Bruce Power Looking to 2020 & Beyond

At Bruce Power, 2020 means so much more than the start of a new decade.

To borrow a hockey term, we will be dropping the puck in January on what is going to be a challenging, incredibly busy and exciting next 10 years for our company and people. We believe what lies ahead will also allow us to have a positive impact on our surrounding communities, and we look forward to collaborating with our local governments, businesses and organizations to make our piece of rural Ontario a special place for people of all ages, families and visitors.

You most likely have read and heard for a while now about our preparations for the Major Component Replacement Project . . . . or MCR. The project is the next phase of our Life-Extension Program to replace the nuclear reactor components that will extend the life of our units, and this site, to 2064. On January 17, we’re raising the curtain on MCR with the start of the Unit 6 refurbishment.

As one of the two largest infrastructure projects in Canada, the Unit 6 project will create an additional 22,000 direct and indirect jobs across the province over the next 4-5 years and is giving Ontario’s economy a $4-billion boost.

The impact of the increased activity will be felt here in our own backyard to the benefit of local businesses. In fact, we’ve seen 59 companies open offices in Bruce, Grey and Huron counties since 2016 and we expect that number to grow as MCR moves into high gear.

MCR and the Life-Extension Program are necessary for Bruce Power to continue providing clean, low-cost and reliable power to the province through 2064. Producing electricity will always be our No. 1 focus, yet the work being done by our people has also delivered an opportunity to be a leader in the production of life-saving medical isotopes. In 2019, we made a series of announcements around those isotopes, including an agreement with industry leaders Kinectrics and Framatome to combine our efforts around the production of a key medical isotope known as Lutetium-177, used to treat prostate cancer. Another agreement we signed with the Saugeen Ojibway Nation means we will be working together to create new economic opportunities within the SON territory around these new isotopes.

We live in a world that’s changing every day and requires collaboration and innovation to not only keep up with new technologies and business practices, but to lead the way. 2020 promises to be a big year for the Nuclear Innovation Institute, a partnership between Bruce Power, the County of Bruce, area municipalities and leaders in the nuclear industry.

NII will open the doors of its new location in Saugeen Shores in the next few weeks, bringing together the best and brightest people to find solutions to problems faced by communities, help young people identify opportunities through skilled trades and other careers, or coming up with big, new ideas on medical isotopes and small modular reactors.

As always, please contact me at [email protected] if you have any questions. You can also follow me on a Twitter @jscongack.