Belledune Partners Pick BWXT's BANR for a Transportable Nuclear Plant

Pabineau First Nation, Eel River Bar First Nation and Prodigy Clean Energy have selected BWX Technologies' BANR microreactor for a transportable nuclear power plant proposed for Belledune. BWXT announced the choice on October 5. The same day, Ontario Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce and New Brunswick Deputy Premier René Legacy, who is also the province's finance and energy minister, put out a joint announcement that BWXT Canada would fabricate and deploy the plant. All three releases call it a pilot. It is a technology pick for a project that has not yet chosen a site or applied for a licence.

The machine they named is a different kind of reactor from the one New Brunswick already runs. Point Lepreau is a single CANDU-6. BANR, as BWXT publishes it, is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor that is still being designed, and Prodigy's plant packages it so the whole thing can be built in a factory and shipped.

What was already agreed in September

On September 1, the two First Nations and Prodigy said an exclusive agreement would put a First Nations-owned plant of up to 50 megawatts electric on their traditional territory in Belledune, with power aimed at the early 2030s. At peak output they said it could supply up to 40,000 homes. The campus they described includes an operations and maintenance hub for a future northern fleet, worker training, and an Indigenous Energy Innovation Visitor Centre. The plant itself, they said, would mean more than 150 jobs during site preparation and 40 permanent jobs on site.

The Government of New Brunswick signed a letter of intent to take the electricity and told Natural Resources Canada it intends to put the project in front of the federal Major Projects Office. That is an offtake signal and a federal referral plan. The September release does not publish a price, a contract term, or a signed power-purchase agreement.

Chief Terry Richardson of Pabineau called it a model for Indigenous ownership of transportable nuclear plants in northern and Arctic regions. Chief Chris George of Eel River Bar said the next work is public engagement and permitting. Legacy, in the October release, called it "the first Indigenous-led nuclear project in Canada" and said the supply chain would be built in New Brunswick. Ontario's headline counts nearly 200 jobs, adding the site-preparation and permanent figures together.

September's plant was reactor-agnostic. Prodigy described a civil structure that can package different reactors, from a megawatt to gigawatt scale, for a coast or for land. October 5 is the down-select: two BANR cores inside that structure.

The CANDU-6 already running at Point Lepreau

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission lists Point Lepreau as one CANDU-6 (CANada Deuterium Uranium) pressurized heavy-water reactor on the Bay of Fundy, about 40 kilometres southwest of Saint John. Commercial operation started February 1, 1983. NB Power owns it and holds the operating licence, which runs from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2032 and also covers an onsite facility for solid radioactive waste. CNSC inspectors are posted at the station full time. In 2025 it supplied about a third of the electricity used in the province, NB Power says.

The capacity figures differ because they measure different things. NB Power's station profile gives gross output of 715,000 kilowatts; the utility's prose uses the 660-megawatt net figure, what reaches the grid after the station's own load. The CNSC page lists installed capacity of 705 megawatts electric.

The design rests on two choices, as NB Power explains it. The fuel is natural uranium, not enriched. Heavy water (D2O) slows the neutrons enough for that fuel to sustain a chain reaction, and a second, separate heavy-water loop carries the heat away. The reactor has 380 fuel channels holding 4,560 bundles of about 20 kilograms each. Fuel is changed while the reactor runs, and a bundle stays in the core six months to a year. Four pumps move the heavy water to four boilers, which make steam at 260°C for the turbines. The reactor sits in a prestressed concrete containment building 42 metres tall, with walls 1.2 metres thick.

Lepreau has had a stop-start year. It was offline from September 11 to September 26 to repair an instrumentation line on the heat-transport system after monitors detected elevated tritium inside the reactor building. NB Power said the tritium stayed contained and posed no risk. It was the station's third return to service since August, NB Power's newsroom shows.

