CONSULTING LOCAL COMMUNITIES

 The fuel pellets are stacked into graphite blocks where helium gas flows through cooling channels to moderate temperatures. USNC says the benefit of using helium is that it does not react with the fuel or main parts of the reactor and remains free of radioactive products.

Some of the main differences that the MMR has from conventional nuclear plants is that the reactor cannot meltdown as the heat is passively released into the environment, does not need any active systems to remove heat, and requires no on-site fuel storage, handling, or processing. These aspects are why USNC has dubbed this design a “walk-away safe reactor” that can last for 20 years once installed.

Darlington explains that during the decommissioning process, the core of the reactor could be replaced or the reactor could be removed and enter the federally regulated nuclear waste stream.

David Novog, a nuclear energy professor at McMaster University, explains that there is currently zero nuclear waste buried in Canada and that spent nuclear fuel is stored at the facilities where it was used to generate electricity. However, this could change in the future.

“The proposed long term vision is that we would develop a site and right now there's two sites that are being developed and explored for long term repository. So the goal of this is to find a really old rock formation, one that's hundreds of thousands of years old and hasn't moved in a very long time, and to bore into this rock and use that as a long term repository.”

Chalk River Laboratories, where Canada’s first SMR is planned for construction, is what Novog describes as the nation’s “epicentre of nuclear research” and has over 50 facilities and laboratories where research is conducted.

Communities and regions in eastern Ontario that are located near Chalk River have historically expressed concern about nuclear energy and mistrust of the organizations that oversee nuclear activity, particularly communities that have been historically oppressed by the governing bodies in Canada.