Canada has 22 nuclear reactors producing about 15 per cent of the country’s electricity. - PHOTO: REUTERS
SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): Canada, a veteran in nuclear energy, is working with South-East Asia as the region seeks to capture atomic opportunities.
A nuclear energy working group was launched by the Singapore-based Canada-Asean Business Council on Nov 29 at the inaugural Canada-Asean Energy Transition Summit held in the Republic.
It is a platform for businesses, policymakers and regulators to collaborate in areas such as building nuclear energy capacity, raising a nuclear workforce, unlocking investments and educating the public about the energy source.
Initial members of the nuclear energy working group include the Canada-Asean Business Council, engineering services and nuclear organisation AtkinsRealis, the Canadian Nuclear Association, and universities and colleges.
The working group is looking to collaborate with the Asean Centre for Energy.
In February 2025, the nuclear working group, chaired by Jan De Silva – who is also Canada’s co-chairwoman at the business council – will hold a symposium in Singapore where institutions from Canada and South-east Asia will exchange knowledge about nuclear research and engineering.
The need to build up a nuclear workforce in the region was a common thread running through various programmes at the current summit.
“As markets are thinking longer term about transitioning their (traditional) electricity sources to nuclear, how do we take that existing workforce and train them up for new nuclear activities? Partnerships between our colleges and universities can make that happen,” said Ms De Silva.
Wayne Farmer, president of the business council, added: “There are different degrees of knowledge... from a regulatory point of view and managing the nuclear industry itself. There’s a lot of need for social acceptance of nuclear energy. And that’s something where we’re very cognisant that we can help via the experience that we’ve had in the provinces and (on the) federal side.”
The Canada-Asean Business Council is a non-profit organisation that drives economic ties between both regions.
Noting that the capital cost of constructing nuclear plants is huge, De Silva also said innovative financing solutions should be unlocked to make nuclear plants financially viable in the region.
While some of the funding is going to come from the government, she noted how tech giants such as Microsoft and Google are looking to harness nuclear energy for their electricity-guzzling data centres needed for artificial intelligence.
In September, Microsoft signed a 20-year deal to harness nuclear energy from Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear station – the 1979 site of America’s worst nuclear accident.
“If you’ve got some of these (tech giants) offering 20-year energy purchase, then maybe our banks and pension funds could get in earlier to help co-invest (in) the construction because they know there is going to be a revenue stream,” said De Silva at Grand Hyatt Singapore, where the summit was held.
The new working group is aligned with Canada’s push for nuclear partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru in mid-November, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the country intends to partner South-east Asia on nuclear energy.
The Canadian Trade Gateway for Nuclear Development in the Indo-Pacific will foster collaboration, innovation and trade between Canada and the region in the atomic energy sector.
With disasters such as the Fukushima meltdown and Chernobyl incident, nuclear energy has been reviled for a long time. But with the push for net-zero emissions and energy security, South-East Asia has started warming up to nuclear power.
Both Indonesia and the Philippines have nuclear power plants scheduled to start operations in 2032.
Singapore is exploring nuclear technologies, in particular safer and emerging ones such as small modular reactors (SMRs). It recently inked a 30-year partnership with the US that will unlock Singapore’s access to information and expertise about emerging technologies and nuclear safety.
SMRs are compact fission reactors that have a lower power capacity, enhanced safety standards and require much smaller buffer zones, compared with conventional reactors. Such reactors have a generation capacity about one-third that of traditional reactors.
Canada is currently constructing a few SMRs which are expected to come online in 2029. It is the world’s second largest producer of uranium, which is the main fuel needed for nuclear fission plants.
The North American nation has 22 nuclear reactors producing about 15 per cent of the country’s electricity. Its home-grown nuclear technology also produces by-products which are much needed in the field of medicine – medical isotopes to diagnose and treat conditions such as heart disease and cancer.
More than 70 per cent of the world’s supply of the cobalt-60 isotope – used for radiation therapy – is produced at Canadian nuclear power plants. - The Straits Times/ANN
