Could a New Nuclear Reactor Double or Triple Electricity Rates in New Brunswick?
The implication of these experiences and proposals is that a new 1,000-MW reactor for New Brunswick could carry a price tag of $15 to $26 billion. Estimates of the costs of electricity needed to cover the capital costs of new nuclear plants, if they’re financed through electricity rates, range from the mid-20¢ to more than 40¢ per kilowatt-hour—nearly double to even triple current consumer electricity costs in New Brunswick. Such increases would undermine energy affordability, economic competitiveness, and any plans for decarbonization through electrification.
April 9, 2026, Mark Winfield and Susan O’Donnell, https://www.theenergymix.com/could-a-new-nuclear-reactor-double-or-triple-electricity-rates-in-new-brunswick/
At the end of last month, the NB Power Review Panel report recommended considering building a new large nuclear reactor at the Point Lepreau site in New Brunswick. That recommendation raises a series of questions, not least whether the province can afford a new reactor, how it would be paid for, and its impact on electricity rates and the province’s overall financial position.
It is important to grasp the scale of such a project and its potential economic impacts. Based on recent experience in other jurisdictions, a new large reactor of the types likely to be considered for Lepreau could cost between $15 and $26 billion. That would be a far higher capital expenditure than the original Point Lepreau reactor, which itself came in at more than $5 billion in 2026 dollars.
If the cost of a new reactor were passed on directly to NB Power customers through electricity rates, those rates could double or even triple.
Already, the costs of the original construction and later refurbishment of New Brunswick’s existing reactor at Lepreau make up $3.6 billion of the utility’s current crippling debt, the NB Power Review noted. That debt, plus the fact that the reactor has been operating below capacity since the refurbishment, is costing ratepayers dearly.
But despite New Brunswick’s costly nuclear experience, a new reactor has been in the cards since 2023, when NB Power and the provincial government published plans calling for 600 megawatts (MW) of new nuclear power by 2035 at the Point Lepreau site on the Bay of Fundy.
The original plan was to build two small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). After spending almost $130 million in public funds for SMR activities, New Brunswick found it couldn’t attract the private investment the designs needed to move forward.
The NB Power Review Panel strongly advised against SMRs, echoing a statement by Energy Minister René Legacy six months ago. He rejected the notion of building first-of-a-kind SMRs because of the technological and economic risks associated with their incomplete and unproven designs.
Instead, the review panel recommended that the province consider “initiating the planning assessment phase for an additional large scale, proven technology nuclear plant to be sited alongside the Point Lepreau facility.”
The last new full-scale nuclear reactor project in Canada, the Darlington nuclear power plant east of Toronto, was completed more than 30 years ago. The enormous cost overruns on that project contributed significantly to the effective bankruptcy of the province’s utility, Ontario Hydro, leading to its eventual break-up.
As the memories of these previous experiences with large nuclear construction projects have faded, new projects are now being proposed in Ontario and Alberta. These projects, and experiences with the handful of new-build nuclear projects initiated in Europe and the United States in the last two decades, give us some indication of the reactor options, and their potential costs, for New Brunswick.
At the end of last month, the NB Power Review Panel report recommended considering building a new large nuclear reactor at the Point Lepreau site in New Brunswick. That recommendation raises a series of questions, not least whether the province can afford a new reactor, how it would be paid for, and its impact on electricity rates and the province’s overall financial position.
It is important to grasp the scale of such a project and its potential economic impacts. Based on recent experience in other jurisdictions, a new large reactor of the types likely to be considered for Lepreau could cost between $15 and $26 billion. That would be a far higher capital expenditure than the original Point Lepreau reactor, which itself came in at more than $5 billion in 2026 dollars.
If the cost of a new reactor were passed on directly to NB Power customers through electricity rates, those rates could double or even triple.
Already, the costs of the original construction and later refurbishment of New Brunswick’s existing reactor at Lepreau make up $3.6 billion of the utility’s current crippling debt, the NB Power Review noted. That debt, plus the fact that the reactor has been operating below capacity since the refurbishment, is costing ratepayers dearly.
But despite New Brunswick’s costly nuclear experience, a new reactor has been in the cards since 2023, when NB Power and the provincial government published plans calling for 600 megawatts (MW) of new nuclear power by 2035 at the Point Lepreau site on the Bay of Fundy.
The original plan was to build two small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). After spending almost $130 million in public funds for SMR activities, New Brunswick found it couldn’t attract the private investment the designs needed to move forward.
The NB Power Review Panel strongly advised against SMRs, echoing a statement by Energy Minister René Legacy six months ago. He rejected the notion of building first-of-a-kind SMRs because of the technological and economic risks associated with their incomplete and unproven designs.
Instead, the review panel recommended that the province consider “initiating the planning assessment phase for an additional large scale, proven technology nuclear plant to be sited alongside the Point Lepreau facility.”
The last new full-scale nuclear reactor project in Canada, the Darlington nuclear power plant east of Toronto, was completed more than 30 years ago. The enormous cost overruns on that project contributed significantly to the effective bankruptcy of the province’s utility, Ontario Hydro, leading to its eventual break-up.
As the memories of these previous experiences with large nuclear construction projects have faded, new projects are now being proposed in Ontario and Alberta. These projects, and experiences with the handful of new-build nuclear projects initiated in Europe and the United States in the last two decades, give us some indication of the reactor options, and their potential costs, for New Brunswick.
In Ontario and Alberta, two reactor designs, the CANDU MONARK and the Westinghouse Electric AP1000, have been considered for the expansion of the Bruce Nuclear power plant on Lake Huron, a proposed 10,000-MW Ontario Power Generation plant at Wesleyville on Lake Ontario, and the proposed 4,800-MW Peace River Nuclear Project in Alberta.
The 1,000-MW CANDU MONARK, intended as a successor to the existing CANDU reactors in Ontario and New Brunswick, is owned by Montreal-based multinational AtkinsRéalis (formerly known as SNC Lavalin). Although it’s being aggressively promoted to potential international customers, the MONARK design remains incomplete. The situation has already led the Alberta project’s proponents to switch their proposal to favour the AP1000 design by Westinghouse Electric.
Westinghouse is a U.S.-based company owned by two Canadian firms: infrastructure developer Brookfield Renewable Partners; and uranium miner Cameco Corporation.
Cost information is available on the AP1000 reactor, as two units were completed in 2024 at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. The total estimated cost of those two 1,100-MW reactors was US$36 billion, or about $26 billion per reactor in 2026 Canadian dollars. The plant has been described as “the most expensive power plant ever built on Earth.” When it went into service, Vogtle resulted in a nearly 24% increase in Georgia Power’s electricity rates, the largest jump in the utility’s history.
AtkinsRéalis is currently pitching the CANDU MONARK to Poland, with a reported estimated cost of $45 to $50 billion for a three-reactor plant, or about $15 billion per unit. The company has also proposed an “Enhanced CANDU 6” design, an updated version of the existing plant at Point Lepreau.
The implication of these experiences and proposals is that a new 1,000-MW reactor for New Brunswick could carry a price tag of $15 to $26 billion. Estimates of the costs of electricity needed to cover the capital costs of new nuclear plants, if they’re financed through electricity rates, range from the mid-20¢ to more than 40¢ per kilowatt-hour—nearly double to even triple current consumer electricity costs in New Brunswick. Such increases would undermine energy affordability, economic competitiveness, and any plans for decarbonization through electrification.
The province could also try to finance the costs through its general tax base. That is the approach that Ontario seems to be taking, at an estimated cost to the provincial treasury of $7 to $8.5 billion per year. Electricity subsidies now account for more than half of Ontario’s deficit, exceeding annual capital expenditures on education and health care by wide margins.
In New Brunswick, the annual costs of that approach, even spread over the decade or more of construction, could exceed the province’s current, record $1.39 billion deficit, and match or exceed its entire annual capital spending plans in all other areas. Adding the cost to New Brunswick Power’s current $6-billion debt would further cripple the utility and likely put it on a path to the kind of de facto bankruptcy that befell Ontario Hydro.
