Nuclear energy back in the 60's was supposed to be too cheap to meter. Three Mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima resulted it a hugely increased regulatory burden in the west but Asia ignored this and continued building. South Korea was building reactors which were to cost 1/3 of the price quoted in North America. Both South Korea and France invested heavily early on in nuclear power and the lesson is that if you build the same model over and over the costs get a lot cheaper. US and Canadian governments until very recently have been very prescriptive about nuclear regulations.
The potential advantage of SMRs are that they can be built in a factory and shipped to the site whereas conventional reactors are fabricated on site. In this way they can get economies of scale if there isn't an over regulation problem.
The other problem nuclear has is a time value of money issue. With refurbishment, the Ontario reactor fleet have a life time of about 80 years. Amortized over a lifetime, you end up paying many time the original capital costs.
If Alberta were to replace all of its current capacity with nuclear it would take about 10 conventional reactors or 20-30 SMRs. The province is currently "saved" by shale gas but eventually that will either run out or climate action will throttle it. This is not going to happen in a short time frame but it also requires a lot of time and effort.
Nuclear energy back in the 60's was supposed to be too cheap to meter. Three Mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima resulted it a hugely increased regulatory burden in the west but Asia ignored this and continued building. South Korea was building reactors which were to cost 1/3 of the price quoted in North America. Both South Korea and France invested heavily early on in nuclear power and the lesson is that if you build the same model over and over the costs get a lot cheaper. US and Canadian governments until very recently have been very prescriptive about nuclear regulations.
The potential advantage of SMRs are that they can be built in a factory and shipped to the site whereas conventional reactors are fabricated on site. In this way they can get economies of scale if there isn't an over regulation problem.
The other problem nuclear has is a time value of money issue. With refurbishment, the Ontario reactor fleet have a life time of about 80 years. Amortized over a lifetime, you end up paying many time the original capital costs.
If Alberta were to replace all of its current capacity with nuclear it would take about 10 conventional reactors or 20-30 SMRs. The province is currently "saved" by shale gas but eventually that will either run out or climate action will throttle it. This is not going to happen in a short time frame but it also requires a lot of time and effort.
Alberta should with firm determination go for nuclear power plants.