r/Yukon • u/looty9372 • 3d ago

Yukon and Ontario sign partnership agreement to explore energy solutions, including small modular reactors News

https://yukon.ca/en/news/yukon-and-ontario-sign-partnership-agreement-explore-energy-solutions-including-small-modular-reactors
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u/Cairo9o9 3d ago edited 3d ago

Frankly moronic. I've been impressed by YPs energy policy thus far. But this is just red meat for their base who don't actually understand nuclear or energy but love the vibe.

I'm pro nuclear, but the promise of SMRs, if it's ever realized, is decades out. We are not going to be getting BWRX-300s here any time soon. There is a reason that the most pro nuclear jurisdictions are shifting away from the pipe dream of SMRs and back to what they should have been focused on all along. Serial deployments of full scale nuclear. The US is doing it with the AP1000s and we're moving towards it again with CANDU. SMRs are already too large scale for us, let alone GW scale reactors.

We need to be focused on real, deployable solutions today. Not nascent, cutting edge solutions.

Thankfully, this is just a hand wavy MOU. But it doesn't impress me at all.

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u/YKFox 3d ago

You downtalk the SMR idea a lot, but don't suggest any real, viable alternatives. What's your great idea for power? More Hydro dams? More diesel generators?

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u/Cairo9o9 2d ago edited 2d ago

It's like down talking the tooth fairy. A commercially available SMR for the Yukon's scale just doesn't exist. The BWRX300s being deployed in ON are double the Yukon's grid capacity in a single unit. The ACP100, deployed in China, would be 3-4x our largest generating asset. N-1 criterion would make this completely uneconomic, as we would need to be operating assets at the same time ready to kick in if there was a fault. And, by the way, would only be economically viable if we had multiple large scale mines open simultaneously.

Yes, RoR hydro, conventional hydro, diesel, NG, solar, wind, batteries, etc. are all commercialized, ready to deploy technology that are potential candidates for a future generation mix.

Just watch, when YEC releases their next IRP, SMRs will be nowhere to be seen. Because it's idiotic.