Nuclear waste is stored in Canada at the following locations:
| Site | Location(s) | Licensee | Class(es) of waste | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Theratronics Manufacturing Facility | Kanata, Ontario | Best Theratronics | Intermediate-level radioactive waste, Low-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] |
| Blind River Refinery | Blind River, Ontario | Cameco | Low-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] |
| Bruce Nuclear Generating Station | Tiverton, Ontario | Bruce Power | High-level radioactive waste (wet storage), non-used nuclear fuel High-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] [2] |
| BWX Technologies Fuel Manufacturing | Peterborough, Ontario | BWX Technologies Nuclear Energy Canada | Low-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] |
| Cameco Fuel Manufacturing Facility | Port Hope, Ontario | Cameco | Low-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] |
| Chalk River Laboratories | Chalk River, Ontario | CNL | High-level radioactive waste (dry storage), Intermediate-level radioactive waste, Low-level radioactive waste | Operating/Storage with surveillance | [1] |
| Darlington Nuclear Generating Station | Clarington, Ontario | OPG | High-level radioactive waste (wet storage) | Operating | [1] |
| Darlington Waste Management Facility | Clarington, Ontario | OPG | High-level radioactive waste (dry storage), Intermediate-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] |
| Douglas Point Waste Management Facility | Tiverton, Ontario | CNL | High-level radioactive waste (dry storage), Intermediate-level radioactive waste, Low-level radioactive waste | Storage with surveillance | [1] |
| Gentilly-1 Waste Management Facility | Gentilly, Quebec | CNL | High-level radioactive waste (dry storage), Low-level radioactive waste | Storage with surveillance | [1] |
| Gentilly-2 Nuclear Generating Station | Gentilly, Quebec | HQ | High-level radioactive waste (wet storage), Intermediate-level radioactive waste, Low-level radioactive waste | Storage with surveillance | [1] |
| Gentilly-2 Waste Management Facility | Gentilly, Quebec | HQ | High-level radioactive waste (dry storage) | Operating | [1] |
| Greater Toronto Area | Greater Toronto Area, Ontario | AECL/Regional Municipality of Peel, Ontario | Low-level radioactive waste from past practices | Operating | [1] |
| McMaster Nuclear Research Reactor | Hamilton, Ontario | McMaster University | High-level radioactive waste (wet storage) | Operating | [1] |
| National Research Universal | Chalk River, Ontario | CNL | High-level radioactive waste (wet storage) | Storage with surveillance | [1] |
| Nordion Manufacturing Facility | Kanata, Ontario | Nordion | Intermediate-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] |
| Nuclear Power Demonstration | Renfrew County, Ontario | CNL | Intermediate-level radioactive waste, Low-level radioactive waste | Storage with surveillance | [1] |
| Pickering Nuclear Generating Station | Pickering, Ontario | OPG | High-level radioactive waste (wet storage) | Operating | [1] |
| Pickering Waste Management Facility | Pickering, Ontario | OPG | High-level radioactive waste (dry storage), Intermediate-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] |
| Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station | Maces Bay, New Brunswick | New Brunswick Power | High-level radioactive waste (wet storage) | Operating | [1] |
| Point Lepreau Waste Management Facility | Maces Bay, New Brunswick | New Brunswick Power | High-level radioactive waste (dry storage), Intermediate-level radioactive waste, Low-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] |
| Port Hope Conversion Facility | Port Hope, Ontario | Cameco | Low-level radioactive waste | Operating | [1] |
| Port Hope Long-Term Waste Management Facility | Port Hope, Ontario | CNL | Low-level radioactive waste from past practices | Operating | [1] |
| Port Granby Long-Term Waste Management Facility | Port Granby, Ontario | CNL | Low-level radioactive waste from past practices | Operating | [1] |
| Radioactive Waste Operations Site 1 | Tiverton, Ontario | OPG | Intermediate-level radioactive waste, Low-level radioactive waste | Storage with surveillance | [1] |
| Welcome Waste Management Facility | Port Hope, Ontario | CNL | Low-level radioactive waste from past practices | Operating | [1] |
| Western Waste Management Facility | Tiverton, Ontario | OPG | High-level radioactive waste (dry storage) | Operating | [1] |
| Whiteshell Laboratories | Pinawa, Manitoba | CNL | High-level radioactive waste (dry storage) | Decommissioning | [1] |
Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is a Canadian nuclear power station located on the north shore of Lake Ontario in Pickering, Ontario. It is one of the oldest nuclear power stations in the world and Canada's third-largest, with eight CANDU reactors. Since 2003, two of these units have been defueled and deactivated. The remaining six produce about 16% of Ontario's power and employ 3,000 workers.
