Canada has built a half-century nuclear energy track record on safe and reliable electricity generation and an isotope supply of lifesaving nuclear medical treatments and diagnostics, used globally. Success on several Ontario refurbishment projects in recent years has buoyed government and investor confidence for up to 16,000 MW of new-build expansion plans between now and the 2040s. Nuclear energy allowed Ontario, the country’s biggest province, to shut down all its coal generation by 2014, making it one of the lowest greenhouse-gas emitting jurisdictions in the world and significantly improving its air quality.
But for many in the public, the conversation invariably comes back to the question, “What about the waste?”. While there are demonstrated technical solutions for the long-term management and disposal of waste and wide scientific agreement on the safety of these approaches, opponents have long countered that until a socially acceptable solution is in place, there really isn’t a solution at all. It’s a fair point.
The long-term waste solution
In November 2024, Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) answered that call with a major milestone announcement on the selection of a deep geological repository (DGR) for permanent storage and disposal of Canada’s high-level nuclear waste, spent fuel.
It did so with hard-earned support from the area’s First Nation and local municipal communities following extensive national public and community consultation. During the process, 22 communities from three provinces expressed interest in investigating hosting the facility. Each participated in a process with a thorough review of site characteristics that included technical (including geologic) and social assessments, including willingness of the local community and nearby First Nations communities to move forward.
On these criteria, sites were winnowed down to two, Ignace and South Bruce; both are in Ontario, where most of the country’s nuclear spent fuel is located. Both of the sites had the geologic and technical requirements to move forward with the required rock formations (Ignace is crystalline and South Bruce is sedimentary). So, much of the decision would come down to social factors. Despite South Bruce’s closer proximity to the spent fuel, after an almost 15-year consultation process, the readiness and strength of the Ignace-site communities’ commitment to the project tipped the decision in their favour and on 28 November, 2024, site selection was made.
Ignace with a population of just over 1,200 people, sits about 1,100 kilometres northwest of Toronto, about a two-and-a-half-hour car ride from the closest city, Thunder Bay. It is on the last stretch of north-western Ontario’s paved highway in an area that boasts a wealth of minerals that might one day enjoy a thriving mining industry. But until now, it has been a remote community known for winter sports like ice fishing and summer recreation on its white-sand beaches (when the weather is warm enough to enjoy them).
Two weeks post site selection, Ignace announced life as the town knew it had already changed. This small northern Ontario community has become a global sensation drawing attention that includes a film crew in town from Japan to document history in the making. Whatever it was before, Ignace is now a place the world comes to learn. As part of the project, a C$21m (US$14.6m) Centre of Expertise will be constructed. It is expected to draw hundreds of global scientists and tourists, annually.
A flagship community
According to the Township, Ignace and the Wabigoon Lake area is “now officially being recognised and admired by global interests for the courage it has illustrated and the steps it has taken to be announced by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) as the location of Canada’s first ever deep geological repository site to store used nuclear fuel.”
“Over the course of the past two weeks, this community and area has been catapulted to the forefront of positive media and press coverage across the world,” says Jake Pastore, the Township’s communication lead. He continues, “The media and press coverage, both traditional and digital within the nuclear industry and abroad that has taken place and continues to unravel, has placed these communities in an envious marketing capability position.”
The Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation (WLON) has been involved in discussions and information sharing through a “Learn More Agreement” with the NWMO for 12 years. The First Nation’s leadership says the process has “enabled WLON’s members and leadership to thoroughly examine what potentially hosting a DGR could mean,” both for their community and Canada.
“WLON views our role as the potential host for Canada’s used nuclear fuel as one of the most important responsibilities of our time. We can not ignore this challenge and allow it to become a burden for future generations. Our membership spoke with a clear voice in our willingness decision that we have the bravery and courage to continue to the next phase of this project.”
The Chief and Council also notes that while their efforts with NWMO have already been extensive, “in many ways, the journey has just begun. We will continue to work closely with the NWMO to ensure that our role as the guardians of our land and water remains central to the decision-making process. This project can only continue if it can be proven that it will be built safely, with respect to the environment and in a manner that protects Anishnaabe values.”
Among the additional milestones the project must achieve is a successful outcome from a rigorous federal impact assessment and regulatory process. In addition, the project will be subject to WLON’s Sovereign regulatory decision-making process, the WLON Regulatory Assessment and Approval Process (WLON-RAAP), which the NWMO agreed to as an addition to the country’s existing regulatory requirements.
