EIS submitted for proposed Bruce C plant

Monday, 22 September 2008

Bruce Power has submitted its environmental impact statement (EIS) for up to four new reactors at the existing Bruce nuclear power plant site in Ontario, Canada.
 

The Bruce site (Image: Bruce Power)

By around 2016, four new reactors of some 1000 MWe capacity each could be built at the proposed Bruce C plant - alongside eight already in the vicinity at Bruce A and B. Several alternative locations within the existing Bruce site are being considered for the new plant, and Bruce Power is still considering which reactor design will be employed, but the company has specified that the new plant will be constructed as two twin-unit modules.
 

Bruce Power's EIS concludes that there will be no significant environmental effects if the reactors are constructed.
 

The company's findings will now be turned over to the three-member independent joint review panel (JRP) officially appointed two weeks ago by Canada's environment minister, John Baird, and the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), Michael Binder. The panel will conduct the environmental assessment (EA) and consider the licence application to prepare a site for the project. Upon completion of their review, the JRP will then make a final recommendation to the federal government.

 

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) and the CNSC published the final EIS guidelines and the JRP agreement related to the Bruce C project on 22 August. This included the rules for how the review panel should function and the terms of reference for conducting the environmental assessment and for determining the information required to consider the licence application to prepare a site. The members of the review panel were appointed at the beginning of September. The EIS guidelines identified the information needed for Bruce Power to prepare the EIS which will provide a detailed analysis of the potential environmental effects of the proposed new plant.