruce Power, but also the re referment, uh, at OPG and then, [00:13:00] uh, in Alse in Argentina has been refurbished as well, which were, uh, learning experiences.

[00:13:05] And I think that's what gives us the confidence going forward that in this new nuclear renaissance Candu anyway, uh, can be there to ensure that, uh, we complete these projects on time and on budget. Great. And I, and I do our third theme, I want to get to that repe repeatability aspect because I think it's critical and we're seeing other countries really honing in on that, but Brendan, so Clean Prosperity commission, some polling results to look at the attitudes of Canadians, uh, relative to nuclear.

[00:13:34] And I'd love for you to hit upon those poll results, but you know the implications as well. Their tolerance, which we'll test here, their tolerance for cost overruns on nuclear. For sure. So we commissioned some polling from Legge last year looking at Canadian attitudes towards nuclear. We asked a binary question, which of the two is closer to your view?

[00:13:56] Is nuclear a potential solution to Canada's climate and energy challenges, [00:14:00] or is nuclear a false solution to Canada's climate and energy challenges, or, I don't know, about half. A little over half of Canadians said that nuclear can be a solution to Canada's energy and climate challenges. About one in five or 20% said it's a false solution.

[00:14:16] 30% don't know. In other words, about 80% of Canadians are at least open to nuclear power. That support collapses the moment you introduce cost as a trade off. When we ask people if they were willing to tolerate 10% increases in their electricity prices, if it meant building nuclear, only 5% of Canadians said yes.

[00:14:36] And I think that really makes really stark how not only the nuclear build out that we are contemplating, but also just electrification. Electrification in general. Needs to be affordable to maintain public support. Hmm. And especially in this political climate right now. And I've just spent a lot, a lot of time in Ottawa last week.

[00:14:53] And yeah, affordability is top of mind for any retail politician out there, like what you would do knocking on doors. Yeah. Yeah, [00:15:00] for sure. And, uh, and, and quite honestly, elections are won and lost on, uh, energy policy and electricity rates often. Uh, I've been in a few of those elections, fortunately for me on the winning side of those elections.

[00:15:12] But obviously it's top of mind. When it's top of mind. People are very concerned about it because it's the electricity bill that comes in the mail, or I guess via email now, uh, for a lot of people every month that they see and can understand, uh, what, what the cost inputs are. I was in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago at the, uh, natural Resources Committee, uh, meeting, talking about, um, you know, the energy policy that's coming out of Ottawa these days.

[00:15:35] And, and, and specifically there obviously in my role as, um, as, as, uh, a business development VP for Candu. But, uh, but the conversation with MPS turned a lot to the cost, uh, of electricity compared to renewables. And I believe it was a blocky be quois member who was actually asking the question, well, why would we build nuclear plants if we can build, um, you know, renewable for so much [00:16:00] cheaper?

[00:16:00] And, and, and that's a very fair question, and it gets asked all the time. I think we need to do both actually. We need to build cheap energy, but we also need to build valuable capacity. And the capacity is so important to running an efficient system. It's one of the things that I learned during my time at the Ministry of Energy here in Ontario and working with the folks at the independent electricity system operator.

[00:16:22] You have to have both. And you can't compare both, right? Because they're very, very different. They're apples and their oranges. Uh, you know, energy is one thing, but capacity is an an entirely different thing and has its own value that's very important to running an efficient grid. So, you know, often when we talk about renewables, um, they're obviously intermittent, the capacity factor can be anywhere from 15 to to 35%.

[00:16:47] Uh, where with nuclear plants, you're getting anywhere from 90 to 94% capacity. And, uh, and it's that firm base load that's so important, especially, you know, globally. And we've done it here in [00:17:00] Ontario already where we've phased out coal, but there are so many places around the world that are looking to phase out their coal-fired plants.

[00:17:05] And you can't do it with wind and solar. You have to have base load power replace the base load power. Um, so it's, it's, it's a, it's a very fair question and conversation point, but when you're comparing renewables, you kind of have to repair renewables and storage and transmission and grid stability.

[00:17:28] With nuclear that provides all of those things. And I know here in the audience I see a bunch of people are probably biting lips. I do want you to know we will get to q and a, so you will be able to have, uh, get up and, and challenge your speakers. We encourage that. Challenge me, say what you think. And I will say, you know, it's interesting you mentioned Quebec because Quebec is one place, a decommissioned nuclear that had a unit, took it outta service.

[00:17:50] And particularly because they're spooked by the possible cost of refurbishment. And so we've got the Darlington example, we have Pickering coming up. You know, when you look at the amount of power that's gonna come from, [00:18:00] from Pickering, and obviously there's the experience from Darlington that's gonna transfer into Pickering.

[00:18:04] The ideas that we'll be able to replace that base load power that's gonna come offline, uh, you know, in the, well it's coming offline now, uh, to be replaced, uh, for the long term, another 30 to 35 years. Yeah. Um, Brendan, I wanna turn to you because there's a, uh, a unit in the us, uh, vul that actually drove electricity up by 10% or more in that cratered public opinion.

[00:18:28] Public support sure did. So just by way of context, the US has about 94 active reactors online right now, and no five are alike. The fleet based approach that Canada took the US went the opposite way and their costs spiralled as a result. That continued with vul, uh, the utility in Georgia. Georgia Power advanced this project in 2007, 2008.

[00:18:52] Uh, it ended up taking almost 20 years to bring those two reactors online. And I would say the project is, let's say a caution [00:19:00] cautionary tale on governance, on financing and on accountability. Many points of failure at Vogel. The initial reactor cost or project cost was about 14 billion. Ended up at about 35 us.

[00:19:11] So about 50 billion Canadian. And that's, uh, as David noted in his, his comments, that gets you into about the $25 per watt category, which is just exorbitant and, um, not, uh, not viable in, in the long run. Um, I think the real failure with Vogel was that Georgia power, the utility had a cost recovery model called construction work in progress, where basically they were able to bill a rate payers as they went and as projects started to bump into labour issues, supply issues, um, et cetera.

