Estevan, Elbow mayors react to talks of nuclear power

After announcing Tuesday the two sites picked for further study to possibly be home to a small modular reactor (SMR) facility, the mayors of Elbow and Estevan are giving their thoughts on what it could mean for their communities.

Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig thinks a plant could be very beneficial for the local economy.

“It would employ people not only in the building stage but long after,” he said Wednesday. “We’ve always been of the opinion that we have to keep a lot of different eggs in the basket when it comes to power production, not only natural gas and wind, solar, but also coal, and nuclear.

“I think it’s a huge positive.”

The Estevan area near Boundary Dam, Rafferty Reservoir and Grant Devine Lake is an attractive location for SaskPower to look at building a nuclear facility.

Rupen Pandya, the president and CEO of SaskPower, said Tuesday that in the search across the province, the Estevan region is a good choice when weighing technical suitability and regulatory risk.

“The Estevan area has been a very important part of SaskPower’s history through the Boundary Dam and Shand Power stations producing stable, reliable baseload power for decades, to the hundreds of employees that call Estevan home. And by identifying the Estevan study region, the opportunity to continue this history is exciting,” said Pandya.

As excited as Ludwig finds himself with the possibility of Estevan’s local economy getting a significant boost, he understands there are a lot of conversations that need to be had before anything could be finalized.

“It’s pretty early to start talking too much about some things, because I understand there will be a lot of discussions over the next few years,” he said. “The final decision may not be made on the SMRs for years.

“We’ve got a lot of obstacles to overcome.”

The Elbow area around Lake Diefenbaker is another strong possibility for SaskPower to develop an SMR facility.

Elbow Mayor Colleen Hoppenreys has some concerns about what it could look like.

“I have some concerns on how close it would be to the water. How is it going to affect our water?” Hoppenreys said. “Our lake here is probably one of our biggest attractions to Elbow as far as tourism goes. That’s how a lot of our businesses make their money.

“There are just so many questions.”

Details are still quite rough as the plan is being fleshed out. Right now, it’s expected the facilities would be owned and operated by SaskPower, though Don Morgan — the minister responsible for SaskPower — did say the company would be looking at a variety of different entities that might want to participate in the project.

It’s expected that waste from the facility would be stored on site, according to Pandya, though talk of a long-term facility somewhere in Ontario could change things on that front.

The cost for the SMRs could be anywhere from $3 billion to $5 billion each.