First SMR in North America To Be Operational in 5 Years

The Ontario government has green-lit Ontario Power Generation to build the first of four Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) at the Darlington New Nuclear Project site.

OPG says it will be the first commercial grid-scale SMR in North America, with an in-service target date of 2030, and the first new nuclear build in Ontario in more than three decades.

Ontario government support for the CAD$20.9 billion project came after OPG received a Licence to Construct in April from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The first SMR would cost $7.7 billion. All four SMRS are to be located next to the Darlington nuclear power plant east of Toronto and are expected to be running by 2035.

The BWRX 300 modular plant was designed by G.E. Hitachi Nuclear Energy. It will have capacity for 300 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 300,000 homes. By comparison, Darlington’s four conventional nuclear reactors each provide 935 MW.

The Doug Ford government says the plants will help meet Ontario’s future energy demands, which are expected to rise by 75 percent by 2050.

Artist rendering of the first Small Modular Reactor being built in Ontario. Source: Ontario Power Generation

What are SMRs?

Facing stiff emissions reduction requirements, several countries are starting to re-assess nuclear power and are looking at building plants that are not as expensive, risky, or politically unpalatable as conventional nuclear.

Generally ,less than 300 MWe, SMRs are cheaper and can be built more quickly than large nuclear reactors, which are typically 1,000 MW and have a large footprint. Interest in small reactors is driven by a desire to reduce capital costs and to provide power away from large grid systems.

SMRs are constructed with prefabricated modules and can be transported by truck or by rail — making them ideal for remote locations where a conventional reactor would not be feasible. Another important advantage is they are less likely to overheat, because their small cores produce less heat than those of large reactors. They also have fewer moving parts, including coolant pumps, which reduces the likelihood of failures that could cause an accident. The fuel, steam and generator are all in one vessel.

Their small size and lower cost compared to large nuclear reactors makes Small Modular Reactors more versatile, meaning significantly more utilities will be able to use them.

In Canada, SMRs are considered ideal for deployment to off-grid, remote locations such as mine sites or the oil sands, as well as communities in northern Canada reliant on diesel-fueled generators for electricity.

Small nuclear reactors are also being eyed by industrial producers as carbon-free sources of heat.

Other SMRs in the works

In addition to OPG, other utilities including Saskatchewan’s SaskPower and the Tennessee Valley Authority have expressed interest in building BWRX 300s, as have companies in Poland and Estonia, The Globe and Mail reports.

Meanwhile Westinghouse, which built the world’s first commercial pressurized water reactor in Shippingport, PA, in 2023 announced the launch of a smaller version of its flagship AP1000 nuclear reactor. The unit is, like the BWRX 300, able to generate 300 MW of electricity, versus 1,200 MW for the AP1000. It is expected to be available in 2027, at a cost of USD$1 billion per unit — significantly less than the $6.8B estimated to bring an AP1000 online.

Some of the most advanced research on SMR technology is being conducted in New Brunswick.

NB Power is currently working with two private-sector partners, ARC Clean Technology and Moltex Energy, to advance Generation IV Plus Grid-sized SMR technology for use in the Maritime province.

In 2023, the New Brunswick government signed an agreement with the government of Saskatchewan to further enhance collaboration on the development and deployment of SMRs.

The Western Canadian province is considering the same BWRX 300 Small Nuclear Reactor as Ontario.

While no SMRs have yet been built in the United States, the Department of Energy has announced up to $5.5B in funding.

According to my colleague Felicity Bradstock, an increasing number of tech companies are investing in SMR technology with the hopes of powering their high-energy-demand data centers with clean energy. The sector hopes SMR technology will be available to power several data centers by the 2030s, as their power demand grows in line with the rollout of artificial intelligence and other complex technologies. This has led Google to order seven SMRs, and Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta to follow suit.

Bill Gates’s Terrapower is one of the US companies currently building SMRs. Terrapower broke ground on its first project in Wyoming last August and is awaiting approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, expected by the end of 2026.

Further afield, France announced USD$1.1 billion to develop an SMR design. In the UK, Rolls-Royce is around 18 months ahead of the competition in developing SMR technology.

In the Netherlands, the nuclear startup Thorizon announced a new consortium to develop a molten salt-type SMR.

The firm is currently building a 100-MW Molten Salt Reactor (MSR), Thorizon One, which it hopes to get running in a pilot plant by the mid-2030s. It expects the first prototype to be fueled by a mix of long-lived radioactive waste from existing nuclear facilities and thorium. This will transform much of the long-lived waste into short-lived waste.

MSRs are powered by a radioactive solution that blends fissionable isotopes with a liquid salt. While they can be powered using uranium, they run optimally on thorium, a cleaner, safer, and more abundant nuclear fuel.

The SMR market is expected to grow from $6 billion in 2024 to $7.14 billion in 2030, growing at a CAGR of 3 percent. The Asia Pacific and Americas markets will likely be the main drivers of this growth.

By Andrew Topf for Oilprice.com

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