* CANDU stands for Canadian Deuterium-Uranium reactor

- - - - - - - - - -

February 8, 2008

This is from the front page of today's The Globe and Mail, of Toronto, Canada.

See full text of this story via the web version of this article.

A consortium of private sector companies is teaming up with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to finance a $5-billion ACR1000 reactor in New Brunswick in a test of a new ownership model for nuclear plants that could boost AECL's international sales. The project at Point Lepreau, N.B., would mark the first time in the global marketplace that a reactor consortium financed the construction of a plant and continued to own it while selling the power to the utility customer. ... The proposed reactor is an updated version of AECL's heavy-water Candu reactor and is still in the design stage... The government is still deciding whether to participate with the companies in the financing and ownership of the reactor. .... Team Candu partners - SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., General Electric Co., Hitachi Ltd. and Babcock & Wilcox Co. - would retain ownership and finance the project by concluding long-term contracts with New Brunswick Power and other customers.

February 1, 2008

This is from the front page of today's The Niagara Falls Review, of Canada.

* [2006-03-31] CANDU is Ontario's best choice for base load energy supply
Canada NewsWire

* [2006-03-27] AECL warns of energy shortfall
Sandro Contenta, The Toronto Star, p. A16

Virtually all of Ontario's electrical power grid will have to be replaced or refurbished over the next 25 years, including nuclear plants that now produce about half of the province's power, according to David Torgerson, senior vice-president and chief technology officer for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. Ontario could face an energy shortfall if the provincial government doesn't soon give the green light to build new nuclear plants, he said. "Time is running out," is the way he put it, explaining that if approval for new nuclear plants doesn't come soon, they won't be ready in time to satisfy Ontario's energy needs. The Ontario Power Authority recently recommended that the province spend $40 billion to produce 12,400 megawatts of electricity from nuclear plants, either with new reactors or by refurbishing existing ones.

There have been problems with the CANDU reactor at Pickering. But AECL officials are confident the province won't consider buying reactors other than a CANDU. "We believe strongly that the competitive advantage of CANDU is clear, and it's clearest in Ontario," Tighe said, adding that nuclear regulations, training and research are all based on the CANDU reactor. In Ontario and Britain, AECL is pushing the new ACR 1000 model, a 1,200-megawatt reactor, as a dependable technology with the advantage of not having to be shut down when it needs to be refuelled. AECL's record of building its heavy-water natural uranium reactor on time and on budget in South Korea, China and Romania in the past decade should also reassure British investors, Torgerson said.

Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization recently recommended that radioactive waste be kept and cooled on site before being stored in a central location underground where it can be monitored and retrieved if necessary. But it has stopped short of picking a central storage site - a move sure to spark public opposition when it happens.

Sept 13, 2005

CANDUs built since 1980 have had high lifetime capacity factors

The CANDU, with features such as on-load refueling to avert the most common cause of routine reactor downtime, is in many ways a great success, not only in Canada but also in Argentina, China, Romania, and South Korea. Among the 22 CANDUs commissioned since 1980, 17 have lifetime load factors of 80 percent or more, and the other five have factors in the 70s.

[Source: E. Michael Blake, "The Canadian comeback", Nuclear News, September 2005, p. 32]

March 26, 2004

CANDU technology was fine for Pu production, but inherently flawed for power plants

Former federal finance minister John Manley claims that there is no reason why reactor performance in Canada cannot equal other countries like Finland. He is wrong. A problem with sinking more public money into the Pickering reactors is that their design is inherently flawed. In essence, the economic failure of Canada's nuclear sector is rooted in technological failure. CANDU technology has made basket cases out of both Ontario Power Generation and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Canada's state-owned nuclear corporation.

CANDU reactors emerged from World War II nuclear weapons research at Chalk River, Ont. Designed for plutonium production, they employ heavy water to allow the use of un-enriched uranium fuel. CANDU fuel rods, which can be removed and inserted during reactor operation, have a much shorter usable life span than the enriched uranium fuel rods used in light water reactors. This was an advantage when plutonium production was the goal, but frequent removal results in additional wear and tear and less durability.

Significantly, this means that CANDU reactors produce about five times more high-level nuclear waste per unit electricity generated than light water reactors. The price tag for dealing with CANDU reactor waste has been estimated by a federal environmental assessment panel at $18 billion, and keeps going up as long as the reactors work.

[Source: Ole Hendrickson (citizen watchdog on nuclear issues, for decades), "Should we invest in nuclear power?", The Toronto Star,ÊMarch 26, 2004, p. A21]

2003