In a country that rarely owns the core technology behind major global industries, Canada’s nuclear sector stands out as a notable exception.
The CANDU — short for Canada Deuterium Uranium — is a heavy-water nuclear reactor first developed in the 1950s and 1960s through a partnership between Canadian governments and industry.
Today, CANDU reactors are used both in Canada and five countries abroad, including China, India and South Korea.
“It’s pretty extraordinary that Canada is one of the countries that actually developed a commercial reactor technology,” said Chris Keefer, president of the advocacy organization Canadians for Nuclear Energy.
“Little old Canada coming out of the Second World War built something that’s gone on to compete globally.”
Today, as many countries experience a nuclear revival, Canadian governments and industry are optimistic Canada can play a pivotal role — provided Canada can show it remains a leader in the nuclear space.
“There are extraordinary returns on our [nuclear] exports,” said Keefer.
“The issue is, if we don’t build at home and prove that we can build at home … it’s hard to have the credibility to build abroad,” he said.
A homegrown industry
CANDU is distinctive not only for how it generates electricity, but how it was designed.
Following the Second World War, the Canadian government instructed Canadian engineers to create a homegrown national nuclear champion.
“The design concept was to make sure it could be localized and produced in Canada,” said Carl Marcotte, senior vice-president of marketing and business development at Candu Energy. The company holds an exclusive global licence to commercialize the government-owned CANDU technology.
Nuclear engineers delivered on the government’s mandate. “Ninety-two per cent of a CANDU [reactor] is sourced at home,” said Marcotte.
The CANDU is also designed to run on natural uranium — which Canada produces in abundance — rather than enriched fuel, further bolstering Canada’s energy independence.
After developing the technology, Canada went on to set up CANDU reactors in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, as well as in major economies around the world.
But, over decades, a kind of “nuclear freeze” set in. This was in part due to massive cost overruns, but also because countries deprioritized energy independence or rejected nuclear as an energy solution altogether. Quebec, for example, decommissioned its sole nuclear power station in 2012.
Globally, the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan triggered a political backlash against nuclear energy, leading several countries to slow or cancel their reactor projects. Germany moved to phase out nuclear power entirely.
“ I entered this debate at … the bottom of the cycle,” Keefer said. “Steven Guilbeault was in power as the minister of environment and climate change — an avowed anti-nuclear activist who called for the closure of [Ontario’s] Pickering [Nuclear Generating Station].”
Keefer was part of an advocacy campaign that narrowly convinced Ontario and Canada to keep that plant operational.
Now, interest in nuclear energy is on the upswing, as countries seek to bolster energy independence, reduce carbon emissions and address surging electricity demand from AI data centres and electrification.
Currently, Alberta, New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan are all considering new nuclear builds.
There is also significant demand from abroad, says George Christidis, president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association, an industry advocacy group.
“The world is seeing a very robust Canadian nuclear market,” said Christidis. “And they’re trying to learn from it and … work with us, which is a positive in a very difficult world.”
Markets in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia appear particularly promising, says Marcotte, of Candu Energy.
Poland, for example, is considering Canadian technology for its second nuclear power plant as it attempts to reduce dependence on coal and diversify its energy partnerships.
A generational challenge
Keefer cautions that rebuilding nuclear capacity is “very, very challenging.”
“You need massive amounts of capital. You need [to be] facilitating industrial policy and investments. You need to align federal and provincial priorities.”
“You need to get a whole supply chain mobilized. You need skilled trades workers … You need project managers that are the best.”
To give a sense of the scale, CANDU’s current industrial ecosystem includes about 250 companies that supply specialized components, engineering services and nuclear-grade materials.
However, Canada’s ability to export these materials and services depends heavily on what happens inside Canada.
Canada last completed construction of a new CANDU reactor in Bowmanville, Ont., in 1993.
“If we’re not building new ones at home, it starts to look like an old story,” said Marcotte, noting that potential buyers want to see that “the technology is continuously being updated and invested in.”
While no new CANDU reactors have been built in Canada in a long time, Ontario did recently complete a refurbishment of an existing station at Darlington, and that project came in on-time and under budget.
Another potential challenge for the CANDU reactor is the Westinghouse AP1000, a large-scale reactor that industry experts see as the primary competitor to CANDU’s newest model of reactor. The Westinghouse was designed in the U.S. and uses enriched uranium, while Canada does not have any uranium enrichment facilities.
Ontario is actively evaluating whether to use the Westinghouse AP1000 for proposed nuclear projects in Port Hope and Tiverton.
The federal government, for its part, says CANDU has “distinct advantages,” including its use of unenriched uranium, a mature domestic supply chain and robust operational performance.
But a Natural Resources Canada spokesperson told Canadian Affairs that it is up to the provinces to make electricity planning and generation decisions.
“Canada is in an enviable position when it comes to nuclear reactor technology: we have both our homegrown CANDU and the Canadian-owned Westinghouse AP1000 reactor,” the spokesperson said.
Irrespective of which companies win contracts, Christidis says his sector is positioned to galvanize the nation.
“Ultimately, governments are going to take a look at the details of commercial options,” he said. “But in any scenario, a very robust contribution to the Canadian economy and provincial economies will be occurring.”
