This article was published by The Energy Mix on Oct. 27, 2025.
The federal and Ontario governments have announced a combined $3 billion in new subsidies to support small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) development at the Darlington generating station east of Toronto.
Ottawa will hand over $2 billion to the project via the Canada Growth Fund, while Ontario will come up with the other $1 billion through the Building Ontario Fund.
The Darlington SMR was one of the five major “nation-building” projects on the initial priority list the federal government released in mid-September.
“This is a generational investment that will build lasting security, prosperity, and opportunities,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a Thursday morning release. “We’re building big things to build Canada Strong.”
“As we navigate tariffs and global volatility, it’s never been more important to create a more competitive, more resilient and self-reliant province that can withstand whatever comes our way,” said Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy. “We are investing in this nation-building project that will secure the clean, reliable energy our growing province needs while creating thousands of good-paying jobs for Ontario workers.”
In May, the Globe and Mail priced the first 300-mewgawatt SMR at Darlington at $7.7 billion and the entire project at close to $21 billion, “which independent observers say is higher than necessary to spark widespread adoption.”
The Globe referred back to that history in its coverage of Thursday’s announcement.
“Nuclear reactors have a long record of blowing budgets and taking far longer to construct than promised,” the Globe wrote. “The Darlington SMR, which was originally planned for completion in 2028, has already suffered delays because regulatory approvals from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission arrived later than [Ontario Power Generation] expected.”
On Thursday, Carney “decried regulatory delays and said the Major Projects Office will ‘fast track’ approvals,” the news story adds.
In May, the Globe said the Darlington project was being “watched closely by utilities around the world,” with potential for follow-on business development in the United States, Britain, Poland, Estonia, and elsewhere. But the estimated cost of the project was “higher than what independent observers argue are necessary to attract many more orders. For comparison, a recently completed 377-megawatt natural gas-fired power station in Saskatchewan cost $825-million.”
Ed Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Cambridge, MA-based Union of Concerned Scientists, called the Ontario estimate “an eye-popping figure, but not unexpected given what we know about the poor economics of small nuclear reactors.” That would make the Darlington SMR facility “a boutique unit that’s going to produce electricity for a very expensive price.”
An independent study released in May by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance found that the Darlington SMRs will cost up to eight times as much as onshore wind, almost six times as much as utility-scale solar, and 2.7 times as much offshore wind in the Great Lakes after factoring in federal tax credits.
“It remains unclear how this, and the province’s larger nuclear expansion program, will actually be paid for,” Mark Winfield, co-chair of York University’s Sustainable Energy Initiative, told The Energy Mix at the time. “Putting this on the rate base means higher rates for Ontario electricity consumers, even if the costs are as claimed.”
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