Ernest Charles Drury was a farmer, politician and writer who served as the eighth premier of Ontario, from 1919 to 1923 as the head of a United Farmers of Ontario–Labour coalition government.
Ontario Hydro, established in 1906 as the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, was a publicly owned electricity utility in the Province of Ontario. It was formed to build transmission lines to supply municipal utilities with electricity generated by private companies already operating at Niagara Falls, and soon developed its own generation resources by buying private generation stations and becoming a major designer and builder of new stations. As most of the readily developed hydroelectric sites became exploited, the corporation expanded into building coal-fired generation and then nuclear-powered facilities. Renamed as "Ontario Hydro" in 1974, by the 1990s it had become one of the largest, fully integrated electricity corporations in North America.
The Kintigh Generating Station, also known as Somerset Operating Co. LLC of the Upstate New York Power Producers was a 675-megawatt coal-fired power plant located in Somerset, New York, United States. The plant was owned by AES Corporation until bankruptcy. Its unit was launched into service in 1984. Coal is provided to the plant via the Somerset Railroad. The waste heat is dumped into Lake Ontario, resulting in a warm-water plume visible on satellite images. The plant's 625-foot smoke stack can be seen across Lake Ontario from the shores of Toronto, Pickering, Oshawa, and Ajax, Ontario. It can also be seen from points along the Niagara Escarpment, including Lockport, NY, approximately 20 miles south. Power from the plant is transferred by dual 345kV power lines on wood pylons, which run south from the plant through rural agricultural land. In Royalton, NY they split at their physical junction with the dual circuit 345-kV Niagara-to-Edic transmission line, owned by the New York Power Authority, one circuit heads west to a substation at Niagara Falls, the other heads east to Station 80 south of Rochester. This bulk electric transmission constraint, created by the Somerset plant tie-in and forcing wheeling through 230kV and 345kV transmission lines to the Homer City Coal Plant east of Pittsburgh, PA, and returning to NY at the Watercurry substation outside Elmira, will be resolved through the Empire State Line proposal approved by NY Independent System Operator (NYISO).
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is a Canadian federal Crown corporation and Canada's largest nuclear science and technology laboratory. AECL developed the CANDU reactor technology starting in the 1950s, and in October 2011 licensed this technology to Candu Energy.
Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power station located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada. It occupies 932 ha of land. The facility derives its name from Bruce Township, the local municipality when the plant was constructed, now Kincardine due to amalgamation. With eight CANDU pressurized heavy-water reactors, it was the world's largest fully operational nuclear generating station by total reactor count and the number of currently operational reactors until 2016, when it was exceeded in nameplate capacity by South Korea's Kori Nuclear Power Plant. The station is the largest employer in Bruce County, with over 4000 workers.
Darlington Nuclear Generating Station is a Canadian nuclear power station located on the north shore of Lake Ontario in Clarington, Ontario. It is a large nuclear facility comprising four CANDU nuclear reactors with a total output of 3,512 MWe when all units are online, providing about 20 percent of Ontario's electricity needs, enough to serve a city of two million people. The reactor design is significantly more powerful than those used in previous CANDU sites at Pickering and Bruce, making its 4-unit plant the second-largest in Canada behind the 8-unit Bruce. It is named for the Township of Darlington, the name of the municipality in which it is located, which is now part of the amalgamated Municipality of Clarington.
The James A. FitzPatrick (JAF) Nuclear Power Plant is located in the Town of Scriba, near Oswego, New York, on the southeast shore of Lake Ontario. The nuclear power plant has one General Electric boiling water reactor. The 900-acre (360 ha) site is also the location of two other units at the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station.
