Canada’s Parliamentary Secretary Kim Rudd, on behalf Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr, announced a road mapping process February 22 under the Energy Innovation Program to explore the potential for on- and off-grid applications for small modular reactor technology in Canada.
Stakeholder engagement will inform a roadmap for SMR development, to be completed in the fall of 2018, Natural Resources Canada said in a statement.
The roadmap will build on existing groundwork to foster innovation and establish a long-term vision for the nuclear industry, as well as to assess the characteristics of different SMR technologies and how they align with user-requirements and Canadian priorities. It will be an important step in positioning Canada to advance next-generation technologies and become a global leader in the emerging SMR market, NRC said.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) released a summary report October 17 on a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEOI) issued over the previous summer on small modular reactors. The initiative yielded responses from 80 organizations around the world, including 19 expressions of interest in siting a prototype or demonstration reactor at a CNL campus. The report is available to the public on its website at www.cnl.ca.
CNL has designated SMR technology as a research priority and aims to build a demonstration SMR plant at its facilities by 2026. CNL has started research work to support a range of different design technologies and is working with public and industry partners to support deployment in remote locations and mining applications.