In addition to the financial risks for New Brunswick, a single large reactor project would repeat and magnify a key problem associated with the original Lepreau project—putting an even higher portion of the province’s electricity supply eggs in a single, very expensive and high-risk basket.
The delivery of the NB Power Review Panel report gives New Brunswick an opportunity to reflect on its future electricity pathways. Those directions need to emphasize affordability, decarbonization and sustainability, reliability, and the capacity to adapt to changing economic, technological, and geopolitical circumstances. A single large nuclear project is unlikely to meet those criteria.
Mark Winfield is a professor at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University in Toronto, and co-chair of the faculty’s Sustainable Energy Initiative. Susan O’Donnell is adjunct research professor and lead researcher on the CEDAR project in Sustainability and Environmental Studies at St. Thomas University.
Protecting Our Wells: The Rural Costs of Uranium Exploration in Rural Nova Scotia – Alan Timberlake.
Those risks are not hypothetical. Dr. Bertell’s research showed that even low‑level internal exposure—from inhaled dust, dissolved uranium in drinking water, or radon gas—can cause cellular and genetic damage. She documented increased cancer rates, reproductive harm, immune system impacts, and long‑term generational effects in populations exposed to what regulators often describe as “safe” or “acceptable” doses.
April 4, 2026. Citizens Against Uranium Exploration and Mining in Nova Scotia, Alan Timberlake
Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia
Protecting Our Wells: The Rural Costs of Uranium Exploration in Rural Nova Scotia – Alan Timberlake
For rural Nova Scotians, clean well water isn’t a luxury—it’s our lifeline. It’s what we drink, cook with, bathe in, and give to our animals. That’s why the province’s decision on March 26, 2025 to repeal the long‑standing ban on uranium exploration has raised so many alarms in communities like ours. When your home depends on groundwater, any activity that disturbs uranium‑bearing rock is not an abstract policy issue. It’s personal.
At this time in Nova Scotia, it’s important to remember the work of Dr. Rosalie Bertell (1929–2012), one of the world’s leading experts on low‑level radiation. I first met Dr. Bertell in the early 1980s after helping facilitate her participation as an intervener at the British Columbia Royal Commission on Uranium Mining in Vancouver. Her testimony there helped shape BC’s decision to maintain its moratorium on uranium mining—a position the province still holds today. She was a meticulous epidemiologist and cancer researcher, and her warnings about internal radiation exposure remain deeply relevant to Nova Scotia’s current debate.
British Columbia’s stance today stands in sharp contrast to Nova Scotia’s recent repeal. BC continues to enforce a province‑wide moratorium on uranium exploration and mining through a “no‑registration reserve” that prohibits staking, exploration, or development of uranium or thorium. Even as the federal government promotes uranium as a critical mineral, BC has deliberately excluded it from its own critical minerals strategy. The province where Dr. Bertell’s evidence helped shape policy has stayed the course—while Nova Scotia has moved in the opposite direction.
Nova Scotians have not been silent about this shift. On October 3, 2025, a petition with 7,000 signatures was formally tabled in the Legislature calling for the ban to be reinstated. More petitions are still being circulated across the province. The speed and scale of this response show just how deeply people—especially rural residents—understand the risks.
Those risks are not hypothetical. Dr. Bertell’s research showed that even low‑level internal exposure—from inhaled dust, dissolved uranium in drinking water, or radon gas—can cause cellular and genetic damage. She documented increased cancer rates, reproductive harm, immune system impacts, and long‑term generational effects in populations exposed to what regulators often describe as “safe” or “acceptable” doses.
For rural Nova Scotia, the concern is straightforward: exploration drilling can mobilize uranium into groundwater. Our geology is fractured. Water moves unpredictably underground. A 2018 provincial review found that drilled wells in Nova Scotia have a significantly higher chance of uranium contamination than dug wells. When you rely on a well, there is no backup system. No municipal treatment plant. No alternative supply. Once a well is contaminated, the options are limited, expensive, and often ineffective.
The province insists that modern exploration is “low‑impact.” But rural residents know that the first impacts are often invisible. A slight shift in groundwater flow. A small increase in dissolved uranium. A rise in radon levels in a basement. These changes don’t announce themselves with fanfare—they show up in water tests, in health statistics, or in the lived experience of families who suddenly can’t drink from their own taps.
Despite the government’s enthusiasm, no companies submitted proposals during the initial call for exploration. Even the premier later admitted the push for uranium exploration appears to be “kind of toast right now.” But the repeal remains in place, and the regulatory door is open.
That’s why Dr. Bertell’s work matters so much today. She taught us that low‑level radiation is not benign, and that internal exposure—especially through water—carries risks that can unfold over decades. For rural communities, that means we need independent science, transparent monitoring, and a real voice in decisions that affect our wells.
Cenovus pulled the plug on its much-ballyhooed ‘multi-year’ study of ‘small modular reactors’ in 2024 after a year.
So-called SMRs – which some say should stand for Spending Money Recklessly – aren’t ready for prime time, and probably never will be.
by David Climenhaga, March 28, 2026, https://albertapolitics.ca/2026/03/cenovus-pulled-the-plug-on-its-much-ballyhooed-multi-year-study-of-small-modular-reactors-in-2024-after-a-year/
Despite getting a much-ballyhooed $7-million in start-up costs from the Alberta Government in 2023, a year later Cenovus Energy Inc. pulled the plug on its study of the potential for so-called small modular reactors to generate power to wring oil from Alberta’s oilsands.
To the company’s credit, it only spent $555,000 of the public’s money on the project before losing interest.
The termination of the study was done so quietly, no one seems to have noticed. At least, there appear to have been no news reports about the project’s cancellation.
As recently as last year, though, new references could still be found to the tale told in the Sept. 19, 2023, press release published by Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA), the Alberta Government office set up in 2009 to fund “Alberta-based technologies that lower emissions and costs for industries.”
That press release enthusiastically announced that the province would provide $7 million through ERA “for Cenovus Energy to conduct a preliminary, multi-year study on whether small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) can be safely, technically, and economically deployed in Alberta’s oil sands operations. Funding will be provided through the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) fund.”
The release quoted then Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz, who announced the funding at the at the World Petroleum Congress in Calgary, rhapsodizing, “a few years ago, the idea of expanding nuclear energy use was on the back burner – that is no longer the case.
“In Alberta, small modular nuclear reactors have the potential to supply heat and power to the oil sands, simultaneously reducing emissions and supporting Alberta’s energy future,” Ms. Schulz’s canned quote continued. “This funding is the foundation for that promising future. I want to thank Cenovus Energy and Emissions Reduction Alberta for their leadership in this work.”
“We are optimistic about the opportunities ahead and will continue working with industry to explore and enable small modular reactor development in this province,” said Energy Minister Brian Jean, playing second fiddle as he so often did when Ms. Schulz was involved, in the same release.
A CBC News report at the time quoted Ms. Schulz saying, “this is just another example of how industry dollars are being reinvested back into industry to support innovation in emissions reduction.” The CBC story also noted that that the study was “actually a four-year series of studies being lumped into one” with a total estimated cost of $26.7 million.
It would appear, however, that Cenovus quickly reconsidered that kind of spending on that particular topic. Presumably sometime in early 2025, ERA updated a statement on its website revealing that Cenovus had ended the SMR FEED Study ahead of schedule. (FEED stands for “Front End Engineering Design.”)
The undated statement, presumably unchanged from whenever it was first published, devotes 665 words to describing the project and its potential benefits. A line at the top summarizing the project’s status lists it without further comment as “terminated” and indicates that only $555,000 of the promised $7 million from the province was spent.
That page in turn provides a link to Cenovus’s SMR FEED Study Final Outcomes Report, which was published on New Year’s Eve 2024.
