Emma Granley reports that SaskPower has not ruled out a nuclear-powered Saskatchewan, even if it is not in the Crown corporation immediate plans. President Mike Marsh says SaskPower is looking at nuclear through a technology lens right now, to figure out if it can fit reliably into the Saskatchewan electricity supply system. Marsh is well aware nuclear power is, politically speaking, a controversial topic. The province has been going through the nuclear debate off and on for the past 20 years, he says, and it is not a political debate (SaskPower is) going to get into. Take 2009, in which a government-appointed panel recommended the province pursue nuclear power. Later that same year, the Perrins Report based on public consultations found significant opposition to nuclear power generation in Saskatchewan.
Then, in December 2009, the government announced it would not pursue a plan to have a nuclear power plant up and running in the province by 2020. Premier Brad Wall also talked nuclear in November 2012, particularly small modular reactors, which he noted could have potential applications in small communities. The public might have concerns (mostly unfounded) about nuclear energy, but it has never been ruled out as an option for the Saskatchewan. A summer 2013 briefing note from SaskPower, for instance, notes that the small reactors provide a flexible, cost-effective alternative to larger-scale nuclear reactors. As directed by the provincial government, it reads, SaskPower is evaluating the potential for nuclear power from those small modular reactors. Marsh says it is important for SaskPower to keep abreast of the technology. After all, he understands that next year there will be an announcement on a huge breakthrough in the technology that the world will rally around, and if he were not doing his homework, he would be accused of having his head in the sand. But to his knowledge, small modular reactors still have not been commercially deployed.
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