Nuclear energy is finally having its moment in Canada. Policymakers and the paying public are now alive, it seems, to the reality that no industrialized nation can meet the dual challenge of energy security and decarbonization without it. While other provinces are betting small — i.e. on new small modular reactors (SMRs) — Alberta is betting big on a tried and trude Canadian technology: the Candu.
The Peace River Nuclear Power Project (PRNP) is currently in a public comment period of an Impact Assessment Agency review. You can plug in your two-cents worth here. The IAA will no doubt hear countless arguments why Alberta should not go nuclear. Here’s my two cents on why it should, and why the Candu Monark it has chosen is the right technology choice.
For starters, the Canadian made Candu is, by design, safer than other conventional forms of nuclear energy in that meltdowns are less likely to occur. Roughly 30 Candu design reactors have been built around the world — 19 in Canada. Romania has two, and recently awarded Canada’s Atkins Realis (formerly SNC Lavalin) contracts to refurbish one unit and build two new ones. Had Japan built Candu heavy water reactors instead of boiling water reactors, the explosion and meltdown at Fukushima might not have happened.
“Candu is the only commercial reactor that hasn’t had a major accident,” Jeremy Whitlock, a nuclear energy consultant and former technical adviser for the International Atomic Energy Agency, told me.
“And, furthermore, the accidents that have happened wouldn’t have happened if it was Candu.” Of course, no nuclear energy is totally immune to accidents, and they all produce radioactive waste that must be dealt with. But the very design of the Candu heavy water reactor reduces the likelihood of core meltdowns. It comes with a number of passive shutdown mechanisms to prevent runaway overheating that can lead to core meltdowns, including a kind of poison pill that stops the nuclear reaction, even if the power goes out. So there appears to be a real safety premium associated with this Canadian nuclear technology.
Unlike other conventional reactors — light water and boiling water reactors — the Candu does not use enriched uranium. It uses heavy water (deuterium) as a moderator to start the chain reaction needed to achieve ignition (fission). “To this day, Candu is the only nuclear technology that uses natural uranium, which is, of course, found in abundance right next door in Saskatchewan,” Carl Marcotte of Candu Energy said at the Global Energy Show Canada last month. “This provides tremendous energy security, as we do not have to rely on enriched uranium fuel. “Candus are also the only reactor in the world that can easily produce medical isotopes in great quantities,” Marcotte added.
Economics: You get what you pay for
One of the arguments against nuclear power is its cost and long permitting times. Energy Alberta isn’t even putting a number to the estimated capital cost yet. It will be expensive, but it will be valuable in more ways than one. For design, Energy Alberta has chosen the latest Candu model, the Monark, with four 1,000megawatt units, for a total nameplate capacity of 4,800 MW. That is roughly 20% of Alberta’s current generating capacity.
Which raises the question: Will Alberta need that much power by the time the plant turns on in 2035? If it plans to come even close to having all the AI data centres that have been pitched, I think it will. And it’s not just Alberta that the project would power. It could also produce zero-emission dispatchable power for B.C., Saskatchewan, the NWT and Yukon.
In 2024, AESO estimated Alberta’s electrical power demand could grow 20% to 30% by 2043, factoring in population growth, accelerated EV adoption, and electrification of heavy industry. “Now the AI data centre forecast has blown those original forecasts out of the water in just the last two years,” Marcotte noted at the June energy conference.
There are an estimated $100 billion worth of AI data centres being pitched for Alberta. Beacon AI Centers alone reportedly wants to spend $10 billion building data centres in Alberta that could need 4,500 MW of power. So yes, Alberta may actually need that much power.
Cost for value
Last year, the Conference Board of Canada estimated a four-unit Candu Monark power plant like the one proposed for Peace River would contribute $90 billion to Canadian GDP over the 88-year life of the project and generate 33,500 construction jobs over a nine-year construction period.
For Alberta, nuclear power could be as transformative as the oilsands were, and could boost Canadian technology exports. “If we can get this project off the ground, we create a whole new industry that has the ability to act like the oil sands,” Energy Alberta CEO Scott Henuset said. “There’s lots of export from these industries once they get built out.”
Meanwhile, Saskatchewan is looking at nuclear power too, though it appears to be focused on SMRs. When it comes to economics, all nuclear power is expensive. But there are economies of scale with going big, says Allison Macfarlane, director of the school of public policy and global affairs at the University of B.C.
“I would build a large reactor, not a small modular reactor, simply because it will be cheaper,” Macfarlane told me. “There’s an economic reason that we only have large ones, because it’s much cheaper to build one large reactor than 10 small ones.” Of course, renewables are even cheaper than nuclear energy — a lot cheaper. A bicycle is also a lot cheaper than a moving van, too, but if you want to move furniture, you’re going to want a moving van.
For sheer energy density and horsepower, nothing beats uranium. A single seven gram uranium pellet has the equivalent energy of about four tonnes of coal, without the associated CO2 or methane emissions. I asked Chat GPT to visualize how much land would be needed to generate 4,000 MW of power from nuclear, solar and wind. The answer was 4.4 acres for nuclear, 160,000 acres for solar, and 685,714 acres for wind.
Nuclear power’s capacity factor (how much can actually be generated from its theoretical capacity) is 90% to 95%, compared to about 20% for solar, and 40% for wind. It can run 24-7, 365 days a week, and one advantage of the Candu is that it can be fueled while still operating, unlike other conventional nuclear power plants, which need to be shut down for refueling. This means nuclear power, though more expensive to build, is more valuable. Renewables have their place. But for firm, clean baseload power, you need large hydro, natural gas or nuclear – preferably a mix of all of the above.
Once built, a nuclear power plant can operate for 60 to 80 years, whereas wind turbines and solar panels have to be replaced after 20 to 25 years, and lithium-ion batteries for renewable energy storage have even shorter life-spans, about 10 to 15 years.
Ironically, some of the most aggressive pushback that the Peace River Nuclear Power Project will invariably get is from environmentalists who purport to be concerned about climate change. But if you are serious about tackling climate change and electrifying everything, nuclear power needs to be a keystone of any industrialized country’s long-term energy and decarbonization plans. And Candu is exactly the right technology choice.
Nelson Bennett’s column appears weekly at Resource Works News. Contact him at nelson@resourceworks.com
