North America just went nuclear. Not in the geopolitical sense, but in the literal, build-a-bunch-of-reactors sense.
Canada announced a sweeping Nuclear Energy Strategy on June 22, targeting the construction of up to ten large-scale reactors by 2040. Meanwhile, south of the border, Westinghouse has laid out plans for ten new AP1000 reactors of its own with construction targeting completion by 2030. Two countries, twenty reactors, and a shared realization that the continent’s power grid isn’t ready for what’s coming.
What Canada is building
Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson outlined the strategy, which includes two reactors already under construction and aimed for completion by 2035. At least one of those will be built outside of Ontario, spreading nuclear capacity beyond the province that has historically dominated Canada’s atomic energy landscape.
Canada plans to double its nuclear workforce from roughly 90,000 to more than 180,000 workers.