A report last week assessing the success of Canada’s 2018 strategic plan to develop SMRs across the country published by researchers Susan O’Donnell and M.V. Ramana for the CEDAR Project (Contesting Energy Discourses through Action Research) cited the Cenovus Final Outcomes Report.
Cenovus’s assessment of the potential for SMRs in Alberta’s oilsands was not enthusiastic.
“Cenovus decided in 2024 (during the execution of phase 1 work) not to continue with the Program beyond the end of 2024,” the company’s report says under the heading Lessons Learned.
“The phase 1 evaluation of nuclear from a business perspective showed SMRs are not economic or commercially feasible at present or in the near future,” the section continued. “The capital costs are high, the timelines are long and uncertain, and technology and supply chains lack maturity. While there is a potential application for industrial heat needs, significant progress in these areas is required, which may not happen for several years.”
Under the heading economic evaluation, the report reaches the conclusion that while it may be technically possible to use SMRs to provide steam for the Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage oilsands recovery technique, “they are not viable under current market conditions.”
Quite possibly cutting to the fundamental basis of the company’s decision, that section continues: “While existing government support programs are beneficial, they do not provide sufficient financial and risk management support to appropriately improve SMR feasibility.”
In other words, if the government isn’t going to pay for it, we can forget about it.
As for SMRs, despite the relentless effort by Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government to generate enthusiasm for their potential in the Athabasca oilsands, they’re not ready for prime time and quite possibly never will be.
Remember, as has been said here before, SMRs may be nuclear reactors, but they’re not small and they’re not really modular. They are multi-billion-dollar megaprojects, just not mega enough to justify their cost. The initials could stand for “Spending Money Recklessly,” Dr. O’Donnell and Dr. Ramana wrote last Monday.
Like other carbon reduction schemes pushed by the UCP Government, such as its failed hydrogen-powered truck fantasy and high-risk carbon capture and underground storage schemes that are now stirring up opposition in northern Alberta, they serve mainly as a way to to greenwash high-carbon oilsands activities.
Progress, push back and Indigenous rights
by David Suzuki, April 2, 2026, https://rabble.ca/environment/progress-push-back-and-indigenous-rights/
As seatbelt and smoking regulations — and many other examples — show, people eventually adapt. Uncertainty shouldn’t be used to frustrate progress.
In Canada, progress on social and ecological justice often faces roadblocks………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Corporations and politicians are now trying to get Canada and British Columbia to walk back commitments to uphold Indigenous rights and obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Kebaowek First Nation’s legal challenge against Canadian Nuclear Laboratories over a proposed nuclear waste facility near the Ottawa River illustrates how progress on Indigenous rights often meets resistance. In a landmark ruling, Justice Julie Blackhawk affirmed that Canada’s commitments under the UNDRIP must meaningfully inform federal decision-making. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories appealed the decision, arguing against application of the UN Declaration Act and the requirement to obtain free, prior and informed consent from Indigenous nations.
Uncertainty is also being used by opponents of Indigenous-led marine protected areas. They promote and leverage the fears and uncertainties of concerned small businesses while also opposing the interests of other small-scale operators, including recreational fishers, that support MPAs.
It’s a familiar refrain: Those with established power seek to prevent change, hiding behind the concerns and doubts of community members, but quickly turn on them when it’s in their interest to do so……………………………………………….
Indigenous Peoples lived on these lands before European settlers arrived. Recent efforts to advance co-governance models and uphold Indigenous rights prior to extraction activities are meant to advance social justice and address the colonial legacies embedded in Canada’s history.
A recent joint letter from B.C. unions, academics, doctors and conservation organizations says, “We are deeply troubled by the recent rise in anti-Indigenous rhetoric and fearmongering in this province that has framed the realization of the fundamental human rights of Indigenous peoples as detrimental to economic growth, security, and the interests of others,” adding, “We believe that our futures are intertwined and our collective prosperity is inextricably linked.”
As the Yellowhead Institute states, “Aboriginal rights in Canadian law do not give Indigenous people rights — they merely recognize Crown obligations.” Indigenous people have inherent rights that are fundamental to treaty, human and constitutional rights.
We have a chance to do things right in Canada. Let’s put aside the fearmongering, push back against the pushback and continue our journey forward together.
David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Boreal Project Manager Rachel Plotkin.
Will the New Brunswick Power Review finally shake up New Brunswick Power?
The report’s considerable emphasis on NB Power’s nuclear operations is justified: the plant’s poor performance is the main reason that the utility cannot lower its debt to asset ratio and loses money almost every year. As the report notes: “The benefits of nuclear are only achieved when the asset performs at a high-capacity factor…. A structure and organization that is focused on excellent nuclear performance is needed and it is not clear to us that this is possible under the existing corporate structure.”
Unfortunately, the main recommendation for the nuclear plant will simply kick the white elephant down the road. ………………… The report also noted that the utility’s debt related to nuclear power was $3.6 billion and suggested that an appropriate amount of debt be assigned to the new entity, presumably with the remaining debt picked up by taxpayers.
If there is any silver lining, it’s that the report barely mentions small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), and at the media event, the panel stated clearly that New Brunswick should not go down that road.
by Susan O’Donnell, March 31, 2026, https://nbmediacoop.org/2026/03/31/will-the-nb-power-review-finally-shake-up-nb-power/
NB Power desperately needs a very big shake up. The NB Power Review report published on Monday rattled the utility but not nearly hard enough.
The NB Power Review was meant to chart a path to a better future for the public utility. Launched last April, the three-person review panel was tasked with reviewing the utility to address: “rising electricity rates, system reliability, and financial challenges, including a high debt-to-equity ratio.”
The shake-up needs to happen at the top. The report is rightly highly critical of NB Power’s organizational culture that lacks not only “operational excellence” but also basic project management procedures and practices. NB Power, the report clearly states, does not have the capacity and skills to manage all the projects planned, including “large hydro refurbishment, complex plant conversions, large software replacement, and transmission and distribution expansions.”
NB Power’s grid is a mess. The big power generators are liabilities more than assets. The Mactaquac dam needs repairs that will cost more than $9 billion. The Belledune coal-fired plant is federally mandated to close by 2030. The Point Lepreau nuclear plant performs so badly that the utility is losing millions, with millions more for costly repairs on the horizon. NB Power’s big fossil fuel generators – oil-fired Coleson Cove and gas-fired Bayside – need to wind down for the same reason Belledune will need to stop burning coal: the climate emergency.
Yet, the Review report does not mention the word “climate,” or “weather” or “storms” or give any indication that “Fit for the Future” (the title of the report) must include resilience and mitigation strategies for climate change.
As reported last April when the Review was announced, the panel’s mandate did not include consideration of climate action, which is evident in the report. For example, after pointing out that many homes in the province rely on baseboard heating, the report recommends “increased deployment of natural gas for heating purposes” suggesting that these homes should install gas furnaces. Heat pumps, the obvious and more cost-conscious and environmentally-responsible option, are barely mentioned and not included in the report’s 50 recommendations.
The report also misses an important opportunity to highlight the potential of wind energy and external financing for wind projects with Indigenous communities. A table in the report appendix lists NB Power’s power purchase agreements, including from three wind farms co-owned by Indigenous communities: Nuweg (25 MW capacity) Wisokolamson Energy (18 MW) and Wocawson Energy (20 MW) – without mentioning that these are Indigenous-partnered projects.
New Brunswick has tremendous wind resources, and First Nations in the province and their partners are building wind farms at a rapid pace, also not mentioned in the report. In fact, the most exciting energy infrastructure developments currently ongoing in New Brunswick are wind projects with Indigenous communities co-financed with the federal government.
In 2024, the federal government announced up to $1 billion in funding for new Indigenous-partnered wind projects in New Brunswick and currently five new Indigenous-partnered wind projects are in development. The Review panel should have mentioned this and recommended that NB Power actively explore with Indigenous and government partners how more of these wind projects could be developed and added to New Brunswick’s electric grid.
