The Federal Budget 2023, announced in March, showed strong support for nuclear power.
The budget offers a 15% refundable Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for clean electricity including nuclear and a 30% ITC for clean technology manufacturing (including nuclear energy equipment, and processing or recycling nuclear fuels).
The budget also explicitly backs nuclear power through a range of other initiatives, such as an extension of reduced tax rates, financing from the Canada Infrastructure Bank, cash for the regulatory authority, and half a billion dollars in SMR project investment.
I’m not arguing that it’s not difficult and expensive. Nuclear power plants are basically megaprojects. But they’re megaprojects that have dividends that last a good half century, and Canada is basically 100% self sufficient when it comes to nuclear operations making it not only up to us if it’s green or not, but energy security is guaranteed.
Of course excluding events like the cascade failure of the entire east or west coast power grids.
The issue is that we’ve had few governments strong enough to actually get shit done this last decade. And of them, the only one squandered that power (IMO) and made the country worse.
