7 Nuclear electricity in Alberta

Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Electricity in Alberta
3 Options for meeting Alberta’s needs
4 An overview of nuclear power
5 Nuclear fuel management
6 Nuclear safety
7 Nuclear electricity in Alberta
8 Nuclear regulation in Canada
9 Conclusion

7.1 Overview
This chapter looks at some implications of integrating a base-load nuclear generating plant in Alberta, including:

• Issues related to the Alberta transmission grid
• Regional and provincial impacts associated with communities, infrastructure needs and the economy.

In many respects a large base-load nuclear plant is much like a large base-load coal-fired plant (with respect to integration in the grid and regional impacts) or to other large industrial projects (with respect to socioeconomic impacts).

7.2 Nuclear plants and the Alberta Transmission System
The transmission grid is the ‘highway’ over which electrical energy travels, connecting supply and demand, and electrical generation plants must be integrated safely and reliably into the transmission grid. This integration function involves planning and coordination, even in a jurisdiction such as Alberta with a competitive supply market.

The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) is an independent, not-for profit entity responsible for planning and operating Alberta’s grid. The AESO’s mandate states that it must ensure that transmission capacity exists to accommodate generation and load (demand) as it arrives on the system. Achieving this mandate is challenging because:

1. The AESO must plan the transmission system, including expansion, to meet the requirements of a competitive and decentralized generation sector.
2. There is often a mismatch between the construction lead times required for generation and transmission projects. Typically, it takes five to eight years to build a major transmission line (including the work to define and select routes, obtain approvals, acquire new rights-of-way and construct the line and substation facilities). A new gas-fired or renewable-energy generating unit takes less time than this, so the AESO’s transmission planning must anticipate load growth and generation development to have facilities in place when and where they are needed.

A nuclear plant requires a longer construction time, so it may actually be easier for the AESO to ensure that adequate transmission facilities are available. 

A nuclear plant does not affect the cost of transmission differently from any other plant of similar size. Like any other new generator, owners of a nuclear plant would pay for the costs of interconnecting their facility to the grid. Adding a large new generator, nuclear or not, may require significant reinforcement of the regional transmission system or even of the bulk transmission system, depending on the exact location, size and type of the generator. These costs are allocated across all network users.

However, the size of nuclear units could create some operating issues. For example, in any electric system, the size of the largest unit affects the amount of reserve capacity needed in case the unit becomes unavailable.  In Alberta, the largest units are currently 450-MW coal units. (Typical coal plants consist of two or more such units.) Adding a nuclear unit of 800 MW could require increased operating reserves or, alternatively, additional transmission interconnections with neighbouring jurisdictions. According to Alberta’s market rules, any such impact on system operations or transmission interconnections would not be charged to the account of the new generator but would be allocated across all users.

7.3 Infrastructure and resources required for a nuclear plant
Construction of a nuclear power plant in Alberta would involve a wide range of activities and resources.  Many of the resources, such as engineering expertise, skilled labour and steel, to name only a few, have been constrained in Alberta’s current economic environment due to the level of economic activity in recent years.

A selected site would require infrastructure including a power supply; access to technological, community, and service support; earthquake, meteorological and hydrological monitoring; working space for project management activities; and living accommodations for workers if the site is remotely located. Weather is not a particular concern since nuclear plants currently operate in northern latitudes such as Finland.

A significant siting consideration would be the availability of a sufficient quantity of cooling water.  Another consideration is that access needs to accommodate the transportation of large reactor components by road, rail, or barge.

The manufacture and sourcing of components and materials for a nuclear project requires a great deal of advance planning and project management, much like many of Alberta’s large and complex energy and industrial projects. Some components would be manufactured in Alberta, some elsewhere in Canada, while some would be imported. The Canadian Energy Research Institute estimates that about 7.5% of the cost of building a CANDU-6 reactor, for example, would be for the purchase of imported items.(CERI, 2008)

7.4 Socioeconomic impact of a nuclear plant
A nuclear plant, with its long construction period, capital-intensity, and need for skilled labour during both construction and operation, would have significant socioeconomic impacts on the province and particularly on the region in which it was located. In general, the impacts would be similar to those of any of the large energy industrial projects currently underway in Alberta.

7.4.1 Labour impacts
The construction and subsequent operation of a nuclear plant would create new jobs in three different ways:

• Direct employment: labour employed to construct and then operate the plant,
• Indirect employment: jobs created in other sectors as a result of initial expenditures on plant construction and operation, and
• Induced employment: jobs created as a result of new expenditures in other sectors that come about because of higher total labour income.

This allocation is somewhat arbitrary – it is often a matter of judgment whether particular types of construction or manufacturing employment are direct or indirect. However, as a rule of thumb, the Idaho National Laboratory (DOE 2004) calculates that for every direct job created through nuclear power plant construction or operations, approximately four jobs are either induced by the plant or indirectly tied to the plant.

