Canada
In December 2020, the Government of Canada, together with key stakeholders across the country, launched Canada’s SMR Action Plan. The Action Plan builds on the 2018 SMR Roadmap effort led by the Department of Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) and was informed through engagement with Canadian territories, provinces, indigenous peoples and communities, utilities, vendors, and national laboratories. Canada’s SMR Action Plan puts forth over 50 recommendations in areas key to SMR development, demonstration, and deployment and seeks to establish concrete targets based on stakeholder concerns.
Canada’s first advanced reactor project is Global First Power’s 15 MWt commercial demonstration of the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation Micro Modular Reactor, an HTGR microreactor at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ (CNL) Chalk River site. The project is part of CNL’s program for the construction and operation of SMRs at CNL-managed sites, with four companies engaged in various stages of that program. The lead developer, Global First Power, is a joint venture between Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and developer Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation. Global First Power has engaged in licensing and environmental assessment processes with commercial deployment planned in 2025.
OPG is also seeking to build a grid-size SMR at its Darlington site for which it already holds a Site Preparation License, granted by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). OPG is advancing engineering and design work with three developers: the GE-Hitachi BWRX-300, the Terrestrial Energy iMSR, and the X-energy Xe-100. OPG aims for connecting the first unit to the grid as early as 2028.
New Brunswick Power (NBP) is another Canadian utility seeking to advance a new generation of reactors. NBP is working with two developers – Moltex and ARC Nuclear Canada Inc. – to license and construct advanced reactors at its Point Lepreau site by the late 2020s.
In the province of Manitoba, the remote community of Pinawa has agreed to demonstrate the benefits of SMRs to an off-grid community and/or mining organization. Pinawa hosts the CNL-managed Whiteshell Laboratories, a nuclear research and development site that is currently being decommissioned.
United Kingdom
In the UK, advanced nuclear was included in the Prime Minister’s ten point plan for a green industrial revolution released in November 2020. Specifically, the UK Government will invest £215 million (~$300 million) into SMRs through the Low Cost Nuclear (LCN) program from 2021 onwards. The investment will be made into the UK SMR design, a 440 MWe modular Pressurized Water Reactor designed with factory-manufactured components that will be transported to site for assembly and installation. The design is being developed and deployed by the UK SMR consortium, which is led by Rolls Royce and includes Assystem, Atkins, BAM Nuttall, Jacobs, Laing O’Rourke, the National Nuclear Laboratory, the Nuclear AMRC, and TWI.
Russia
In December 2019, the Akademik Lomonosov, the world’s first floating commercial SMR, was connected to the grid. The two 35 MWe KLT-40C reactors aboard are based on technology used on Russian icebreakers and are supplying power to the remote Chaun-Bilibino network in Russia’s Far East. Rosatom announced in December 2020 that the first commercial RITM-200 50 MWe reactor, an evolution of the KLC-40C and currently used in Russia’s newest icebreakers, will be constructed in the Republic of Sakha (also known as Yakutia) in Siberia. Site work will begin this year and operation is targeted for 2028.
Russia also has significant experience with fast reactor deployment, with two operating commercial scale fast reactors at Beloyarsk NPP ‒ the BN-600 sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor (in operation since 1980) and the BN-800 with a different fuel composition (in operation since 2016). Rosatom increasingly sees fast reactors as the future of the Russian nuclear industry with one of its key priorities being the Proryv (Breakthrough) project, which seeks to demonstrate a closed fuel cycle with improved uranium efficiency and reduced waste accumulation.
A key component of the Proryv project is the MBIR, a 150 MWt multi-loop sodium-cooled fast reactor capable of testing lead, lead-bismuth, and gas coolants that will run on mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. The reactor is under construction at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (RIAR) site in Dimitrovgrad and is scheduled for operation in late 2021. RIAR will construct a pyrochemical reprocessing facility at the same site to close the fuel cycle, and the overall project aligns with the International Atomic Energy Agency's International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles and will be open to foreign collaboration.
Another component of the Proryv project is the BREST OD-300, a fast neutron lead-cooled reactor sited in Seversk, Tomsk region. Site preparation work began in 2020, and the reactor is scheduled to come online in 2026.
Finally, the SVBR-100, a lead-bismuth reactor design based on reactors that were used on Russian submarines, is planned for demonstration at the Dimitrovgrad site. AKME-engineering, a 50/50 joint venture between Rosatom and Siberian energy company Irkutskenergo, obtained a site license for the project.