[00:19:45] They were able to just bill, uh, ray payers as as they went. And it ended up putting tremendous stress on Westinghouse, the technology owner, and on all the vendors who had no exposure to those cost overruns and therefore had no incentive to deliver on [00:20:00] time and on budget. So I think there's a great deal.

[00:20:02] We can, we can learn from Vogel. Um, and I think there's, uh, yeah, good, good reasons to, uh, to avoid that model here in Canada. Great. Well, I want to talk about the Darlington SMR, uh, project. That's, uh, the, the BWRX 300, the world's first SMR and all eyes are on it, but I don't wanna talk about it. I want, uh, Sara to talk about whether it's gonna break the, uh, unlearning curve problem or not.

[00:20:26] There's a 

[00:20:26] lot of talk, I think about SMRs or this new solution. It's gonna be so great because we can build lots of them and we can get the same kind of learning curve we've seen for solar. And Jason, you already, you know, answered this by saying that we need to build out about three times the amount of nuclear that we have today in order to, you know, decarbonize.

[00:20:42] The whole magic of the learning curve is like orders of magnitude, not factors of three. And so the idea that we're going to see, you know, any amount of real cost reduction from some kind of scale up of nuclear in, you know, again, let's talk about, say the [00:21:00] US and Canada, or even throw Europe in there. I think that is just completely false.

[00:21:06] So let's talk about that to achieve, you know, economies of scale and actually break that unlearning curve. I would say that the odds of, I'm guessing of the Darlington SMR project going over budget are the same odds of the maple leaves not winning the Snailing cup at the beginning of any season. Oh, come on.

[00:21:28] Case in point this season. Sorry, I, that was, uh, that was unnecessary and gratuitous. Uh, I'm not from Toronto in case, uh, case you're wondering, but, you know, Ontario's making a very calculated risk that the BW Rx reactor is sort of the reactor of the future. And if they can nail this and deliver it on time, on cost, then the order book's gonna fill up.

[00:21:51] The problem is it's often not the first one, it's the second one where you nail the on time on cost part. And I will say the [00:22:00] timeline that they've proposed that OPG is blindingly fast. It's like four and a half years. And, uh, uh, Matt McLaren, Matt, Matt McLaren had a, a great piece in the Globe Mail about it yesterday.

[00:22:12] Todd, what do you think about it? I didn't see the article, but, uh, you know, clearly OPG has made its bet on the BWRX 300 from GV Hitachi, and, um, you know, this is the first small modular reactor in construction in the western world. Uh, there are other SMRs that are, uh, currently online, um, in China and Russia.

[00:22:33] Um, but, but this is the first one in the G seven and, uh, and certainly, uh, it is a first of a kind even though, um, when it was selected, uh, by OPG as the technology of choice, uh, it was supposed to be the closest to something that has been around for a long time, which is a boiling water reactor, which has been in existence.

[00:22:51] This is a scaled down version, a 300 megawatt reactor. Um, you know, like any first of a kind project, there are some growth [00:23:00] challenges, um, and, and construction challenges that are going on. The idea is that if you build four of these, um, unlike what our, uh, commentator said, um, you know, you will have the repeatability, you will have the lessons learned.

[00:23:12] And I think again, we've evidenced, uh, that in the small mod or in the, um, sorry, the, uh, refurbishments that we've done at Darlington. And keeping in mind that the same crews that are working on the SMR project in many cases are the same crews that are working on, uh, the SMR project right next door at Darlington.

[00:23:30] So, um, you know, the proof will be in the pudding, obviously. Um, you know, there have been a few challenges with the project. Originally it was supposed to be online in 2029, I believe now that's been pushed to 2030. Um, but, uh, OPG, Atkins Realis, a lot of my colleagues are working on that project along with the folks from, uh, GV Hitachi as well, to make sure that's a success.

[00:23:52] A lot of places around the world. And I'm constantly circling the globe in my new role selling Cando. Um, but they're [00:24:00] asking us about the BWRX because they know it's being built in Canada. It's American technology, but it's being built in Canada and, and they're looking for updates on this project. So, you know, Ontario wanted to be sort of in this spotlight when it comes to nuclear.

[00:24:15] I believe what it's done is, uh, it's opened the conversation not just for small modular reactors, but it's also reopened the conversation for new Candu and new large conventional nuclear around the world too, just because of the scale that's necessary when it comes to decarbonize many of the places that, uh, that I've been visiting over the last couple years.

[00:24:34] Yeah, and one of the things that really caught my attention early on is going back to a hockey note, watching hockey night in Canada and seeing the ads protect Ontario and you know, Rob Ford. And there's more than one of them. There's quite a few of those. There's quite a few of them, but the one that actually champions who nuclear power, we're building nuclear power and then we can take that knowhow and export it to the rest of the world.

[00:24:52] And of course, where I come from in oil and gas land, that's what we think about oil and gas development. What are your thoughts, Brendan? So I think Sara's [00:25:00] broadly correct that we wouldn't expect SMRs or reactors of any kind to descend the learning curve the way that wind or solar or batteries have wind, solar, and batteries are following Wright's law, which means every doubling of global capacity.

[00:25:14] You tend to see 20 to 22% cost reductions because of their scale. Fewer doubling times with reactors, we're not gonna see 90%, 95% cost declines, but we may see 30% cost declines. We may see 50% cost declines. The VGO projects, even though it was a bit of a disaster, the second reactor was 30% cheaper than the first OPG is estimating that the third of kind SMR at Darlington will cost something like 60% of the first of kind.

[00:25:41] And if we can achieve that learning curve, if the BWRX is three or 4 billion rather than 8 billion, once we get to fourth or fifth of a kind, then I think we actually have something that is a viable model to move forward with. Cool. Let's try our first audience poll question. Uh, so let's just do a quick little, quick show of hands.[00:26:00] 

[00:26:00] Will Ontario build the first, uh, BWRX 300 on time and on budget? Those who think yes. Great. Can, can you show up and show everyone your, your, your shirts please? 'cause it is wonderful. 

