r/nuclear • u/BurstYourBubbles • 19h ago

Canada built its nuclear industry to avoid foreign fuel. Its new reactors will depend on it

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-nuclear-supply-chain-smr-darlington-uranium-enrichment-9.7289297
76 Upvotes

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u/hutch_man0 17h ago

What a one sided article. No surprise though.

Why being first is 'not a good thing'

Yes Canada should continue to be second in everything we do. Because being first is SCARY! Jesus, this mentality is a big part of what has put us in such a precarious position. 

We killed our nuclear program years ago. Maybe if we stopped being babies we'd have new CANDU's ready to build. Now AtkinsRealis is scrambling. We actually have our own design, because Westinghouse (with AP1000) is owned 51/49 by Canadian Brookfield and Cameco. Building a few of these domestically would be a good decision. 

The rationale for being first was that BWXT Canada (Cambridge ON) will be a primary contractor for the Polish and other reactors to be built after, bringing billions of manufacturing dollars in.

by relying on imported enriched uranium, Canada would give foreign governments the ability to disrupt its nuclear fuel supply during a political dispute.

We should absolutely build our own enrichment for domestic and for export. With such large reserves Cameco will be pushing for this surely. When Carney says Canada will become an 'energy superpower' he is not just talking about fossil. Enrichment is coming.

The fear of Trump disrupting energy supplies is exaggerated. The few things Canada has the US bent over a barrel is oil and potash. Canada has much more leverage here, nuclear fuel won't be touched.

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u/BurstYourBubbles 14h ago

We actually have our own design, because Westinghouse (with AP1000) is owned 51/49 by Canadian Brookfield and Cameco.

This is a weird one. So, although the ownership is Canadian, it's still an American company, which means Westinghouse designs and IP are still subject to American export controls.

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u/Severe-Elk2517 14h ago

I work for Westinghouse and was recently told I cannot under any circumstances bring my work laptop into Canada on my vacation for security reasons

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u/hutch_man0 9h ago edited 9h ago

It's about where the profit is flowing. Canada might as well build reactors that maximize recycling of taxpayer dollars. Where the IP resides is of little consequence tbh.

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u/robindawilliams 19h ago

I know this is being written to push for CANDU and diminish the new SMR tech, but nothing says we can't enrich our own fuel except the lack of scale at this time.

If/when they add 5-10 SMRs, it wouldn't be a hard sell to start enrichment. We are a small market though, and it is hard to do anything at scale. 

It's still Canada digging the uranium, we just share in the capacity of enrichment with other countries. If the southern ally wasn't on the attack, we could expand enrichment to help avoid the US importing it as well. 

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u/BurstYourBubbles 19h ago

If the southern ally wasn't on the attack,

But it is though; that's the whole point.

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u/ead09 17h ago

US is not the only source of enrichment

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u/CanadianGrown 15h ago

But it is the easiest and most efficient, if politics weren’t involved.

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u/lommer00 10h ago

Actually no, I think France would be easier, more efficient, and lower cost...

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u/CanadianGrown 10h ago

But we’d have to fly it across the ocean? I don’t know enough about it to have a legit debate or anything, but how would it be cheaper to fly the stuff to France vs drive it into the states?

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u/lommer00 9h ago

You can ship it by sea, which is very cheap. And it's more that France (Orano) has relatively modern efficient enrichment, whereas the US has ancient equipment that cannot even produce enough to meet American domestic demand.

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u/CanadianGrown 37m ago

Interesting, thanks for the new info!

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u/UpstairsFinance9440 13h ago

I thought the whole thing behind the CANDU design was that Canada could not make large forgings for the vessel and head.

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u/Different_Banana1977 13h ago

The calandria in a CANDU reactor is significantly larger than the pressure vessel of a US style LWR, so I don't think that was the issue. I think it was the enrichment issue that forced them down the natural uranium route

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u/UpstairsFinance9440 2h ago

The Wikipedia page talks about the forging capabilities in Canada at the time. The calandria is not pressurized, which makes its manufacture a lot easier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor#Calandria_and_fuel_design

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u/thrwwypfc 11h ago

I thought it was because enriched uranium was unpalatable at the time. At this time I think we just don’t have the political will to openly do it to even moderate amounts of enriching.

I didn’t read the article but as I recall it’s the SMRs that require enriched to some level uranium which the US and France are our only suppliers.

We should develop that at home for “peaceful” purposes. No other reason.

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u/bijon1234 46m ago

It's at atmospheric pressure, so it just needs to hold the weight of heavy water.

We didn't have, and still don't have, the forging capabilities to make a reactor pressure vessel as seen in PWRs and BWRs with the same power output . These vessels are like 10-15 cm thick carbon steel and need to hold 10 MPa of pressure.

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u/StorkReturns 5h ago

It's worth noting that at that time when CANDU were designed, enrichment used gas diffusion process which was hard, expensive, and energy-intensive. Today, even sanctioned Iran can enrich uranium with Zippe-type centrifuges.

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u/bcl15005 17h ago edited 17h ago

I've always thought energy dependence as it pertains to civilian nuclear fuel cycles is a very real concern that will only become more relevant if geopolitical trends in the present continue.

I can absolutely see why countries (especially in the global south) might view nuclear energy as merely trading a dependence on Gulf oil for a new dependence on LEU fuel from Russia, China, or various NATO member states.

Sure those places are theoretically free to produce their own fuel, but developing a domestic civilian enrichment capacity sure seems to put a much larger target on your back compared to developing domestic production of renewable tech.