That's not serious. Construction start is too far away.
Of all Western developed countries, Canada is pretty much the last hope for a country with the skills to build nuclear at something that's within spitting distance of being economical.
The US and France have shat the bed royally over the past two decades, they're out of the game of construction competence. The UK stopped doing their own and outsourced to overpriced and unreasonable French reactors, that are only going forward with what be massive amounts of corruption in order to justify such expensive energy when there's cheaper batteries + offshore wind. Finland had France build them a reactor, and wisely negotiated a fixed price up front, and the construction overruns bankrupted the French company which is now really French in the sense that it bankrupted itself on Olkiluoto and had to be nationalized in the name of national security.
That leaves Canada, with their famous CANDU reactors and can-do attitudes. But 9 years of planning before construction? Perhaps that's what's actually needed, and they'll have a chance of actually constructing it in five years, but.... super super doubtful.
Canada, do not fall into the same trap as the rest of the nuclear frauds in the Western world. Five years for construction? Don't kid yourselves, even China breaks ridiculous timelines like that, and as good as you are, Canada, you're no China when it comes to massive massive construction projects. Just look at how hard it is to build in Vancouver, for example...
The Hualong One is a successor of the Westinghouse AP1000. The US has two of those operational, at Vogtle. Then Westinghouse Nuclear went bankrupt. China has four operational. All later units in China are Hualong One units or later designs.
These are all classic pressurized water reactors, all about 1 gigawatt. Nothing exotic here. The technology is known and works well.
That tender process will take a few years on its own, and can only conclude once locations have been vetted, and passed environmental + native approval. Even once approved, at any moment the entire process could be derailed, even if billions have been spent.
There is a lot to be said in terms of dealing with native groups correctly. Yet we've been seeing groups, "historical" native nations which have never been recognized before, or even really heard of before, simply appearing and stalling development of, well, anything.
Recently:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jamie-sarkonak-yet-another-...
To see a project stall which has billions of investment, was planned for 20 years, and still have roadblocks due to 58 people is ... disheartening. Yet in most cases such native groups are simply paid off. EG, kickbacks.
In terms of environmental assessments, of personal note, I was trying to buy some land from a farmer. This farmer spent 2+ years going through all the required steps to sell a few pieces of his land, this was to be for his retirement.
He successfully conducted all the surveys, applied for and had zoning work done, land separated into a few parcels, while still keeping most of his farm. He just wanted to sell a small portion of land, so he and his wife could retire comfortably. This process took 2+ years.
He and I had negotiated a fair price, and were working on the purchase, and then the environmental assessment came to play. This took an additional 6 months, and found one, I repeat one bird that was seen in the branches of a tree of "special concern". For clarity:
Extinct (X) A wildlife species that no longer exists. Extirpated (XT) A wildlife species no longer existing in the wild in Canada, but occurring elsewhere.
Endangered (E) A wildlife species facing imminent extirpation or extinction.
Threatened (T) A wildlife species likely to become endangered if limiting factors are not reversed.
Special Concern (SC) (Note: Formerly described as “Vulnerable” from 1990 to 1999, or “Rare” prior to 1990.) A wildlife species that may become a threatened or an endangered species because of a combination of biological characteristics and identified threats.
Not at Risk (NAR) (Note: Formerly described as “Not In Any Category”, or “No Designation Required.”) A wildlife species that has been evaluated and found to be not at risk of extinction given the current circumstances.
--
Note the language. Special concern is May become threatened. Not threatened, just "May become".
This bird was not nesting on site. No other members of the species were seen on the land. The bird was simply seen on a tree branch.
Entire sale?
Terminated. Land can not be sold without multiple follow-up assessments.
I could understand if the species was threatened and nesting. Or at least even just threatened.
Even so, this region of Canada has trillions of acres of untamed land, and millions upon millions of acres of farmland surrounding this area. Further, building a house on a multi-acre lot, does not mean "all the trees and land will be destroyed".
I guess my point is, there is sensible custodianship of the land and relationships with first nations, and there is bad-shit crazy, bend over backwards, destroy everything around you custodianship.
As you can likely tell, I think there's too much red tape.
And that red tape is why it takes a decade to even hope to start. And there's no way, unless things change dramatically, that a decade will be enough. We'll have fusion power before a shovel hits dirt.
Because my friend had the craziest protectionism story.
He wanted to build a multi family home on his existing lot.
Of course all kinds of studies need to be done. One of them is a tree study. Which costs $3,000 alone per tree. He hired firm and they were doing a study (for building purposes).
Then one day a crew shows up and cuts the tree all of a sudden. Turns out that his neighbour, unknown to him, was complaining that the tree was creating too much shade. So without any study they just came and cut it down.
That’s before even his study results came back.
