As coal consumption continues to rise worldwide despite global efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions, several countries are eyeing a strategy for using advanced nuclear power including small modular reactors (SMRs) to reduce reliance on the most polluting fossil fuel. At an event today at the IAEA’s Atoms4Climate pavilion, speakers from Canada, Romania and the United States shared their experience and plans repurposing former coal sites for nuclear power—and thereby ensuring a just energy transition by reaping the economic and environmental benefits of switching to this clean and reliable technology.
The Canadian province of Ontario is one of the world’s leading examples of how replacing coal with nuclear can decarbonize electricity production and clean up local air pollution, and was highlighted in the book A Bright Future. The last coal fired electricity plant in Ontario was mothballed in 2014 and replaced with refurbished nuclear reactors that had previously been shut down. The results: electricity generation in Ontario produces about 25 grams of CO2 per kWh, well under levels consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement (50 grams), compared with 230 grams of CO2 per kWh previously.
The effort also cleaned up local air pollution. “We turned the sky from orange to blue in a matter of 15 years. How? With renewables as well, but largely on the back of nuclear production,” Pat Dalzell, Executive Director of Corporate Affairs for Bruce Power, which operates the province’s eight nuclear reactors, said at the IAEA event. “Now when you look up at the sky on a hot summer day in Toronto, the sky is blue,” he said, adding that nuclear power facilities in the province account for some 22,000 jobs, with another 5,000 expected to be created when the operating lifetime of existing reactors are extended for several more years. Read the full story.
