this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
132 points (97.1% liked)
Canada
7209 readers
353 users here now
What's going on Canada?
Communities
π Meta
πΊοΈ Provinces / Territories
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Northwest Territories
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Prince Edward Island
- Quebec
- Saskatchewan
- Yukon
ποΈ Cities / Local Communities
- Calgary (AB)
- Edmonton (AB)
- Greater Sudbury (ON)
- Halifax (NS)
- Hamilton (ON)
- Kootenays (BC)
- London (ON)
- Mississauga (ON)
- Montreal (QC)
- Nanaimo (BC)
- Oceanside (BC)
- Ottawa (ON)
- Port Alberni (BC)
- Regina (SK)
- Saskatoon (SK)
- Thunder Bay (ON)
- Toronto (ON)
- Vancouver (BC)
- Vancouver Island (BC)
- Victoria (BC)
- Waterloo (ON)
- Winnipeg (MB)
π Sports
Hockey
- List of All Teams: Post on /c/hockey
- General Community: /c/Hockey
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- MontrΓ©al Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Football (NFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Football (CFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Baseball
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- Toronto Blue Jays
Basketball
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- Toronto Raptors
Soccer
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- General Community: /c/CanadaSoccer
- Toronto FC
π» Universities
π΅ Finance / Shopping
- Personal Finance Canada
- BAPCSalesCanada
- Canadian Investor
- Buy Canadian
- Quebec Finance
- Churning Canada
π£οΈ Politics
- Canada Politics
- General:
- By Province:
π Social and Culture
Rules
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
CANDU is one of the best reactor designs currently running, in my opinion. The problem is that it's expensive to build, and requires expensive maintenance, and in a world that loves to cut corners and find efficiencies that is not popular. But it is solid, it is safe, and I support many more of them being refurbished, maintained and built in this country despite the cost.
Advanced CANDU on the other hand, had little in common with CANDU despite the name, and bowed to all of the previously mentioned pressure to cut corners and find efficiencies resulting in a dangerous and ultimately non-viable design that basically killed Canada's nuclear industry. It was a classic boondoggle, and while I was and am infuriated with the way Harper killed it and put it out of its misery, the real mistake had been pursuing it down that path in the first place which was a decision that came well before his time and was based on global circumstances that made it simply impossible to justify.
I would love to see even more advanced reactors being researched, designed and built here, modular, pebble bed, sodium, thorium, all of it. But sadly I think that is mostly unrealistic given the current state of our nuclear industry. CANDU is however at least one proven technology that we can and should continue to take advantage of. Even if we will probably never be nuclear leaders again thanks to the mismanagement and sabotage of our nuclear industry, at least we can cling to its legacy.
The oldest of the Pickering CANDUs has been running for fifty years, if I'm not mistaken, albeit with some gaps for refurbishment. If that isn't a safe design, I don't know what is.
In other words, I agree, let's build more of those.
I know that other countries have created knock-off CANDU reactors, but I'm not sure how much different they are.
The initial cost of construction for CANDU reactors is higher because of the heavy water requirements as I understand, and that once built the substantially lower fueling costs do have an eventual ROI. Also, the ability to derive power from raw unrefined Uranium allows heavy water reactors to reuse spent fuel from light water reactors. I think this would alleviate some of the (overblown) nuclear waste problems.
Gosh I'd love to see some MSRs, that's the fucking future.