By the numbers: up to 10 large reactors by 2040, two of them under construction by 2035, and 26 CANDU units already running in six countries. Those are the figures anchoring the Nuclear Energy Strategy that Canada announced on June 22.
The bottom line is a plan with dated targets. Beyond the two reactors by 2035, Canada wants five more planned or under development by 2040. It also wants at least one project outside Ontario operating or under construction by 2035.
“We are moving at speeds not seen in generations to get big things done,” Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said in a statement. He called Canada a long-time nuclear leader that “will continue to lead.”
Small reactors and a redesigned CANDU
A microreactor is to be demonstrated by 2035 and put in a rural community by the late 2030s. The strategy separately calls for a Gen IV microreactor demonstration by 2035. By 2030, the plan says, a “modernized, cost-competitive” version of the CANDU pressurized heavy water reactor should be ready.
Money is the open question. The strategy says Canada must attract private financing, give Indigenous communities a larger role and simplify the nuclear regulatory framework. Ongoing work at Darlington and Bruce Power, the ANS report noted, underlines the ambition.
Selling abroad
Of the 26 CANDU reactors, 17 sit in Canada and nine in South Korea, China, Romania, Argentina and India, according to the government’s news release. Canada also produced about 24 percent of the world’s uranium in 2024, and roughly 90 percent of that went overseas.
The strategy wants more. By 2040 it aims to place CANDU reactors in at least four new countries and open talks with another 6 to 10 “new nuclear entrant markets.” It also targets “significant Canadian supply chain participation” in at least five international projects that use other reactor designs. The two current CANDU jobs, in Romania and China, are to be carried through.
Ontario Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce put the competition in plain terms at a June 22 news conference in Newmarket, Ontario: “Ninety-four percent of all nuclear reactors in the last decade were built by the Chinese or the Russians.”
Uranium and research spending
Uranium exports are to double between 2024 and 2035, helped by new mine output expected by 2035. Fuel supply chains for all Canadian reactors should be secure by 2032.
Private nuclear R&D spending ran C$200 million to C$300 million (about $140.7 million to $211.1 million) a year from 2019 to 2023. The strategy sets C$500 million to C$700 million (about $351.8 million to $492.5 million) as the goal by 2032. Ottawa also wants a radioisotope strategy that lifts Canada’s share of the medical isotope market by at least 10 percent.
The document closes with a warning and a boast. “Hesitation is not a neutral choice,” it says. Then: “The assets are in place. The opportunity is clear.”
