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Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

cbc.ca

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Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#51

[flagged]

Federal funding for the green line was announced in 2015, and IIRC they originally predicted a 2026 opening date for branches covering the north and south of the city - street running in the north central part and a bit in Seton, a short tunnel downtown, and dedicated ROW elsewhere. This was back when planners were still really into streetcars/trams. The funding mix was supposed to be $1.5 billion each from the city,…

> Today? We are building the original truncated south phase to Shepard (by 2031!),

I know, I live by the Shepard station location by the Canadian Tire. Since 2020 they managed to put up a nice sign

> We are building the original truncated south phase to Shepard (by 2031!)

Yeah. 16 years after the federal funding was announced

We have to do better than this. :/

> I blame the city (both planners and elected officials) and the province in that order, but mostly the city

Me too don't worry

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#52
post #6

[flagged]

Canada is not an infrastructure “joke.” It is a country with some world-class delivery organizations operating inside a political system that too often destroys continuity. Relative to the G7, that makes it mediocre and volatile, not uniquely incompetent. And, in nuclear specifically, probably no worse positioned than its peers, though the ten-reactor rhetoric is substantially more ambitious than the underlying commi…

Which are these "world-class delivery organizations" and are they the exception or the rule?

We can acknowledge that political volatility is a main cause but it's not some exogenous factor. It's inherent to the federal structure of the country and it hamstrings trying to build social goods, whether that's transit or healthcare infrastructure.

There is also nowhere near a culture of developing and trusting institutional planning expertise. Infrastructure is done on a pork-barrel basis of which promises will get who elected and create which jobs and allocate which contracts. Or who complains the loudest about the design of any given plan.

Canada's 20th century social system was also based on maintaining social stability through mass property ownership, which is now breaking down as unrestrained property speculation is displacing any kind of productive investments (while also ending the possibility of that mass property ownership in the near future).

Sorry to bring the negativity but I feel as a whole that Canadians are much too tolerant of institutional dysfunction (in the manner of the classic "Canadian nice") and think our society is far more advanced than it actually is. It's a completely complacent and naive culture that is quickly being left in the dust by more functional systems.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#54
post #25
post #14

Hopefully this will kick Australia into gear.

Australia is really good for solar, why build nuclear?

Why not have a diverse set of energy inputs so your energy economy isn't fragile?

Some black swan event could kill solar. Maybe some mega volcano explodes. It would suck to be 50+% dependent on it in that case.

We should have wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, hydro, tidal, and even fossil fuels. We should have a total capacity in greater abundance than what we have today so that we can grow.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#55

Makes alot of sense. Canada has: - one of the largest uranium reserves - a well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU - experience with building and refurbishing nuclear reactors(Darlington) and for Ontario itself A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years. Saskatchewan also now has a potential need for nuclear for industrial use now that…

"A well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU"

A very expensive to build with lower utilization rates than PWRs despite online refueling. A solution AECL has been trying to move away from for the last thirty years.

And that online refueling? Looks a lot like a weapons grade Pu pipeline.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#56
post #18

I’m not Canadian so news to me that Canada has built nuclear plants around the world. As in the UK we were previously asking a French-Chinese partnership to build here so not sure why Canada didn’t get chosen for that.

Because the Candu is insanely expensive.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#60

[dead]

> But what do they do with the waste?

The Canadian Shield [0] is uniquely well-suited for this: it's remote, sparsely populated, and geologically stable.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield

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