N.B. looking to small modular reactors to help fulfill clean power needs but there are concerns
Global News
Reliability issues at Atlantic Canada's only nuclear plant have some worried about New Brunswick's bet on small modular reactors in the move toward low-emission energy solutions.
On Tuesday, the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station was taken offline for unscheduled repairs for the fifth time in the last four years.
The plant’s reliability has been an ongoing issue since coming back online after a costly refurbishment in 2012. Last year the plant had two unscheduled maintenance periods, part of the reason NB Power added $9 million to its net debt.
“In the year, Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station fell short of performance goals with two unbudgeted outages. The Station’s reliability performance needs improvement and we are taking steps to enhance performance of this valuable asset that contributes so significantly to our province’s energy supply, our reduction of carbon emissions and our provincial economy,” wrote board chair Charles Firlotte and then-CEO Keith Cronkhite, who was fired a few weeks after signing off on the utility’s financial results for last year.
As the province looks to add additional nuclear capacity to the electricity grid at the beginning of the next decade in the form of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) some worry that history could repeat itself and the new technology could be just as costly and unreliable as the CANDU-6 reactor at Point Lepreau has proven to be.
“It’s astonishing that the utility wants to further the pain by spending more money on new nuclear reactors,” said Susan O’Donnell, an adjunct professor at the University of New Brunswick.
“Nuclear energy has been a financial disaster for not only NB Power but the province as a whole.”
O’Donnell is a member of the Coalition of Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB), a group formed to oppose the development of nuclear energy in the province.
A recent report from the province’s auditor general showed that $3.6 billion of NB Power’s $4.9 billion in debt is from the building and refurbishment of Point Lepreau. And O’Donnell says that reliability issues have impact NB Power’s ability to pay down its debt and meet profitability targets, which is backed up in many of the utility’s recent annual reports.
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