Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Ontario Nuclear | Strong Together

Bruce Power has a new initiative which appears to be using their work in Ontario as marketing of Ontario's nuclear industry globally.  My recollection is the province's other nuclear generator, Ontario Power Generation (OPG), has also been organizing to pursue international nuclear opportunities.

Ontario Nuclear | Strong Together:
Ontario is a province of strong communities, world-class health care and some of the best colleges and universities in the world. We are also globally recognized as having a robust auto industry, being rich in natural resources, and featuring a high-tech economy and a financial services sector of international importance.
Ontario has many advantages we can build on, but what’s often not recognized is our strong, respected, highly innovative and globally renowned nuclear industry.
Ontario’s nuclear industry generates affordable, carbon-free electricity every day, drives innovation, creates jobs, builds our knowledge economy and sustains one of the most sought after supply chain capabilities.
That’s our nuclear advantage.
Good luck to Bruce Power with the website, but ....

Hawthorne testified at the Canadian senate in June 2010:
A company cannot go into other countries and compete without support from its government. That support is not about writing cheques, but active advocacy in favour of your technology. The Prime Minister does it for Bombardier and others. We need to do it for the nuclear industry.
I've put off writing on the mislabelled "long term energy plan" Ontario slung out in December, but I'd suggest that document's support of nuclear is weak, and the sub-text of all government communication on nuclear weaker again.
The federal government appears disinterested, and the provincial government worse - it is likely to undermine international efforts such as those to supply reactors in the United Kingdom. A recent position paper from the U.K.'s Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, Progress on approaches to the management of separated plutonium, included:
The study highlighted a number of potential benefits of utilising dedicated CANDU reactors to manage separated plutonium, notably a simplified CANMOX fuel manufacturing process, compared to LWR MOX, given the lower incorporation of plutonium in fuel, a track record of on-schedule, on-budget reactor construction, and the ability to utilise a wide range of the plutonium inventory which together would be expected to consequently reduce the overall costs of implementation of plutonium reuse. 
The U.K. seems aware of CANDU successes in Romania, China and South Korea - the Ontario government does not.



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