CANDU ATTITUDE

CANDU reactors are a Canadian success story, with 31 in use around the world in addition to another 16 reactors built in India that are based on the CANDU design. But innovation in reactors continues, including the development of so-called small modular reactors (SMRs), with capacity ranging from 10 MWe to 300 MWe, which could be used to provide power to remote communities or to mines or other sites.

“It would be an emissions-free source, and doesn’t need to be connected to the electricity grid,” Barrett says of SMRs. According to the 2015 CNA fact book, there are currently more than 45 SMR designs under development, with a handful under construction. The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates that 96 SMRs could be operational worldwide by 2030, the document states.

CANDU reactors are capable of using fuels other than uranium, such as thorium, which Barrett says “could be the fuel of the future in that it doesn’t produce the same kind of waste product as using uranium.” Countries such as India and China, which don’t have large uranium reserves but have a lot of thorium, would like to use it as fuel, and that’s where the CANDU reactor comes in.

Meanwhile, CANDU reactors are in the running to help officials in the United Kingdom use up surplus plutonium, a byproduct of nuclear fuel. Plutonium can be mixed with other chemicals to produce “mixed oxide” or MOX fuel that can be used in a CANDU reactor and burned the same way as uranium.

CANDU is in competition with other firms, Barrett says, but is pitching the technology to show that it can get the job done.