This story is part of a series called Shockwave: Rising energy demand and the future of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes region is in the midst of a seismic energy shakeup, from skyrocketing data centre demand and a nuclear energy boom, to expanding renewables and electrification. In 2026, the Great Lakes News Collaborative will explore how shifting supply and demand affect the region and its waters.

Table of contents

• What are small modular reactors, or SMRs? 
• How much power does an SMR produce and for whom? 
• What is Ontario Power Generation? 
• How much will it cost Ontario taxpayers to build the first SMR? 
• When will the first SMR be operational?
• So where is Ontario going to get the enriched uranium needed for small modular reactors? 
• Who wants Ontario’s SMRs?
• How does Lake Ontario, and water in general, factor into the SMRs at Darlington? 
• What will we do with the waste produced by small modular reactors in Ontario?  
• How do SMRs fit into Ontario’s other nuclear plans? 
• If Ontario has never built an SMR before, will it actually be built? 

In January, Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce told a room full of business and energy officials that communities across the province have been “petitioning us for a small modular reactor.” 

The emerging nuclear technology is exactly what it sounds like: essentially a smaller nuclear reactor, often referred to as an SMR, that can produce enough electricity for up to 300,000 homes. And it’s all anyone in Ontario’s energy space can talk about. It’s poised to be a major facet of the province and country’s plan to become an “energy superpower.” 

There’s a simple case for expanding Ontario’s already robust nuclear fleet. We desperately need more clean, reliable, around-the-clock electricity supply to satisfy our thirst for artificial intelligence, electric cars and all the things we’ll be plugging in over the coming decades. 

The province is betting nuclear energy will satisfy the bulk of our power demand, and so is Canada. The two levels of government have promised billions of dollars toward the country’s (and North America’s) first small modular reactor power plant. The project is under construction at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Bowmanville, Ont., just over an hour’s drive east of Toronto, and led by the Crown corporation Ontario Power Generation. The plan is to build four of these reactors at Darlington over the next decade. 

The catch: we’ve never built a small modular reactor before. 

Both Russia and China have operational small modular reactors, while Argentina has a pilot under construction. But Ontario would be first in the G7 to build one.That doesn’t seem to have fazed the government — provincial or federal. Prime Minister Mark Carney has referred the Darlington New Nuclear project to his Major Projects Office for consideration to be fast-tracked. That means federal officials could support the financial and licensing needs of all four small modular reactors. 

Here’s everything you need to know about Ontario’s pursuit of small modular reactors, or SMRs. 

What are small modular reactors, or SMRs? 

They’re like traditional nuclear reactors, but, well, smaller in both the amount of power they produce and their physical size. An SMR and its components can range from the size of a shipping container to a football field. 

But they produce power in the same way, splitting radioactive uranium atoms into smaller elements. This process releases heat that is used to turn water into steam, which drives a turbine, producing electricity.

That similarity is one of the reasons Ontario Power Generation is confident in their plan to build a first-of-its-kind reactor at Darlington, with contractor GE Vernova Hitachi — the small modular reactor is a scaled-down version of an existing nuclear reactor model (the tenth generation of it, in fact), Subo Sinnathamby, Ontario Power Generation’s chief projects officer, told The Narwhal

While the physics are largely the same, small modular reactors are easier to build than a traditional reactor. “They’re almost like Legos: pre-made bits that come out of the factory and are put together on site,” Kirk Atkinson, associate professor and associate industrial research chair in Ontario Tech University’s department of energy and nuclear engineering, said. 

Atkinson, who is also director of the university’s Centre for Small Modular Reactors, says this kind of simplification allows small modular reactors to be produced at reduced costs and much more quickly than full-scale nuclear.

But while traditional nuclear reactors use uranium, a fuel Canada is the world’s second-largest producer and exporter of, small modular reactors require enriched uranium, which Atkinson likened to concentrated orange juice. Canada doesn’t have any of it in-house, and that’s a hurdle Ontario is trying to get over quickly. More on that below. 

How much power does an SMR produce and for whom? 

A single small modular reactor at Darlington will produce 300 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power 300,000 homes. 

The lower capacity and size means they make sense in places with smaller populations, everywhere from rural, remote Ontario to Saskatchewan, helping them move away from diesel generators. They can also be used to provide independent or backup power for industrial facilities, mines or data centres, assuming regulation permits this. 

Unlike small modular reactors in remote communities or independent uses, Darlington’s reactors will be tied into Ontario’s power grid.

What is Ontario Power Generation? 

The provincial Crown corporation, often known as OPG, has built and currently operates a significant portion of the nuclear generators in the province. 

Atkinson said it is “the only entity in Canada that is large enough and wealthy enough and skilled enough to take a project like a small modular reactor and be the proving ground of a nation, be a proving ground of the western world.”

For more than a decade, Ontario Power Generation has had an empty site near its Darlington nuclear facility licensed for new nuclear builds. That site is now being used to build the first of four small modular reactors, technically known as the GE Hitachi Boiling Water Reactor X-300 (or the BWRX-300). The full-scale nuclear version of this reactor is in use in the United States.  

“We had a leg up on other nations because we already had a site suitable for this,” Atkinson said. “[Ontario Power Generation] was ahead of the times.”

How much will it cost Ontario taxpayers to build the first SMR? 

Absolute bucketloads. 

Initial forecasts suggest the first small modular reactor may cost $6.1 billion, plus another $1.6 billion for systems around it that will service all four once complete.

In total, Ontario Power Generation anticipates the four reactors at Darlington to cost $20.9 billion.

The federal government’s arm’s-length investment vehicle, the Canada Growth Fund, has given the first leg of the project $2 billion, while the province is putting forward $1 billion through its Building Ontario Fund. 

Both governments say these investments will be worth it because Ontario’s small modular reactors will create 18,000 jobs during construction and 3,700 jobs during operation. They also predict the project will contribute $38.5 billion to Canada’s gross domestic product through its construction and continued operation over 65 years. 

While it looks like the cost of the Darlington project will be borne by taxpayers, the province has noted it is “exploring potential financial instruments that would benefit ratepayers, and in parallel, [Ontario Power Generation] continues to explore other optimal financing arrangements.”

For now, the Crown corporation has asked the Ontario Energy Board to consider permitting it to nearly double the cost of nuclear power for ratepayers to help recoup the very high costs of building the small modular reactors. This follows a rule change made by the Doug Ford government allowing electricity rate increases for generating infrastructure that hasn’t been built yet. We’ll have to wait and see what the independent regulator decides.

When will the first SMR be operational?

If all goes well, 2030. 

“We have a licence to construct. We don’t have a licence to operate, yet,” Sinnathamby, of Ontario Power Generation, said.  

The power to grant that is in the hands of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which will greenlight the technology once it’s built, only if it meets all environmental and safety standards. 

It also depends on whether we manage to secure enough enriched uranium to operate them. 

So where is Ontario going to get the enriched uranium needed for small modular reactors? 

Maybe the U.S. Maybe France. 

In its 2024 fall economic statement, the federal government, led by then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, said it intended to backstop up to $500 million in enriched nuclear fuel purchase contracts from allied countries to support small modular reactor operators.

Sinnathamby said Ontario Power Generation has “a very diverse partnership to ensure we have a strong supply of enriched fuel.” Canada has an abundance of uranium, while the United States has facilities to produce the refined form. Sinnathamby noted the American company producing that enriched uranium is a subsidiary of GE Vernova Hitachi, which is building the SMR technology, and so is very invested in the project’s success and that supply chain. 

Nevertheless, in light of the U.S. trade tensions, Sinnathamby said Ontario Power Generation has also signed a deal with French company Orano to garner enriched uranium. 

“We’re quite comfortable and confident around fuel security and supply,” Sinnathamby said. 

Who wants Ontario’s SMRs?

If you ask Lecce … everyone? 

In 2022, the governments of Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Alberta agreed to a joint strategic plan to collectively build and deploy small modular reactors. Ontario and Nova Scotia have made a similar agreement. Some of these provinces are “starting from scratch,” George Christidis, president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association, said, which is what makes Ontario’s experience and expertise important. 

In the past year, Lecce has been on a whirlwind of international trips to secure deals both to deploy small modular reactors and support them, everywhere from New York to Poland. 

Ontario Power Generation has also been inundated with requests to visit Darlington to see the SMR site, Sinnathamby said, adding, “I joke that one of my execs is on full-time tour duty because of the number of visitors we have.” That has included representatives from European countries, as well as U.S. government agencies. 

How does Lake Ontario, and water in general, factor into the SMRs at Darlington? 

The three major nuclear sites in Ontario are all close to Great Lakes, which Atkinson said act as “very large bathtubs of water” that can be used to cool the reactors. 

To that end, Sinnathamby said the small modular reactor site in Darlington will include a tunnel into Lake Ontario to bring in water for cooling, “so that wouldn’t be different from any other technology, per se.”

What will differ is the volume of water needed; that depends on the eventual size of the reactor, the number of components and how many are built.

What will we do with the waste produced by small modular reactors in Ontario?  

We’re not sure, but everyone is confident there will be a plan when they’re operational. 

“Nuclear waste is very securely managed and regulated in Canada,” Christidis said. “There’s a strong and proven safety standard in this industry.” 

This question ultimately depends on the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, a non-profit established by Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power Corporation and Hydro-Québec and empowered by the federal government to create a plan for nuclear waste management.

The organization has long been tasked with finding a site for nuclear waste produced by traditional reactors, and last year chose Ignace, Ont., as the site for a repository. 

But waste produced by small modular reactors isn’t included in the plan for Ignace, and they may produce higher amounts of nuclear waste per unit of energy than traditional reactors. 

Sinnathamby, who sits on the board of the waste management organization, expects robust consultation on what to do with small modular reactor waste before it is operational. “It could potentially go to Ignace,” she said, but either way, the organization is mandated to find a solution for the waste. 

How do SMRs fit into Ontario’s other nuclear plans? 

Ontario is currently in the midst of either refurbishing or expanding all three of its major nuclear plants, which collectively provide more than 50 per cent of the province’s electricity. 

The government has also directed Ontario Power Generation to explore the possibility of building a new nuclear facility in Port Hope, Ont. If built, it would be the second nuclear facility built since 1993 — only after Darlington’s small modular reactors.

If Ontario has never built an SMR before, will it actually be built? 

Many in politics and the industry vigorously believe so. 

But as with all new technology emerging in the energy transition — from carbon capture to hydrogen — a lot remains to be seen. 

“We’re kind of at the beginning stage of this journey,” Atkinson said. “It’s only once we’ve built some and we’ve had the chance to stand back and look at it will we be able to provide better answers.”

Christidis is resolute. “It isn’t just hype. It’s actually very real,” he said. “That’s in the sense of real projects, real jobs, real investments. It’s a success story in the making, here and internationally.” 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This story is part of a series called Shockwave: Rising energy demand and the future of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes region is in the midst of a seismic energy shakeup, from skyrocketing data centre demand and a nuclear energy boom, to expanding renewables and electrification. In 2026, the Great Lakes News Collaborative will explore how shifting supply and demand affect the region and its waters.

A six-decade history in the Great Lakes region of ecosystem and water protection is being put to the test as a dynamic era of energy investment, rising electricity demand, aging assets and political intervention dawns across the basin.

The energy story emerging today is one of tumultuous change in energy supply and demand coupled with conflicting state and federal objectives that are colliding with a buzzy economic narrative centred around artificial intelligence (AI) and data centres. Electricity consumption in the basin’s eight states and two provinces is climbing for the first time in at least a decade. 

