The federal agency is supporting preparation work for Canada’s first commercial small modular nuclear reactor, a 300-megawatt unit from GE Hitachi to be installed on the grounds of Ontario Power Generation’s existing Darlington nuclear station east of Toronto. The goal is for it to generate power for the provincial grid by 2028. (The Logic)

Talking point: Canada sees SMRs, which are manufactured rather than built to order, as a key clean-energy technology and one that could be exported. Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said at the announcement that the federal government must be open to all forms of cleantech if it’s to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to zero by 2050. His department is working on getting nuclear projects included in the list of projects eligible for green-bond funding. As the scale of the CIB loan for just the first phase of the Darlington project indicates, the current generation of prototype SMRs are not cheap.