The 2019 edition of the Canadian Nuclear Factbook is packed full of up-to-date information about nuclear in Canada and around the world. Some of the highlights are listed below:
• There are currently 453 operable nuclear reactors worldwide. Canada is home to 19 power reactors, which provide 14.6% of the country’s electricity.
• A total of 57 reactors are under construction worldwide, primarily in emerging economies such as China and India. There are more than 150 reactors on order or planned, while another 335 have been proposed.
• Nuclear power generation helps reduce global CO2 emissions, which hit a record high of 32.5 billion tonnes in 2017.
• Nuclear is the most efficient power source by land area. It is at least 15 times more efficient than renewable sources like wind and solar.
• Nuclear in Canada generates more than $6 billion in revenues per year. It directly and indirectly supports a total of 60,000 Canadian jobs.
• Canada is a leader in the global supply of uranium. Most Canadian uranium is mined in northern Saskatchewan, which has the highest-grade deposits in the world.
• Canada pioneered one of the first nuclear power reactors, the CANDU. There are currently 46 operable CANDU and CANDU-derived reactors worldwide.
• Nuclear technology is used extensively in medicine and industry. In Canada, over 1.5 million diagnostic scans and 15,000 radiation therapy treatments are performed annually.
• Canada’s nuclear industry is among the safest and most strictly regulated industries in the world.
SUMMARY HISTORY OF NUCLEAR IN CANADA
1908 Ernest Rutherford is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on radioactive decay, performed at McGill University in Montreal, QC.
1930 Gilbert A. Labine discovers Canada’s first uranium deposit in Great Bear Lake, NWT.
1940 George C. Laurence designs one of the world’s first nuclear reactors at the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa, ON.
1944 The NRC begins building a nuclear research facility in Chalk River, ON.
1945 The Zero Energy Experimental Pile (ZEEP) reactor makes Canada the second country to control a nuclear fission reaction.
1946 The Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) is established as Canada’s federal nuclear regulator.
1947 The National Research Experimental (NRX) reactor, then the most powerful reactor in the world, comes into operation at Chalk River.
1951 Two separate teams led by Harold E. Johns and Roy Errington build the world’s first two cobalt-60 radiation therapy units. The first external radiation cancer treatment is delivered in London, ON, and the second 11 days later in Saskatoon, SK.
1952 Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is created as a federal Crown corporation.
1952 The NRX suffers an accident with reactor core damage—the first accident of this type. The reactor is decontaminated, rebuilt and restarted after 14 months.
1954 Wilfrid B. Lewis initiates the development of the CANDU reactor in collaboration with AECL, Ontario Hydro and Canadian General Electric Company.
1957 The National Research Universal (NRU) reactor comes into operation at Chalk River.
1962 The Nuclear Power Demonstration (NPD) reactor, Canada’s first electricity-producing reactor and the prototype for the CANDU design, comes online in Rolphton, ON, at a capacity of 20 MWe.
1964 AECL develops the first commercial cobalt-60 sterilizer for food and medical supplies.
1967 Douglas Point, Canada’s first full-scale power reactor, comes online in Kincardine, ON, producing 220 MWe.
1972 The first CANDU outside Canada comes online at Rajasthan-1 in India.1973 All four units at Pickering A come online at 2,060 MWe, making it the largest nuclear generating station in the world at the time.
1982 Point Lepreau in New Brunswick and Gentilly-2 in Quebec come online at 635 MWe each.
1994 Bertram N. Brockhouse is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his neutron scattering research at Chalk River.
1996 Two CANDU reactors are sold to China—the largest commercial contract between two countries at the time.
2000 The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is formed under the new Nuclear and Safety Control Act, replacing the AECB as Canada’s nuclear regulator.
2002 The Nuclear Fuel Waste Act is passed, mandating the creation of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). In 2007, the federal government approved
the NWMO’s Adaptive Phased Management approach for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel.
2011 AECL’s commercial operations are acquired by Candu Energy Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin. AECL remains a federal Crown corporation.
2012 Two units at Bruce A come back online after being refurbished, making the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station the largest operating nuclear generating station in the world.
2015 Arthur B. McDonald is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that neutrinos have mass at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Sudbury, ON.
2015 The Canadian National Energy Alliance (CNEA), a private-sector organization, is contracted to manage and operate AECL and renames it Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL).
2016 SNC-Lavalin announces a joint venture with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and Shanghai Electric Company to build Advanced Fuel CANDU
Reactor (AFCR) units in China and internationally.
2016 Ontario begins the process of refurbishing 10 of its 19 nuclear power reactors—currently the largest clean energy project in North America.
2018 The NRU is permanently shut down after more than 60 years of operation.
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