[00:26:12] It's a little cynical, but I don't mean it. 

[00:26:14] Yeah, you can't 

[00:26:15] trust an Adam. They make up everything. 

[00:26:18] Yeah. I think that's beautiful.

[00:26:20] I, I I think if you were gonna make a t-shirt up, you put, never trust an adam because they're always splitting on you. That would work as well, right? Yeah, yeah. The jokes are coming thick and fast. All right, so let's hear though. Let's see. Hands on the, no. Okay. And then the depends. Okay. A few people hedging and I'd see it doesn't matter, like maybe going back to your poll results, if it doesn't come in on time, on budget, what are the implications for Ontario repairs?

[00:26:49] Like will that then destroy licence to build out the three reactors or is that a feta accompli? Is it gonna happen regardless? I mean, it depends how over budget and how [00:27:00] delayed, right? If it's 2030 run rather than 2030, then I don't think we really have a problem. If it's 20 33, 20, 34, 20, 35, then I think there's a reasonable discussion to be had about whether or not to continue with the project.

[00:27:12] Uh, all eyes are on Ontario right now. There are other jurisdictions that are looking at this model, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Estonia, Poland. There could be dozens of these things online by 2050. And there is a first mover advantage here. Ontario is basically making a bet that eating the first of kind costs will pay off in the long run through those export opportunities and through the scaling of, of the reactor.

[00:27:32] So it is a bet, but it's a reasonably hedged bet, I would say. Cool. Let's move on to the next theme. And, uh, this is Democracy's dilemma. The system working as designed. We do a bit of a compare and contrast. Now granted it's through two different political systems. So China right now is delivering new reactors through a fleet approach on the order of six to eight years.

[00:27:55] When I look back and Matt McClaren's article was great and kind of looked at the average in Canada, and [00:28:00] though we haven't built something new for a while, but the average is upwards of more eight, nine years, like kind of not that far apart. We have Tin Boston, who is a long time Alberta based electricity executive.

[00:28:11] Uh, and he's just, uh, finished a stint being on the panel, uh, the consultation panel, the task force that Daniel Smith appointed to look at the prospects of nuclear in Alberta. And then we also have Jason Don of this UFC prof and nuclear expert that I mentioned. We'll hear him back to back. 

[00:28:27] The CNSC, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's process is minimum six years.

[00:28:32] I think if you're getting it done in six, you've, you've won a lottery somehow. And so there, there are many steps in that process that cover all those things, including significant consultation, significant sharing of data with communities, funding for capacity to allow communities, indigenous nations to interact and make sure they can actually do their own research and understand the impacts of those.

[00:28:58] But that's again, another step [00:29:00] down the road when we actually get to a real project proposal, 

[00:29:03] the actual construction time. Doesn't really differ. China might be able to do like 20, 30% faster. What's different is duty to consult. What's different is public consultation. The regulatory framework, the impact assessment, that's where you're throwing five to 10 years on a Canadian project that China is able to do far more quickly.

[00:29:30] So going from, we want to build a nuclear reactor to, we have a nuclear reactor. Between China and Canada? I would say it's about a factor of two, but it's not construction that's doing it. 

[00:29:43] So I, I will say, and, and it's, uh, it's kind of a n day because the Kearney government just announced that it's putting on hold changes to the environmental assessment, uh, process that would've fast tracked certain environmental assessments.

[00:29:57] Uh, I, I'm not quite sure if it included. I [00:30:00] think it would've included nuclear. I mean, they referred it to the major projects office, so that's clearly try to streamline and fasten it, uh, and, and, uh, speed it up, I guess is, is the only way to build nuclear fast enough in Canada to meet our increasing demand for electricity and what we need to do to decarbonize is the only way to do it.

[00:30:20] Does that require bypassing some of the time intensive consultation that we built into it? Like what do you think? Uh, well, I, I'm on the record many times is saying we just have to reduce the duplication. I think the process that's in place with, uh, CNSC is fine, and, uh, and actually it's, it's better than fine.

[00:30:39] Uh, they've set the international standard on how to do this, uh, properly at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is our nuclear regulator here in, in Canada. And, um, you know, when I am abroad talking to different countries, uh, they're working in many cases with the CNSC and standing up their regulator because they want their regulator to operate similar to the way Canada's, uh, [00:31:00] does, given the 60 year history or 70 year history of, uh, of the CNSC, um, I, it's part of the reason why when we embarked on, um, the nuclear projects when I was the, the minister, um, you know, we, we were very, very fortunate that we had already licenced sites that were available, uh, to us.

[00:31:19] There was still some work that needed to be done, uh, particularly at the Bruce c site. Um, but the OPG site where the SMRs are being built now, um, you know, was already licenced and ready for, for new build, and, and that's why they've been able to get things going as quickly as they have as well. Do we need to speed things up?

[00:31:37] I think, you know, obviously everything that was mentioned in there from the consultation and so on and so on, environmental studies is super important. I mean, this is nuclear we're talking about, and nuclear safety. Uh, we talk about it every single day at our offices. It's how we start every single meeting is with a value moment on addressing nuclear safety.

[00:31:56] So, uh, we're very fortunate that this industry, [00:32:00] uh, given all the megawatts that are produced globally, is very, very safe. And it's because of, of that safety culture that exists, uh, with nuclear now. Uh, but if we're going to, uh, reduce the emissions that we wanna reduce, we're gonna have to build faster and we're gonna have to build at scale.

[00:32:15] Just a, a point on, on, on CanDos build in China, because it was referenced in the, in the comment, uh, the fastest Candu plant ever built. Uh, was in China at the Kinan site four years and 11 months from shovels in the ground to, uh, putting electricity on grid. So that was the last, uh, kinan unit. We estimate now going forward, uh, that we can build CanDos in five to six years.

