In October 2022, the federal infrastructure bank committed $970 million towards Canada’s first small modular nuclear reactor. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has applied to construct a 20-story tall, half underground, BWRX-300 boiling water reactor at the Darlington nuclear site near Toronto.
Independent nuclear experts say the reactor poses significant risks. They brought them to the attention of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) during a five-day public hearing in January 2025.
On January 8, the first day of the hearing, Ontario Premier Doug Ford issued a press release about Fortress Am-Can, his plan for “economic prosperity in Canada and the United States.” Ford said “With our fleet of nuclear power plants and the first small modular nuclear reactors in the G7, Ontario is uniquely positioned to power the future of Fortress Am-Can.”
Independent experts say that nuclear plants are far costlier than a combination of renewables with energy storage systems and conservation measures. They create intractable waste problems. They are slow to deploy, delaying climate action.
Furthermore, the design of Ontario’s “first small modular nuclear reactor” raises major safety concerns.
The BWRX-300 is a slimmed-down, 300-megawatt version of an earlier 1600-megawatt boiling water reactor design from the American company GE-Hitachi. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensed the design, but investors never materialized. General Electric (GE) also designed the boiling water reactors that melted down at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.
At the CNSC hearing, Dr. Gordon Edwards, a leading independent nuclear expert with the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, disputed claims that the BWRX-300 design is “inherently safe.” He noted that the U.S. NRC has not approved the design. A single system, the Isolation Condenser System, would replace multiple safety systems of its larger predecessor. Edwards suggested that “the eagerness of OPG and CNSC staff to proceed with construction before the design is finalized is based on political, technological, and marketing considerations.”
Sarah Eaton, CSNC’s Director General for Advanced Reactor Technologies, responded for CNSC staff. She said staff use a “trust but verify approach.” CNSC Executive Vice President Ramzi Jammal confirmed that Canada differs from the U.S., where the NRC must certify a design before a license is issued.
Another CNSC staffer, Melanie Rickard, said “We’re talking about hundreds of hours, maybe thousands of hours, to be honest, so that we’re certain that this is going to be acceptable. And we are not certain. There is more work to be done.”
Intervenors also raised safety concerns about OPG’s plans for the BWRX-300 high-level spent fuel waste. Edwards said an above-ground spent fuel pool, unprotected by a containment structure, is vulnerable in a conflict. He added, “look at what’s happening in the Ukraine with the Zaporizhzhia plant with the conflict going on there.”
Dr. Sunil Nijhawan, who followed him, warned that an aircraft impact on a pool with a thousand spent fuel assemblies “can create a radiation disaster affecting Lake Ontario and about five million residences and businesses of southern Ontario.”
Nijhawan said “I’ve been in the industry for a long time. The first time I looked at a boiling water reactor design manual was 50 years ago, 1974, and I’ve kept in touch with development of all sorts of reactor designs… Right now what I see in this design, to me there’s nothing there. There’s really nothing. There are no safety systems to speak of.”
Nijhawan warned about a loss of “safety culture” throughout Canada’s nuclear industry.
Dr. Victoria Remenda, a member of the CNSC’s governing body, observed that “if we choose to issue a license to construct, there is time for the finished design and we can stop the process.”
This has happened in the past. Nijhawan points out that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) spent $150 million to build two MAPLE reactors to supply much of the world’s medical isotopes before finding them unsafe to operate. AECL also built Canada’s only previous boiling water reactor – the Gentilly-1, a 250-megawatt CANDU prototype. It operated only 180 days over a 7-year period before closing in 1977.
OPG has declined to say how much it might cost to build the BWRX-300. If it proves unsafe to operate, OPG’s “as-built” decommissioning plan estimates it would cost $167.2 million to remove the non-radioactive reactor parts and fill in the hole.
If the BWRX-300 is started up, its concrete and steel components will become radioactive through neutron activation, making decommissioning far more dangerous and expensive. OPG has prepared an “end-of-life” decommissioning plan that mentions use of remotely operated equipment, but provides no cost estimate.
CNSC staff, OPG, and Doug Ford are working hand-in-hand to promote the BWRX-300. The CNSC’s Commission is under immense pressure to ignore safety and financial risks and license construction. If they do, Ontarians will suffer the consequences.
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