Where the report stands out is its lengthy discussion of nuclear power and NB Power’s capacity to operate a nuclear plant. The report includes only several paragraphs covering the challenges at the Mactaquac hydroelectricity plant and Belledune coal plant, but nuclear power gets five pages, plus an excellent four-page appendix with the history of the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station detailing the operational problems.
The report’s considerable emphasis on NB Power’s nuclear operations is justified: the plant’s poor performance is the main reason that the utility cannot lower its debt to asset ratio and loses money almost every year. As the report notes: “The benefits of nuclear are only achieved when the asset performs at a high-capacity factor…. A structure and organization that is focused on excellent nuclear performance is needed and it is not clear to us that this is possible under the existing corporate structure.”
The panel acknowledges that NB Power does not have the capacity to operate the nuclear plant with New Brunswick talent. Currently the nuclear plant is managed under a contract with Laurentis Energy Partners, a business venture of Ontario Power Generation, a contract the review panel suggests will not alone achieve the needed improvement in the plant’s performance.
Unfortunately, the main recommendation for the nuclear plant will simply kick the white elephant down the road. The review panel recommends that the Point Lepreau plant be operationally separated from the rest of the utility’s power generators and that a new entity, Point Lepreau Nuclear, be set up with its own governance team of nuclear experts focused on the performance of the plant. The report also noted that the utility’s debt related to nuclear power was $3.6 billion and suggested that an appropriate amount of debt be assigned to the new entity, presumably with the remaining debt picked up by taxpayers.
It was almost amusing to read the review panel’s statement that hiving off the utility’s nuclear operations into a separate entity will “reduce stress and accountability” for the NB Power management and board. For sure, saying “it’s not my problem” is a good way to reduce stress but it doesn’t make the problem go away.
What about the stress experienced every month by New Brunswick ratepayers who can’t afford their utility bills? The panel, in its report and media event, acknowledged that electricity rates will continue to rise, energy poverty is real, and that “government needs to step in and provide financial support for those New Brunswickers who are considered vulnerable or for those targeted customers” but does not recommend developing such a program as one of its 50 recommendations. In any case, using general revenues to subsidize the costs of the nuclear operations is not a long-term solution.
As the panel clearly identified, the Point Lepreau nuclear plant is a big, central, problem for NB Power. If, as the report states, the contract with Laurentis Energy Partners is not enough, what will be enough? The existing contract with Laurentis is $88.4 million over three years (the value is not mentioned in the Review report). What will be the cost of hiring outside experts to set up and run the proposed Point Lepreau Nuclear entity? Does anyone believe that another group of outside experts will be able to magically bewitch the Lepreau plant so that it will make money, rather than lose it? “Silk purse” and “sow’s ear” come to mind.
If there is any silver lining, it’s that the report barely mentions small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), and at the media event, the panel stated clearly that New Brunswick should not go down that road. As reported earlier by the NB Media Co-op, the NB Power review “could be the last nail in the coffin for the controversial technology in New Brunswick.”
However a further recommendation in the report is that the government consider “initiating the planning assessment phase for an additional large scale, proven technology nuclear plant to be sited alongside the Point Lepreau facility.” At the media event for the report launch, the review panel stressed they were not recommending a second reactor but rather that the utility take the time to conduct a thorough review about the future of nuclear in New Brunswick.
Another “big” reactor? Currently in Canada, only two firms are competing to build proposed big nuclear projects, in Ontario and Alberta. AtkinsRéalis (formerly known as SNC Lavalin) is proposing a CANDU design and Westinghouse its AP1000 design. The CANDU design has not made cost estimates public but two AP1000 reactors were recently completed in the U.S., at a cost of about $24 billion each in Canadian dollars.
This NB Power Review should have been the thorough review required to put NB Power’s future nuclear ambitions to rest. After its detailed discussion of NB Power’s debt problem and failure to operate the Point Lepreau nuclear plant successfully, it defies belief that the panel would recommend considering another nuclear reactor, one that would cost tens of billions of dollars. This is the very definition of nuclear hopium, not the big reality shake that the government and NB Power so badly need.
Susan O’Donnell, a member of the NB Media Co-op board, is the lead investigator of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University and co-author of a recent report on SMRs in Canada
Does SMR Stand for Spending Money Recklessly?
March 23, 2026, Susan O’Donnell, M.V. Ramana, https://www.theenergymix.com/does-smr-stand-for-spending-money-recklessly/
What did Canadians get for the $4.5 billion in public funding spent on small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) activities? Our new report assessing SMR development in Canada found the results underwhelming, to say the least.
Published in 2018, A Call to Action: A Canadian Roadmap for Small Modular Reactors recommended that the federal government fund SMRs and undertake other support measures. The report’s first “expected result” was that “one or more SMR demonstration [projects would be] constructed and in operation by 2026.” Our report in this milestone year covers not only this expected result, but also what the federal government has provided in funding for SMRs in Canada.
For many years, the “Micro Modular Reactor” (MMR) proposed for the Chalk River nuclear site in Ontario was to be this first demonstration. Back in 2019, the project proponents applied to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to prepare the site for construction.
Fast forward to 2024: instead of the reactor built and being prepared to go into service, CNSC announced it had “paused all work” on the MMR project. Later that year, the company leading the project, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States, leaving unpaid debts of more than $16 million. That total included $641,307 to the CNSC and lesser amounts to dozens of Canadian small businesses.
In 2018, the New Brunswick government lured two start-up SMR companies into the province from the U.S. and the United Kingdom—ARC and Moltex—giving each $5 million and help to apply for funding from federal taxpayers. The SMR strategy called for two “advanced” reactor designs, which were not cooled with water, to be built at NB Power’s Point Lepreau nuclear site. Both designs have serious problems that have been documented extensively (for example, in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) .
Over the next five years, the federal government handed over more than $97 million to develop the two SMR designs in New Brunswick, and the provincial government added more than $31 million to the project. Yet in late 2025, New Brunswick’s Energy Minister said the government would no longer wait for the ARC and Moltex designs because the province could not take on the risk of first-of-a-kind reactors. The millions of dollars in subsidies are essentially a write-off, funding highly paid positions at these companies at the public expense.
Of the 10 SMR designs in Canada since 2018, only one is in development. Most of the public subsidy money for SMRs—$4.025 billion—has been spent developing this reactor design, the BWRX-300, to be built at the Darlington nuclear site on Lake Ontario. As of early 2026, workers are digging a deep shaft for the reactor vessel. Sometime this summer, we can expect to see concrete being poured into the ground.
Four billion dollars is a lot of money, but nowhere near enough to pay for the four BWRX-300 reactors planned for the site. Even the first BWRX-300 reactor is expected to cost more—$6.1 billion—and the whole project will run at least $20.9 billion. It final bill could come in far higher, since the vast majority of nuclear power projects have historically overrun initial cost estimates.
The high costs for the SMR compare poorly with other options for electricity generation. For example, estimates by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) show that each unit of electrical energy from SMRs would be far more expensive that a corresponding unit from solar and wind power plants, even when the cost of storage technologies and other means of accounting for renewable energy’s variability are included.
CSIRO has been undertaking an annual cost estimate in collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator and its reports involve extensive consultation with various stakeholders. The research agency’s analysis is informing an active debate under way in Australia to determine if the country should embark on nuclear energy. There is no corresponding effort at rigorously computing the costs of different kinds of generating energy from different technologies by any official research agencies in Canada.
Overall, the report’s analysis found little interest in SMRs among banks and other sources of private capital. When measured in terms of their ability to generate power, SMRs are more expensive than big reactors. Given the high costs, the report suggests that exporting significant quantities of SMRs from Canada is only a slim possibility.
