Good morning. Construction of nuclear power plants tends not to go according to plan. But few go as badly as the unfinished South Carolina project which, nearly a decade ago, marked an end to hopes of a rejuvenation of American nuclear energy. Now, the Brookfield empire is considering taking over. Can they succeed where others have failed? That’s in focus today, along with Canada’s affordable daycare system on the brink of collapse.
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In the news
Data point: Canada’s housing agency will start including earlier indicators of home-building activity.
Miner exit: Sherritt International is suspending operations in Cuba after the U.S. expanded sanctions on the island.
Technology: Canadian tech star PointClickCare Technologies has drawn up a contingency plan to relocate to the United States if the trade war between the two countries worsens.
One of the partially built AP1000 nuclear units in Fairfield County, South Carolina, September, 2024.Supplied
In focus
Nuclear dreams
Hi, I’m Matt McClearn, a reporter with The Globe’s energy, natural resources and environment team. As part of my responsibilities, I cover the electricity sector, with a particular focus on nuclear power.
One thing it’s taught me is that there’s often a gulf between what the nuclear industry plans to do, and what it can actually deliver.
A monument to this truth lies in Fairfield County, South Carolina, where construction on two units started in 2013 and ended in bankruptcy, ruined careers and jail terms for some executives. It has been called the biggest business failure in the state’s history.
Brookfield has hired a project manager to work on reviving the site, the latest development in the asset manager’s bold foray into nuclear power. The timing may be fortuitous: Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump demanded that construction begin on 10 large new reactors by 2030. As the controlling shareholder of leading reactor vendor Westinghouse Electric Co., Brookfield stands to benefit tremendously.
When I visited Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station Units 2 and 3 in March, it was difficult not to be captured by a sense of awe at the fruit of countless hours of human toil and many billions of dollars in spending. This includes a massive cylindrical reactor building housing the Unit 2 reactor, shrouded by a barrier intended to defend against aircraft strikes.
Somewhere beneath the temporary walkways inside lies a massive pressure vessel – a component that nobody in North America could manufacture. (This one was made in South Korea.) You can stand inside a massive water tank which would release its contents into the reactor in the event of a serious accident. It’s one of many safety systems the plant would have featured, had it gone on to generate massive quantities of electricity.
Inside the reactor building, where osprey sounded from above, Jenkinsville, S.C., March 12.Kaoly Gutierrez/The Globe and Mail
For those prone to engineering nerdery, this site approaches heaven. One could work an entire career in nuclear and never behold such things; at operating plants, they’re usually buried deep inside protective structures or are otherwise inaccessible. Here you can walk up and touch them.
Yet, the vultures circling overhead offer a sort of pathetic fallacy for the project’s cruel fate. There’s lots of exposed rebar and dripping water echoes throughout. The walls of the turbine buildings were never installed, so the equipment inside is partly exposed to the elements. Protective coverings, left untended for many years, hang in tatters. The massive heavy-lift crane has been disassembled, but otherwise, the site is much as it was in 2017, when construction work abruptly ceased.
Can any of this be salvaged? Brookfield aims to find out. Last year, it was selected by the station’s owner, Santee Cooper, as the preferred buyer for the units, with a proposed purchase price of US$2.7-billion.
Brookfield has earned a reputation as a crack risk manager, and is also no stranger to ambitious undertakings in the power sector and well beyond. But apart from its controlling ownership stake in Westinghouse (which it acquired out of Chapter 11 proceedings, as part of the fallout from the V.C. Summer debacle), Brookfield had limited opportunity to subject those skills to nuclear testing. Until now.
Exposed rebar at the site testifies to the abrupt halting of construction in 2017.Kaoly Gutierrez/The Globe and Mail
Brookfield is assembling new partners to explore restarting construction at V.C. Summer. Earlier this month, it teamed up with The Nuclear Company, a startup populated with some of the same people who first attempted the V.C. Summer units, to form a new company that will serve as project manager. It’s expected to make the final go/no-go decision by the end of 2027. If it answers in the affirmative, Brookfield and its partners will accept risks that nearly sent Westinghouse to the undertaker in a lead-lined box.
But if all that sounds sobering, the opportunity before Brookfield appears vast.
When it bought Westinghouse, the notion of restarting construction at V.C. Summer seemed risible at best. More unlikely still was the possibility that the U.S. government would order 10 new Westinghouse reactors. But backed by a Trump administration that’s demonstrating unbridled enthusiasm for nuclear, both are now distinct possibilities.
I’ll walk you through it all in today’s feature.
Charted
Teenage jobs crisis
Youth employment has been tumbling for years – and the younger the job-seeker, the worse it gets, writes Jason Kirby.
Quoted
Why are we paying for people to have $10-a-day child-care that maybe have six-figure incomes? People are struggling to pay for groceries and gas right now, let alone supporting universal child-care across the country.
— Krystal Churcher, board chair of the Association of Canadian Early Learning Programs
A number of child-care providers say affluent Canadians should pay more for the service, as the country’s national affordable daycare program flounders five years in because of a lack of funding.
Up next
More files we’re following
Autos: Ottawa is giving Ford $464.5-million to support a retooling of its Oakville, Ont., plant to make heavy-duty pickup trucks.
Coming up: Jobs numbers for April will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET today.
Extra costs: Bell has started charging customers a handling fee when buying a new phone, but the CRTC has warned that such fees might not be allowed.
Opinion: It’s been nearly five years since a deadly condo collapse in Surfside, Fla. The new luxury building built in its place has not sold a single unit in a sign of unhealed wounds, Gus Carlson writes.
Morning update
Global markets slipped as the U.S. and Iran exchanged fire in the Middle East, dampening hopes that a diplomatic solution could be close.
Wall Street futures were in positive territory after major North American markets closed lower yesterday, while TSX futures followed sentiment higher.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.64 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 slid 0.33 per cent, Germany’s DAX fell 0.92 per cent and France’s CAC 40 gave back 0.87 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 0.19 per cent lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.87 per cent.
The Canadian dollar traded at 73.28 U.S. cents.