The Canadian government took a step forward on its national small modular reactor plan on Thursday, with an investment to help an Ontario company move closer to commercialising its Generation IV reactor technology.
The CAD20m ($15.1m) investment will help Terrestrial Energy complete a pre-licensing milestone for its technology, part of an effort to bring net-generation nuclear energy to industry, Canada’s innovation ministry said.
This is the first investment from the government’s strategic innovation fund for an SMR. Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) power plant is said to be 50% more efficient than traditional reactors and suited for deployment in remote communities and industrial operations, including on-grid and off-grid power provision.
Ontario-based Terrestrial Energy, established in 2013, is proposing to build a 195-MW IMSR at Chalk River in Canada. It wants to commission the first IMSR power plants in the late 2020s.