[00:32:40] But yes, it's that upfront environmental assessment, the, the licences that are necessary from the CNSC that add a longer period of time. Uh, onto that, I missed the news. Uh, today, unfortunately, I was, uh, driving in from Eastern Ontario listening to a podcast from earlier this week. So it wasn't yours, ed, but it was another entertaining podcast.

[00:32:59] [00:33:00] Uh, but, uh, but, um, that's news and we'll have to look into what that actually means for nuclear builds going forward, unless Brandon knows. Yeah, I don't think going as fast as possible here is, is desirable. I think what we really want is to do it right rather than to do it fast. We would support reducing duplication at the federal level, returning all of the responsibilities that were previously assigned to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.

[00:33:21] Back to the CNSC, I think is a, is an advisable step. Um, the challenge there of course, is that the CNSC is, is under resourced. Their best people are getting poached by the nuclear industry now that the nuclear industry is serious about building again. So making sure that the CNSC is, is properly resourced, um, and is has the capacity to issue licencing licences and permits, I think is, is quite critical at, at this juncture.

[00:33:46] Great. Let's go to our next poll question, Carlos, which matters more for Canadian nuclear speed legitimacy. Where we can choose. So again, it's a very non-technical, uh, way of seeing what the audience thinks. [00:34:00] So, which matters more? Speed. Put your hands up. Great legitimacy. Great. You can't choose. So I think in this case it wasn't as, uh, unequivocal as the last time.

[00:34:14] Uh, I think people care a bit more about legitimacy. Anyone, uh, on the speed side want to get up and say why? Eli, you want to talk about speed? 

[00:34:24] Um, I just think from the standpoint of, uh, nuclear is always essentially like linked to the state. Canada is going to have an industry around nuclear. We need to be fast or we will get beat by others.

[00:34:36] Uh, anyone from legitimacy? Anyone want to comment on why you think legitimacy is more important? 

[00:34:42] Um, in my opinion, I think legitimacy is important for reputation wise in order to continue building more nuclear power plants and SMRs. I think, uh, public's perception is very important and if, if we have a major failure in the first project, then it's not gonna look good for the remainder of the future [00:35:00] projects.

[00:35:01] Yeah, good point. I will say, and, and, and going back to Todd, something you said because you hit upon safety, you'll notice it's conspicuous conspicuously absent from our themes and to date in our interview, we've won about 12 or so. You know, it really, people haven't raised, our interviewees haven't raised safety as being sort of, of, of like primacy of concern.

[00:35:23] I say this, uh, I'm married to a Japanese woman. We experience Fukushima very deeply, very personally. Some of you might have histories around three Mile Island, or some of you might be Ukrainian in background and, uh, have connections to Chernobyl. But it's interesting, it doesn't seem, when people talk about nuclear right now, it doesn't seem to be top of mind, not not in this country as much, uh, but you're right in other places is very sensitive as a topic.

[00:35:49] And that's where you really have to, as a, a nuclear industry, uh, go in and talk about the success. And I don't mean this to be a Candu commercial, but, um, you know, [00:36:00] 60 years of, of safe and reliable, uh, electricity production. I think, um, you know, the, the health issues that come, as we all know from, uh, carbon in the environment are, uh, enormous and are having, uh, huge impacts on people's health globally.

[00:36:18] So there is a very positive, uh, health story to tell from nuclear, and that's why people have changed their opinion over the last five, 10 years. Um, many of those who were against nuclear are, are now seeing that, uh, this is the only way we're gonna be able to, uh, clean our air, um, in, in, in, uh, in difficult to, uh, to replace, uh, fossil fuel places.

[00:36:39] Mm-hmm. Do you still have, just as a stat, tens of millions of people dying globally from, uh, airborne pollutants like socks and Knox and Mercury that comes from coal-fired electricity? And if you are worried about heat and you wanna get more worried, read Jeff Goodell's, the heat will kill you first about unfortunately the likelihood of, uh, heat deaths increasing from extreme heat.[00:37:00] 

[00:37:00] I wanna move on to our last theme, and then I really want to open it up to, uh, the audience here for questions. The last is we talk about standardisation and we've kind of hit upon it. And I think, Todd, you've made your view clear about sort of the advantages of, of a fleet approach or standardisation.

[00:37:16] And, uh, if, you know, if you wanted to design a country that would never standardise anything, you might accidentally invent Canada. And given the nature of our confederation in that, we put these decisions in the hands fundamentally of the province, provinces, the regulators in the hands of the feds, and but to date, they've mostly taken one approach.

[00:37:36] And at the risk of stumping for your company, they've taken the Candu approach. Let's hear what, uh, XUY Chong, uh, who is a professor at Griffith University in, um, in Australia, but, uh, she taught at to the University of Alberta. Let's hear what she has to say. 

[00:37:52] What can we learn from our past, not what we can learn from China?

[00:37:58] If you look at [00:38:00] the current 16 nuclear power plants in operation in Canada are all Candu reactors. That's how you standardise it, that how you reduce the construction time and reduce the cost. Now Alberta wants to have AP 1000 built. New B Brunswick, want to have a small nuclear, a small modular reactor.

[00:38:26] Then er got the two different models. No, no, no, no, no. You don't do that. 

[00:38:33] Yeah. So, uh, XU and energy prefers that, uh, people pronounce her name, XU uh, spelling it out that, uh, she's been clearly emphatic about what she thinks the right approach is. Brendan, uh, what's your reaction? I think there are, there's a case for doing a fleet based approach with both large and small reactors in Canada.

[00:38:52] It, it may end up that we need to, uh, the reason for that is because other provinces like Saskatchewan and New Brunswick that are considering [00:39:00] building other reactors, their grids are just too small to accommodate a large reactor. They don't have the infrastructure for it. You would, it would require significant transmission build out.