Susan O’Donnell and M.V. Ramana are authors of the report on SMRs in Canada. O’Donnell is Adjunct Research Professor and lead investigator of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. Ramana is Professor; Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security; and Director pro tem of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Ontario’s nuclear push risks another costly policy failure.
Nuclear power is neither nimble nor affordable and it’s about time the Ontario government stopped posturing otherwise.
Policy Options, Samuel Buckstein , March 20, 2026
Nuclear power is experiencing a resurgence worldwide and Ontario is no exception. The province has a long history with this awesome and terrifying energy technology, and it is once again turning to nuclear power in response to concerns over national sovereignty, economic growth, electrification and decarbonization.
Looking back over Ontario’s troubled history with nuclear energy, it is concerning to see the Ford government stumbling back to the bar for another round of nuclear cool-aid. Yet Ontario’s plan shows little evidence of having done its homework. Contrary to the government’s claims, it is fiscally irresponsible, incapable of delivering the energy the province needs in the time required, and compromises Ontario’s energy security.
When it should be investing in much cheaper and more easily deployed renewables, the province is recklessly doubling down on nuclear despite the evidence against it.
A legacy mired in debt
To understand Ontario’s nuclear trajectory, it is helpful to reflect on its origins. When civilian nuclear power was commercialized after the Second World War, its advocates promised it would be “too cheap to meter.” Buoyed by encouragement and financing from both provincial and federal governments, Ontario Hydro duly invested in a fleet of 20 CANDU reactors at three nuclear power stations over the course of 30 years.
By the turn of the millennium, Ontario Hydro’s nuclear obsession had saddled it with $38.1 billion in debt — $20.9 billion of it stranded (unsupported by assets). This burden was so immense that it toppled the once proud flagship Crown corporation. Ontarians continue to pay for this nuclear hangover today. As of March 2023, ratepayers were still on the hook for $13.8 billion.
Even as late as 1989, with Ontario Hydro already buckling under its crushing debt, the utility was forecasting the need for 10 to 15 new reactors by 2014. Reality proved otherwise, with peak electricity demand in 2014 lower than it had been 25 years earlier.
After a generation of staggering cost overruns and catastrophic international incidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear power fell out of favour in much of the developed world. Cheaper, more flexible and faster-to-deploy alternatives took its place, first gas and then renewables…………………………………
Lessons from the U.K. and Ukraine
However, Ontario should learn from the United Kingdom, not authoritarian China. The experience of Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power plant to be built in the U.K. in more than 20 years, should be a cautionary tale.
At least five years behind schedule and two times over budget, Hinkley Point C will likely be the most expensive nuclear power plant yet. The electricity generated by this colossal waste of rate-payer dollars will cost between two to four times more than renewable energy, which can be brought online in half the time. This is what the provincial government has in store for Ontario.
The scale of Ontario’s plan is immense. In addition to the CANDU refurbishments at Darlington and Bruce, Ontario has announced the refurbishment of Pickering B, one of the oldest and most urban nuclear power stations in the world.
Sovereignty concerns
Ontario has also contracted with GE Vernova Hitachi to build up to four small modular reactors (SMRs) at the Darlington site. It is unclear why the government has committed to building four SMRs before even the first is constructed. The greater concern with this arrangement is GE Vernova Hitachi is a U.S.-controlled company and the fuel supply chain is in the U.S. and France, not Canada…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
No price tag and no certainty it will pay
Despite these red flags, Ontario’s nuclear ambitions do not stop there. The government is also considering building two new large nuclear power stations at the Bruce site and at a new location near Port Hope. This despite the fact that, like the U.K., the domestic nuclear supply chain has all but vanished. This is precisely the kind of multi-billion-dollar, multi-decade infrastructure lock-in that bankrupted Ontario Hydro.
The government has been silent on how much this plan will cost. No one can predict whether demand will materialize to justify this massive supply expansion, or what electricity prices will be when these reactors finally come online. Committing to decades of investment in such an uncertain environment is sheer folly.
To top it all off, nuclear power is not even operationally flexible. Generation cannot be adjusted rapidly enough to follow demand, and the reactors can only be quickly turned off, but not back on again (it took Ontario more than a day to restore power after the 2003 Great Northeastern Blackout due to neutron poisoning in the reactors).
Renewable options
It does not have to be this way. Much has changed since the last wave of nuclear infatuation. Renewables are now the cheapest source of energy on a levelized basis. While renewables may be intermittent, they are reasonably predictable, and for the first time since the inception of the electricity industry, generation no longer needs to coincide perfectly with consumption. Rapidly falling battery costs have made energy storage a commercially viable reality…………………………………………………………. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2026/03/ontario-nuclear-energy-costs-risks-renewables/
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River.
The word is getting around that dumping a million cubic metres of long-lived radioactive waste 1 km from the Ottawa River is not a great idea, particularly without the free, prior and informed consent of Kebaowek First Nation, on whose unceded territory this flawed project would be located.
A new e-petition calls on the Government of Canada “to issue a directive under Section 19 (1) of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to order the CNSC to revoke the licensing of the NSDF at Chalk River.” A very good idea.The link is
https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
Just one small correction — most of the radionuclides in the waste will remain radioactive for millennia, so the radioactivity will not “wear off” in 300 years.
As proposals for nuclear stations proliferate across Canada, ‘fleet-based’ reactor deployment remains elusive.
The Ontario government announced last summer a body called the New Nuclear Technology Panel, composed of senior executives from OPG, Bruce Power and the government, and instructed it to co-ordinate a technology selection decision. But the panel has not been established, and there is no timeline for doing so.
among those few proponents that have publicly committed to specific models, at least three have already wavered on their decisions. The situation underlines how tentative plans for nuclear expansion in Canada remain
Matthew McClearn, 9 March 26, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-nuclear-stations-canada-fleet-based-reactor-deployment-remains-elusive/
In the nuclear industry it is practically gospel: Canada isn’t populous or wealthy enough to purchase a smorgasbord of different nuclear reactors. Yet after years of lukewarm efforts by Canadian utilities and governments to reach a consensus on which ones to buy, there are few indications that one is emerging.
In January, Saskatchewan’s government announced it had begun evaluating large nuclear reactors for potential deployment. Jeremy Harrison, a minister whose responsibilities include the Crown-owned SaskPower, said the utility will study the readiness of reactors to be built, vendors’ ability to support licensing and construction, and their track record of executing previous projects.
Ontario’s utilities have been asking similar questions for several years. In 2023 Bruce Power began hunting for a reactor for Bruce C, a proposed four-unit station at its facility near Tiverton, Ont. Ontario Power Generation recently began its own search for a huge plant dubbed Wesleyville, planned in Port Hope, Ont.
Observers have long warned that given Canada’s population and economy, utilities, private developers and provinces must co-ordinate procurement of reactors – an approach sometimes dubbed “fleet-based deployment.” But it hasn’t arrived yet.
Indeed, among those few proponents that have publicly committed to specific models, at least three have already wavered on their decisions. The situation underlines how tentative plans for nuclear expansion in Canada remain, even as governments forecast spiking demand for electricity in the immediate future and consider their options for generating that power.
All 25 reactors built in Canada during the 1960s through the 1990s featured Canada deuterium uranium (Candu) technology developed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., a Crown corporation. One benefit was that later Candus, such as those at the Bruce B and Darlington stations, proved significantly more reliable than earlier ones in that they suffered fewer outages. Similar dynamics applied when those stations required midlife overhauls. Another advantage was that utilities could share operational experience through the Candu Owners Group (now known as Conexus Nuclear).
By the time the federal government began promoting small modular reactors (SMRs), though, the Candu’s monopoly seemed precarious, and international vendors arrived promoting early-stage designs. In 2018 the government published a “roadmap” for SMRs, recommending stakeholders settle on a small number of finalized designs.
Jeremy Whitlock, a nuclear consultant and adjunct professor at McMaster University, wrote in an e-mailed response to questions that fleet-based deployment is vital for nuclear. “There is simply not enough infrastructure, resources, and (currently at least) work force to support multiple lines of technology,” he wrote.
