There’s been a lot of talk about SMR’s over the years, it’s nice to see one finally being built.
Even if it comes in over budget, getting the first one done will be a great learning experience and could lead to figuring out how to do future ones cheaper.
Assuming it’s on time, completion in 2029, connected to grid in 2030.
These are considered ‘small’ because of their footprint, not just their output. They are absolutely safe, since if they malfunction they just solidify, they do not go into melt down. It is the same technology that is used in the reactors in submarines and aircraft carriers, and believe me, those are SMALL. China is making them small enough to fit in shipping containers, to be shipped and assembled in remote communities. The one Canada is building is, however, on the larger scale of these SMR’s. China is building them by the dozens.
It is actually the technology itself that makes them part of the SMR family - far removed from the technology used in conventional large scale nuclear reactors.
And the fact that they have been used in nuclear submarines for over 50 years does NOT make the technology ‘new’. It is not just ‘talk’, it is proven, built, and tested over decades of continuous use, albeit top secret use.
It was even rumored by engineering students that there was one under the greenhouse of a Canadian university, operated in complete highest-level secrecy, been there since the '80’s. Used in the development of the reactors used in the American submarines. But that was just an unfounded rumor.
As far as safety, deaths are laughably low from Nuclear. Hydro has had significantly more casualty, thousands of times more.
Counting long term emissions from coal or gas I’d assume you’d be higher as well.
Which is also why they might be snake oil. Similar problems to a full-size modern reactor, but without the savings of scale and not having to ship modules around.
But now it allows the same top-secret ultra-classified reactors that were once limited to military craft to be used on container ships and oil tankers. Pollution-free ocean shipping.
To be clear, the exact designs on military craft are secret for security reasons, but not the theory and general technology. Commercial nuclear boats have long existed, they’re just niche for all the cost, safety and complexity reasons you’d expect.
This technology was so highly classified that any mention of it by those developing it would lead to their lifetime incarceration, stated clearly in the non-disclosure agreements they had to sign They could not even mention the theory and general technology behind it. The background tech only came to the public attention when Russia and China started commercializing it, and this forced the Americans to acknowledge it. It was a Russian ice breaker that was the first commercial vessel to use nuclear power, and even at that it was wrapped in military secrecy. But America refused to allow any development on a Western equivalent for ‘military security’ reasons.
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/commercial-nuclear-adoption-ship
But the most effective way for America to completely prevent any development of this nuclear technology was to make it essentially impossible for any commercial outfit to get insurance on these propulsion systems, making it impossible for them to enter any port.