CONSTRUCTION PHASE

The number of jobs created during construction depends on the size and scale of the plant being built.  The private-sector proponent for a large (4000-MW) nuclear project in the Athabasca-Grande Prairie-Peace River area estimates that the total of direct, indirect, and induced labour needs for a 10-year construction phase would be 84,000 person-years (Golder/SJ Research, 2008). Of this, 28% would be direct employment, 5% indirect, and 67% induced.

A different study by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE 2005) assessed the construction requirements for a smaller Generation III plant (approximately 1300 MW), and found that its construction would require in excess of 1.3 million person-hours (nearly 700 person-years) for pipefitters alone. Peak construction requirements of a project of this size would exceed 10% of the Alberta workforce in trades such as ironworking, boiler making and pipefitting.

These construction requirements, however, are for plants that would be very large additions to the Alberta system.  For purposes of this report, the panel has generally considered a smaller 800-MW base-load plant, which would lead to a correspondingly smaller workforce.

OPERATING PHASE

The operational staffing level of a nuclear power reactor is well-established. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) reports that the average nuclear plant in the U.S. creates 400–700 direct full-time positions for a 1000-MW nuclear plant, and about the same number of induced positions (NEI, 2008)in the local economy.  Another study (in support of the U.S. Nuclear Power 2010 Program) collected best-estimate data for the next-generation plants beginning to come online, and estimated that the requirements would be in excess of 700 employees per reactor.

The Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) has undertaken a similar assessment of the 17 CANDU reactors operating in Canada. The direct workforce employed at the reactors is 16,137, or 949 per reactor, which is somewhat higher than is expected for the advanced CANDU reactors.(Timilsina, 2008)

A nuclear plant in Alberta with a somewhat smaller capacity (For purposes of this report, a nuclear plant of 800 MW has been assumed, as approximately the same size as a two-unit coal-fired plant (the most comparable addition to the Alberta grid). No current nuclear reactor design is of exactly this size) would have lower labour requirements.  However the comparison is not simply linear, since many jobs such as training, security, and health physics technicians do not depend on plant size.

For comparison, a typical coal-fired plant (with two 450-MW) units employs a significantly smaller number – 100-200 direct employees (excluding mine operations), depending on the age of the plant and technology used.

Specialists from outside Alberta may be required for some of the most highly skilled jobs in a nuclear plant, such as nuclear engineers and health physicists to ensure the radiation health and safety of workers and the public. It might be desirable to develop the nuclear-specific skill sets within Alberta, both for future employment within Alberta as the sector grows and as a technical-service export to a growing international nuclear sector. This would require training programs to help develop the necessary expertise, which could be sponsored by government or facility owners.

7.4.2 Economic impact

Like any large industrial project, a nuclear plant will add to the province’s GDP, as well as contributing to tax revenues and labour income. Table 6 summarizes the impacts of various nuclear additions, according to information from a variety of sources, including the proponents of a 4000-MW unit in Alberta, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) in the U.S., and CERI.

The NEI’s calculation was based on total direct expenditures (local, state-wide, and national) for an average 1000-MW nuclear plant in the U.S., along with a multiplier to estimate the total impact on GDP.  Regionally, the NEI reports that every dollar of direct expenditure on a nuclear plant generates slightly more than a dollar of additional indirect spending in the local community (NEI, 2008). This does not include revenues associated with the sale of electricity, which would be approximately US$400–500 million per year for a 1000-MW plant.

The CERI study concluded that the annual economic activity for all 17 CANDU reactors—again excluding the sale of electricity—amounts to C$6.3 billion per year, or C$370 million per reactor, which is close to the NEI figure of US$ 250–300 million per reactor.

7.5 Community issues: population growth and public services

Absorbing a nuclear plant, like any large industrial project, presents challenges as well as opportunities for the local community, particularly during the construction phase when several thousand workers may be added to a community for a relatively short time.

In 2006, the Government of Alberta examined issues raised by rural communities in light of the rapid expansion of the oil sands. The study found that high growth areas face special challenges because of issues such as:

• Provincial resource allocation formulas and three-year planning horizons do not account for current rates of population growth.
• There is insufficient coordination between provincial and municipal authorities.
• There is a mismatch between municipal responsibilities to provide infrastructure and their ability to raise revenue.

Gaps that were identified in high-growth-rate areas include:

• Shortages of housing, and affordable housing in particular.
• Difficulties in attracting additional public sector workers to handle short-term increases in population.
• An inability to expand infrastructure - particularly in water treatment, waste treatment, health services, and transportation - because capital expenditures must be made before additional tax revenues from a development project are realized.

Without changes to Alberta’s municipal funding programs, it is likely that a nuclear project would raise similar issues.

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