(Photo by IAEA Imagebank via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0 DEED)
The hum of the future is meant to be silent, contained within the factory-sealed steel of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Saskatchewan officials are formalizing the path toward a “nuclear power future,” initiating the technology selection process for both SMRs and large-scale nuclear reactors to ensure a power grid that is “reliable and affordable.”
While the provincial government frames these developments as a necessary grid evolution, public interest groups warn that it is a dangerous distraction that ignores the window required to achieve climate goals. Beyond the political rhetoric, serious questions persist regarding ballooning costs, the burden of radioactive waste, and the decision to bypass federal environmental assessments.
SaskPower, a provincial Crown corporation and Saskatchewan’s main supplier of electricity, is currently in a multi-year planning phase, evaluating sites near Estevan with the intent to make a commercial build decision by 2029. Yet, just miles from these sites, generations-old orchard farms are at risk of dying out.
What are SMRs?
SMRs are a class of nuclear fission reactors designed to generate up to 300 megawatts of electricity per unit. This is roughly a third of the output of traditional large-scale reactors. They are physically smaller, built in modular components, and can be assembled in factories before being transported to the site.
Because SMRs can be manufactured in standardized units and installed incrementally, they are often seen as a way to reduce the financial and logistical risks long associated with nuclear construction. Large reactors require substantial upfront investment and lengthy construction timelines, while SMRs offer shorter construction timelines and more predictable costs due to factory-based production.
SMRs are also often promoted as particularly suited for rural or industrial regions where energy demand exists, but infrastructure is limited. Their smaller footprint allows them to be placed in locations that would not support large nuclear facilities. At the same time, their ability to provide continuous, low-carbon power makes them attractive for industries requiring a stable energy supply.
A Troubled Future for SMRs in Canada
Canada, through its SMRs Action Plan, has framed these reactors not only as a domestic energy solution but as part of a larger economic and export strategy. The aim is to secure a foothold in what is projected to become a multi-billion-dollar global market.
However, this ambitious vision for SMRs is not without significant structural and systemic challenges. Despite Canada’s long-standing experience with nuclear technology, many of the SMR designs currently being considered rely on foreign partners, particularly from the United States. Most notably, these reactors often depend on enriched nuclear fuel, the production and supply of which is controlled by other countries.
As a result, SMRs do not simply represent a transition toward cleaner energy. Rather, they are deepening reliance on international supply chains that are vulnerable to political and economic disruption.
At the same time, there are growing concerns about the economic and technological uncertainties surrounding SMRs themselves. While often promoted as a more affordable and flexible alternative to large-scale nuclear plants, critics argue that these benefits remain largely theoretical. In Canada, SMRs are still in early stages of development, with no fully operational commercial units currently in place.
When Nuclear Plans Reach the Ground Below
SaskPower made a commitment to reach a net-zero electricity system by 2050. SaskPower is advancing SMRs while also initiating the early evaluation of large-scale nuclear plants, signalling a long-term restructuring of how electricity will be produced in the province.
Two potential sites, Boundary Dam Reservoir and Rafferty Reservoir, have been identified near Estevan in southeastern Saskatchewan, where detailed environmental and geotechnical studies are underway ahead of a final selection expected in 2025. As of 2026, while SMR development continues, in parallel, SaskPower has begun evaluating large nuclear reactor technologies.
(Photo by NASA via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
The region already hosts major coal-fired power facilities scheduled to be phased out by 2030, and it offers existing transmission infrastructure, energy workforce, and proximity to services needed to support a nuclear power project.
Within this plan, SMRs are framed as a reliable source of low-emission electricity, capable of providing continuous power to hundreds of thousands of homes without greenhouse gas emissions. However, the timeline shows how gradual this transition will be. SaskPower remains in a regulatory phase, with a final investment decision expected in 2029. Only after that would construction proceed, with operation projected for the mid-2030s, reflecting the extensive licensing, environmental review, and regulatory approval required before a reactor can be built.
The Farmers’ Perspective
What began as a family homestead has grown into a living orchard of more than 300 Saskatoon berry trees and over 100 chokeberry trees, many planted by hand decades ago. The land carries a deeper history still. A house built around 1911, once Arwen’s grandfather’s childhood home, was physically moved onto the property to preserve it.
“My grandparents bought the farm in 1972,” says Arwen. “My grandpa…he just loved doing it. It wasn’t even really a job for him.” Today, that same land sits within the broader region under consideration for nuclear development.
(Photo provided by Arwen)
“It’s a very rural location,” Arwen explains. “Not a lot of resources, not a lot of funding.” In Saskatchewan’s planning documents, the Rafferty Reservoir is positioned for nuclear deployment, linked to broader federal and provincial ambitions to decarbonize electricity systems by 2050. But for residents, the landscape is already shifting in quieter ways.
