Canadian Power Utility Services Ltd.

Overview

CPUS Ltd. supports Canada’s SMR Action Plan – Statement of Principles.

CPUS Ltd provides turnkey engineering projects, supplies engineering resources to nuclear plant developers and operators and provides major equipment from China’s nuclear supply chain as an alternative to more expensive US sourced major equipment.

It is clear from analysis of Canada’s overall energy needs that nuclear energy will be required to help meet Canada’s climate change goals. A significant fraction of Canada’s energy needs is for thermal energy. There are few economic options for clean thermal energy. Nuclear energy is one of the few economic sources of both clean electricity and clean thermal energy at reasonably high temperatures either directly or via the use of emission-free hydrogen created at the nuclear plants. However, for economic supply of heat energy, the nuclear plants need to be located closer to populated areas. New Generation IV SMR technology enables the design of passively safe nuclear plants using new low-pressure coolants. Those SMRs can be located closer to populated areas.

New Generation IV SMR technology takes more time to develop and deploy at scale. Having a near term SMR option that uses existing nuclear power plant technology is helpful to meet Canada’s climate change goals. 

CPUS Ltd supports Terrestrial Energy Inc. in its efforts to develop a Generation IV Integral Molten Salt Reactor SMR. This new generation IV design will take time to develop and deploy at scale but promises improved performance including higher efficiencies, better fuel utilization, lower radiotoxicity of spent fuel wastes and most importantly passively safe operation. Passively safe operation will help to gain public acceptance of reactors closer to populated areas. In the longer term, fuel recycling technologies will be developed to allow Generation IV SMRs like the IMSR to consume most of our existing stockpiles of spent fuel waste. The first IMSR SMR could be operational by 2026 at a licensed test site like the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories Chalk River site if approvals are received. Deployment at scale will occur by 2030 subject to all prototype tests being successful.

CPUS Ltd also supports AECL Inc and SNC Lavalin Inc. in their efforts to develop a CANDU 3 SMR. That design utilizes current CANDU expertise and system designs to more rapidly deploy an SMR without a prototype development phase. The first CANDU 3 SMR could be operational in the period 2025 to 2030 at an existing licensed nuclear plant site like the Darlington site if approvals are received. Deployment at scale can proceed concurrently with first unit installation because technical and safety issues are similar to current CANDU reactor technology.

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