‘It looked bleak’: Bruce Power looks back on 25th anniversary of saving nuclear plant from closure

Bruce Power on Lake Huron is shown in this undated image. (Bruce Power)

Bruce Power is currently planning to add four more reactors to their eight-reactor fleet, which would make the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station the largest nuclear station in the world.

But 25 years ago, it was a very different story.

“There were units closing down, and it looked like there was not going to be a future for Bruce nuclear. It seemed like that was all coming to an end, and people were moving out of our communities,” said Saugeen Shores Mayor Luke Charbonneau.

Just 10 years after building and bringing online eight nuclear reactors at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, Ontario Hydro decided in the mid 90s that due to a glut of available energy, they’d shutter four of Bruce’s reactors.

The move gutted midwestern Ontario, with many fearing a regional recession with thousands of jobs leaving Bruce County.

In 2001 a British based consortium swooped in and offered to lease and operate the facility with plans to immediately restart the shuttered reactors, keeping thousands of people employed.

“We were going from a governmental organization to a private public partnership. What did that mean? It meant a lot of opportunity to invest into the site, so there was a ton of optimism. A lot of people didn’t know what to expect, but there was a ton of optimism, and Bruce Power certainly has delivered on that,” said Byron House, who had just started at the nuclear station, five months before Bruce Power arrived.

Restarting shuttered nuclear reactors had never been done before, but House and a team of eager employees embarked on a decades long journey that would see the Bruce nuclear station become whole again, with all eight reactors operational again by 2012.

It was a move that saved jobs and the entire nuclear station.

“We didn’t have the ability to do years of advance planning or front-end planning like we do now. We literally came in, looked around, assessed the plant condition, and figured out what work needed to be done, and we set a pretty aggressive target to get that work done,” recalled House, who is now Bruce Power’s senior director of future unit planning.

Fast forward to today, and Bruce Power has more than 4,000 employees and are in the process of extending the life of most of their reactors until 2064, while planning on adding four more reactors to their fleet.

“Restarting units, returning to our maximum potential, producing medical isotopes, establishing one of the largest infrastructure projects in Canada, helping with the phase out of coal. It truly is remarkable to look back on that 25 years,” said Bruce Power Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer James Scongack.

“Since 2006, and my whole time on council, the whole story of the community in the region has been growth. And Bruce Power shows every sign that the next 25 years, are going to be even more prosperous than the last 25 have been,” added Charbonneau, who was 19 when Bruce Power took over the nuclear facility.

With billions of dollars invested into the site to date, and billions more earmarked in the future, there is great optimism that Bruce Power is not only here to stay but will only be a larger part of midwestern Ontario’s economy.

“The success of those previous projects is the reason why we’re now talking about the ability to do another generational build. The opportunity is tremendous,” said House.

“All of that is because of the ambition of Bruce Power, to see those reactors run for many more years to come, and to see the site expand. They’ve given opportunities to a lot of people in our community, and they’ve created a lot of investment in Saugeen Shores, Kincardine and Bruce County, including Huron and Grey County, and beyond,” said Charbonneau.