The financing is expected to advance deployment of a grid-scale advanced SMR at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station site, which is owned by provincial utility New Brunswick Power. The funding also sets up further milestone achievements that are expected to lead to additional funding from the province.

In late March, the governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, Alberta and Saskatchewan released a strategic plan providing a path forward to advance SMRs in the country.

And, in an unrelated SMR financing deal in early April, Japan NuScale Innovation (JNI) and Japan Bank for International Corp. (JBIC) bought $110 million in NuScale Power equity from Fluor Corp. Fluor remains the majority owner of NuScale, the Oregon-based small modular reactor (SMR) developer intent on reigniting the country’s nuclear power development sector.

The ARC Clean Energy SMR design is based on the EBR-II, a sodium-cooled fast nuclear reactor developed in the 1960s by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Labs. That reactor supplied energy to the grid for 30 years in Idaho, and demonstrated the design’s safety, metal fuel fabrication, load following and waste recycling capabilities.

ARC Canada plans to deploy its technology for both electrical and industrial applications to customers including utilities, governments, and corporations.

The ARC Canada technology is a modular 100 MW fast reactor that is designed to operate with a 20-year refueling cycle. As with other SMRs, it has a modular design that can be produced in a factory. The design is expected to lead to low-cost energy and broader supply chain participation.

The company has entered Phase 2 of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s  vendor design review process as part of the design oversight from the regulator.

According to Argonne, the EBR-II was originally designed and operated with a focus on demonstrating a complete breeder-reactor power plant with on-site reprocessing of metallic fuel. This was done from 1964 to 1969. During those five years, the reactor’s Fuel Cycle Facility processed 35,000 fuel elements, produced 366 subassemblies, and assembled 66 control and safety rods. The facility was then converted from a breeder to a burner reactor. The new missions emphasized testing fuels and materials for larger, liquid metal reactors.

Argonne said that the EBR-II was the backbone of the U.S. breeder reactor effort from 1964 to 1994, when research was terminated. The EBR-II accommodated as many as 65 experimental subassemblies at one time for irradiation and operational reliability tests. EBR-II also performed over 30,000 irradiation tests. More recently, EBR-II was the prototype for the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR).

One feature new to the EBR-II was its pool-type design. Argonne explained that the reactor core, its fuel handling equipment, and many other systems of the reactor were submerged under molten sodium. It said this type of design offered simplified design and construction, reduction of thermal stress, elimination of some heavily shielded external facilities, and increased safety.

The pool-type design, combined with its metal alloy fuel, made the EBR-II passively safe. The reactor could safely shut down, without operator assistance, even if safety systems had failed. This safety feature did not depend on control rods or computer monitoring. 

This passive safety approach was demonstrated in 1986 when EBR-II underwent a series of IFR safety tests. The tests simulated accidents involving loss of coolant flow. Argonne said that even with the normal shutdown devices disabled, the reactor safely shut down without reaching excessive temperatures anywhere in the system.

The governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, Alberta and Saskatchewan released a strategic plan providing a path forward to advance small modular reactors (SMR) in the country.

SMRs are expected as the next evolution in nuclear innovation and technology. Their benefits are linked to the nature of their design – small and modular. SMRs can be sited on locations larger nuclear power plants cannot be. Prefabricated units of SMRs can be manufactured before being shipped and installed on site, making them more affordable than large power reactors.

The provinces’ plan outlines five priority areas for the development and deployment of SMRs:

1. Technology readiness: The strategic plan notes Canada’s early adoption of SMRs would position the country as a global nuclear technology hub, jumpstarting new economic and job growth through three SMR development streams:

Stream 1: a 300 MW SMR project constructed at the Darlington nuclear site in Ontario. In December 2021 we reported that Ontario Power Generation (OPG) selected GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) to supply a BWRX-300 SMR for the site. The project could be completed as soon as 2028.

The strategic report adds that subsequent units in Saskatchewan would follow, with the first of those SMRs projected to be in service in 2034.

Stream 2: two fourth-generation, advanced SMRs would be developed in New Brunswick. ARC Clean Energy is targeting a deployment date by 2029, with Moltex Energy aiming to have both its spent fuel recovery system and reactor in operation by the early 2030s, both at the Point Lepreau nuclear site. ARC and Moltex Energy, along with New Brunswick Power, partnered in 2020 as part an SMR vendor 'cluster' at Point Lepreau, which currently houses a 660 MWe Candu 6 reactor. 

Stream 3:  a new class of micro-SMRs designed primarily to replace the use of diesel in remote communities and mines. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear are combining on a five MW gas-cooled demonstration micro-reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, with plans to be in service by 2026. Global First Power estimated that one MMR could replace 200 million liters of diesel at a mining site over 20 years.

The report also notes Bruce Power and its partners at the Nuclear Innovation Institute have also been exploring opportunities with the Westinghouse Canada eVinci micro reactor. In October 2020, Bruce Power and Westinghouse agreed to pursue applications of eVinci, with initial deployment in Canada targeted for the mid-2020s.

• Regulatory framework: The strategic plan noted regulatory changes and clarity will be needed to ensure reasonable project costs and timelines for investor and operator approvals.

• Economics and financing: The plan calls for a robust federal funding commitment to continue advancing SMR development and deployment. It notes the growth of SMRs in Canada and around the world will drive increased uranium demand, providing new opportunities for uranium produced in Saskatchewan and potentially Alberta, and increased utilization of refinery and conversion facilities in Ontario.

• Nuclear waste management: According to the plan, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is working to identify a geologic storage depository for Canada’s used fuel waste. The provinces said twenty-two communities initially expressed interest to host the site and two potential sites in Ontario are still being considered, with safety assessments and community engagement ongoing. The NWMO is planning to select a single preferred site in 2023, with operations expected to begin between 2040 and 2045.

• Indigenous and public engagement: The plan emphasizes the need to create opportunities for Indigenous communities to participate in SMR projects. These opportunities could include employment, skills development, investments, or supplier arrangements.

As the general nuclear landscape goes, Canada currently has close to 20 commercial reactors generating about 13 GW in capacity, dominated by its home-grown CANDU design. According to the World Nuclear Association, about 15% of Canada’s electricity comes from nuclear.