Forecasts show electricity demand in the region growing two to three per cent annually over the next 10 years. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is injecting carbon-promoting policies into energy markets, requiring coal power plants in Michigan and Indiana to continue operating beyond their announced closure dates while also slowing solar and wind projects, two energy sources that emit no climate-altering carbon and use little to no water. 

Along with coal, another water-intensive energy source is being revived or reimagined to satisfy projected electricity demands. With nearly US$3 billion in federal and state financing, the 55-year-old Palisades Nuclear Generating Station is preparing to restart after a four-year shutdown. When it does, the old reactor will draw 370,000 litres a minute, 530 million litres a day, from Lake Michigan.  

In addition to these legacy energy sources, new gas-fired power plants, battery storage, transmission lines and a planned new nuclear plant north of Benton Harbor, in Michigan, are being added to keep pace with demand. Agriculture, the region’s biggest water consumer and water polluter, is playing a larger role in energy production — by converting corn into biofuel and producing methane from manure in industrial-scale biodigesters.

Liquid fuels also remain in the spotlight due to the lingering question of Line 5, an oil pipeline that crosses the Straits of Mackinac. The future of the 73-year-old pipeline is the subject of several lawsuits, with key legal and permitting decisions expected in 2026.

This is the first article in our Shockwave project, a series of reports that will investigate the rapid evolution of the energy landscape in the Great Lakes region and the consequences the new era will have for one of the world’s largest reserves of fresh water. Produced by the five partners of the Great Lakes News Collaborative — Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now, Michigan Public and The Narwhal — Shockwave will document the depth and breadth of the region’s energy transformation and its influence on water use and pollution.

“As electricity demand is soaring, in part due to data centres, we’re seeing changes in water use, we’re seeing changes in electricity consumption,” said Mike Shriberg, director of the University of Michigan Water Center. “And how our region responds to that over the long term will have a massive impact for the Great Lakes and for our energy future.”

Altogether, these changes amount to an inflection point in the region’s energy policy, one with as many questions as answers. Will data centre demand and the White House’s lifeline to fossil fuel units jeopardize state clean energy targets? Will the numerous binational, regional and state-level consultative bodies enable collaboration that reduces harm to waterways? Can local officials, researchers and lawmakers assemble the data to inform their responses? Will a decade-long decline in the energy sector’s water use continue or stall? Will the projected data centre demand for electricity materialize or will the energy buildout result in stranded assets?

What is certain is that the energy playing field today is set up for a different game than just a few years ago. These are still early days, but the region, its US$9.3-trillion economy, its border-crossing energy infrastructure and its world-class environmental riches stand at the threshold of a profound shift in some of its basic economic inputs and assumptions.

Top-down orders

The changes begin at the top. 

For political, ideological and grid reliability reasons, the Trump administration is adamant on propping up fossil fuels and shepherding a nuclear power revival. It is doing so through executive orders and agency action. 

The Department of Energy issued a series of emergency orders to prevent the coal-fired J.H. Campbell Power Plant, in West Olive, Michigan, on the shore of Lake Michigan, from shutting down last year. It issued a separate order in December to prevent the closures of the R.M. Schahfer Generating Station and F.B. Culley Generating Station in Indiana. 

In addition, the administration extended the deadline for closing coal waste dumps in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, though none is directly within the basin. Though the administration asserts it is “clean,” coal is the dirtiest and among the thirstiest sources of electricity. 

The Department of Energy excluded small modular reactors, or SMRs, and other “advanced” nuclear generation technologies from National Environmental Policy Act review. SMR developers promote the new reactors as more mobile and less risky than the older generation of big reactors. SMRs are under development or have been proposed in Ontario, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Canada, too, has announced national energy strategies that appear certain to affect Great Lakes waters. Rebuffed and taunted by tariffs imposed by President Trump, Prime Minister Mark Carney told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, “We are an energy superpower.” Carney outlined his plan for $1 trillion in fast-tracked Canadian investments in energy, AI and critical minerals. He also promoted a national infrastructure campaign for oil pipelines, electricity transmission lines and mines.

Big political announcements are reinforced by facts on the ground. The numbers tell a story of rapid growth in electricity demand that has analysts reaching back decades for a historical equivalent. Some compare it to the push for rural electrification in the United States after the Second World War. Already rising, electricity demand in the Great Lakes region could soar ever higher if high-tech corporate interest in data centres manifests as real-world construction. This comes as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a regulatory agency, warns that the Great Lakes region faces high risk of electricity shortfalls in the next five years due to rising demand and power plant retirements.

This represents a head-spinning, era-defining reversal in electrical demand. In Wisconsin, electricity sales had been on a downward slope since the 2007 recession began. By one estimate, data centre electricity demand in the state will increase seven-fold by 2030, amounting to more than four per cent of its electricity consumption. Data centre load in northern Illinois has climbed 27 per cent annually between 2022 and 2025, according to ComEd, the region’s electric utility. 

DTE Energy, the largest Michigan electric utility, announced a deal last fall to provide power to the 1,383-megawatt Green Chile Ventures data centre in Washtenaw County. The Michigan Public Service Commission conditionally approved the state’s first “hyperscale” development in December. 

Consumers, the second largest electric provider in Michigan, has 9,000 megawatts of projects in its development pipeline, mostly for data centre and manufacturing.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced a 20-year deal with Vistra last month to buy 2,100 megawatts from three nuclear plants while also expanding the generating capacity at those facilities. The agreement covers Perry and Davis-Besse, both located along Lake Erie in Ohio, as well as Beaver Valley, in Pennsylvania along the Ohio River. Meta also signed an agreement with California-based Oklo Inc. to build a 1,200-megawatt SMR plant in Ohio.

The rise in electricity demand could pose a challenge to state renewable energy goals. Illinois has a target of 100 per cent clean energy by 2050. For Michigan’s electric utilities, the deadline is sooner: 100 per cent clean energy by 2040.

That shift to renewables and the closure of water-intensive coal plants has been a net benefit for Great Lakes water so far. Water is drawn from lakes and rivers to cool the equipment at thermoelectric power stations, a category that includes fossil fuels and nuclear. Water withdrawals in the basin for thermoelectric power are down 24 per cent compared to a decade ago, according to a University of Michigan report prepared for the Conference of Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers. That decline is true for power plants that use once-through cooling as well as for those that have recirculating systems that reduce withdrawals but increase consumption.

There are “substantial water savings as the region transitions away from traditional fossil fuels,” the report found. Besides water demand, the shift away from thermoelectric plants means fewer fish sucked into cooling-water pipes or trapped against their screens. It means less thermal pollution of nearshore waters and rivers. It means less mercury deposited into waterways from coal plant air emissions.

The downward trend could shift upwards this year when the Palisades nuclear plant is scheduled to open, and may tilt higher as another shuttered nuclear plant in Wisconsin could reopen and new SMR plants come online. For data centres, the largest piece of their water use is not in direct operations. It is through the electricity they consume.

Years ago, the Great Lakes Commission, which represents the eight basin states and two Canadian provinces, was thinking about the same questions of water supply. In 2011, the commission published the findings from a multi-year project to identify water quality and quantity vulnerabilities in the U.S. portion of the Great Lakes basin due to thermoelectric power generation. 

The analysis, led by Sandia National Laboratories, considered multiple power generation projections and assessed three energy-related risk factors for the region’s water resources: water quality, thermal pollution of waterways and low stream flows. It was the first model to consider water resources in future electricity scenarios for the region. A fifth of the basin’s 102 subwatersheds scored a high risk in at least two categories.

The commission published the analysis, but largely moved on. No follow-up review was completed to determine the project’s effectiveness in shaping policy, said Erika Jensen, the commission’s executive director.

Today with data centres commanding so much attention, the water-energy connection resurfaced. That focus is partly due to growing public pushback against data centre growth. Lawmakers in Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota have introduced legislation to mandate more transparency from data centre operators on their water and energy use.

At its meeting last October, the Great Lakes Commission signaled its reengagement when the commissioners — largely high-ranking state officials and lawmakers — signed two new resolutions related to energy and water. One resolution encourages water reuse for industry, where appropriate. The other, on the water-energy nexus, asserts the “importance of coordinating and integrating water, energy and sustainable resource management” in the face of data centre development and related industries that are poised to increase energy demand and water use.

The resolutions reaffirmed that energy and water are back on the table at the highest levels, Jensen said. “We’re just getting restarted right now.”

Looking back, looking forward

Electricity is only part of the region’s evolving energy story. Aging legacy assets are also a part of the mix. 

The most noteworthy of these older assets is Line 5, the 1,000-kilometre oil pipeline that runs from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ont. Enbridge, the Canadian company that owns the pipeline, wants to drill a tunnel to house the structure so that it does not sit exposed on the lakebed. Michigan officials are seeking to shut down the line. Lawsuits are proceeding in both state and federal courts, with a U.S. Supreme Court hearing later this month to determine the appropriate venue. 

The outcome will be a bellwether for energy policy, Shriberg said. “It’s really symbolic and may be determinant of which direction this region and this country is headed on energy and water issues.”

Reliable water and cheap energy are foundational economic pieces. Historically, these resource inputs were the great engines of the Great Lakes economy. Water-intensive industries — tanneries, breweries, pulp mills, manufacturers and the like — were drawn to a region where they could extract water and pump out profits. Nuclear and coal-fired power plants were installed on the shores of Michigan, Ontario, Huron, Superior and Erie, the source of water to cool their electricity-generating equipment.

Today a different set of businesses has entered the market. The entire sweep of large water users catalyzed by the new energy economy — semiconductors, battery manufacturers — need to be part of the water-use equation, said Alaina Harkness, CEO of Current, a Chicago-based organization focused on water innovation.

“If we had better policy and planning frameworks, this could be a great place to do that relative to some of the water-scarce regions in the rest of the country,” Harkness said. “But again, we’ve got to shift our frameworks, got to look much more at water reuse and these water-energy connections.”

There is indeed opportunity in the new energy landscape, said Liesl Clark, director of climate action engagement at the University of Michigan and the former head of the state environment agency. Not just for a foothold in the 21st century economy, but also for continuing on a low-carbon path and strengthening the policies that ensure the region’s water is not abused in the process.

“How do we make sure we’re doing it in the most protective way possible in the state?” Clark asked.

As the new energy era takes shape, that is a prevailing question not just for Michigan but for the region as a whole.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A First Nation challenging the Nuclear Waste Management Organization in court says the ongoing assessment of a proposed nuclear waste site should be suspended.

Eagle Lake First Nation filed an application for judicial review of the nuclear industry-funded non-profit’s site selection for the deep geological repository in December 2024. It’s arguing it wasn’t considered as an option to be a host community when the waste management organization deliberated its options leading up to the eventual selection of Ignace, Ont., and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation as hosts.

“We are concerned that, as the impact assessment moves forward, it will prejudice our hearing on judicial review,” said Kate Kempton, legal counsel for Eagle Lake.

“It’s just simply human nature that the more that things get entrenched or locked in, or the more that money is spent toward developing something — including environmental assessments — it puts more of a strain, I will say, on a judge to make a ruling that the whole thing needs to end.”

Kempton added that, should their legal challenge be successful, the “relief” they’re requesting is that the late-November 2024 site decision be thrown out and Eagle Lake named a host community.

“Then, Eagle Lake First Nation has to have the same rights as anyone else that was deemed to be a host community and determine for itself whether it’s prepared to let this go through the next steps — including impact assessment,” she continued.

