Canada built its nuclear industry to avoid foreign fuel. Its new reactors will depend on it
Ontario's first small modular reactor will rely on enriched uranium from the U.S., France and Britain
The first reactors in Canada's planned nuclear expansion will depend on foreign suppliers — including the United States — to enrich and fabricate their fuel, even as Prime Minister Mark Carney argues Canadian sovereignty depends on the country's ability to supply and control its own energy.
It marks a sharp departure from the Candu reactor system, which gave Canada — the world's second-largest uranium producer — a largely domestic nuclear supply chain for more than half a century.
Ontario has begun building the first of four planned BWRX-300 small modular reactors, or SMRs, in Clarington, Ont., called the Darlington New Nuclear Project. The American-Japanese-designed light water reactor uses low-enriched uranium, unlike Canada's Candus, which use fuel made domestically from natural uranium without enrichment.
Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the Crown corporation that operates provincially owned electrical utilities, expects the first BWRX-300 at Darlington to be connected to the grid by the end of 2030. The other three are planned for the mid-2030s.
Cameco, the Saskatoon-based uranium mining and nuclear fuel company, will mine uranium ore in Saskatchewan and convert it in Port Hope, Ont., before it is enriched in the United States. France's Orano and Britain's Urenco are also listed by OPG as a supplier of enriched uranium, and an American company will manufacture the finished fuel assemblies in the United States.
Against Candu's founding logic
Experts say the shift reverses the founding logic in Canada's nuclear program.
A 1993 Library of Parliament background paper said the reason Candu was created was "to design a reactor tailored to Canadian circumstances" that used natural uranium to avoid "the difficult and expensive process of enrichment or, alternatively, dependence on foreign sources of enriched uranium."
By placing that step in foreign hands, experts say, the new reactors undermine claims of energy soverignty and expose Canada to long-term geopolitcal risk.
Mark Winfield, a professor at York University who studies sustainable energy, climate change and energy policy, said by relying on imported enriched uranium, Canada would give foreign governments the ability to disrupt its nuclear fuel supply during a political dispute.
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"It turns the original rationale for the Candu program completely on its head," he said. "The whole idea was, going back to the 1950s, that we would have an all-Canadian fuel supply chain that would not be the subject to those kinds of geopolitical risks."
OPG said spreading the work among suppliers in the United States, Britain and Frnace creates a "robust and resilient supply chain," but the company still leaves both enrichment and fabrication — the two steps Canada cannot perform for the BWRX-300 — in foreign hands.
Why Ontario went global
Speaking at a recent news conference in Nanticoke, Ont., provincial Energy Minister Stephen Lecce said the province chose a foreign reactor because no Canadian alternative was ready to generate electricity at the required scale.
"There is not a Canadian grid-scale, commercially viable small modular reactor technology to procure," he said. "So we had to go global."
He said Ontario chose the American-Japanese BWRX-300 because it was the most advanced option and offered the best chance to reduce the risks associated with building a first-of-its-kind reactor.
Canada does have a new domestic reactor under development, but it was not an alternative for Ontario's SMR project. The Candu Monark is not an SMR and is currently under assessment by Canada's nuclear regulator.
The decision to "go global," as Lecce put it, leaves Ontario dependent on foreign enrichment, but Lecce said the province has reduced the risk by arranging access to suppliers in the United States, France and Britain.
SMRs would use 'modest' amount of fuel
Winfield said multiple enrichment suppliers reduce the risk of disruption, but do not eliminate it. Every enrichment facility is outside Canada, while the only company identified that would make the finished fuel assemblies is American.
"I think that's still a risk. Particularly if the United States decides to use its supply of various uranium for geopolitical leverage, which is clearly not beyond the thinking of the Trump administration," Winfield said.
Even with France and Britain as backup suppliers, Winfield said, it opens the door to "all kinds of vulnerabilities relative to an all-Canadian supply chain. You are at the mercy of whatever external geopolitical events may be occurring."
The federal government says foreign enrichment doesn't present a significant supply risk, especially in the short to medium-term.
In an email, Natural Resources Canada said the four planned Darlington SMRs will require "a very small amount" of enriched fuel, which is "modest" compared with the global market, but did not provide a quantity.
Why being first is 'not a good thing'
While there are other SMRs active in China and Russia, the Darlington facility will be the first SMR in the G7.
"That's not a good thing, in my opinion," said M.V. Ramana, a University of British Columbia professor who studies nuclear energy and international security.
"Nuclear power is a very expensive way to generate electricity and the small modular reactor is even more expensive."
Ramana said SMRs sacrifice the economies of scale available to larger reactors.
A 2014 study suggests they are more expensive per unit in generating capacity unless savings from shared infrastructure can offset the disadvantage, which is what OPG intends for its four-reactor Darlington site.
BWRX-300 designer GE Vernova says smaller reactors can overcome some of that cost disadvantage because they require less machinery than conventional reactors: water circulates through the reactor without powered pumps, while emergency cooling functions use gravity and natural circulation.
The company says this reduces the amount of equipment that must be manufactured, installed and maintained.
However, because Darlington is the design's first deployment, those projected savings have not yet been demonstrated by a commercially operating unit.
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The only way for Canada to eliminate its reliance on foreign suppliers is by establishing its own uranium-enrichment industry.
Lecce said Ontario would be open to discussions, but he acknowledged the decision ultimately rests with the federal government.
Natural Resources Canada said Ottawa has made no decision on commercial enrichment but plans to create a "Nuclear Fuels Table" with the provinces and industry to examine future needs and opportunities.
Ontario is currently the only province committed to building SMRs, but Saskatchewan is advancing plans for the same BWRX-300 technology, while New Brunswick and Alberta are evaluating potential nuclear projects that could include SMRs.
Ramana said Canada would need to enrich its own uranium to control the entire fuel chain, but such a facility would cost billions to build and require extensive security, regulation and international safeguards througout its life.
"In the enrichment business, again, there are economies of scale," he said. "It would be much more uneconomical for Canada to develop one just for this small modular reactor design."
Ramana added that the new reactors also create another long-term liability. Canada's current $26-billion nuclear waste plan was calculated around fuel from the existing Candu reactor fleet.
New reactors could change both the volume and type of spent fuel requiring disposal, but Ramana noted there has been no cost estimate from Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization for adding the spent fuel from four BWRX-300s.