The Canadian province of Ontario said Monday it is suspending a multibillion-dollar plan to build two new nuclear reactors because of concerns about the future of the favored bidder and cost overruns.

Ontario said a proposal from Atomic Energy Corp Ltd, which is owned by the Canadian government, was the only one to meet its requirements for building two new reactors by 2018 at its Darlington nuclear power plant site, east of Toronto.

The Canadian nuclear power industry was also hit Monday by a newspaper report (*see Related Link below) that said safety regulators have underestimated a feature at the country's electricity-producing Candu reactors, all designed by AECL, that might cause them to experience dangerous power pulses during a major accident.

According to an internal Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission document obtained by the newspaper, the nuclear stations have a feature known as "positive reactivity feedback," in which their atomic chain reactions automatically speed up if the water pumped into the reactors to cool them leaks. The report said that a water leak is one of the worst accidents possible at a nuclear station.

If the reactors aren't immediately shut down during such an incident, positive reactivity leads to a snowballing in the pace of nuclear reactions, which could cause damaging overheating, the newspaper said.

http://www.financialpost.com/news-sectors/story.html?id=1743737


Related Link:

Canada's Troubled Nuclear Industry: Ending a Dream, or a Nightmare?
The Government Opts Not to Pour More Money Down the Nuclear "Sinkhole"
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13871858