“My mom was telling me there’s been more power lines coming in,” Arwen says. “And if traffic increases, they will probably have to pave the roads. It changes the area.”
These timelines are unfolding alongside growing pressure on the electricity system itself. National projections indicate that electricity demand could increase by approxametly 44% from 2035 to 2050, driven by a combination of population growth, industrial expansion, and electrification. At the same time, the expansion of energy-intensive technology, including AI data centres, is adding new layers of demand that did not previously exist at this scale.
Investment is moving ahead in anticipation of this transition. Federal and provincial governments’ funding of approximately CAD6 million is being used to establish the SMR Safety, Licensing, and Testing Centre at the University of Regina. At the same time, Saskatchewan is preparing for a broader nuclear future beyond SMRs.
Whose Land, Whose Voice
“There’s about nine rows of Saskatoon berry trees…and chokecherries and crabapples,” Arwen said.
As provincial energy planning advances, she says uncertainty is already affecting how the land is viewed. Particularly in relation to potential infrastructure expansion and land acquisition pressure.
(Photo provided by Arwen)
Although Canada continues to promote SMRs as part of its clean energy and climate strategy, a growing coalition of society organizations and public health advocates have challenged this framing. More than 120 public interest and Indigenous organizations describe SMRs not as a climate solution, but as a “dirty, dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, arguing that the federal government is prioritizing the survival of the nuclear industry over environmental urgency.
A Dangerous Solution to an Open Crisis
The climate crisis, as emphasized by the United Nations and other scientific bodies, requires an emissions reduction of 45% by 2030. SMRs are widely seen as too slow to contribute within this timeframe. Most SMRs designs remain conceptual and will not be operational until at least the 2030s, missing the 2030 emissions reduction window necessary to prevent irreversible climate damage.
SMRs are not emissions-free in their full lifecycle and generate radioactive waste. After more than five decades of nuclear energy production, Canada still lacks a fully operational deep geological repository for high-level nuclear waste. This raises concerns that SMRs would intensify an already unresolved waste crisis.
Furthermore, some SMR designs propose fuel cycles involving reprocessing or burn-up fuels, which can produce more complex waste streams. Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel involves separating plutonium from radioactive fission products, a process that raises both technical and safety challenges as well as concerns about handling and contamination of these materials.
Plutonium separation through reprocessing can increase proliferation risks, since separated plutonium can, in principle, be used in nuclear weapons and requires tightly controlled fuel-cycle infrastructure. Transportation of radioactive materials to remote or distributed SMR sites also raises additional security and civil liberties concerns, particularly if heightened military-level protection becomes necessary.
SMRs in Canada are subject to regulatory pathways that critics argue fall short of full environmental assessment requirements. In particular, small reactors often bypass Canada’s Impact Assessment Act due to capacity thresholds, limiting formal requirements for comprehensive environmental review. This exclusion reduces opportunities for public participation and Indigenous consultation. While regulatory reviews by nuclear agencies occur, their processes are not equivalent to full environmental assessments, which evaluate broader ecological, cultural, and socioeconomic impacts before project approval.
Resistance for Generations to Come
For Arwen, the larger debates over SMRs become tangible through everyday realities on the farm. The proposed Rafferty Reservoir site sits within a region already dealing with drought, extreme weather fluctuations, and limited rural infrastructure.
“It’s a very finite water source,” Arwen said. “That part of Saskatchewan regularly experiences droughts. It’s notoriously quite dry.”
She worries that the long-term environmental pressures tied to industrial development compound existing challenges rural families already face. Until recently, the farm relied on hauled water before a purification system was installed, and internet access only arrived within the past several years.
“People don’t really know what farm life is like,” she said. “If you’re in minus 50-degree weather, hauling water is very challenging.”
(Photo provided by Arwen)
At the same time, she says the meaning of the land itself risks changing. What her grandfather built over decades as an orchard and gathering place is not considered important enough from the lens of infrastructure and modern development. For families living near Saskatchewan’s proposed reactor sites, the debate over SMRs is not only about electricity generation or climate policy. It is also about who carries the long-term environmental risk, whose communities are expected to absorb industrial transition, and what may be lost in the process.
Even now, the orchard remains shaped by the values Arwen says define her grandfather’s life: sharing food with neighbours, opening the land to family and strangers alike, and preserving something meant to outlast a single generation. Among the materials she shared was a passage preserved from Saskatchewan History (2005), one that she says reflects the philosophy her family carries through the years:
To those yet to come, we challenge you to cherish and preserve that which is inherited. It is your generation that must understand and make the decisions to carry it on.
Edited by Lubaba Mahmud