The significance of the project for the Canadian industry and the jurisdictions planning to include nuclear to meet low-carbon electricity demand is well understood. Moving the project forward closes the life cycle of existing nuclear facilities and as importantly, perhaps, it demonstrates Canada’s ability to join jurisdictions like Finland, Sweden and Switzerland in creating a sustainable life cycle that addresses the final storage and disposal of all nuclear waste in a way that protects both humans and the environment. The work will play a key role in the plans for thousands additional nuclear megawatts already on Ontario’s planning books and for projects being investigated in other parts of the country.
The blueprint for a made-in-Canada solution
Canada’s solution to permanent deep geologic storage of high-level nuclear waste can be traced to the process undertaken for Finland’s repository, which began testing and trials in August 2024 with an anticipated operational date of 2026. That process dates to 1983 when Finland first began development of its plans for waste disposal. In 2001, Finland’s government approved site selection.
A year later, in 2002, the NWMO was created and a study, with engagement of Canadians, was undertaken to determine Canada’s path forward. In June 2007, the Government of Canada selected Adaptive Phased Management (APM) as Canada’s plan for the long-term management of used nuclear fuel. The centralised containment and isolation of the used fuel in a deep geological repository with informed and willing hosts closely mirrors the Finland experience. A similar DGR facility is about to break ground in Sweden, with an in-service date anticipated in the 2030s.
The ground broken in the Nordic countries and the concurrent efforts of Canada and other countries, including France and the Czech Republic, have created an international community of experts that lend technical veracity to these solutions. And, with each one that achieves another milestone success, the question of “what about the waste” becomes increasingly answerable.
Despite the similarities with the approach of other countries like Finland, Canada has diverged its path in selecting a host community at a greater distance from existing facilities. But transportation of the spent fuel cannisters to site was always going to be a factor even with site selection at South Bruce given its location in southwestern Ontario. Transportation would still have been required through southern Ontario from the Darlington and Pickering stations east of Toronto, as well as from a small number of units in Manitoba, New Brunswick and Quebec.
Costs and funding
Canada requires that cost of waste management be included in electricity charges with deposits in a segregated fund to be invested solely for the purpose of managing nuclear waste.
In 2021, the NWMO alongside external experts created a project cost case study, updating prior studies. NWMO based it on the Ignace site and used assumptions of operating lifetimes of the existing generating stations. New nuclear generation would require expanded facilities that would be covered by additional financial collections over the span of those facilities’ operation. Up until 2188, when the facility is anticipated to be decommissioned and close, given a projected volume of 5.5 million fuel bundles, the NWMO has estimated the facility will cost about C$26bn in 2020 equivalent dollars (around US$18bn). The costs cover programme management (including stakeholder relations and engagement, geosphere monitoring, environmental, safety assessment, technical research and collaboration on common services), licensing, construction, operation, long-term monitoring and decommissioning through to closure.
Going far, together
It has been said in many ways and in many cultures that if you want to go fast, go alone but to go far, go together. Through their own words and more than a decade of sweating the details, Ignace Township and the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation have demonstrated they understand the gravity of their role as partners with the NWMO. Working together on behalf of Canadians, they articulate a clear vision to move forward, support their communities’ wellbeing, and to protect the environment for future generations. In doing so, they also help ensure Canada’s nuclear energy can provide a sustainable option to provide the reliable, low-carbon electricity millions of Canadians and the economy relies upon.
Canada’s commitment to a holistic waste management solution
In June 2023, Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson endorsed the Integrated Strategy for Radioactive Waste (ISRW), a comprehensive plan developed by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to identify steps still needed for Canada’s long-term waste disposal of all levels of radioactive waste.
The report defines a mandate for management of low- and intermediate-level waste (LILW), as well as uranium mine and mill waste. It also recognises and integrates with the existing strategy and execution of a deep geological repository (DGR) for nuclear spent fuel waste management.
The strategy splits accountability for LILW into two distinct components, with responsibility for intermediate waste disposal resting with the NWMO, a step change in federal policy. Responsibility for developing and deploying a national low-level waste strategy has been delegated collectively to nuclear waste owners. This includes those whose waste is derived from activities in the energy production sector, as well as medical and other sectors using nuclear materials.
Reporting on progress of plans and engagement on the ISRW are submitted to the government annually with a report offering final solution recommendations expected to the government in mid-2028.