[00:39:07] And if that reactor goes offline, all of a sudden you're exposed to significant shortages. Uh, repeat builds is the name of the game here. Um, it's not unique to the nuclear sector that we're going over budget and over time, that is a problem for Megaprojects in general. Nuclear can overcome that. The only way to overcome that is by doing it again and again and again.

[00:39:35] Yeah. I would say even XU is a little bit off on the Canada analogy because not every can do in Canada is actually the same standard design either. Uh, so I think we've learned from that in Canada, and the idea is to bring forward a standard, uh, cando design that's gonna be built anytime. And I work for a company that has 42,000 engineers in it.

[00:39:59] Anytime you [00:40:00] bring in engineers, sorry, to any engineers that are here and they wanna fiddle with stuff and make it better, no matter how good it is, they want to make it better. Um, but you can't do that in this business. If you have a reactor that works, the best thing you can do is just repeat that same standard design over and over again.

[00:40:19] Obviously you're gonna have to do, uh, site specific work depending on where, uh, the reactor is built. Uh, but, but as far as the main standard plant, build it over and over and over again. And that's what Canada did internationally, uh, back in the late nineties and early two thousands. You know what engineers also do?

[00:40:35] I'll just say quickly. They, in addition to fiddling things, they write love letters to their spouses and boyfriends and girlfriends in Excel. They do everything in Excel. It's drive me nuts, Brendan. Yeah, no, I, I think it's a really important point. The, the nuclear sector to its detriment in recent decades has prioritised innovation over standardisation.

[00:40:55] Innovating with the same design is fine going for gen four [00:41:00] reactors when Gen three plus is a much safer, better understood technology, uh, I think is ill advised. And I think there's a reason that the BWRX is the reactor being built in at Darlington by g Hitachi, acon, Atkins, et cetera, and not by Moldex or terrestrial or X energy or any of these other startups that are promising, I think, you know, big things, but don't have a reasonable timeline to deliver them.

[00:41:28] I want to get to our last clip, uh, once again from XU and talking about a novel kind of carrot and stick approach that the, the Chinese government took standardisation 

[00:41:37] at that point. State council, this is the equivalent to the cabinet. Ask the two site to merge into one generation three, a model of reactor.

[00:41:52] They refuse to do so at the last minute. The state council said, if you do not [00:42:00] work together to develop this Generation three model, we're not going to approve any new project. So first they gave the carrot, then later they gave the stick. 

[00:42:15] So bit of a shot. And to use another analogy, they sort of forced a shotgun marriage approach.

[00:42:20] And that's kind of underlined, uh, the, the, uh, the standardisation approach China's taken is, does anyone, I might be answering my own questions. Anyone have the authority or the legitimacy to kind of force Canadian provinces to also take a fleet approach? Or does that get you into this quagmire of federal provincial politics?

[00:42:44] I'm asking the former politician you're asking. Oh, no, he wants, he doesn't want to take it. No, no. Brendan looked like he was anxious to answer that one. Uh, I, I, I don't think so. Um, I, I mean, you know, I think in the conversations that I've had, [00:43:00] um, you know, with the federal government over the last, uh, years or so, um, there's definitely a desire to build CanDos at the federal level, but it's also not their jurisdiction, um, because of the hodgepodge of, uh, provinces, uh, that we do have here and, uh, and they have the decision making power on technology.

[00:43:18] I think all we can do is to encourage decision makers in those provinces, uh, to do what makes sense for Canada. And, uh, I don't think I need to finish the sentence as to which technology is best for Canada because I think we hopefully already know that. Yeah, I think carrots rather than sticks at the federal level is probably the way to go.

[00:43:38] One idea that we have recommended is the idea of enhancing the federal investment tax credits for provinces that pick reactors that are consistent with a fleet based approach. So it's, you know, these, its are worth potentially billions of dollars, um, that could be pretty enticing for a province that is on the fence.

[00:43:57] Um, I'll also say we do support [00:44:00] a additive process for the larger reactor technology choice. Now there are a lot of reasons to, like, Candu homegrown technology, domestic supply chain. We've built them before, but you don't just wanna hand that over without a competition. Okay. Uh, we will just get two more quick comments from, uh, each and then we're gonna open it up for the rest of the time to questions from the audience.

[00:44:22] So if you have questions, raise your hand. And we've got a couple mics and a couple people who are willing to, uh, to uh, rove around with the mics. And my last question is, alright. You know, look at it. If nuclear is to play a, uh, uh, you know, an importance and growing role in Canada's electricity mix, what would you change if your energy or electricity or nuclear zar, what would one change be that you would make.

[00:44:50] Well, uh, it would be, it would be to build, Candu nuclear plants, uh, and, and make it pretty clear that that's, that's the choice. I understand [00:45:00] what Brendan's saying about making sure there's a, a competitive, uh, dialogue and process, um, that's in place. But at the same time, especially given, uh, the environment that, uh, today, uh, and, and the, uh, sort of unstable, uh, geopolitical world that we live in, energy security is such a, an important topic.

[00:45:19] Um, you know, we're, we're a bit shielded from it here in North America. Uh, but I'll tell you, uh, globally, there are so many different countries, uh, that love the Candu story. And, and this is sort of the differentiator between Candu and the five other large scale conventional nuclear technologies that are out is that we use natural uranium as the fuel.

[00:45:41] Uh, meaning you don't have to rely on another country, one of a five other countries to enrich your fuel for you. You have that type of security where you can buy the uranium on the open market. You can build your fuel in the country. You don't have to be dependent on one of those countries for your uranium.

[00:45:57] And I mean, even the United States now, which does have some [00:46:00] enrichment capabilities, is still buying 25 or 30% of its uranium, enriched uranium every year from Russia. And, uh, you know, it's not a good situation to be in. And, and that's much more sensitive, uh, when you're talking to countries like Poland where I'm doing business right now that are very, very uneasy about their neighbours east, uh, because of what's happening in Ukraine and what has continuously been happening in Poland, uh, with, with the Russians being as provocative as they are.

