Canada is one of 25 countries that committed to the tripling of emissions-free nuclear energy by 2050 at last year’s COP28 climate summit.
As a Canadian energy scientist, I am bullish on the growth potential and the massive benefits of nuclear energy. However, I am concerned about the absence of a long-term nuclear energy plan that acknowledges Canada’s world-class uranium reserves are finite, and that our current once-through-fuel-cycle (OTFC) is both archaic and extremely wasteful.
Based on the 12-year average rate of uranium production, Canada’s uranium reserves will be nearing depletion around 2080. However, with our COP28 commitments, we may tap our high-grade uranium reserves by 2050 or even earlier.
I was surprised when I discovered and vetted this risk. I have always been under the impression that Canada’s uranium would outlast its massive hydrocarbon reserves. However, when I began to dig into the science behind OTFCs, the reasons became all too apparent.
That is that 95 per cent of Canadian uranium production is exported and a mere one to four per cent of this fuel is converted into energy in na OTFC. In Canada’s current system, this barely utilized fuel is then classified as high-level radioactive waste and is set aside for permanent geological storage. This practice is equivalent to spending $5 out of $100, and throwing the remaining $95 in the garbage.
The good news is that a technology solution exists.
The Russians began to advance past their OTFC back in the 1980s, and today are commissioning their second-generation Closed Fuel Cycle (CFC). This achievement has, to date, increased the life span of their uranium reserves by a factor of 10.
A CFC supply chain is a recycle and reuse capability, which gives one the ability to engineer nuclear fuels from a variety of sources, including natural uranium and spent nuclear fuel.
A CFC supply chain means long-term fuel supply resiliency. A CFC, by design, utilizes every atom in nuclear fuel, by extracting fission byproducts that act to inhibit nuclear reactions and by regenerating the critical ingredients that are critical for sustaining fission reactions in engineered nuclear fuels.
Most noteworthy, as the longer-lasting radioactive components are separated from spent fuel and consumed in engineered nuclear fuels, the fission byproducts extracted from a CFC have a 1,000 times lower toxicity than the waste generated in an OTFC.
Due to these factors, the potential energy per kilogram of fuel that is liberated by a CFC supply chain is so immense, an $80 golf-ball size sample of uranium could in theory provide 100 per cent of the energy needs of an average Canadian over their entire life span.
In essence, a CFC supply chain is the holy grail of nuclear energy. However, the CFC path to nuclear perfection is going to take multiple generations to develop and grow to scale, together with lots of capital.
I would argue that this CFC capability be funded by the $10 billion in trust earmarked for a deep geological repository for Canada’s OTFC spent nuclear fuel.
Ultimately, a Canadian-grown CFC supply chain will not only greatly extend our uranium reserves, but will enable our nuclear fuel sector to produce the specialty (enriched) fuels required by small modular reactors (SMR).
Without CFC capabilities, SMRs will make Canada dependent on other jurisdictions that produce enriched uranium fuels and will accelerate the depletion rate of our reserves, as SMRs are inherently much less fuel efficient than our CANDU reactor technologies.
Joseph Fournier, Ph.D., is an energy scientist from Rockyford.