“At this point, the whole thing is barrelling on ahead; the cart’s before the horse — we’re the horse — and we’re being prejudiced by that.”

Jessica Perritt, director of Indigenous and municipal relations for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, told Northwestern Ontario Newswatch the matter is still before the courts but “we still want to work with Eagle Lake.”

“We acknowledge them as an important community in the region and we’re open to meet with them and acknowledge the significance of who they are in that area.”

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has said the site was chosen “following extensive technical study and community engagement,” and that the host communities “understand the project and support making it part of their community.”

Eagle Lake’s initial filing argues it was not considered because there was opposition in the community.

Daniel Morriseau, Eagle Lake’s director of strategic projects and alliances, told Newswatch his community has been shut out of the ongoing process and is not having its input heard, saying “we’re more so being treated like a checkbox that needs to be completed.”

“We are always interested in following our traditional laws of being stewards of our traditional lands, and where this potential project is going to be taking place is within our traditional lands,” he said. “We feel very strongly it’s our duty to act as stewards of those lands based on our traditional laws, and we haven’t had that opportunity to do so.”

“We have land use, current and historic, and values in that area.”

In October 2025, Kempton sent a letter to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (which is leading the assessment), the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson, calling for the site review’s suspension until Eagle Lake’s application is resolved.

Hodgson responded in a letter shared with Newswatch by Eagle Lake saying that the matter falls under the purview of the impact assessment agency and that he “trusts” it “will give your correspondence every consideration.” As of Jan. 13, the community and its lawyers said they hadn’t received a response from the agency.

Newswatch contacted the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada on Jan. 14 about Eagle Lake’s letter and request for the process to be halted. The agency said on Jan. 16 that it is “committed to working collaboratively with Eagle Lake First Nation,” and now that the process’s planning phase has started, only the proponent can “suspend the time limit.”

“They ignored us and proceeded anyway,” Kempton said, given their letter to the assessment agency and others was sent roughly two-and-a-half months prior to the impact assessment officially beginning on Jan. 5 of this year.

“It certainly raises a lot of concerns about conflicts in the process that’s unfolding and undermines our faith and trust in those processes,” Morriseau said. “It’s a difficult situation to navigate for sure for us.”

Kempton said applying for judicial review (which is what Eagle Lake is doing) is a much shorter process than a full lawsuit, but there has still been no date set. She said she hopes other necessary steps, like sharing of evidence through affidavits and out-of-court cross examination, will be done in the next couple of months.

“It’s a shorter-term court case,” she said. “We’re not talking years here.”

Perritt, with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, said even though the two sides are in court, there’s “an openness” from the organization to working together.

“We do acknowledge that there’s other processes happening — we have to work through that at the same time,” she said.

Kempton said now that the impact assessment has begun, Eagle Lake will be “compelled” to participate in that at the same time the court case moves ahead.

“We’re not asking for special treatment, just not prejudicial treatment,” Kempton said.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The years-long process for regulators to decide whether a proposed nuclear waste storage site gets the green light has begun.

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada has posted the initial project description for the deep geological repository being proposed in the Ignace, Ont., area by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. The public posting officially kicks off the assessment done jointly between the impact assessment agency and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The first chance for people to comment on the organization’s proposal to federal regulators has also begun, with initial submissions being accepted until 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 4.

“It’s an opportunity for the public to be involved and to learn more about this, what I call, an incredibly important project for Canada,” Allan Webster, the waste management organization’s vice-president of regulatory approvals, told Northwestern Ontario Newswatch.

“And, so we encourage people to do that and to learn more.”

The proposed repository would store approximately 5.9 million bundles of used nuclear fuel from Canada’s nuclear power plants at a site near Revell Lake between Ignace and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation south of Highway 17. The two communities are the hosts for the project.

The project continues to be opposed by a variety of stakeholders, including environmental groups and a number of First Nations throughout northern Ontario.

Wendy O’Connor, a volunteer and spokesperson with We the Nuclear Free North, told Newswatch they also want to get the word out that the federal process has begun.

“We’re encouraging people to sign up with the impact assessment agency so that they’re informed of the release of documents such as this, and of public comment periods,” she said.

“The more of the public that comments, the better — as we see it.”

Comments gathered during the initial one-month period will give the impact assessment agency information about what people are thinking about the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s formal proposal, with the agency saying in a media release that they “should be based on local, regional or Indigenous knowledge of the site or surrounding environment, or provide any other relevant information that may support the conduct of this assessment.”

“Thereafter, we understand what it is that we have to assess and we really start to talk to people a lot about specifically what it is we’re assessing,” Webster said. “What does it mean, what impacts might it have, what mitigations might be available, and we involve people with that discussion every step of the way, so that people can give us the input we need so we can do things well.”

“But, also, so they’re informed so they understand what it is that we’re intending to do.”

O’Connor said her group will likely be doing its own public awareness-raising throughout the assessment period.

“It is an important part of the process,” she said. “It’s constructive to consider the impact assessment agency as a good-faith actor, and we take that stance that it’s important for everyone to participate in this, and that the comments will be important from the public.”

“Comments received will support [the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada] and the [Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission] in the preparation of a summary of issues that will be sent to the proponent and help shape how the overall integrated assessment will be carried out,” the impact assessment agency’s media release said.

Webster said the assessment is expected to be completed within five years, culminating with a decision from the federal government and, if successful, an initial licence from the nuclear safety commission.

Additional separate licences from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission also have to be issued including for things like site construction and operations, he added, with those also contingent on initial project approval.

If that happens, those would be expected to be an additional roughly five to 10 years down the road.

More information is available at the impact assessment agency’s website, as is how to comment.

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A contentious radioactive waste disposal facility near the Ottawa River is back in court, and the outcome will set an important precedent for Indigenous Rights and consultation. 

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is trying to overturn a federal court’s decision that found Kebaowek First Nation was not properly consulted on a near-surface nuclear waste disposal facility near Chalk River, Ont. This development is the latest in a long saga of court challenges and appeals since the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission greenlit the proposed facility on Jan. 9, 2024. The radioactive waste mound would be situated about a kilometre from the Ottawa River, which is a source of drinking water for millions of people downstream.

The Assembly of First Nations and MPs from the Bloc Québécois, Green Party and NDP pledged their support to Kebaowek First Nation, which is prepared to take the fight all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

“The Assembly of First Nations will extend our support to the highest levels required in this case,” National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said on the eve of the court date.

The outcome of the appeal “will speak volumes about the future of First Nations rights in this country, and it may prove to be a litmus test for large infrastructure projects being fast-tracked under new federal and provincial laws,” Woodhouse Nepinak said, referring to federal Bill C-5 and similar legislation in B.C. and Ontario.

Kebaowek First Nation appeared in federal court last year and successfully argued that Canadian Nuclear Laboratories — the private contractor responsible for managing the Chalk River nuclear site — did not secure the First Nation’s free, prior and informed consent during the licensing process. In February, Federal Court Justice Julie Blackhawk ruled the consultation process was inadequate because it failed to consider the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), thus making the approval “incorrect.” Blackhawk ordered Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to resume consultations with Kebaowek First Nation, including an order to adapt the process to “address Indigenous Law, knowledge and processes to develop a process that is aimed at reaching an agreement” before Sept. 30, 2026. 

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories argues consultation with Kebaowek was adequate, and the commission did not have to adhere to UNDRIP because it is non-binding. Kebaowek is defending its position that UNDRIP did apply to the commission’s decision and goes even further, arguing the decision to greenlight the project should be thrown out. The hearing took place on Oct. 8, accompanied by a rally nearly 100-strong outside the Federal Court of Appeal.

The project would allow Canadian Nuclear Laboratories to permanently dispose of one million cubic metres of radioactive waste in a shallow mound about 146 kilometres, as the crow flies, northwest of Ottawa. It would offer a solution for disposal of radioactive waste accumulated since the 1940s, as well as waste from future operations. Pikwaganan First Nation is the closest to Chalk River and gave its consent for the project but submitted documents supporting Kebaowek’s arguments on UNDRIP to the court.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, NDP MP Leah Gazan, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and various BQ MPs, including Sébastien Lemire, showed up to support Kebaowek at a press conference and rally.

The Mining Association of Canada and the Canadian Nuclear Association also intervened in the case, siding with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ arguments.

“Through the appeal, CNL is seeking clarification and guidance on how to navigate the changing legal landscape with respect to Indigenous rights and interests,” a spokesperson for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories told Canada’s National Observer in an emailed statement, rehashing a March 21, 2025, press release. “Given that there are few examples of UNDRIP being implemented in Canada and none in the nuclear sector, it is important that CNL clearly understand what is needed to continue our work and mission to responsibly address Canada’s nuclear liabilities.”

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories directed Canada’s National Observer to that online statement when contacted for comment about the ongoing hearing. It says: “CNL remains fully committed to advancing reconciliation with Indigenous nations,” and “strongly believes in the science” behind the waste storage project.

The provincial party Québec Solidaire is supporting Kebaowek, but the Quebec government has avoided taking a stance, said Kebaowek First Nation Chief Lance Haymond at a press conference in downtown Ottawa on the eve of the appeal hearing.

“It seems that because of the issues around Gentilly [nuclear generating station], that Quebec is complacent in supporting this approach, because ultimately, they need a place for their waste to go and Chalk River affords them a solution,” Haymond said.

“The province of Quebec, earlier this spring and throughout the summer, has secretly allowed radioactive waste from Gentilly-1 to be secretly transported to Chalk River without public notice, without consultation, and along public highways that cross multiple communities,” he said.

Chalk River is home to about 70 per cent of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s legacy nuclear waste and will continue to accumulate more.

A lot of the radioactive waste slated for disposal at the proposed site is currently sitting in trenches at the Chalk River Laboratories, which was standard practice decades ago, but is no longer in line with nuclear waste-management practices. Along with the issue of Indigenous consultation and its permit under federal Species At Risk Act, a chief concern raised in a citizen court challenge is around the waste itself, because different types of radioactive waste have different storage requirements. 

A former employee at Chalk River told Canada’s National Observer a portion of the waste destined for the mound is a “mishmash” of intermediate- and low-level radioactivity because prior to 2000 there were inadequate systems to properly label, characterize, store and track what was produced at Chalk River or shipped there from other labs.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is contracted by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to manage and operate its sites and facilities across the country.

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Nuclear power is seeing a global resurgence, as leaders race to declare nuclear the future of clean electricity. 

“There is no carbon-free future without nuclear power,” federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said. “That’s just a physical and mathematical fact.” Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his province’s nuclear fleet is “uniquely positioned to power the future.” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says nuclear power is “key to providing reliable and affordable power.”

The enthusiasm doesn’t stop at Canada’s borders. Around the world, 31 countries, including Canada and the U.S, have joined a declaration — stemming from last year’s United Nations climate change conference — to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. Many have cited climate change and energy security as reasons to be gung ho for nuclear.

It’s all leading to what’s been dubbed a “nuclear renaissance.” 

And that combination of international factors is driving a boom in uranium exploration and mining in northern Saskatchewan, home to the world’s largest deposits of high-grade uranium, an ideal fuel for reactors. 

Only two uranium mines are operating in Saskatchewan at the moment — the only active mines in Canada — but more are waiting for approvals and the level of exploration and government enthusiasm is predicted to drive more activity in the sector.

The boom will, as all booms do, come with big questions about who wins, who loses and whether the risks associated with nuclear power and uranium mining are worth it. 

Those risks are not distributed evenly, and overwhelmingly impact Indigenous communities in the north. And while the rewards will favour governments and industry, those same communities will see increased job opportunities and investments. 

Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening in northern Saskatchewan and what’s likely to come.

First, the basics: what’s uranium again?

Uranium is a radioactive element that is the main source of fuel for nuclear reactors. It’s a heavy metal found in ore that has to be mined, first getting rid of the waste rock in which it’s encased, and then refined so it can be used in reactors to produce electricity (that’d be nuclear fission). 

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, “a chicken-egg-sized amount of uranium fuel can provide as much electricity as 88 tonnes of coal.”

Saskatchewan stands alone for the purity of its deposits — the high grade of uranium ore underground. Essentially, there is more uranium in each bit of rock, meaning less waste, less work and more money per tonne of rock.

Natural Resources Canada says the deposits contain “grades that are 10 to 100 times greater than the average grade of deposits mined elsewhere in the world.”

Cameco, a major uranium producer based in Saskatoon, says its McArthur River mine, about 800 kilometres north of Saskatoon, has uranium grades 100 times higher than the global average.

How is uranium mined in Canada?

Uranium can be mined like any other ore, including using open pits dug to allow easier access to the resource (but that is increasingly rare). Both active uranium mines in Canada are underground and use a variety of techniques, including in-situ — where chemicals are pumped into the ground to dissolve the uranium and then the uranium is pumped it to the surface for processing. 

The high grade of Saskatchewan’s uranium means a higher level of radioactivity. Due to this, humans are often shielded from the actual ore removal, including by the use of automated vehicles to transport the ore.

Along with Saskatchewan’s two active mines are two mills — facilities that process the ore into a concentrated uranium powder known as yellowcake for further refining. 

How much uranium is in Saskatchewan?

A lot, though the exact estimate is difficult to pin down.

According to Cameco, estimated reserves in Saskatchewan alone are approximately 250 million kilograms (547 million pounds). That’d be around 10 per cent of the world’s total. But to inject a bit of confusion, the Saskatchewan government has different numbers. In its critical minerals strategy, it says the province is home to 1.5 billion pounds of recoverable uranium. 

The Saskatchewan government has not responded to questions asking for clarification on the discrepancy. 

Either way, most agree Saskatchewan has the world’s largest high-grade deposits, though overall it has the third-largest deposits in the world behind Australia and Kazakhstan. Last year, the province was the world’s second-largest uranium producer, after Kazakhstan. 

Who owns Saskatchewan uranium?

Two companies operate the active uranium mines in Canada, Cameco and Orano (a French mutli-national whose Canadian subsidiary is headquartered in Saskatoon). The two companies share ownership, of varying degrees, of several mines and mills. 

Several companies are actively exploring or applying for mine approvals in Saskatchewan, including NextGen Energy Ltd. That company was recently fined by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for “site preparation and construction of a uranium mine and mill facility” without a licence — while it awaits approvals and an environmental impact assessment. 

Tepco Resources Inc., based in Japan, has a small share of the Cigar Lake Mine, which is majority-owned by Cameco. 

The uranium itself, however, is technically owned by the province, which collects royalties for mining. 

First Nations in northern Saskatchewan have complicated, ever-changing relationships with uranium mining companies. As with much resource extraction in Canada, government decisions to allow uranium mining in Treaty 8 and Treaty 10 territories have often happened without consideration for Treaty Rights or potential impacts on Indigenous ways of life. 

In 2023, when Saskatchewan released its critical mineral strategy, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 73 nations in the province, said that without consultation and built-in benefits sharing, the strategy infringed on inherent and Treaty Rights.

Nations insist work on their territories requires informed consent, and there have been blockades to prevent uranium exploration in the region without it — such as one in 2014, and two in 2021. Last fall, the non-profit Ya’ thi Néné, which represents both Athabasca Denesułiné First Nations and non-Indigenous municipalities in the region, signed an agreement with Eagle Plains Resources allowing exploration as long as its members get a fair share of revenue.

Where is uranium exported to?

The province saw a massive increase in exports to the European Union in 2023, particularly to Germany. According to the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership’s latest report, overall exports increased by 220 per cent in 2023, to more than $1.7 billion. 

According to the World Bank, Saskatchewan’s 2022 exports went exclusively to Europe and the United States. In the U.S., approximately 20 per cent of electricity is generated by nuclear reactors, while in Europe, it’s approximately 24 per cent.  

So is Saskatchewan raking in a lot of money from its uranium deposits?

The CEO of Cameco has said he’s extremely optimistic about the future of the industry, with uranium prices significantly higher than they were a decade ago and governments around the world pledging to increase nuclear power. 

“I’ve been in this game, the nuclear business, for over 40 years, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the long-term fundamentals as good as they are today, like around the world,” Tim Gitzel told the Saskatoon Star Phoenix last December.

The company has seen increased revenue, but has spent a lot of money to acquire a builder of nuclear reactors (more on that in a minute). 

But that sunny outlook won’t necessarily translate into government revenue. In the 2023-24 budget year, the Saskatchewan government received approximately $90 million from uranium mining, down from its forecast of $122 million. In its annual report, the Ministry of Energy and Resources said the difference is “due primarily to lower basic and profit royalties.”

In its latest budget, however, the government noted expenditures for the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources was $76.7 million higher “primarily due to an increase in liability associated with the remediation of mine sites, including the Lorado and Gunnar uranium mines and the Anglo-Rouyn base metals mine.” Like other industrial sites, uranium mines carry costly cleanup bills, but the actual price will depend on the site in question. 

The cleanup costs for the decommissioned Gunnar mine in northern Saskatchewan are estimated at $280 million, paid for by the federal and provincial governments.

Is there more exploration for new uranium deposits now? Why?

The world’s newfound hunger for uranium translates into more exploration. 

Developing a mine in northern Saskatchewan is a long and expensive process, with federal and provincial regulations dealing with everything from nuclear security to environmental impacts. Exploration is a lot easier, and so is staking a claim. 

The provincial critical minerals strategy, which is heavily focused on potash, uranium and helium, says exploration spending for uranium increased from $75 million in 2021 to an estimated $126 million in 2022. 

Natural Resources Canada says the uranium market across the country has “experienced a remarkable resurgence recently,” with spending more than doubling between 2021 and 2023. Most of that is in Saskatchewan, according to the agency. 

The Ministry of Energy and Resources did not return questions asking about the number of companies involved in exploration activities.

What’s the Saskatchewan’s government’s position on uranium?

The provincial government is pushing hard to expand the sector.

It’s pushing hard for more uranium exploration and production, offering tax credits and incentives as part of its larger critical minerals strategy. The strategy also says the province will work with Ottawa to “remove barriers to global market access and foreign investment restrictions on uranium.”

But it is also pushing hard to be a leader in the deployment of small modular reactors, relying on the promise of the largely untested technology to not only support a homegrown uranium industry, but also to solve its emissions-heavy electricity grid issues. 

Cameco recently partnered with Brookfield Asset Management, a global investment firm headquartered in Toronto, to buy Westinghouse Electric Company, a U.S.-based producer of reactors. 

Those companies signed a memorandum of understanding with the government to evaluate the potential of their reactors for the province. SaskPower, the Crown corporation that runs the provincial grid, has also signed a deal with GE Hitachi to build a small modular reactor. 

What are the risks of uranium mining?

There will always be a risk of radioactive contamination on the landscape, as well as human health impacts from uranium mining. 

Tailings, the waste product from mining, are radioactive and must be stored properly in ponds that cap the radioactive material. Historical techniques, where waste was piled in the open air, led to contaminated water and air.

Active mines can pose a health risk to miners — uranium is radioactive, after all — but steps have been taken to prevent direct contact and increase the use of safety equipment and monitoring. 

When uranium decays, it produces radon gas which can be inhaled and is known to cause lung cancer — a causal link made clear in observations of uranium miners.   

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says the risk to the public and to workers in both uranium exploration and mining is low with the use of contemporary techniques and protocols. A study currently underway by the commission is looking at historical and current worker data to determine risks. 

But risks can also impact nearby communities if radiation escapes into the environment, posing a threat to air and water. Leaky tailings, which can remain radioactive for thousands of years, could contaminate water.  

Are uranium mines cleaned up?

These mines don’t just go away when they shut down. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission lists 19 closed uranium mines with tailings that are managed either by their former owners, the federal government or the provincial government. Four of these inactive mines are in Saskatchewan. 

There are also 78 older mines without tailings that are exempted from the federal regulations, according to the commission. 

“These idle mines are, in all physical and radiological characteristics, indistinguishable from conventional mines,” it says. 

Despite the low risk of some of those older mines, others will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to remediate. 

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After a 14-year search, Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation and the Township of Ignace, Ont. — roughly 200 kilometres northwest of Lake Superior — have been selected as the preferred site of Canada’s nuclear waste repository. 

The decision was announced as “a historic moment” by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, a non-profit established by Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power Corporation and Hydro-Québec and empowered by the federal government to create a plan for nuclear waste management. 

Canada is deeply dependent on nuclear power, the source of more than 50 per cent of the energy used in its most populous province, Ontario, and about 40 per cent in New Brunswick — the only two provinces with operating nuclear power plants. Nuclear energy produces zero carbon emissions but poses different challenges. The main one: nuclear waste can stay radioactive for 400,000 years. Right now, producers keep high-level waste in temporary storage near reactors, but this is not a sustainable solution given the lifespan of the toxic waste, which is too vulnerable to natural disasters and human threat.As of 2020, the country’s nuclear power utilities had produced about three million fire log-sized bundles of high-level nuclear waste, largely from spent fuel pellets — enough to fill eight hockey rinks from the ice to the top of the boards — and that number grows by about 90,000 bundles each year. 

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has proposed a $26-billion underground nuclear waste disposal facility, known as a deep geological repository, to take in this waste from across the country. The search for a location began in 2010 and scrutinized 22 communities across Ontario, as the province produces and temporarily stores the bulk of Canada’s nuclear waste. The organization was clear that no decision would be made without the willingness and consent of whichever municipality and First Nation would be closest to the site. 

After more than a decade of consultations, the final decision came down to two: South Bruce, Ont., and Saugeen Ojibway Nation, on Lake Huron, and Ignace and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation. 

Fred Kuntz, spokesperson for the nuclear waste organization, told The Narwhal both sites were technically suitable and accessible to safe transportation. But the reason Ignace and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation were chosen was because the organization “didn’t see a path to an agreement with Saugeen Ojibway Nation.” 

The chiefs of Saugeen Ojibway Nation did not answer calls from The Narwhal before publication time. As of Nov. 20, the nation was “not yet decided” on whether it wanted to be a willing host. 

In a statement Nov. 28, the municipality of South Bruce congratulated the nuclear waste organization, Ignace and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation. South Bruce will receive $8 million for its participation in consultations and willingness to host. The nuclear waste organization told The Narwhal it is continuing discussions with Saugeen Ojibway Nation to “work out something similar,” noting it would be a confidential agreement. 

In July, the Township of Ignace confirmed its willingness to proceed in discussions to store the waste, following a community vote that saw 77 per cent of respondents vote yes. And earlier this month, members of Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation — which has roughly 1,000 members, 200 of which live on a reserve 20 kilometres from the nuclear repository site — indicated their willingness to move forward with further consultations and studies. “The yes vote does not signify approval of the project; rather, it demonstrates the nation’s willingness to enter the next phase of in-depth environmental and technical assessments, to determine safety and site suitability,” the nation said in a Nov. 18 press release. 