A report released in February by Clean Prosperity, a Toronto-based energy and climate policy think tank, asserted that one necessary precondition for nuclear expansion is that all proponents converge on three designs at most: one “large” design with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts or more (enough to power a large city), one “small” reactor with an output around 300 megawatts, and one “micro” reactor putting out less than 20 megawatts.
Brendan Frank, Clean Prosperity’s head of policy development, said a first-of-a-kind reactor is far too expensive; the industry needs to learn how to build subsequent units more cheaply to compete with other generation options. “Your chances of doing that are significantly higher if you build the same reactor design over and over and over again,” he said.
The BWRX-300 from U.S.-based GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy has seemingly emerged as the lone contender among the larger SMRs. Yet only OPG has committed to build one.
As for large and micro-reactors, no firm orders have been placed in Canada. However attractive fleet-based deployment might seem, it might be difficult to achieve. Selecting a model has numerous implications, from securing a fuel supply to managing the resulting waste; what’s best for Ontario mightn’t seem so for Saskatchewan or New Brunswick.
Nuclear power is among the few generation options that has grown more expensive, and eliminating pricing competition by sourcing from a single reactor vendor won’t help
Options are limited. AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.
ATRL-T -1.07%decrease, the company which purchased Atomic Energy of Canada’s reactor business more than a decade ago, is developing an updated 1,000-megawatt Candu dubbed the Monark. Its most significant home-court advantage is that utilities and their workers are already familiar with operating and maintaining Candus. Moreover, its supply chain is on Canadian soil, an appealing feature amid surging economic nationalism. Its greatest vulnerability might be its readiness: The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says it has not yet begun a preliminary assessment of the Monark, known as a vendor design review.
The CNSC reviewed the Monark’s most obvious competitor more than a decade ago. It concluded there were “no fundamental barriers” to licensing Westinghouse Electric Co.’s AP1000. Although AP1000s have been built in China and the U.S., the American projects suffered disastrous setbacks during construction. Souring Canada-U.S. relations further diminish the AP1000’s appeal.
GE Vernova Hitachi, which designed the BWRX-300, faces similar obstacles in marketing its larger Advanced Boiling Water Reactor. Dark horses include the European Pressurized Reactor, a French design, and the South Korean APR-1400.
If fleet-based deployment is to succeed in Canada, Ontario appears to be the most credible co-ordinator. Between Bruce C and Wesleyville, it might purchase up to 14 large reactors.
Neither OPG nor Bruce Power specified reactors in their regulatory applications, which are intended to encompass a variety of options. Bruce Power’s chief operating officer, James Scongack, said since late 2023 his company has sought information from reactor vendors, a process intended to ascertain which reactors are ready to be constructed and at what cost. The process “was really designed to look at what are all the technologies available for new nuclear, assess them, review them, narrow them down,” he said.
Citing confidentiality agreements, Mr. Scongack declined to discuss which ones had emerged as front-runners. But “we’re now very focused on options that would not be a surprise to you.”
The Ontario government announced last summer a body called the New Nuclear Technology Panel, composed of senior executives from OPG, Bruce Power and the government, and instructed it to co-ordinate a technology selection decision. But the panel has not been established, and there is no timeline for doing so.
Lately, Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce has spoken emphatically about the importance of promoting Canadian technology and supply chains – comments suggesting strong support for Candus.
“My first preoccupation is: What is going to advance the national interest of Canada in a post-Trump world,” he told The Globe in late January.
“We need to be fiercely protective of our intellectual property, of Canadian technology for Candu, a large-scale [reactor] that is made in Canada, stored in this country, a supply chain that is Canadian, a work force that is mature and Canadian.”
But a different champion could emerge in Saskatchewan. As far back as 2022, SaskPower selected the BWRX-300. Yet just two years later, SaskPower announced it had signed an agreement with Westinghouse to evaluate other models including its AP300, a direct competitor.
That sudden interest in Westinghouse didn’t come out of nowhere. The uranium giant Cameco Corp. CCO-T +5.86%increase, based in Saskatoon, is one of the province’s most influential companies. In 2023 it purchased a 49-per-cent stake in Westinghouse.
Mr. Harrison said the AP300 is no longer under consideration, and SaskPower confirms it’s planning to announce a proposed site for building BWRX-300s later this year. But SaskPower won’t make a final investment decision until at least 2029, leaving plenty of time to pivot again.
And that’s one reason Saskatchewan’s decision to explore large reactors could be highly significant. Mr. Harrison said the province is prepared to go its own way. And while SaskPower will consider candidate reactors on their merits, he added that local companies’ interests are an important consideration.
“We are really very, very proud of Cameco, a great Saskatchewan company,” Mr. Harrison said. “To be a 49-per-cent owner of this iconic American company, Westinghouse Electric, is really a quite an amazing story for a company that began life as a Crown corporation.”
He added: “Without question, benefits to the supply chain in Saskatchewan is a part of the consideration. We’ve been very upfront about that.”
Energy Alberta, a nascent developer with a long-standing proposal to build a four-reactor plant in Peace River, Alta., offers perhaps the most striking example of indecision. It had selected the Monark, but late last year announced it was considering Westinghouse’s AP1000s instead.
New Brunswick selected two reactors for construction at its Point Lepreau station nearly a decade ago. But neither the ARC-100 nor the SSR-W appear to be nearing a completed design; their vendors (ARC Clean Technology and Moltex Energy Canada, respectively) have few employees and have struggled to raise capital.
NB Power’s chief executive officer, Lori Clark, said her utility remains committed to building reactors. But it has come around to fleet-based thinking: it no longer wants to build a first-of-a-kind, or one-of-a-kind, reactor, because they are inevitably costlier. Provincial officials have expressed interest in a variety of different reactors over the past year, including the BWRX-300, AP1000 and Candu.
“We want to watch what’s happening in Ontario, because they are much bigger player in the nuclear field than we are.”
Canada will soon release new electricity and nuclear strategy, minister says
Canada’s Energy and Mining Minister Tim Hodgson said on Thursday the
government will release a new electricity and nuclear strategy in the
coming months as demand for nuclear energy rises. “Investors want
clarity. They want speed, and they want direction from nations to which
they are allocating capital. That is why our government will release a
new comprehensive electricity and nuclear strategy in the coming
months, probably weeks,” Hodgson said at CIBC’s nuclear summit.
Reuters 5th March 2026, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/canada-will-soon-release-new-electricity-nuclear-strategy-minister-says-2026-03-05/
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Complaint to the Editor of the Narwhal
SMRs are not small, and they are not modular. No one is building SMR components in a factory – please check the spin OPG gives you. They are still enormous, although a lot of the bulk is hidden underground. What OPG has done to try to cut construction costs and time is cut some safety systems (see the Canadian Environmental Law Associations submission on this).
Angela Bischoff, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, 28 Feb 26
Hello Narwhal Editor,
We just read Fatima Syed’s recent piece on SMRs and we’re shocked. This piece demonstrates zero effort to come to terms with what SMRs really are, or their impacts. Instead, we get a bunch of puffery from Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and the Ontario government.
SMRs are not small, and they are not modular. No one is building SMR components in a factory – please check the spin OPG gives you. They are still enormous, although a lot of the bulk is hidden underground. What OPG has done to try to cut construction costs and time is cut some safety systems (see the Canadian Environmental Law Associations submission on this).
There are a few reasons SMRs are all talk and little action. In most cases, it is old technology repackaged into a slightly smaller size at the expense of much lower energy output per dollar spent. Many of the companies touting “new” SMR technology are trying to reboot old ideas (molten salt, breeder reactors) that were discarded long ago as unworkable. In most cases, these companies lack the capital or the expertise to get their projects off the ground, as New Brunswick has discovered at significant public cost.
