Ottawa not pledging enough money for decision to be made on SMRs: Morgan

The Saskatchewan government is responding after Ottawa announced up to $74 million will be invested to support small modular reactor (SMR) development in Saskatchewan.

Don Morgan, the province’s minister responsible for all major Crown corporations, told Gormley on Tuesday the money falls short of what’s needed for a decision to be made in 2029 on whether to build an SMR.

Morgan added building one would cost an estimated $5 billion.

“That’s based on discussions that were loosely held between Ontario and New Brunswick,” Morgan said. “If we were able to build two or more at the same time, naturally the cost could come down substantially.”

Morgan said the application the province submitted to GE-Hitachi is asking for one SMR to be built, but the minister added it can be readily amended for two or more.

“Depending on availability of money, we should be looking probably at four or six,” he said. “The electrical needs in our province will continue to grow with the development of canola crush plants and mining in the north.”

Since the province has a total generating capacity of around 5,000 megawatts, Morgan said it should probably be planning for eight or nine SMRs.

According to the minister, there are two components to the funding deal.

“Fifty million dollars will come from … Natural Resources Canada from the Energy and Climate Change Canada and the purpose of that is to support SaskPower’s SMR development,” he said. “The remaining $24 million is from money that our province has paid in for carbon tax over the last number of years.”

The minister said the province has paid almost half a billion dollars in carbon tax, money he’d like to see given back to Saskatchewan and invested in SMR development.

At $5 billion per unit, the reactors would be a significant capital expense for SaskPower.

“It becomes not just a SaskPower issue, but what does the province do to support electrical generation?” he added. “The changes that are coming from the Clean Electricity Standards are standards that are being imposed on our province.”

The federal government wants all power generation to be net-zero by 2035. The provincial government has said it’s aiming for that target by 2050, calling the federal target unrealistic.

Morgan added Saskatchewan is one of the provinces that does not have abundant hydro or already-existing nuclear power.

“We look to the federal government to say ‘OK, if you want us work towards that, do a few things. Provide some substantial funding, accelerate the process for the impact assessment and the regulatory process and get behind us and give us a timeline that’s realistic,’ ” he said.