Taryn Roske lost her job twice when the nuclear industry had ground to a halt. The Cameco employee and hundreds of others were laid off from the company’s Rabbit Lake mine in northern Saskatchewan after it shut down in 2016. “I had to sell my house,” Roske said in a recent interview. “I ended up taking a loss on that, because the housing market was in a horrible place.” Four months later, she got a job at Cameco’s McArthur River mine and Key Lake mill. But they stopped operating two years later, and more layoffs followed. “They were able to give me that information (about the closure) ahead of time, so I could start applying for other jobs,” Roske recalled. She ended up getting a position at the company’s Cigar Lake mine, where she has worked ever since. Still, she added, it was a stressful time for many in the industry. “I think people thought that it was kind of over and that we weren’t going to make a comeback. “But in the last few years, it’s proved otherwise.” Following about a decade of stagnation, the nuclear industry is now seeing what some are calling a renaissance. Countries across the globe, from China and India to the United States, are either building or promising to construct more nuclear power plants. In Canada, the federal government has proposed 10 new reactors by 2040. Ottawa also wants to sell Canadian-made reactors to more countries and double uranium exports. Ontario is building a small modular reactor at the existing Darlington station in Bowmanville, northeast of Toronto. Saskatchewan is also planning to construct a small reactor in the 2030s. Uranium is the main fuel component in most nuclear reactors. The radioactive metal is made into pellets that reactors use to create heat and generate electricity. Saskatoon-based Cameco, which formed in 1988 following a merger between two Crown corporations, is one of the world’s largest uranium producers. At Cameco, better market conditions have allowed the company to restart operations. In 2022, McArthur River and Key Lake resumed production. Cigar Lake is also planning to start extracting uranium from a newer section of the mine in 2030. At Rabbit Lake, however, production remains suspended. “The need for nuclear power -- we see it,” said Kirk Lamont, general manager of Cigar Lake. “People are power hungry.” Before its recent ascent, the industry’s downfall can be traced back to the Fukushima disaster in Japan. In March 2011, an earthquake triggered a tsunami that overwhelmed the Daiichi nuclear power plant, resulting in meltdowns and explosions that released radioactive material into the environment. The earthquake and tsunami killed about 22,000 people, and thousands more resettled elsewhere due to radiation. Uranium prices plunged, and public attitudes over nuclear power soured. “The world said, ‘We don’t need -- we don’t want -- this uranium. We don’t want nuclear power,’” Lamont recalled. “It was devastating to the people that work (at Cameco).” Peter Elder, the chief scientific officer with Canadian Nuclear Labs, said public opinion started to change a few years ago for two main reasons. Countries want to reduce their emissions while meeting growing electricity demands, he said. Nuclear power produces no emissions, though waste needs to be safely stored away. Countries also want a reliable energy source they can control. For example, those that use nuclear power are better equipped to handle disruptions to the oil and gas supply chain, Elder said. “Once you build (nuclear), it’s relatively safe from someone not turning off your tap nearly as easily as oil or natural gas.” Some tech giants in the United States have also inked deals to have their data centres powered by nuclear energy, Elder added. “They’re going to pay a bit of a premium for that, because they want really high reliability on their electricity, something that you can’t right now get from any renewable source.” Japan has cited energy security as a reason to reopen some plants, after initially promising to phase them all out. In Canada, the mining sector is also capitalizing on the comeback. There are two companies building new mines in Saskatchewan. Denison Mines Corp. is working on the Wheeler River project, while NexGen Energy Ltd. is constructing its Rook I site. Production from both sites isn’t expected for another few years. But Elder said there’s more than enough uranium to go around. All of Canada’s uranium mines are located in the Athabasca basin of northern Saskatchewan. “If you look at the capacity in Saskatchewan, you could almost see that in the next few years it could triple,” Elder said. He added Canada will need a strong workforce if it wants to build more reactors. The country may also have to deal with longer timelines to get them constructed. At Cameco, the revival could mean additional investment. “It’s those contracts that we sign that are going to enable us and backstop the investment in growing our production as we can,” said Cory Kos, Cameco’s vice-president of investor relations. For Roske, the uranium resurgence has been a “huge blessing.” “It’s longevity in my career,” she said. “It’s given me 16 years now, and hopefully it’s long enough for me to retire.”
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