To make these reactors “modular” we would have to be building thousands every year. That’s just not about to happen with the cost and complexity of nuclear technology. They are never going to be “Lego kits” no matter what nuclear PR people tell you – it’s just embarrassing that you would take that statement at face value. That idea has been thoroughly debunked even by promoters of nuclear energy, many of whom would prefer to keep the focus on large reactors
Of course, manufacturing at scale has already happened with solar, wind and batteries because these components really can be produced at mega factory scale (actual factories exist!). Nuclear reactors remain hand crafted projects like a custom-made suit and are equally expensive (and hard to fix) because of that. It’s no surprise to us that the Darlington rebuild is running 25% over budget due to the discovery of worn-out components that OPG didn’t anticipate needing to fix.
As the 2025 World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) notes “The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term ‘Potemkin village’ as ‘an impressive facade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition.’ The state of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) today might well be described as a Potemkin Village. Even as the evidence for the high costs and the long timelines for potential future construction becomes clearer, and what is most on display are numerous announcements about future SMRs, usually held out for some time in the 2030s, the industry, politicians, investors, and, last but not least, the media continue to portray SMRs as an indispensable and sure way to solve the climate emergency crisis…”
The WNISR goes on to thoroughly debunk the notion that SMRs are a viable energy or climate solution and provides an in-depth explanation of why renewables plus storage are now simply unbeatable on costs, speed, climate, and reliability. Please read and report on it.
The Narwhal has been a valuable source of in-depth reporting on key environmental issues, so it is mystifying why it would choose to publish what is essentially an “advertorial” promoting Ontario’s misguided enthusiasm for nuclear technology and particularly SMRs. Not speaking to anyone who could address the myths being put forward by OPG and the Ontario government is simply shocking. Taking their statements at face value without making any effort to verify information, even more so. There are many credible nuclear critics in Ontario and Canada that could give counter arguments to OPG’s corporate spin, yet you included none.
We have come to expect a much more thoughtful approach to journalism than this from your publication.
Thanks for your attention.
Angela Bischoff, Director, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, CleanAirAlliance.org
How will free-spending Ford pay for Ontario’s $400-billion nuclear plans?
One of the central unanswered questions about the Doug Ford government’s nuclear expansion plans for Ontario has been: How they will be paid for?
Estimates of the capital costs of the government’s plans, based on past projects and recent experiences in the United States and Europe, exceed $400-billion.
Mark Winfield, The Globe and Mail, Feb. 24, 2026, Mark Winfield is a professor of environmental and urban change at York University and co-editor of Sustainable Energy Transitions in Canada (UBC Press 2023). https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-how-will-free-spending-ford-pay-for-ontarios-400-billion-nuclear-plans/#comments
One of the central unanswered questions about the Doug Ford government’s nuclear expansion plans for Ontario has been: How they will be paid for? The program includes new nuclear power plants at Darlington, Bruce and Wesleyville, and the refurbishments of existing reactors at the Bruce, Pickering and Darlington sites. Estimates of the capital costs of the government’s plans, based on past projects and recent experiences in the United States and Europe, exceed $400-billion.
The government’s plans envision an electricity system that is 75-per-cent nuclear in terms of output, up from approximately 50 per cent today. If the costs of these plans are to be paid for through the rates charged for the electricity produced, electricity bills will rise dramatically.
Estimates of the costs of electricity from new nuclear plants in Ontario range from the mid-20 cents a kilowatt-hour to more than 40 cents a kwh – double or even triple current consumer electricity costs. Such increases would undermine energy affordability, Ontario’s economic competitiveness and any plans for decarbonization through electrification.
Another alternative could be to hide the capital costs as debt, while keeping hydro rates low. That was the strategy followed by previous governments with the province’s original nuclear construction program between 1966 and 1993. In the end, the accumulation of debt flowing from that approach reached $38-billion (about $72-billion in current dollars), leaving the provincial utility, Ontario Hydro, economically inviable and effectively bankrupt.
A series of revelations over the past few months have made it clear that the province seems to have another, potentially equally problematic, plan in mind. It has become apparent that the 29-per-cent increase in electricity rates last Nov. 1 was directly related to the financing arrangements for the $25-billion Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington new-build reactor project, and the $26-billion refurbishment of the Pickering B nuclear station.
The impact on residential hydro bills of the November increase was mitigated through a near doubling of the province’s electricity rebate program, at a cost of approximately $2-billion a year, paid out of general revenues. In effect, that meant the province had begun paying for the capital costs of the Darlington and Pickering projects out of general provincial revenues. Moreover, recent changes to Ontario Energy Board rules have created an unprecedented situation in which ratepayers and taxpayers are now being asked to pay for nuclear projects that may never be completed or function.
The November increase in the rebate program brought the total costs of the province’s electricity rate subsidy programs to approximately $8.5-billion a year. These expenditures now amount to the equivalent of nearly two-thirds of the province’s deficit, exceed total expenditures in the justice sector, and are approximately double the annual capital investments in schools and health care.
The Pickering B and Darlington new-build projects are only the beginnings of the province’s nuclear expansion plans. Additional projects proposed for Wesleyville and the Bruce nuclear site could involve capital expenditures in excess of $300-billion.
If financed in the same way, the portion of the provincial budget consumed by electricity subsidies could reach $20-billion a year – nearly 10 per cent of the province’s total budget. That would force either dramatic increases in the provincial deficit to more than $30-billion a year, substantial tax increases or major reductions in spending in other – already in the view of many analysts – chronically underfunded areas such as health care, education, municipal and social services, and non-electricity public infrastructure.
There is, however, another, and better, option. None of the province’s plans have been subject to any external review in terms of their economic, technological or environmental rationality. Moreover, the province’s plans seem premised on assumptions of absolute technological, economic, social, environmental and political certainty reaching decades into the future. These are things about which, in a ruptured and destabilized world, there can only be absolute certainty of uncertainty. The situation adds to the risks of the province locking into a deeply inflexible energy pathway centred on large, high-cost and high-risk generating assets.
Ontario has been the subject of more efforts to develop and model alternative pathways for its electricity system, and the broader decarbonization of its energy system, than any other province in Canada. But there is no process to assess whether the directions set by the provincial government represent the best options for the province in economic and environmental terms relative to the alternative pathways that have been identified.
That situation needs to change rapidly. The province needs to engage in a serious, objective and independent assessment of its energy options for meeting future energy needs, while controlling costs, decarbonizing the province’s electricity system and advancing sustainability.
Scotiabank subsidiary fully divests from Israeli arms firm
The decision follows two years of nationwide protests, cultural boycotts, and investor pressure
News Desk, FEB 17, 2026, https://thecradle.co/articles/scotiabank-subsidiary-fully-divests-from-israeli-arms-firm
Scotiabank’s subsidiary firm, 1832 Asset Management, has sold its remaining shares in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems Ltd., according to regulatory filings reported on 16 February.
The latest disclosure to the US Securities and Exchange Commission no longer lists Elbit among 1832’s holdings, ending an investment that once made the Canadian bank the company’s largest foreign shareholder.
In a press release on Monday, No Arms in the Arts, a Canada-based arts coalition opposing institutional ties to the arms trade and Israel’s actions in Palestine, and Just Peace Advocates, a Canadian human rights organization, said the sale followed “more than two years of sustained organizing that made the bank’s investment a liability.”
“Scotiabank’s divestment from Elbit Systems signals that investment in companies complicit in Israeli war crimes has become too risky to sustain,” Karen Rodman of Just Peace Advocates said.
“Yet 2025 data showed the ‘Big Five’ Canadian banks holding over $182 billion in companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territory – a clear contradiction of Canada’s stated opposition to illegal settlements that demands immediate government action to align policy with practice,” Rodman added.
Jody Chan of No Arms in the Arts said, “This news comes after years of sustained pressure across the country, with thousands protesting at Scotiabank branches, hundreds of artists refusing to let their work whitewash the bank’s complicity, and many more closing their accounts.”
