Time is running out for one of Canada’s most polluting power plants, and two Mi’kmaw bands in New Brunswick say an Indigenous-owned transportable nuclear power station could support the country’s pledge to develop cleaner energy.
Leaders in Pabineau (Oinpegitjoig) and Eel River Bar (Ugpi’ganjig) say they’re considering a proposal to host a small modular reactor, or SMR, near the Belledune generating station, which must stop burning coal by 2030.
In the first phase of the project, the station could supply enough baseload power for up to 40,000 homes.
“The amount of CO2 that’s being released into the environment is astronomical,” said Pabineau Chief Terry Richardson, who imagines sharing the wealth if the project takes off.
“Right now, it’s in Pabineau and Eel River Bar traditional territory and we’ll lead it,” he said. “But at some point, why not all First Nations communities in New Brunswick get a part of it?”
Small modular reactors get their name because they produce about a third of the power of a full-scale nuclear reactor such as N.B. Power’s Candu-6, which can supply as much as 40 per cent of New Brunswick’s electricity demands.
First Nations in N.B. look to nuclear as Belledune coal-burning plant faces federal deadline
Also, the components are modular, meaning they can be factory built in one location and then assembled somewhere else.
Prodigy Clean Energy, a Canadian company that’s been meeting with members of the First Nations, says the next phase of the project would see a commercial fleet of transportable nuclear power plants, assembled at the Port of Belledune and shipped to destinations anywhere in the world.
It’s a leap of faith for a technology that has yet to be built on time and on budget in the G7 nations, but the company, which received $2.75 million in federal funding, has the bands’ attention and has been earning their trust.
Karen Narvie, a second term band councillor for Eel River Bar, says Prodigy’s offer of a partnership has come across as honest and sincere at community meetings.
Now there’s growing interest, she said, in making a community bus trip to the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station.
Band leaders are also expected to travel to Ontario this fall, where Canada’s first SMR is under construction.
“I think it was one of the elders who asked, ‘Can we go visit these plants? Can we go see for ourselves what it’s all about?’” Narvie said.
The Darlington New Nuclear Project, which aspires to build four SMRs, will be partly owned by seven Ontario First Nations.
An equity stake in a New Brunswick-based nuclear project shouldn’t be far behind, say the two Mi’kmaw leaders.
Narvie, a grandmother, says her community of 900 registered members is growing quickly, and the health of their future children will depend on new sources of revenue — whether it comes from selling nuclear power or using the energy to drive new industry and employment.
“There’s a lot of changes coming to Eel River Bar,” Narvie said. “You see a lot of people jogging. You see a lot of people taking care of themselves and involved with their kids from the time they’re babies until they’re grown.”
Any project approved by the community would have to contribute to its overall wellness, she said, pointing out the need for more health services, housing, and amenities such as an ice rink.
Canada’s new strategy for nuclear energy, released June 26, calls for up to 10 new large-scale reactors to be built in Canada and specifies that at least one reactor — which could be an SMR — be deployed outside Ontario by 2035.
How these projects will be paid for has yet to be revealed.
A draft policy on financing is promised by next April, but already Ottawa has signalled that Canada should use these projects to advance economic reconciliation.
“Indigenous capacity-building and equity participation — including direct employment in the nuclear workforce — will be a key consideration and priority for federal funding and financing decisions,” the strategy says.
Mathias Trojer, president of Prodigy Clean Energy, says a transportable nuclear power plant based in New Brunswick could help the country achieve multiple national goals, by delivering power to places that cannot access the grid.
“Our technology is really an opportunity to bring power to the North and really help bring reliable baseload power to communities but also to defence applications, and also help Canada to explore massive untapped mineral deposits in the North,” said Trojer, speaking at an SMR conference in Saint John in early June.
Trojer said the SMR stations could be transported by heavy-lift ship to remote and coastal communities.
They could also be removed by ship, leaving behind no waste or cleanup costs, he said.
“At the end of life, you have the opportunity to take it away, the exact same way you brought it to the site, so there is no legacy asset left behind, no multi-year decommissioning process,” Trojer said.
New Brunswick Energy Minister René Legacy said Russia has deployed a floating nuclear power plant, and Canada is looking to try them out.
“My understanding is the federal government is interested, but they don’t want to pilot this thing in a remote northern area, where it’s hard to fix or modify,” Legacy said.
“So they need a test site, which would be northern New Brunswick.”
In 2019, New Brunswick signed an agreement to help develop SMRs and has since spent more than $31 million on two vendors, ARC Clean Energy and Moltex.
Legacy said this money has kept New Brunswick “in the conversation.”
He also said New Brunswick taxpayers won’t be asked to foot the bill alone for any future nuclear projects that can’t prove their business case, especially after all the investment put into Lepreau to help that reactor meet performance targets.
“If the company comes in with a proposal that reduces the risk and becomes comparable to other propositions that have more of a road map to what they’ve done, as long as that risk is not borne by the ratepayers, then we’re interested,” Legacy said.
Narvie said her friends and neighbours still have questions about safety, security and the project’s environmental impacts.
“What is going to be protected,” she asks. “Is our water going to be OK? Is our land going to be OK? Can we fish? Can we hunt? Can we still pick the berries?”
Narvie says her community will have more to say about nuclear, after the bus trips in the fall.