[00:46:25] So, um, yeah, I, you know, obviously the answer's, uh, easy for me, but I'm interested to hear what Brendan has to say. So I would take it up a level and I would say we need to electrify everything, the case for building nuclear at scale, doubling, tripling our own capacity along with the world by 2050 doesn't really make sense unless it's being done in the context of an ambitious package of electrification and climate policies.

[00:46:51] We can build wind, solar batteries, some gas investors need the confidence that there is going to be two to 3% load growth for the next [00:47:00] two years, and policy makers need to send that signal. Great. Okay. Let's turn to the audience. It's, uh, open mic, uh, time. Uh, do you have any questions for our panellists?

[00:47:13] Okay. I see a, like a fert of hand almost going up. Okay. 

[00:47:17] Uh, hi. Um, I'm wondering how useful the concept of base load is in for the mono electric grid. Uh, energy conservation measures have largely targeted the nighttime ghost loads. Solar panels fill up the daytime peaks and, uh, storage and demand response is better able to throttle for the, the, the evening gaps in between.

[00:47:39] So how much room is there left for a technology that has trouble throttling up and down there? 

[00:47:46] There is no jurisdiction that I'm aware of that has more than 50% renewables on the grid as a percent of total capacity. Germany is, is um, if not at the top of the list, near, near the top of the list. We should see how far we can get with those technologies when solar [00:48:00] battery batteries demand response.

[00:48:01] Um, it may end up being the case that we can only get 60% of the way. It may end up being the case that we can only get 70% of the way I view nuclear as a hedge once we start to bump into some of those constraints. Curtailment congestion. Load shedding, uh, inertia issues. Uh, clean firm power is incredibly important.

[00:48:22] It's not just the power itself, it's the attributes that come with it. To answer your question, after, you know, 20 years of relatively flat demand in Ontario, and I, I can speak to the Ontario case 'cause I, I worked, uh, in it for a long time. Um, you know, demand was flat for 20 years in Ontario, largely because of conservation programmes that were very effective.

[00:48:45] There was a lot of growth that was happening across the province, uh, particularly here in Toronto. At the same time though, there was a lot of industry that was leaving the province in the manufacturing sector. And then the conservation programmes heaped on top of that meant that for a long time, uh, there wasn't load [00:49:00] growth.

[00:49:00] But, uh, a couple of years ago we started to see, uh, the demand grow. Um, I believe last year, you know, our peak day was about 23,000 megawatts in late June during, uh, a really warm spell. But a, as things continue to electrify and, and we believe they are going to continue to electrify, and as we continue to see heat pumps coming online and electric arc furnaces being installed at, uh, steel, um, making facilities like at Al Goma and Suse Marie and potentially in Hamilton, um, those are gonna have a tremendous impact on the amount of power that we're going to require here in the province.

[00:49:38] And you're not gonna be able to do it with renewables only. You're gonna have to do it with renewables and nuclear and, uh, storage and, um, you know, potentially some more biomass. In some places, maybe not. But, uh, if you look at the numbers that the ISO is projecting, you know, when I was the minister, they were talking about the doubling of the grid, [00:50:00] uh, by 2050.

[00:50:01] So that's gonna require an all of the above approach. Um, so it's gonna require the renewables there. There we're limited as to how much more hydroelectric power we can put on the grid. We're, we're lucky that we have about 20, 25% of our, our power every day comes from our hydroelectric fleet. Not so much is coming from renewables right now.

[00:50:21] Other renewables. Uh, we can add, uh, more renewables along with, uh, the storage facilities, whether they be battery or pumped. And, uh, but we're gonna need more nuclear. There's no question about that. And, and just to put some other numbers to it. And from Alberta. And if you look at the increase in demand right now, like, uh, peak, peak day, same thing like your Ontario equivalent, it's about half of that.

[00:50:45] It's about 12 gigawatts of output in the regulatory queue for data centres is about another 12 gigawatts of demand. Yeah. That's the other I didn't mention, uh, artificial intelligence or, or, uh, data centres, which are gonna require a lot more. And, and really we didn't start talking about [00:51:00] data centres until about what, two or three years ago?

[00:51:03] Uh, when, when that conversation really started to heat up, so to speak. So, uh, we, we know, uh, how voracious, uh, the electricity appetite is for these data centres. We'll see as the technology evolves, if they still require as much electricity 10, 20 years from now, um, but right now they demand a heck of a lot of electricity.

[00:51:22] Well, SpaceX is just gonna put data centres in space for us. Great. Yep. Okay. Let's see. 

[00:51:28] I'm glad you mentioned AI for the first time, I think in this one hour, one and a half hour. But I'm wondering how, with the revolution of AI we have, could that cut down just on bringing a nuclear power plant to like, from, again, from shovels down to the grid?

[00:51:45] I know you said construction baby not be the biggest, you know, uh, factor. It's the other things. How could we shorten that period with, is there a possibility? Just wondering. 

[00:51:57] So I don't actually think that nuclear and data [00:52:00] centres are particularly good. They're not working on the same timelines. Um, you might have a couple of hyperscalers in the, the FANG or the magnificent seven who decide to, to do that.

[00:52:10] But in the short run, I think most of that is gonna be met with, with gas and potentially some renewables. There was a, a project in Minnesota recently, bring your own power where they're actually using renewables and batteries to power data centres. There are a lot of creative options here. Um, I, I just don't really think that the timelines are, are gonna match up in a way that where a AI and, and data centres are gonna be driving demand for, for nuclear projects.

[00:52:35] Uh, that's interesting. Um, you know, we're hearing obviously a different story. Um, when we're talking, they, they want the power yesterday obviously, and, uh, and we can't deliver fast. Um, but, but we're working, uh, Atkins Realis is with, um, Nvidia, which is I think the biggest company in the world right now on developing 10 gigawatt factories that would be powered by two, enhanced Candu six units on each site.[00:53:00] 

[00:53:00] Uh, they would be a hybrid type of a system where, you know, the, the gigawatt that's necessary, um, at the AI factory would be devoted to that plant, but the excess would be able to be, uh, available to the grid in whatever jurisdictions that, uh, uh, Mr. Wong and his team at Nvidia are looking to, uh, to, to build these plants.

