Nucleon Energy proposing nuclear power plant in Northern Alberta

Emily Plihal,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Nucleon Energy is proposing projects in the Birch Hills County, and recently hosted three education sessions in the county and M.D. of Smoky River to get a response and to gauge interest from community members in the municipalities.

The three sessions were held Feb. 10 at the Tangent Community Hall from 2-5 p.m. and 7-10 p.m., as well as a session at the Centre Chevalier in Falher from 7-10 p.m.

The company understands the need to communicate with the community members to see if the economic opportunity would be something they would be open to welcoming into the region.

“We are looking at siting two developments, one in the northwest and one in the northeast,” explains Nucleon Energy’s chief executive officer Dustin Wilkes.

“We weren’t looking at Peace River at all, until the community of Birch Hills contacted us because they had heard about us through one of the engineering companies. Birch Hills has lost quite a bit of oil and gas revenues like many other communities; these communities are looking to diversify to replace lost revenue.”

Wilkes says Birch Hills County has taken the lead to express its interest in having a nuclear power plant in their county, and they’ve already conducted information sessions in their community a couple of years ago.

“They were trying to gauge the community’s interest in having a nuclear power plant there and I guess there was an overall fairly high affinity for it,” says Wilkes.

“They took it upon themselves to make companies aware that they were interested, and we were put on to them,” he adds.

Wilkes says Nucleon Energy then looked to see if a plant would be feasible in the area, including ensuring there was enough power to supply a potential Small Modular Reactor (SMR)in the county.

The powerline goes through Birch Hills County, Big Lakes County, Northern Sunrise County and a little bit through the M.D. of Smoky River. After analyzing the sites, Wilkes explains Nucleon Energy discovered that this is in fact a region where two SMRs could be erected.

“Going through the licensing process is a long and difficult task and having the community support is a key part of that,” he says.

“Because the powerline is close to MD of Smoky River and Northern Sunrise County, we decided that we should do a larger engagement with all the communities in that general vicinity.”

Wilkes says they’ve suggested to Birch Hill County to create some type of tax sharing system, clearly not formal at this stage, but Nucleon Energy has suggested all the municipalities should work together as these are 80-to-100-year installations, perhaps even longer.

“We started the process of engaging all the communities late last year and Smoky River was the original municipality that came into that,” says Wilkes.

“Subsequently to that we pulled in Northern Sunrise as well. It’s basically three counties that have come into this potential development opportunity.”

Wilkes says the sessions were open to the public, aiming at enabling community members to receive information from a range of nuclear industry representatives, include a presentation by Dr. Neil Alexander talking about the misconceptions and to provide fresh viewpoints.

Wilkes says in general the gigawatt class reactors would attract anywhere from 400-600 people required to work at the site. Plus, construction workers during erection of the SMR and turn around maintenance crews would be required each year.

“It’s a significant number of people that works at these things,” Wilkes explains. “It would be potentially an opportunity for new people to move to the area. The majority of the technicians and labour force working there would be what you already have in the region, and power engineers would be required, and they would be able to get the training to transition to SMRs.”

The fruition of this potential project would be a decade in the making. Wilkes says first the municipalities have to reach out to stakeholders to see their affinity for the project, councils will have to pass motions and bind into a relationship. The project would require seven years of permitting (after initial approval from the region and council), two years of construction, and one year to commission the proposed SMR.

At this stage municipalities will have to engage with stakeholders to ensure this is a project that will be fully supported, namely because the project will be in the community for multiple generations. After that discussions of purchasing property and committing to applying for the tedious permitting requirements could commence if community support is first ensured.

Emily Plihal,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
South Peace News