The electricity sector in Canada has played a significant role in the economic and political life of the country since the late 19th century. The sector is organized along provincial and territorial lines. In a majority of provinces, large government-owned integrated public utilities play a leading role in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. Ontario and Alberta have created electricity markets in the last decade to increase investment and competition in this sector of the economy.
Nuclear Power Demonstration was the first Canadian nuclear power reactor, and the prototype for the CANDU reactor design. Built by Canadian General Electric, in partnership with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) and the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario it consisted of a single 22 MWe pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) unit located in Rolphton, Ontario, not far from AECL's Chalk River Laboratories. NPD was owned by AECL and operated by Ontario Hydro.
The Douglas Point Nuclear Generating Station was Canada’s first full-scale nuclear power plant and the second CANDU pressurised heavy water reactor. Its success was a major milestone and marked Canada's entry into the global nuclear power scene. The same site was later used for the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station.
Nuclear power in Canada is provided by 19 commercial reactors with a net capacity of 13.5 gigawatt (GW), producing a total of 95.6 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, which accounted for 16.6% of the country's total electric energy generation in 2015. All but one of these reactors are located in Ontario, where they produced 61% of the province's electricity in 2019. Seven smaller reactors are used for research and to produce radiopharmaceuticals for use in nuclear medicine.
The electricity policy of Ontario refers to plans, legislation, incentives, guidelines, and policy processes put in place by the Government of the Province of Ontario, Canada, to address issues of electricity production, distribution, and consumption. Policymaking in the electricity sector involves economic, social, and environmental considerations. Ontario's electricity supply outlook is projected to deteriorate in the near future due to increasing demand, aging electricity supply infrastructure, and political commitments, particularly the phase-out of coal-fired generation. Policymakers are presented with a range of policy choices in addressing the situation, both in terms of overall system design and structure, and specific electricity generating technologies.
Gordon Edwards is a Canadian scientist and nuclear consultant. Edwards was born in Canada in 1940, and graduated from the University of Toronto in 1961 with a gold medal in Mathematics and Physics and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. At the University of Chicago he obtained two master's degrees, one in Mathematics (1962) and one in English Literature (1964). In 1972, he obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Queen's University.
Canada has an active anti-nuclear movement, which includes major campaigning organisations like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Over 300 public interest groups across Canada have endorsed the mandate of the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout (CNP). Some environmental organisations such as Energy Probe, the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR) are reported to have developed considerable expertise on nuclear power and energy issues. There is also a long-standing tradition of indigenous opposition to uranium mining.
Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG) is a Crown corporation and "government business enterprise" that is responsible for approximately half of the electricity generation in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is wholly owned by the government of Ontario. Sources of electricity include nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, gas and biomass. Although Ontario has an open electricity market, the provincial government, as OPG's sole shareholder, regulates the price the company receives for its electricity to be less than the market average, in an attempt to stabilize prices. Since 1 April 2008, the company's rates have been regulated by the Ontario Energy Board.
Nuclear industry in Canada is an active business and research sector, producing about 15% of its electricity in nuclear power plants of domestic design. Canada is the world's largest exporter of uranium, and has the world's second largest proven reserves. Canada also exports nuclear technology within the terms of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory, and is the world's largest producer of radioactive medical isotopes.
Hydro-Electric Railways, a subsidiary of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, was an operator of radial railways in the province of Ontario, Canada. Its parent agency, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, would later evolve into Ontario Hydro and, later, Hydro One.
James Blair SeabornCM was a Canadian diplomat and civil servant best remembered for the Seaborn Mission of 1964–1965 in connection with the Vietnam War and for heading the "Seaborn Panel" of the 1990s that examined the subject of how to dispose of nuclear waste in Canada. Seaborn would ultimately become the best-known of all of Canada's ICC representatives, but the Canadian historian Victor Levant noted that "he did not gain this notoriety until long after his tour of duty." The Seaborn Mission is a controversial subject with opinions sharply divided to its purpose and morality.