[00:53:18] I believe they're looking at seven in the United States and then three elsewhere internationally. But, uh, you know, there's a real opportunity for, uh, for Atkins Realis and Candu potentially, uh, when it comes to building these AI factories. But yeah, the, the, the time is of the essence and, uh, you know, we need to be able to build these, uh, fast and, and build them at scale.

[00:53:37] Yeah. Nvidia and Amazon and of that sort of classic company might have the, the capital and, and the patients. Um, but I don't think Kevin O'Leary is gonna be waiting around for nuclear power. And I just want to be clear that Atkins reals is neither sponsoring tonight nor this project. Yeah. As much as I like the Candu.

[00:53:54] Okay. We have time for a couple more questions. So we've got, uh, and, and by the way, uh, both of you, you can [00:54:00] stay for a few minutes after this, so if you have questions, if we speakers, I'm sure he can grab them. There's more food coming, uh, and the bar will be open. 

[00:54:07] You've talked about standardisation and essentially the importance of locking in.

[00:54:12] A nuclear technology, right? Saying costs will come down 30 to 50% maybe. Um, what you're competing with is solar and batteries, which have come down 90%. And when you think about, when you're talking about bringing this nuclear capacity online, you're not competing with today's solar costs, right? You're talking about solar and batteries 10 to 20 years from now.

[00:54:34] And so there is a very real scenario where that energy becomes significantly cheaper than today. And so that a decision to build nuclear looks folly or loses momentum in the future. So, so in that sure as well, you'll say, well, we need base load power. We need grid inertia. Well, the grid inertia point has fallen away recently when they show the batteries and inverters can actually play that role in stabilising the grid and demand [00:55:00] with AI and the evolution of things we know, we don't know how it's going to look.

[00:55:04] And so how confident are you that 10, 20 years from now. The demand forecast will come true and will be flat enough and need base load power in a way that we'll look back and say it was the right decision to start down this path. Just to play devil's advocate a little bit, 

[00:55:21] yeah, I don't have a crystal ball, but you, you trust the experts at the independent electric system operator and those who manage our grids globally to, to plan for, uh, the power that we're gonna need in the future.

[00:55:32] And again, it, it doesn't really matter in a way how, um, the cheap energy is, there's still gonna be, even, even with the battery storage and as it becomes more reliable and cheaper as well. I mean, I, I was the minister that brought in, I believe, the largest, uh, storage, uh, procurement in the province's history.

[00:55:52] And it, it surprised us how cheap we were able to get those batteries for, uh, through, through the iso procurement process, which was a great [00:56:00] story, right? 'cause we're gonna need, we're gonna need that. We, you know, people used to talk about storage as being the holy grail in an energy system, and I think they, they still to a certain extent because it, it helps make those, uh, renewables a little more reactive to when you, you need the power on the grid.

[00:56:15] But at the same time, uh, you know, the life of those assets is relatively short compared to, uh, a nuclear power plant, which can be a hundred year asset. Now, um, yes, the upfront cost is expensive, but when you're advertising it over, uh, a long period of time, the levelized cost of electricity becomes, uh, very, very affordable.

[00:56:36] I believe you, I believe, uh, the fact that technology is gonna continue, I mean, listen, I bought a 57 inch TV in 1995 that is the size of probably the small car you drove in here, uh, today. But a few years later, we were buying, uh, wafer thin, uh, 65 inch televisions for a fraction of the cost. So technology is gonna continue to evolve.

[00:56:59] [00:57:00] It's really hard to answer the question. We can only do the best that we can do with what we know now and, and, uh, and the smart people that are working in these various departments. I have every reasonable expectation that wind and solar and batteries will, will continue to get cheap. Um, but I also think we've, we've sort of reached a critical threshold where the cost of those technologies is, is no longer the constraints, right?

[00:57:19] The cost of generation is going down, the cost of transmission distribution continues to go up. We're gonna build where it's cheapest to build those technologies now. So maybe the declining cost will, will offset the need to build further afield for future wind and solar projects. Um, but, you know, it's, it's a bigger deal for solar to drop from $5 to, to $1 a watt where it is now than it is for solar to drop from $1 to 50 cents a wat.

[00:57:49] Okay. Uh, one last question, Karen. Hello. Old friend, colleague Karen Tamel. 

[00:57:55] And you can always depend on, uh, having pamina folks sitting in the [00:58:00] crowd to an ask questions. Um, I can't let the opportunity go away without being the one in the crowd who asks about waste and the costs associated with dealing with waste because you're talking about the cost of building nuclear, uh, and also public acceptance of are you willing to have nuclear power for that means having the waste in your backyard.

[00:58:19] Um, I'm from British Columbia. We're the nuclear free zone right now, but I know in Ontario you had a hard time finding a place in a community that would accept the waste, and so would love your comments on that. And also, I understand that, um, the waste generated per unit of energy generated in A SMR is actually higher than a conventional reactor.

[00:58:39] So yeah, great. Would be great to hear your perspectives on that. 

[00:58:43] Yep, sure. If fair question. I come from the cost perspective. You know, the cost for dealing with, uh, from a nuclear plant is included in the price per kilowatt hour here in Ontario, uh, and in New Brunswick as well. So, um, the price that's being paid for electricity now is [00:59:00] paying for the deep geological repository, which will eventually get built in Northern Ontario in Ignace.

[00:59:06] When, when that process started for citing the nuclear waste Management operation facility, there were 22 different communities that put their hand up wanting to host that facility. As the consultations, um, you know, continued, some of them whittled away. Um, but, but at the end of the day, there was a very fierce competition between, uh, the two finalists, uh, for that.