Chan added, “Against our government’s attempts to use the façade of a ceasefire to normalize Israel’s siege on Gaza, this demonstrates our collective power to define what we find morally unacceptable and force real change.”
The investment drew sustained protests across Canada, including demonstrations at Scotiabank branches and the disruption of the bank-sponsored Giller Prize broadcast in November 2023.
In November 2025, filings showed approximately 165,000 shares worth around $84 million.
By August 2024, 1832 had cut its stake to roughly 700,000 shares, valued at about $315 million at the time. At the end of 2021, the asset manager held more than 2.2 million shares in the company.
As of mid-February 2026, the position stands at zero.
During the period of divestment, Elbit’s share price rose sharply, climbing from below $175 in 2021 to above $400 last year, before spiking past $700 in January 2026.
Scotiabank had previously said it did “not directly hold the shares” and that it could not interfere in the independent investment decisions of its subsidiary’s portfolio managers.
Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer and supplies military equipment used in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
The company reported record profits during that period, openly marketing weapons used in Gaza as “battle-tested” to demand higher premiums in international contracts,
Submissions to the Federal Court of Appeal about UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
Raven Trust, By Levin Chamberlain, February 10, 2026
Gitxaała Nation’s recent decision in the British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) in Gitxaala v. British Columbia (Chief Gold Commissioner), 2025 BCCA 430 that incorporates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into positive law is getting attention. While media outlets are focused on David Eby’s commitment to amending the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) — undermining the rule of law and potentially reversing decades of reconciliation — behind the scenes, there’s a company trying to further undermine Indigenous rights – Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL).
CNL recently filed a submission in Kebaowek First Nation’s case over the proposed nuclear waste facility on their territory, a legal case that RAVEN has supported for almost two years. If built in its current location, the facility would hold over one million cubic metres of nuclear waste just one kilometre from the Kichi Sibi (Ottawa river), which provides millions of people with clean drinking water.
Kebaowek recently went to the Federal Court of Appeal with CNL, who is seeking to overturn the need for the First Nation’s free, prior, and informed consent over the consultation process to build the nuclear waste facility. You can read more about the decision and why Kebaowek cross-appealed here.
With the BCCA decision in Gitxaała’s case being such a powerful precedent that incorporates UNDRIP, the Federal Court judges gave CNL and Kebaowek the opportunity to make new submissions specifically about this decision. Not only does this show how interconnected Indigenous-led litigation is (which RAVEN is integral to in supporting both cases), but it also allows for both sides to share new perspectives.
The Submissions
CNL’s response with a new submission to the courts argues that Gitxaała’s case is “wholly distinguishable” from their case, and that it doesn’t alter the one sole point that CNL is relying on: consultation with Kebaowek was fulfilled. They comb through the specific differences between DRIPA and Canada’s own United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (UNDA) in attempts to show how UNDA shouldn’t be taken the same way as DRIPA. CNL also criticizes two aspects of the BCCA’s decision in Gitxaala v. British Columbia as “unsupported statements of law.”
Is that fear we are picking up on in CNL’s submission? Or is it just pure hypocrisy……………………………………..
The Reality
Unfortunately, instead of navigating toward reconciliation between the Crown, industry, and Indigenous Peoples, we are witnessing more conflict and tension than before. UNDRIP and its incorporation into positive law in Canada should be something to celebrate with clear pathways toward long-term economic development and environmental protections while honouring Indigenous rights and their territories. Working in a good way with First Nations, like Kebaowek, is crucial for getting decisions right, especially in a world with a rapidly accelerating climate, sincere threats to democratic processes, and a troubling shift of public support away from reconciliation.
In 2007, Canada and three other nation-states initially opposed the ratification of UNDRIP. They opposed enshrining the human rights of Indigenous Peoples on an international stage. That – and much, much worse – will always be a part of our dark history in Canada. Unless we see a real shift in accountability and action, future generations will view this time period and the responses by industry and the Crown as another era of oppression.
But, even if the decision is overturned and Kebaowek doesn’t have their day at the Supreme Court of Canada; even if David Eby is successful in reducing the legal teeth of UNDRIP for Indigenous Peoples to use in B.C.’s courtrooms; even if something similar happens to UNDA; there will be no end to pursuits for justice. UNDRIP rights are fundamental human rights of Indigenous Peoples that are just now being recognized through colonial doctrines. These rights have existed since time immemorial in their own beautiful and unique ways, and although injustice is present, the people will continue to resist, and justice shall persist. https://raventrust.com/articles/the-law-is-connected-new-submissions-to-the-federal-court-of-appeal-about-undrip/
Northwatch Comments on the NWMO’s Initial Project Description of a Proposed Deep Geological Repository for High-Level Nuclear Waste
7 Feb 26, https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/88774/contributions/id/64898
The following points summarize Northwatch’s comments on the NWMO’s Initial Project Description of a Proposed Deep Geological Repository for High-Level Nuclear Waste to be located at the Revell site in Treaty 3 territory in northwestern Ontario:
- NWMO’s Deep Geological Repository Project should be designated for a full impact assessment and public hearing
- The long-distance transportation of nuclear fuel waste from the reactor stations to the proposed repository site must be included in the impact assessment
- NWMO’s Initial Project Description is inadequate and does not provide the information required, including and particularly it does not sufficiently describe or otherwise demonstrate that it has adequately examined alternatives to the project or alternative means of carrying out the project, and the IPD largely goes off course in its description of the need and purpose of the project.
- As directed by the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act the need or purpose of the project is to effectively isolate the nuclear fuel wastes from people and the environment.
- The NWMO has not provided a clear statement of the need and purpose for the project, and when it discussed the need and purpose of the project in its IPD it muddied the waters by including unsupported promotional statements and out-of-scope policy statements about the future role of nuclear power.
- Instead of setting out careful consideration of alternative means of meeting the project need (to safely contain and isolate the nuclear fuel waste from people and the environment) the NWMO simply summarized some aspects of their 2003 studies. The IPD should include a contemporary assessment of alternative means of meeting the project need.
- The NWMO’s consideration of alternative means of carrying out the project is too limited; the alternative means examination should also include alternative sites, alternatives in repository access (ramp vs shaft), transportation in used fuel containers instead of in transportation packages, the alternative means of in-water transfer of used fuel at repository site (vs “in air” ie. in hot cells), alternative mining methods, alternatives in waste emplacement (in-room vs in-floor) and alternatives in used fuel container design
- The NWMO’s description of the project and project activities is too limited, and at times is promotional rather than factual in its approach.
- The NWMO has misrepresented the fuel waste inventory, upon which repository size, years of operation, and resulting degrees of risk and contamination all hinge.
- The NWMO excluded the first step in their project, which is the transfer of the used fuel waste from dry storage containers into transportation containers at the reactor site; this is consistent with past practice.
- Without foundation the NWMO is attempting to exclude long-distance transportation from the Impact Assessment process; this is inconsistent with the impact assessment law in Canada and with the manner in which the NWMO has been describing their project over the last twenty years.
- The Initial Project Description inadequately describes major project components and activities, including the Used Fuel Packaging Plant, waste placement and repository design and construction and closure, decommissioning and monitoring.
- The description of the Project Site, Location and Study Area(s) is flawed and in some respects inaccurate.
- The potential effects of the project are poorly described and in some instances the NWMO text is promotional rather than factual.
- The description of the site selection process is very selective in the information it presents and creates a false impression of community experience through the siting process in the 22 communities that the NWMO investigated.
- There are significant gaps and deficiencies in the Initial project description; several subject areas fundamental to the assessment of the deep geological repository are extremely limited or fully absent including the subjects of long-term safety, emergency response and evacuation plans, accidents and malevolent acts and security.
- The Initial Project Description was poorly organized and was not copy edited; it lacked an index and there was no glossary included.
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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