In a statement Thursday, Wabigoon Lake Chief Clayton Wetelainen said his nation “views our role as the potential host for Canada’s used nuclear fuel as one of the most important responsibilities of our time.”“We cannot ignore this challenge and allow it to become a burden for future generations,” Wetelainen said in the release. “Our membership spoke with a clear voice in our willingness decision that we have the bravery and courage to continue to the next phase of this project.”

For the repository to be built, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization will have to embark on what Wabigoon Lake describes as “the largest and most strenuous impact assessment in Canadian history” to ensure the project poses minimal human and environmental harm. The organization will have to get the green light from various federal agencies, including the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The organization will also have to pass Waabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation’s own regulatory assessment and approval process, which “asserts our Sovereign rights while protecting our Anishinaabe Values and Laws,” Chief Wetelainen’s statement said.

Over the years, there has been broad scientific consensus that the best way to dispose of nuclear waste is to bury it far underground. It has to be placed in rock that is stable and won’t shift for 400,000 years — the length of time the Nuclear Waste Management Organization believes the waste would remain radioactive enough to be harmful if it leaked — and remain undisturbed by future generations. 

If the organization gets the green light from the nation, Ignace and both federal bodies, construction will likely begin in the 2030s. The goal is to have the site open in the early 2040s, the organization told The Narwhal.

 — With files from Emma McIntosh

Updated Nov. 28, 2024, at 7:20 p.m. ET. This story has been updated to remove a statement about the First Nation’s regulatory mechanisms for the project.

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Amidst all the name-calling and mud-slinging in B.C. politics as the Oct. 19 provincial election approaches, candidates from across the political spectrum can agree on at least one thing: B.C. needs more power. 

BC Hydro estimates electricity demand will grow 15 per cent by 2030, driven partly by efforts to provide cleaner power to emission-intensive industries like liquefied natural gas (LNG) and mining. 

To meet the expected demand surge, BC Hydro has put out a call for power generation proposals such as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal. That’s on top of energy from the $16-billion Site C hydro dam, which is nearing completion on B.C.’s Peace River after more than nine years of construction. 

But BC Conservative Party Leader John Rustad says the province should consider another source of power — nuclear energy.

“Wind and solar can be part of the mix, but they’re not baseload, they’re not reliable,” Rustad recently told attendees at the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Vancouver. “We’re going to actually have to have a conversation about the possibility of using nuclear power in British Columbia if we want to be able to increase the ability to have affordable, reliable, clean energy.” 

Rustad isn’t alone in suggesting B.C. should take a look at nuclear. 

The Canada Energy Regulator reached a similar conclusion in its Energy Futures 2023 report, which explored how Canada can meet its 2050 emission reduction targets. Achieving those targets would require nuclear power to become part of B.C.’s power mix by 2031 and account for about 13 per cent of power used in the province by 2040.

BC NDP Leader David Eby rejects that conclusion, pointing to B.C.’s abundant clean energy options, from long-standing hydro power generation to wind, solar and potentially geothermal.

BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau is similarly dismissive of Rustad’s suggestion the province needs nuclear power, calling it “a nonsensical conversation to be having in B.C.”

“We have everything we need in B.C. to create an abundant amount of clean energy,” Furstenau told reporters at the convention. “We should lean into that with everything we’ve got and get moving into the 21st century.”

So which is it? Does B.C. need nuclear power or are nuclear power proponents just blowing smoke?

Rustad critiques nuclear energy ban implemented by BC Liberal government

About 15 per cent of the energy used in Canada comes from nuclear, but only Ontario and New Brunswick have operating nuclear plants. 

B.C.’s Clean Energy Act, passed in 2010, bans nuclear power from being used to meet the province’s energy needs. 

Rustad, who was a member of the BC Liberal government that implemented the ban, now calls the decision to take nuclear off the table a political move rather than one grounded in good policy.

Margareta Dovgal, managing director of Resource Works Society, a B.C. non-profit group that promotes resource development such as LNG, also wants the province to revisit its ban on nuclear generation. 

“We know our energy needs are going to continue to go up and we need to have options to fulfil that — everything from solar, wind, small scale run-of-river, geothermal, nuclear and even hydrogen should be considered as part of that mix,” Dovgal said in an interview. 

“It’s a clear no-brainer for me that we should at least have the pathway to allow nuclear electricity here in B.C.”

Dovgal called nuclear power “a well studied, well deployed technology with a large [and] really robust safety record globally” and suggested the private sector could step in to build nuclear in some circumstances if the government doesn’t want to.

But when things go wrong with nuclear power plants, the consequences can be severe. The legacy of nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima is still top of mind for many.

“Whichever community lives near [a nuclear power plant] needs to realize that there is a small possibility that they may have to clear out of their houses because of radioactive contamination [and] never come back,” M.V. Ramana, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, said in an interview.

A 2023 survey by Angus Reid found a majority of Canadians — including 58 per cent of B.C. respondents — were comfortable with the thought of nuclear power being produced in their province and half had no qualms about living within 100 kilometres of a nuclear power plant. 

Renewables a cheaper alternative to nuclear energy in B.C., experts say

With renewables an established power source in B.C., ramping them up to quickly meet increasing demand seems like the best bang for the government’s buck to Julie MacArthur, an associate professor in Royal Roads University’s faculty of management whose work focuses on energy transitions and the political economy of energy projects.

“We have all this pent up interest from across the province to develop other forms of power that are so much cheaper [than nuclear],” MacArthur, who is also the Canada Research Chair in reimagining capitalism, said in an interview. 

“I’m not against conversations but I don’t want us to spend so much time talking and waiting and planning for some new future, not ready to roll out technology that we miss the opportunity to transition as quickly as we can, given the tools we already have that are quite effective.”

When it comes to getting new energy sources online quickly, nuclear power doesn’t win any races. The province would have to alter legislation and establish regulations for the nuclear power sector before serious planning for a nuclear power plant could get underway.

“If B.C. were to decide next year to start building a nuclear power plant, the earliest we would get electricity from that is in the 2040s and that’s not a solution to [the] energy demand crisis right now,” Ramana, who wrote a book on why nuclear power is not viable solution to the climate crisis, said. 

By comparison, wind and solar farms generally take just two or three years from the start of construction until they produce power, Ramana pointed out. 

“We don’t have the luxury of time when it comes to dealing with climate change. Climate scientists on the intergovernmental panel on climate change, all of them tell us that we need to reduce our emissions very fast, and the timescale it takes to build nuclear power is not compatible with that.” 

Merran Smith, a member of the BC Climate Solutions Council, a group advising the government on climate action and clean economic growth, said efforts to position nuclear as a viable power source for B.C. could divert time and money from more efficient power sources.

“We need to focus on existing technologies like solar and wind that are cheaper and are going to keep the electrical grid affordable and can be constructed in a timely way,” Smith, president of New Economy Canada, said in an interview. “There may be a role for nuclear, but let’s not get distracted by shiny objects for the future at this point.”

Cost comparisons don’t work out well for nuclear power either. Wind and solar power are cheaper than ever, costing between 3.2 cents and 13 cents per kilowatt hour. Nuclear power ranges from 19 to 30 cents per kilowatt hour, according to a 2023 assessment by financial analysis firm Lazard.

Rustad and other nuclear power proponents point to small modular reactors (SMRs) — a new nuclear technology that promises to cut construction costs and timelines — as an innovation that could make nuclear power more competitive with renewables. 

Small modular reactors, like traditional nuclear plants, produce energy via nuclear fission, but on a much smaller scale, which allows components to be made in a factory and transported to sites for assembly.

There are no small modular reactors operating in Canada. Installations in China and Russia have experienced construction delays and cost overruns, according to Ramana, while work to build one in Argentina started in 2014 and has yet to produce any power.

“We do have a little bit of data and this data all supports the idea that small nuclear reactors will not fix the problems of nuclear energy,” Ramana said, adding nuclear power tends to be heavily impacted by economies of scale — the bigger the plants are, the cheaper the power they produce.

“They are some of the most expensive nuclear power,” Smith said of small reactors. “They really will only make sense in remote locations, for example, for mines where the cost of building hundreds of kilometres of transmission line doesn’t make sense.”

The Alberta government is keen to deploy small nuclear reactors to help decarbonize its oil and gas industry, although a feasibility study concluded the technology might not be ready for a decade.

MacArthur doesn’t see much chance of nuclear stacking up favourably against renewables like wind and solar in B.C.

“We do want people to be aware of the options, but for me, it’s a pretty quick answer to say that [nuclear] isn’t the one we want to be focusing on for the province.”

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The Trudeau government’s 2023 federal budget is backing nuclear power in a big way, unleashing a new $80-billion arsenal of tax changes that also offer incentives for hydropower, critical minerals, hydrogen, carbon capture and renewables.

It’s all part of a bid to arm Canada with new weapons to compete against an onslaught of industrial subsidies from the Biden administration, enshrined in the White House’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The Liberals have proposed the largest package of tax incentives available to nuclear energy and manufacturing to date from the federal government, a Finance Canada official confirmed. Both large-scale nuclear plants and small modular reactors are winners in Tuesday’s rollout of multiple new refundable tax credits, tabled in the House of Commons by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

That’s good news for TC Energy, the large oil and gas company behind the Coastal GasLink pipeline being built through Wet’suwet’en territory without the consent of that nation’s Hereditary Chiefs. The company had lobbied the government to include nuclear power, including small modular reactors, as part of an investment tax credit for low-carbon energy.

The Pathways Alliance group of oilsands companies has also made nuclear power part of its plan to lower emissions in the oilpatch, and TC Energy has floated the idea of using nuclear reactors in the oilsands. The Canadian Environmental Law Association, by comparison, has advocated against the idea.

At the same time, the government introduced new rules to allow companies that make hydrogen from fossil fuels to still take advantage of favourable federal tax treatment, as long as the emissions are abated using carbon capture equipment.

And while the budget proposes some funding for federal officials to talk with Indigenous communities in order to “update” guidelines outlining the Crown’s duty to consult Indigenous Peoples, it also hinted at a new plan to streamline the permitting process for major projects, and slash timelines to get them built.

“It should not take 12 years to open a critical minerals mine,” the budget said.

Carbon pricing not enough to compete with U.S. IRA: federal budget

The message running through the budget document is that the carbon pollution pricing system, and other federal green policies like clean fuel regulations, are not enough on their own to compete with the new clean energy and clean technology incentives in the United States.

The latest U.S. legislation poses a “major challenge” to Canada’s plans to build a low-carbon economy, the budget said. Without a broader federal response, it predicted the “sheer scale of U.S. incentives” will neutralize Canada’s ability to attract clean technology investments.

Yet Canadian officials ruled out a response that mimics the U.S. approach. The White House plan is based on industrial production, and offers uncapped subsidies that could result in anywhere between US$369 billion and $1.7 trillion in incentives, depending on how much activity it provokes.

A senior government official said Canada wasn’t convinced that this approach could guarantee rising productivity over the long term. It was also less predictable, they said, than the tax breaks offered in the Canadian budget, because those will be based on upfront capital costs.

Hydropower, nuclear, renewables handed tax breaks in federal budget

The centrepiece of Canada’s plan to compete with the U.S. is a $25-billion, 15-per cent tax break for investments in “non-emitting electricity generation systems” that will run through 2034.

Despite having an electricity grid that’s already 83 per cent non-emitting, the government believes it needed to provide more incentives to “preserve this advantage.” The budget said Canada’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 will require the country to become a “clean electricity superpower.”