[00:59:26] Um, DGR for a number of different reasons. Right now, the waste is being stored at the sites of the facilities, so at Darlington or Pickering or Bruce Power on site. And when you consider the amount of electricity that's generated from those three facilities, again, upwards of 60% of Ontario's electricity for the last 35 years or or more, in the case of, of Pickering, the amount of waste is stored on site in a building that's about the size of a grocery store in dry containers.

[00:59:56] So it's not really that much, uh, waste. And [01:00:00] I think, you know, when I bring foreign delegations in to see where the waste is being stored in our Ontario plants, they're amazed. This is, this is it, this is all the waste there is from, you know, 50 years of operation in the case of, uh, a Pickering. There was one more piece that I, I wanted to touch on, and I think, I think it has to do with, uh, you know, the, the social acceptance, uh, piece.

[01:00:21] And, and you know, I'm seeing this in different places. It's obviously a question that comes up when I'm, uh, speaking about nuclear internationally. What are you gonna do with the waste? And in some cases, and, and we'll talk about the Russians for instance, uh, Rosa, Tom builds nuclear plants. Uh, they actually take the fuel.

[01:00:38] Away from countries where they build and take it back to Russia. Um, so that's not something we would do. Uh, if we were building CanDos abroad, we would be asking, uh, them to come up with, uh, you know, their own, uh, solution to, to dealing with the spent fuel. Um, the other piece that's really interesting right now as this whole DGR uh, discussion continues [01:01:00] is there are technologies that are available now to reprocess the spent fuel, uh, from pressurised water reactors and reuse that fuel.

[01:01:09] Um, you know, particularly, um, in the Candu fleet, but also in the EDF fleet in France, uh, where they're using spent fuel from PWS at the end of the day. Will there be the need for this DGR? I know it's something that we talked about, technology evolving. Um, you know, this is something that may evolve faster than we think.

[01:01:27] There's obviously a price associated with, uh, taking that spent fuel re fabricating and then using it again. But, you know, when a, when a a spent fuel rod goes through A-A-P-W-R or a heavy water reactor like it can do, it's really only used about upwards of 10% of its capability at that time. So there's still a lot of energy left in that fuel rod that can be reused.

[01:01:51] So technology is gonna continue to evolve and it'll be really interesting to see if we do need to store this waste or spent [01:02:00] fuel underground, um, at the end of the day, so. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's, uh, it's interesting that the French are trying to do a great job of extracting more of that energy outta plutonium and reusing it.

[01:02:10] I've got one last thought. Uh, Brendan, I don't know if you wanna say anything about the waste issue. It's a hugely significant problem, needs to be addressed. Um, I think the willing host model that has been, uh, advanced by the NWMO is, is the way to go. We've seen other jurisdictions adopt it. Um. At the same time, all of the high grade nuclear waste that has been produced since the dawn of the atomic age in the 1950s could fill a football field about 30, 40 feet high.

[01:02:38] If we get a 90 or 95% decarbonized grid and we double or triple the size of that, I would take that trade on the, uh, on, on the, the waste issue. I, it reminds me of a, a story I heard Bill McDonough tell William McDonough, who's the great environmental architect, and he said in Hanover, Washington, where, you know, there's a lot of nuclear research and there's a meeting of nuclear physicists and they're [01:03:00] discovering, you know, trying to talk about, well, what do you do in that, that printed problem?

[01:03:03] How do you mark sites where there's waste? It's kind of the semiology a big risk. It's, you know, and, and, uh, it's like, well, you gotta market in a way so that if we're not around, nuclear physicists aren't around then aliens, if they land there, they'll know not to dig. And, uh, they're members of the Yakima First Nation that we're listening to this conversation and they said, you don't have to worry about that.

[01:03:25] We'll just tell the aliens not to dig there. And a very different sort of cultural sense of, uh, uh, uh, resilience and, and longevity. Anyway, listen, I wanna really thank Todd. I wanna thank Brendan, you've been terrific. You've been generous with your time, so everyone please give them a big round of applause.

[01:03:49] And a, a big thanks to my team as well with Advanced Climate Solutions Energy versus Climate. Uh, Amit Tandon, uh, our producer who's listening in. I've got Carlos Pena, I've [01:04:00] got Sam Beatty. Carlos managed to rope in his partner Selena, who's been helping. So thanks very much. Thanks to Mars and a big thanks.

[01:04:07] I saw him at some point, Jeff Byrd of the Cons Con Foundation. Jeff, thank you. As I say, there's no can do money in this project, but, uh, Jeff Byrd of the Cons Con Foundation put money in and including in tonight. 

[01:04:21] So we're very grateful and 

[01:04:22] thank you. Uh, like this is a conversation, not just about the right reactor for Canada.

[01:04:27] Uh, you know, can we keep costs down? Partly this is a conversation of can we build big things in this country? And I tell, you know, folks on the left and the right energy gridlock is good for no one. And if you can't build anything, whether it's an oil and gas project or you can't build, uh, you can hijack those same regulatory processes.

[01:04:45] If you don't like oil and gas projects, you can hijack them and, and use them to block, uh, renewables, projects that people like and vice versa. So I think in this country, the one thing that Mark Carney's clear is we need to get back to building big things. And, uh, [01:05:00] is, uh, the first step in discussing that.

[01:05:03] And good thing we didn't solve all the problems else, we'd have to cancel the remaining three round tables that we've got scheduled. So thanks. Hang out. We've got food, we've got drink, uh, we've got this room for a bit. And, uh, yeah, really appreciate you coming out tonight. Thanks folks. Thanks for listening to the special episode of Energy Versus Climate.

[01:05:23] This conversation is part of Critical Mass, a broader project examining the future of nuclear energy in Canada. And thanks again to Todd Smith and Brendan Frank for a thoughtful discussion and to everyone who joined us in Toronto and contributed questions on June 5th. Special thanks to Carlos Pena, Dave Hawk Halter, Samantha Beatty, Amit Tandon, and Jeff Bird of the Consecon Foundation for all their support.

[01:05:47] See you again soon.