Smith says Alberta to hold nuclear power consultations as reactor companies weigh opportunities
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government plans to hold public consultations this fall about adding nuclear power to the province's energy mix.
There have long been discussions about building reactors in Alberta — including ones that could power oilsands operations — but the province is currently reliant on natural gas for electricity.
Smith says industrial operations in remote areas like the oilsands could benefit from small modular reactors, which are built elsewhere and shipped to site.
There is a larger-scale plant planned for northwestern Alberta that would have two to four CANDU reactors and a capacity of up to 4,800 megawatts.
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Smith says she initially thought the project planned for near Peace River would swamp the province's power grid, but now sees it making sense as an electricity-hungry artificial intelligence data centre industry begins to take root.
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The CEO of X Energy Reactor Co., a U.S. developer of advanced small modular nuclear reactors, says his company has its eye on Alberta as a growth market.
Clay Sell said in an interview last month that X Energy is pursuing opportunities to add power to the grid in general, as well as to link to steam-assisted gravity drainage oilsands projects that pull bitumen from deep underground through wells rather than mine it.
'Our plant is perfectly suited to perform that same mission on a small footprint,' Sell said.
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