The resulting “Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit” would be available as of next year’s budget and is designed to incentivize the construction of renewables like wind, solar, wave, and tidal power.

The government is also allowing conventional large-scale hydropower and large-scale nuclear power plants, as well as small modular reactors, to apply for the tax break. And it will be available both for new and refurbished projects.

In an unprecedented move, the government is making this tax break available to public utilities, saying it made sense since two-thirds of Canada’s installed capacity was already publicly owned. Crown corporations, “corporations owned by Indigenous communities” and pension funds are also eligible.

The Canadian Nuclear Association had called for nuclear technologies to be included in clean energy manufacturing tax credit programs. But the Canadian Environmental Law Association advised against what it described as “unproven reactor designs.” The association said small modular reactors “pose safety, accident, and proliferation risks” and had called on the government to eliminate federal funding for the facilities.

The budget said there will be a penalty of 10 percentage points for all users of the tax program that fail to pay prevailing wages and create apprenticeship training opportunities. The government said it will consult with labour unions and “other stakeholders” to “refine” these measures.

Provincial authorities will also have to sign off on a commitment that the money will be directed towards lowering electricity bills and achieving a net-zero electricity sector by 2035.

More tax changes for critical minerals, nuclear equipment

The budget proposes another new, refundable tax credit worth $11 billion, which will allow for a 30 per cent break in the cost of investments in equipment used for “key critical minerals” like “lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, copper, and rare earth elements.”

Refundable tax credits are called as such because a company can receive a tax refund equal to the difference between the amount they owe in taxes, and the amount that the credit is worth.

Manufacturing of nuclear energy equipment, and processing nuclear fuels and heavy water, will be eligible too — as will renewables, energy storage equipment and zero-emission vehicles, including components like batteries. The measure can be used for mining, processing or recycling.

Businesses can only claim one of the five tax breaks on offer for hydrogen, carbon capture, clean technology, clean electricity and clean manufacturing, if they’re eligible for more than one.

Volkswagen announced this month that its subsidiary was building a “gigafactory” in St. Thomas, Ont., a large battery plant. The budget is tight-lipped about how much the government paid for this agreement, only stating that projected costs were “fully accounted for” and that further details would be forthcoming after the automaker finalized the deal.

Low corporate income tax rates for nuclear manufacturing

The 2021 budget slashed corporate income tax rates in half for manufacturers or zero-emission technology. Tuesday’s budget proposes to lengthen the availability of these lower rates by three years, through 2034.

Here, nuclear power will also benefit, as the reduced corporate rate is being allowed to be applied to the manufacturing of nuclear energy equipment as well as the processing and recycling of heavy water and nuclear fuels.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is also getting access to a chunk of a fund costing $1.3 billion over six years for improving the “efficiency of assessments for major projects.”

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, the Canada Energy Regulator and other federal departments also get access to this funding.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is being retooled as the government’s financial arm for “clean electricity generation,” as well as power transmission and storage. It’s being ordered to invest at least $20 billion towards building “major clean electricity and clean growth infrastructure projects.”

Indigenous consultations, but also speedier projects

Under a section called “Getting Major Projects Done,” the budget tasks Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada to “engage with Indigenous communities” and update federal guidelines for fulfilling the Crown’s “duty to consult Indigenous peoples and accommodate impacts on their rights.”

The government said that this would support the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

There are several other measures meant to support “Indigenous economic participation in major projects,” and “unlocking the potential of First Nations Lands,” including funding for Natural Resources Canada to develop a “National Benefits-Sharing Framework,” and orders to the Canada Infrastructure Bank to offer loans to Indigenous communities to help them buy equity stakes in projects the bank is investing in.

Meanwhile, the budget also says that over the next year, the government will “propose further steps” that will ensure the “effectiveness” of Canada’s reviews of major projects.

“By the end of 2023, the government will outline a concrete plan to improve the efficiency of the impact assessment and permitting processes for major projects, which will include clarifying and reducing timelines, mitigating inefficiencies, and improving engagement and partnerships,” reads the budget.

In another section, the budget expands on self-determination, saying Indigenous governments “must be able to set and implement priorities respecting their communities, lands and resources.”

Hydrogen tax measure allows for some pollution, if captured

Hydrogen, which the Liberals are touting as a future transportation fuel, can be produced through electrolysis, which creates no emissions if done using renewable electricity.

Or it can be derived from fossil fuels, usually natural gas, which is mainly made of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The gas method is what the oil and gas industry typically uses.

The budget puts some meat on the bones of the investment tax break for hydrogen production that was first introduced in Freeland’s fall economic statement in 2022.

Companies will be eligible to claim 15 per cent of project costs as a tax break if each kilogram of hydrogen they produce emits less than four kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Producers who are able to limit the carbon intensity further, to under two kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent, can access a broader, 25 per cent tax break. If they can keep it to under 0.75 kilograms, they can access a 40 per cent reduction.

That means companies producing hydrogen from natural gas can still get at least some tax benefits in the new budget, as long as the emissions are captured with carbon-capture technology.

Hundreds of academics and organizations signed an open letter to Freeland in February, asking her to avoid designing the program in a way that subsidized what they deemed “fossil-hydrogen technology.”

“The only scalable and truly near-zero emissions hydrogen is produced from water using renewable energy … hydrogen produced from fossil fuels, including pathways that use carbon capture … should not be eligible for support,” reads the letter.

The government’s push for hydrogen also includes a 15 per cent tax reduction for equipment used to convert hydrogen to ammonia, which is used to transport the fuel. There’s a penalty of 10 percentage points for companies that don’t meet labour requirements.

Expanding carbon capture to British Columbia

Last year’s budget introduced a tax break for Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage, or CCUS. The 2023 budget lays out some more specifics of the program.

The tax incentive is meant to battle the largest source of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, the oil and gas sector, which account for 27 per cent of all carbon pollution.

Finance officials said Tuesday they expected this measure to account for about $15 billion of the $80-billion tax incentive package.

That is roughly the same dollar amount as what the Pathways Alliance has estimated will be the initial cost to build a network to capture and store emissions from oilsands projects.

The government is expanding eligibility of the program to underground carbon storage in British Columbia, in addition to Saskatchewan and Alberta, where the Pathways companies are based and where its large project is proposed.

There will be a third-party validation process for projects that inject carbon dioxide into concrete. And companies that have set up so-called “dual use” systems that include both heat or power equipment, as well as water use equipment, will be eligible.

The tax break will be prorated according to how much energy the carbon capture process uses, and it will be subject to unspecified labour requirements the government said will come into effect on Oct. 1, 2023, but will be announced at a later date.

Environmental Defence Canada has argued that the carbon-capture tax incentive should not be made available to oil and gas companies, and that the government should not be funding carbon capture through investments.

The ‘Poilievre insurance’ for carbon pricing

The budget proposes new consultations to develop a program allowing companies to lock in future carbon prices, regardless of what happens to the carbon pricing system.

While the system has laid out a predictable path for the price of carbon through 2030, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, has promised to revoke the system if his party wins power.

As a result, the government is moving to establish “carbon contracts for difference,” which is being viewed in internal government circles as a type of “Poilievre insurance,” according to a report from Radio-Canada.

Poilievre’s promise is generating hesitation in the business community to make low-carbon investments, Radio-Canada reported. The new contracts are expected to eliminate that risk by guaranteeing to companies that they can plan for a given carbon price regardless of what happens at the political level.

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Ontario’s power grid is the province’s pride and joy. 

It is among the cleanest in the world and the tool by which Ontario achieves all its climate goals. If your power is largely emissions free, everything you do with it is also counted as largely emissions free. 

But Ontario’s energy supply is about to become really, really complicated. The province’s thirst for clean energy to power a growing clean economy and electric transportation industry is quickly outpacing supply. By 2025, Ontario will be temporarily without a significant amount of its nuclear energy and so far plans to replace it with less clean, more controversial natural gas. Alternative energy sources and solutions are sparse. 

Meanwhile, the climate emergency poses physical threats to the power grid too. In May, hundreds of thousands of Ontario residents were without power for days after a deadly derecho storm. Electricity distribution and transmission infrastructure was destroyed by hurricane-like winds, and scientists say this type of extreme weather event will become more frequent. 

The Ford government doesn’t have a plan for all this — yet. Until that happens, here’s what you need to know about Ontario’s power grid and the struggles ahead to keep it clean.

How is Ontario’s electricity system organized? 

Ontario’s power industry is complicated and layered. Generators like the Crown corporation Ontario Power Generation, which supplies 50 per cent of the province’s electricity, produce the power supply. Transmitters like Hydro One transport power to towns and cities across the province, while local distributors like Toronto Hydro and Hydro Ottawa ensure the power reaches households, schools and businesses. Meanwhile, the Independent Electricity Systems Operator monitors and balances the supply and demand of the entire system. 

The industry is regulated by the Ontario Energy Board, which is meant to ensure natural gas and electricity companies follow the rules and don’t abuse customers. 

Energy policy, though, is centrally planned and managed by the Ministry of Energy. 

How clean is Ontario’s power?

It’s pretty clean — 94 per cent to be exact, meaning only six per cent of our electricity supply emits carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming. In total, electricity generation makes up less than three per cent of Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s largely because Ontario decided to eliminate coal-fired power plants, which in 2003 accounted for a quarter of generating capacity. It achieved this goal in 2014, making it the first jurisdiction in North America to do so. To date, this decision is lauded as the single largest emissions reduction measure across the world. 

Since 2005, emissions from electricity generation have plummeted by 90 per cent, equivalent to taking over 9.4 million cars in total off the road. 

As of March 2022, Ontario’s electricity supply mix was made up of 34 per cent nuclear, 28 per cent natural gas, 23 per cent hydro, 13 per cent wind, one per cent solar and less than one per cent biofuel — though not all used to their full capacity. For example, 60 per cent of Ontario’s energy comes from nuclear power. 

This interactive map from the Independent Electricity Systems Operator shows where these many sources of electricity are located across the province. 

How thirsty is Ontario for clean electricity?

Very. 

According to the Independent Electricity Systems Operator’s 2021 outlook, “Ontario is entering a period of increasing electricity demand.” The operator’s forecasts show that electricity demand will grow an average of 1.7 per cent a year until 2042. A significant portion of this increased demand is coming from political and industrial commitments to electrify transportation, including transit and trucking. 

Major demand increases are also coming from the agriculture sector, driven by an expanding greenhouse industry, as well as steel and auto industries that are being urged to decarbonize their emissions-heavy operations.We need a lot more supply if we want to be prepared for an emissions-free electric future. The operator found that energy shortfalls will begin as early as 2026 and grow substantially over the next 20 years if new non-emitting sources of electricity aren’t found. 

Why will demand for electricity outgrow Ontario’s supply?

Poor planning — and Doug Ford’s government’s erasure of what clean energy plans did exist in the province. 

The Independent Electricity Systems Operator projects that current electricity capacity can meet the province’s energy needs until the mid-2030s. 

This shortfall is not a surprise. The previous Liberal government tried to plan ahead by signing contracts with wind and solar energy companies. But when the Progressive Conservatives came to power in 2018, they cancelled 758 renewable energy contracts worth $231 million, as well as a $100 million wind farm and a number of energy conservation schemes that could have reduced demand. 

Ontario also should have invested properly in energy storage technology, which is needed to make wind and solar power reliable no matter the weather.

We could have had more choices to fill this supply gap. Instead, we’re out of time. Industry experts say the system operator’s mid-2030s projection is generous and that it will change drastically — in large part because of the changes to Ontario’s nuclear generating stations. 

