The Canadian government has launched a strategy that sees low-carbon and zero-emission hydrogen fuel technology as a key part of the nation's path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The strategy is underpinned by a federal investment of CAD1.5 billion (USD1.2 billion) in a Low-carbon and Zero-emissions Fuels Fund to increase the production and use of low-carbon fuels, including hydrogen.

Production at the Cigar Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan, Canada, will be temporarily suspended over the coming weeks due to the increasing risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cameco announced today. The pandemic earlier prompted a five-month suspension of production from the Cigar Lake mine from March.

Ontario Power Generation has completed the defuelling of Darlington unit 3 ahead of schedule. It is the second of four units at the site that are being refurbished in a 10-year project that will enable the plant to continue operations until 2055. OPG and its project partner CanAtom Power Group - a joint venture of SNC-Lavalin Nuclear Inc and Aecon Construction Group - have now begun to prepare unit 3 for disassembly.

Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organisation has begun preparations for the drilling of two boreholes in the South Bruce area prior to site selection for a deep geological repository for the country's used nuclear fuel. The first borehole will be drilled in Spring 2021.

Ontario Power Generation has committed to being a net-zero carbon company by 2040, and to help the markets where it operates to achieve net-zero carbon economies by 2050. These are the two major goals established in its newly released Climate Change Plan that aims to drive efficient, economy-wide decarbonisation and economic renewal, while protecting the environment. Siting a small modular reactor at its Darlington site is one of the actions to achieve its aims.

The time has come to stop thinking about competition between different energy sources and instead look at how they can work together to achieve climate neutrality, Associate Deputy Minister of Natural Resources Canada Shawn Tupper said yesterday.

Fossil fuels will still make up more than 60% of Canada's fuel mix in 2050 without an accelerated energy transition, a new report from the Canada Energy Regulator has found. The report is the first in CER's Energy Futures series to extend the projection period to 2050 and introduces a new scenario to complement the series' traditional baseline projection.

Advanced Reactor Concepts, New Brunswick Power and Moltex Energy have agreed to set up a small modular reactor vendor cluster in New Brunswick. Meanwhile, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories has issued a call for proposals for the second round of a programme to accelerate the deployment of SMRs in Canada.
 

The Canadian government has launched an engagement process to "modernise" the country's radioactive waste policy. At the same time, it has asked the Nuclear Waste Management Organisation to lead a dialogue to develop an integrated strategy for Canada's radioactive waste.

Ontario Power Generation has announced it is resuming planning activities for building new nuclear generating capacity at its Darlington site in Ontario. However, it is now considering the construction of a small modular reactor rather than a large conventional reactor, as previously envisaged.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories has completed the excavation and transfer of historic low-level radioactive waste away from the Lake Ontario shoreline to a new long-term waste management facility. The waste removal marks a milestone for the Port Hope Area Initiative, which CNL is implementing through its Historic Waste Program Management Office on behalf of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global uranium production, adding to supply curtailments that have occurred in the industry for many years, Cameco said in its quarterly update yesterday. The risk to uranium supply is greater than the risk to demand that over time is expected to create a renewed focus on security of supply, the company said.