If you needed any more proof that North America is on the cusp of a nuclear-power renaissance, consider the U.S. Department of Energy’s move last week to provide a US$1-billion loan to the owner of Three Mile Island to restart the Pennsylvania facility whose very name has long been associated with the perils of producing electricity through nuclear fission.
The partial meltdown of one of Three Mile Island’s reactors in 1979 is what brought a previous nuclear-energy boom to an end, as fears of another accident permeated the public consciousness. Now, surging demand for electricity to run data centres powering artificial intelligence is fuelling a new nuclear era.
This nuclear renaissance is getting a major assist from U.S. President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order earlier this year aimed at “reinvigorating the nuclear industrial base” and facilitating the construction of 10 new reactors by 2030. Last month, his administration signed an US$80-billion agreement with the Canadian owners of Westinghouse Electric Co. to build as many as eight 1,100-megawatt reactors on U.S. soil alone.
Against this backdrop, the push by Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government to increase the province’s dependence on nuclear energy – from 50 per cent to 75 per cent by 2050 – might seem like a logical, even smart, move. As the only Canadian province with a critical mass of nuclear expertise, Ontario naturally wants to protect the thousands of high-paying jobs the nuclear-energy industry provides, especially as its auto and steel sectors face Trump-inflicted decimation.
Westinghouse, Cameco, Brookfield partner in $80-billion project to build nuclear plants
Still, the Ford government has provided few details about how much its nuclear plans could cost taxpayers. The integrated power plan that Energy Minister Stephen Lecce released in June sets out affordability as one of the four criteria the province intends to apply in choosing which projects to support. Yet the government appears to have already made up its mind about going all-in on nuclear power regardless of the price tag.
It will be huge, and almost certainly higher than the cost of alternatives.
The Ford government this week gave final approval to the refurbishment of four aging reactors at provincially owned Ontario Power Generation (OPG)’s Pickering nuclear facility, with a total capacity of 2,200 megawatts, at a cost of $26.8-billion. That compares to the $25-billion that Hydro-Québec has estimated it will cost to build 3,900 megawatts of new hydro capacity on the Churchill River as part of a 2024 memorandum of understanding with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.
The Ford government points to the refurbishment of the original Darlington nuclear facility, which has come in under budget, to play down concerns about potential cost overruns on the Pickering overhaul and new nuclear builds. Ontario taxpayers should be very wary of such reassurances. Darlington may in fact be an outlier.
Ontario approves $26.8-billion Pickering nuclear plant refurbishment
Ontario is already committed to spending $21-billion to build four small modular reactors (SMRs) at OPG’s Darlington nuclear facility, arguing that Ontario will benefit from a “first-mover advantage” as the first jurisdiction within the G7 countries to roll out SMRs. But it is just as likely that being first entails all the construction and cost headaches that typically come with implementing new technology.
And Mr. Lecce is just getting started. The plan he tabled in June aims to more than double the province’s existing nuclear-energy capacity by 2050 with the construction of four new reactors totalling 4,800 megawatts at the privately owned Bruce Power, and OPG’s proposed 10,000-megawatt Wesleyville plant near Port Hope, Ont.
Bruce and OPG are likely still far away from choosing which technology to use on their proposed new projects – Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor, the European Pressurized Reactor from Électricité de France, or a new version of the Candu reactor being developed by Canada’s AtkinsRéalis. But the price tag – not to mention the learning curve involved in building new-model, large-scale reactors – will be steep.
Ontario’s (over)reliance on nuclear power, and the costs and risk it entails, might have been avoided had it invested years ago in upgrading interprovincial connections to facilitate the purchase of cheap and clean hydropower from Quebec and Labrador.
Instead, U.S. consumers are benefitting from Ontario’s lack of foresight. Hydro-Québec has now locked itself into long-term contracts to sell power to New York and Massachusetts. Its U.S. partners are spending billions on the New England Clean Energy Connect and Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission lines to transport 20 terawatt-hours of power annually from the Quebec border to Boston and New York City, respectively.
The north-south flow of electricity is nothing new. For decades, Canadian provinces have been selling far more power to Americans than to each other. This might not have been the case had there been a greater supply of political vision and will north of the border.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article stated that Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is privately owned. The station is leased to Bruce Power, which is privately owned.