What’s happening to Ontario’s nuclear facilities?

Ontario’s decarbonized grid relies largely on nuclear power, which for a long time provided an energy surplus. The problem is that the province’s three nuclear reactors are old and in need of some major TLC. The Bruce and Darlington nuclear generating stations are already in decade-long refurbishment processes that will hopefully allow them to keep operating for another 40 years, but mean they will operate at greatly reduced capacity until 2033. At least one component of the Darlington refurbishment was delayed and over budget, according to reporting by Global News. But Ontario Power Generation said the entire refurbishment remains on schedule to be completed by 2026 within its overall $12.8 billion budget.

Pickering Nuclear Generating Station — a five-decade-old facility that provides 14 per cent of the province’s annual power supply and generates almost 60 per cent of the province’s electricity — was due to be shut down in 2024. The timeline was extended by Ford by a year when he first got elected in 2018. On September 29, the Ford government announced a proposal to extend this by another year to “support electrification and the incredible economic growth that our province is experiencing right now,” Energy Minister Todd Smith said at a press conference, where he was surrounded by some of the dozens of people who work at the Pickering plant. This would require the approval of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. 

The second extension comes just a month after Smith said there were no plans to extend the plant’s life. Any further operation beyond 2026 would require a full refurbishment of the plan due to aging infrastructure, Smith said, adding he has asked Ontario Power Generation to run a feasibility study to explore this over the next year.

Several people who work in and study Ontario’s energy industry told The Narwhal that any further extension of Pickering’s operation would be a Band-aid solution to long-term planning failures — and an expensive one at tha. According to a 2020 document filed by Ontario Power Generation at the Ontario Energy Board, the station has the second highest operating costs of North America’s 63 nuclear stations. 

“We are in this situation as a result of the province very successfully painting itself into a corner in terms of electricity supply options,” said Mark Winfield, a York University professor in the faculty of environmental and urban change. He cited the Ford government’s axing of efficiency and renewable programs, and its “refusing to talk to Quebec about potential imports.” 

Several times during a Sept. 29 press conference, Smith said a one-year extension would guarantee Ontarians have “the power we need” until 2026. The energy minister didn’t answer questions about what specific steps will be taken to guarantee a robust and clean energy supply after that timeline. 

“The Pickering extension is a get-out-of-jail-free card,” one energy industry official who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly told The Narwhal. “It will buy [the government] some time. Hopefully they won’t squander it.” 

How else can Ontario meet increased electricity demand?

The easiest option available is to let the natural gas taps run.

The Independent Electricity Systems Operator is looking to boost natural gas supply in the short term. At the moment, Ontario’s natural gas plants operate 60 per cent of the time, but they will run at full capacity by 2033. The operator recently announced four new contracts for natural gas plants. Contradictorily,  it will also be releasing its reports on the possibility of a moratorium on new gas generation and a plan to get to zero emissions in the electricity sector this fall.

Won’t increasing natural gas supply increase Ontario’s emissions?

Yup, and by an extremely concerning amount. 

The Independent Electricity Systems Operator projects that emissions from the grid will increase by 375 per cent by 2030 and by more than 600 per cent by 2040. This makes Ontario the only Canadian province “that seems to be planning on major increases in its electricity-related emissions,” according to an op-ed in the Hamilton Spectator last December by Winfield and Colleen Kaiser, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa. 

This solution is not without controversy. More than 30 Ontario municipalities that are home to 60 per cent of the provincial population have passed resolutions urging Queen’s Park to phase out natural gas plants in order to fight the climate crisis. 

Last year, Energy Minister Todd Smith asked the operator to study whether this phase-out was possible by 2030. 

The operator warned it wasn’t, and that such a rushed timeline would lead to blackouts and higher electricity bills. However, critics said the operator’s conclusion lacked cost-effective, climate-conscious alternative pathways. 

Can Ontario increase energy supply without increasing emissions?

According to the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, there are a number of things the province could try. These include banning gas-fired electricity exports to the United States. The group also suggested purchasing more solar and wind power and expanding transmission lines to Quebec in order to triple the purchase of its hydropower.

The alliance also thinks electric vehicle infrastructure should include bi-directional chargers, which would allow vehicles to be plugged in and used like generators on houses, including during blackouts. Electric vehicles are only as clean as their power source, but using their batteries to smooth out fluctuations on the grid could reduce the need to fire up gas plants when other, cleaner sources of energy are maxed out.

Multiple reports by independent energy associations and research associations have also urged the Ontario government to develop detailed, long-term power system plans that prioritize the need to decarbonize the grid. 

The energy industry seems to also be searching for innovative solutions. In March, the Ontario Energy Board and the Independent Electricity Systems Operator said they have committed $37 million to pilot projects that will help communities store and produce energy locally. 

Why should I care about all this? 

Well, electricity prices are already rising because of the supply crunch, emissions from the grid are on the rise and Ontario doesn’t have a long-term plan to meet our energy needs. 

Despite the Progressive Conservatives’ mass shutdown of solar and wind projects, Ford confusingly said during last June’s election that he “won’t be happy” until the grid is 100 per cent emissions free. He’s likely to be sad for a long while then, as Ontario will have to first identify new sources of clean energy for our houses, businesses, schools, hospitals and vehicles, and then build or secure them. 

Meanwhile, the federal government is urging provinces to meet a new net-zero clean electricity standard by 2035 — a decision that will have a huge impact on the future of Ontario’s power generation.

If Ontario’s power grid is projected to become less clean, that will mean the emissions-reduction efforts of municipalities, residents, businesses and more won’t count as much towards our goals — or towards a healthier climate. What happens in the energy industry will impact all of us.

Updated July 22, 2022, at 4:28 p.m. ET: This article was updated to correct a sentence summarizing a 2017 report by Global News regarding the Darlington refurbishment. The Global News report stated that one component of the project was delayed and over budget, however the news report did not state that the entire project was delayed and over budget. The article was also updated to add an additional statement from Ontario Power Generation explaining that it says the overall project is on schedule to be completed by 2026 and that it would be within its $12.8 billion budget.

Updated on September 29, 2022 at 3:46 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include the Ontario government’s decision to seek permission to extend the life of the Pickering nuclear generating station, as well as the Independent Electricity System Operator’s natural gas acquisitions and studies. 

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The final resting place of Canada’s most radioactive nuclear waste could be a cave about as deep below the surface as the CN Tower is tall.

If it happens, the chamber and its network of tunnels will be drilled into bedrock in the Great Lakes basin. Pellets of spent nuclear fuel — baked into a ceramic form, loaded into bundles of metal tubes the size of fireplace logs, then placed into a metal container encased in clay made from volcanic ash — will be stacked in the underground chamber sealed with concrete 10 to 12 metres thick. Though the radioactive pellets will have spent several years cooling down in pools and concrete canisters, they will still emit so much energy that their presence will heat up the space where they sit for 30 to 60 years. The warmth will linger for anywhere from a few centuries to a few millennia. 

But none of this will become reality unless the industry-backed Nuclear Waste Management Organization can find a willing host. Two Ontario towns are in the running: South Bruce, located about two hours’ drive northwest of Toronto near Lake Huron, and Ignace, roughly 200 kilometres north of Lake Superior, not far from the Manitoba border. The municipalities, along with 10 First Nations and two Métis councils, are awaiting the completion of dozens of studies as they mull whether the economic benefits of such a project outweigh the risks.

“We have to make sure that there isn’t an environmental risk for us, or it’s a relatively remote risk,” said Dave Rushton, a project manager for the Municipality of South Bruce.

“If anyone thinks they’re informed today, I kind of question it. We’re not fully informed because we haven’t got this information yet.”   

The question of what to do with the waste cuts to the heart of a larger debate about the future of nuclear power in an era of climate crisis. Nuclear generation can produce electricity without carbon emissions: in Ontario, it played a pivotal role in replacing coal, which the province completely phased out by 2014. But no country in the world has solved the conundrum of how to permanently dispose of waste that will stay toxic for 400,000 years. And after decades of trying hard to figure it out, Canada doesn’t seem especially close to a solution. 

“This is the legacy that we are leaving for our children, our grandchildren, great grandchildren, or great, great grandchildren,” said Bzauniibiikwe, whose English name is Joanne Keeshig. She’s Wolf Clan from Neyaashiinigmiing, also known as Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, which is located near the South Bruce proposal.

“Seven generations from now, this will not be resolved unless we start seriously taking a look at what can be done.” 

Modelling suggests underground nuclear waste disposal is safe. But no country has tried it yet

The process of making nuclear power creates two main kinds of waste. One is high-level, the uranium-based spent fuel rods, which remain radioactive for a very long time. The other is low- to intermediate-level waste, like old pieces of reactors, used cleaning supplies and contaminated protective clothing from staff at nuclear plants. 

In Canada, low- to intermediate-level waste is handled by the facilities that produce it: there are three nuclear generation stations and one research lab in Ontario, as well as a research site in Manitoba and a generation station each in Quebec and New Brunswick. Some of the material is incinerated, while the most radioactive objects are placed in steel-lined storage containers in the ground.

High-level waste, meanwhile, is the responsibility of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, a non-profit established by Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power Corporation, and Hydro-Québec. In the 60 or so years that Canada has produced nuclear power, it has never had a place to dispose of spent fuel. As of 2020, the country’s nuclear power utilities had produced about three million fire log-sized bundles of it — enough to fill eight hockey arenas from the ice to the top of the boards — and that number grows by about 90,000 each year. In the absence of a place to leave it permanently, producers are currently keeping high-level waste in temporary storage near the reactors. By 2100, when the federal government says it expects all of the country’s existing nuclear plants to be decommissioned, industry projects it will be holding onto nearly 5.6 million bundles.

Accumulating nuclear waste has raised red flags for a long time. In 1978, the Ontario government commissioned a report titled “A Race Against Time,” which concluded the waste was proving trickier to handle than experts initially thought and suggested a potential moratorium on new nuclear plants if the industry didn’t progress within eight years. 

Another report from the United Kingdom the same year came to a similar but stronger conclusion, said Gordon Edwards, a mathematician who has long critiqued the nuclear industry as the president of the not-for-profit Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. 

“One of their main conclusions was that we are agreed that it would be irresponsible and morally wrong to commit future generations to a technology that produces such dangerous material, unless there is at least one proven safe method of dealing with it,” Edwards said.

“The problem with radioactivity is you can’t shut it off … You have to somehow keep it out of the environment.” 

Federal and provincial governments never issued a moratorium: construction on the Darlington plant in Bowmanville, Ont., which had been approved in 1977, began in the ‘80s. The Bruce and Pickering plants, meanwhile, continued to get new reactors. 

These days, the federal government is pushing to advance new nuclear technology, called small modular nuclear reactors (commonly known as SMRs), which some argue could be a climate mitigation tool. The technology is less efficient than larger reactors and produces more waste. Two of these new reactors might be built in the near future — the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which oversees the industry, is considering an application for one at the Chalk River Laboratories research site in Deep River, Ont., and Ontario Power Generation has announced its intent to build another at Darlington. 

In 2002, Parliament did pass legislation requiring the industry to band together and deal with its waste and later that year, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization was formed. Twenty years on, it still hasn’t figured out what to do with high-level radioactive waste. Keeping it above ground, as is done now, leaves it vulnerable to natural disasters, or human ones like terrorism and war. 

“It’s a question of ethics,” said Brian Ikeda, an associate professor at Ontario Tech University who studies the management of radioactive waste and has a contract to do upcoming work for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

“Do you want to leave this stuff — which you don’t like and you think is really dangerous — and have your grandchildren figure out what to do with it? Because that’s what’s actually going to happen … we could be putting those people at huge risk by having this material out.”

