Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and the Belgian Nuclear Forum, have signed a letter of intent (LOI) to explore the deployment of new small modular reactors (SMRs) to Belgium.
The agreement was announced at the World Nuclear Exhibition in Paris yesterday by Stephen Lecce, Ontario Minister for Energy and Mines.
He said agreements are also in place with Estonia and Poland to deploy 24 SMRs, as well as major refurbishment projects on the CANDU reactors at Romania’s Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant.
“Ontario-made nuclear technology and SMR expertise is in demand as countries around the world look for affordable, clean and reliable energy sources. The new partnership comes after Belgium’s decision to restart it’s nuclear generation program in an effort to gain energy independence from Russia. This partnership reflects Ontario’s growing global reputation as a leader in advanced nuclear operations, said Lecce in an issued statement,” said Lecce.
Darlington Leads the Way
The province of Ontario is already underway in refurbishing it’s nuclear program. The plan includes construction of four SMRs at Ontario’s Darlington New Nuclear Project site in Durham’s Municipality of Clarington (see below). The plan is projected to create up to 18,000 Canadian jobs, in addition to injecting $500 million annually to Ontario’s economy. This nation-building project will add a total of $38.5 billion to Canada’s GDP over the next 65 years and create 3,700 highly-skilled jobs.
It’s the largest nuclear expansion on the continent. This nuclear refurbishment and build-out plan is expected to contribute overall about $160 billion to Canada’s GDP during construction and $630 billion during operations, with close to 80,000 jobs created during construction and another 64,000 jobs during operations.