As such, a consensus has emerged among global experts that the best way forward is to dispose of spent fuel far underground, a concept called a deep geological repository. But putting nuclear waste underground isn’t simple. 

The waste — which in worst-case scenarios could poison groundwater or soil — must be packaged securely enough to withstand a future ice age, which could bring massive glaciers three kilometres thick, heavy enough to affect underground geology. It must be placed in rock that is stable and won’t shift for 400,000 years, the length of time the Nuclear Waste Management Organization believes the waste would remain radioactive enough to be harmful if leaked. It must be climate change proof. 

It must also account for the many unknowns of future generations, who might not know how to  actively maintain the storage site, but on the other hand will hopefully be able to monitor it. It must be buried so deep that, if our languages disappear or the information about what’s sealed within is somehow lost, our descendants would be unlikely to disturb the buried chamber and expose themselves to the unimaginable risk inside.

Another challenge is the simple fact of entropy: everything breaks down over time. No matter what type of container holds the nuclear waste, its material will corrode over the course of many thousands of years, Ikeda said. The trick is to buy as much time as possible. 

The containers are designed so that, ideally, their inevitable failure is unfathomably far into the future, when the nuclear fuel is far less dangerous. Because at that point, fuel will be vulnerable to leaching out into groundwater flowing through connected pores in the rock. This is where the depth and the rock itself provide another backstop — luckily, aquifers that reach so deep beneath Earth’s surface move torturously slow, sometimes taking 1,000 years to advance just one metre. And all the while, the radioactive isotopes in the spent fuel will continue to decay.

“For even the long-lived isotopes, it’s going to take them a very long time to get to the surface,” Ikeda said. “The modeling is to show that when they do get to the environment, that there isn’t very much there. It’s safe.”

Critics say the whole idea is reckless, and wonder how we can really know anything about what the world will look like in 400,000 years. The ice sheet that formed the Great Lakes only melted 20,000 years ago. In October, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer raised concerns about the prospect, saying nuclear waste disposal so close to the Great Lakes would be too risky.

And humans are famously good at wrecking things quickly. “The pyramids of Egypt are only (about) 5,000 years old, and look at them, they’re not in great shape,” Edwards, of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, said. “It’s questionable.” 

In an email, Nuclear Waste Management Organization spokesperson Jonathan Zettel said the repository would be built in a section of rock that has been very, very far from the surface for hundreds of millions of years. “It is precisely this stable environment we need for the long-term management of used nuclear fuel,” he wrote. In an email sent after this story was published, Zettel added that the spent fuel containers would also be coated in copper metal that “simply doesn’t corrode,” and that even in extreme and unlikely scenarios it would be expected to degrade by about 1.25 millimetres over a million years. He also said the organization’s research shows the rock at both proposed sites is dense and difficult for water to penetrate, with no aquifers at the depth of the proposed repository.

Zettel said the organization is testing to see what would happen in a wide variety of scenarios, including what would happen if the containers fail after 10,000 or 60,000 years. It also said the group’s plan would bring the spent fuel further away from the Great Lakes — right now, it’s being stored at reactors closer to the lakes, while a deep geologic repository would be dug further inland.

“The entire purpose of Canada’s deep geological repository — the reason we are investing time, effort and money — is to protect people and the environment including precious water resources like the Great Lakes for generations and generations to come,” Zettel said in an email.

“There are strict requirements to ensure that radiation does not move from the underground repository and that people and the environment are protected.

Canada doesn’t have a deep geologic repository yet, but countries like Sweden and Finland have used them for low- and intermediate-level waste for decades, and the United States uses one in New Mexico for waste from its nuclear defence program. But the concept has never been tried before for high-level waste. Finland started excavating the first tunnel of its planned high-level deep geological repository facility last year. It may well be the first of its kind in the world. 

Ikeda acknowledged the many unknowns, but still stands behind the idea.

“The first thing you have to recognize is that there are no guarantees, you can’t be 100 per cent sure of anything,” he said. “With that, the only surety that we have that this is safe is that we have studied it. We have done a lot of modelling.”

Finding a nuclear waste disposal site in Ontario will require First Nations consent and buy-in from local towns

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization started its process of selecting a site for the $25-billion project in 2010. The group offers funding to all communities being considered, saying it’s a no-strings-attached pot of money for infrastructure projects meant to help communities prepare to be a good host, and to cover the costs of participating in the process, like hiring experts and taking part in studies. In South Bruce, for example, it’s been used for things like doctor recruitment and playgrounds. The communities keep the funding even if they’re eliminated from consideration, or decide to withdraw.

The organization originally scouted 22 municipalities, and has whittled the options down to two. In far northwestern Ontario, just west of Ignace, the organization is proposing to place the repository on Crown land. It finished a round of borehole testing in November. The site is on the traditional territory of Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, and about 20 kilometres southeast of the reserve — the community hasn’t made a final decision on whether it supports the project, and Chief Clayton Wetelainen said in October that the nation isn’t ready to formally partner with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. “We’re still in a learning phase, and we still hold the authorization to stop the project,” he told local news site TBnewswatch.com. 

The other site being scouted, in South Bruce on the Bruce Peninsula, is not too far from the Bruce Power nuclear plant. There, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization has signed agreements with landowners holding 1,500 acres, allowing it to proceed with borehole testing.

South Bruce is within the traditional territory of Saugeen Ojibway Nation, which includes both Saugeen First Nation, located close to the nuclear plant, and Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation farther north on the peninsula. Saugeen Ojibway Nation didn’t respond to requests for an interview, but in 2020, its members overwhelmingly voted against a different proposal from Ontario Power Generation to build a deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level waste in the area. “We were not consulted when the nuclear industry was established in our territory,” the nation said in a statement at the time.

Last April, before the drilling began, Bzauniibiikwe from Neyaashiinigmiing, or Chippewas of Nawash, organized a woman-led, three-day water walk from the shore of Lake Huron to the site, where members of her community held a ceremony. She said she would like to see the Nuclear Waste Management Organization back down and instead have a real discussion about alternatives to nuclear energy, like renewables.

“If we’ve already said no to low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste, what makes you think that we’re going to say yes to high-level nuclear waste?” she said. “That’s not rocket science.”

Michelle Stein, who raises beef cattle and milk sheep on a farm adjacent to the proposed Bruce site, is worried about what may one day lie beneath her feet. If an accident or leak were to allow radioactive material to escape, she said, it could harm her water or lead to trouble selling products to markets in Toronto. 

“How do you put a price tag on what could have been?” said Stein, who is chair of Protect Our Waterways, a grassroots group advocating against the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s plans. “It actually feels like we’re left in limbo.”

Bill Noll, the group’s vice-chair, said he feels the Nuclear Waste Management Organization hasn’t given the community enough information about the safety of the project.

“After 10 years, you would think that we’d be in the position to make a decision on whether or not this is a good thing to be doing,” said Noll, who recently moved away from South Bruce to be closer to family.

South Bruce, like many agricultural communities, has seen its population dwindle in recent years, and proponents argue that the economic benefits of hosting the deep geologic repository mean it’s worth pursuing. Hosting the disposal site could bring hundreds of stable jobs, something Rushton said he hopes would revitalize the municipality that he works for.  

“We want to ensure that we have health care within the community, we want to ensure that there’s good services for the folks in our community. And with our population base, we can’t offer that,” he said. In Finland, a similar argument won over the municipality of Eurajoki, which is already near a nuclear power plant and agreed to host the country’s disposal site after a relatively smooth consultation process. 

Farther north, along the Trans-Canada Highway between Thunder Bay and Kenora, residents in Ignace are weighing similar questions. Its mining heyday over, the township is also looking for stability.

“This project is 150 years, give or take,” Mayor Penny Lucas said. “That’s three generations of people that would enjoy economic benefits … It’s not going to be like the mining, a boom and bust (where) all of a sudden, this community is full of money and people and whatever and then all of a sudden they’re gonna be gone again.”

Local critics question, however, whether Ignace can speak for all of the communities in the area. The proposed disposal site would also impact the city of Dryden, Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation and nine other First Nations, including Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation, Ojibway Nation of Saugeen (a separate entity from Saugeen Ojibway Nation), Lac Seul First Nation, Seine River First Nation, Nigigoonsiminikaaning First Nation, Eagle Lake First Nation and Naotkamegwanning First Nation. Representatives for the nations didn’t respond to requests for interviews. People in the communities have raised concerns independently, however, and in 2020 a woman from Ojibway Nation of Saugeen walked hundreds of kilometres to raise awareness of the proposal.

Others in Northwestern Ontario also have concerns. Chief Duncan Michano of Biigtigong Nishnaabeg, an Ojibway First Nation on Lake Superior between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay, said he’s concerned about how nuclear waste disposal could impact his region’s many lakes and rivers. Biigtigong Nishnaabeg is also near the Trans Canada Highway, along which nuclear waste would be taken north if Ignace is chosen to host the repository. 

“They’ve got so much (nuclear waste) now they don’t even know what to do with it. What’s gonna happen 100 years down the road, 200 years down the road, 1,000 years down the road?” Michano said. “We’re leaving ticking time bombs for people in the future … The transportation of that stuff by our territory, it’s basically the legacy that we leave for future generations.”

Michano would rather see Canada abandon nuclear power altogether. In 2018, he authored resolutions passed by the Chiefs of Ontario and Assembly of First Nations calling on governments to stop their push for new small modular reactors, pointing specifically to the issue of dealing with nuclear waste. The Anishinabek Nation made a similar statement in 2021: “We need to protect our water bodies from anything that can harm them, and that includes toxic pollution such as nuclear waste,” Grand Chief Glen Hare said. 

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization has said it won’t select a site without the consent of communities like Saugeen Ojibway Nation and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, and is taking into account the opinion of communities nearby and along transportation routes. 

Ignace’s municipal council is expected to make a decision about whether it’s willing to host the repository in 2023. South Bruce has resolved to make its decision through a referendum: the current council has agreed that the referendum will only be binding if at least half of the eligible population votes, and the project will only proceed if approved by over 50 per cent of those who turn out. Even then, any eventual repository would be subject to a federal impact assessment, which could take many years and involve rounds of public consultation.

If no community eventually agrees to host, it’s not clear what the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s backup plan will be. 

“Today, we feel confident we are on track to identify a safe site, with informed and willing hosts,” Zettel said in an email. 

“If informed and willing hosts are not identified, we will continue to work with Canadians and Indigenous peoples to decide the best way forward for its safe, long-term management. In the meantime, the used nuclear fuel will continue to be safely stored at the interim storage facilities located at each nuclear reactor site.”

Updated on Jan. 20, 2022 at 4:31 p.m. ET: This story was updated to correct that high-level waste would be disposed of in the Great Lakes Basin, not near the Great Lakes, and that spent nuclear fuels are baked into a ceramic form, not coated in ceramic. A subheadline was clarified to reflect that no other country has used a deep geologic repository for high-level nuclear waste specifically, though some have used such a facility for other types of nuclear waste. The story was also updated to include additional context from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization about nuclear waste disposal containers and their planned proximity to groundwater.

Updated on Jan. 24, 2022 at 10:26 a.m. ET: This story was updated to correct the unit of measurement used to estimate the amount a spent nuclear fuel container would degrade over the next million years. It is expected to degrade by about 1.25 millimetres over a million years, rather than 1.25 centimetres.

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