What BWXT has specified for BANR

BWXT's BANR product page says the reactor is being designed as a modular, factory-fabricated high-temperature gas-cooled reactor rated at 75 megawatts thermal, for remote power and industrial heat. The October 5 release gives the electric rating: 22 megawatts per core. Two cores make 44 megawatts, inside the "up to 50 megawatts electric" plant in the September agreement. Fifty megawatts is about one-thirteenth of Lepreau's 660-megawatt net output. The product page also pitches BANR for process heat in mining and oil and gas, but the Belledune documents describe an electricity plant with a provincial offtake letter, not a heat customer.

The fuel is the clearest break from the CANDU-6. Instead of natural-uranium bundles, BANR uses TRISO: coated particles in which several layers surround a uranium kernel enriched to 19.75 percent, which the October release calls high-assay low-enriched uranium. BWXT says the particles resist irradiation, corrosion, and high temperatures better than conventional fuels, and that the coatings "form a functional containment around the uranium kernel" to keep fission products inside. That is the vendor's description of fuel for a reactor still being designed.

BWXT also says the reactor is being designed for passive cooling that does not rely on power or active systems to remove decay heat, the heat fuel keeps producing after the chain reaction stops. That is a design goal. The CNSC has not licensed BANR, and the claim is not a regulator's finding that the design is safer than a CANDU-6.

Several things NB Power publishes for Lepreau are not in BWXT's public material for BANR: the coolant gas, how long a core stays loaded, whether refuelling means a shutdown, and the steam conditions, turbine and cooling-water figures. The releases do say the plant arrives fully assembled and "ready for fueling," so loading fuel would happen at the site.

A plant built to be shipped in and taken away

Prodigy's part is the building. Its September release describes a factory-built, nuclear-qualified civil structure, carried dry as cargo on a heavy-lift ship, installed in about 18 months, and designed to be removed whole at the end of its life for decommissioning elsewhere. Prodigy presents that as the answer to legacy waste at the site. Neither release gives the structure's dimensions or describes onsite waste storage. Lepreau, by contrast, is a fixed station with its waste licensed on the same headland.

BWXT says the two Belledune cores and the nuclear and non-nuclear balance of plant would be fabricated principally at its Ontario facilities, with Kinectrics, a BWXT-owned engineering firm, supporting the work. The product page places BANR in the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which aims to show that small advanced reactors can be commercially viable.

Prodigy chief executive Mathias Trojer called BANR "a best-in-class advanced nuclear technology with a credible pathway to delivering the G7's first commercially operating Transportable Nuclear Power Plant." Lecce described it as Canada and the G7's first commercial transportable plant. Both are describing a proposal.

What October 5 does not finish

September's timetable still governs the hard parts. The partners said they would set up the proponent venture, pick and characterize a site, choose a reactor ready for commercial generation by 2032, and aim at a Licence to Prepare Site application and a final investment decision within 18 months. A qualified nuclear operating organization, which would hold the facility licence, is still to be procured. BWXT says it and Prodigy are "working toward a definitive agreement" covering development, licensing, supply chain, financing and deployment, and its release flags both that agreement and the project as forward-looking.

Belledune now has a reactor vendor, a pair of core ratings, and a plan to ship in a finished plant. It does not yet have a site, a licence, a final investment decision, or a priced power contract.

Sources

• BWXT's BANR Microreactor Chosen for Canadian Transportable Nuclear Power Plant Project — October 5, 2026: selection by Prodigy, Pabineau and Eel River Bar; two BANR units; 75 MWth / 22 MWe; high-assay low-enriched uranium in TRISO; passive cooling; flexible power conversion; plant arrives fully assembled for fueling and fuel-in commissioning; about 18-month installation; Ontario fabrication; Kinectrics as a BWXT-owned company; Trojer, MacQuarrie and Lecce quotes; definitive agreement still ahead; forward-looking caution
• BWXT Advanced Nuclear Reactor (BANR) — product page: reactor "being designed"; 75 MW thermal high-temperature gas-cooled reactor; TRISO with uranium enriched to 19.75 percent; cogeneration or all-electric output; passive removal of decay heat without power or active systems; coating layers described as a functional containment around the kernel; road-and-rail modules and factory testing; U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The page does not name the coolant gas or a refuelling interval
• Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station — Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission — one CANDU-6 pressurized heavy-water reactor; CANada Deuterium Uranium; installed capacity 705 MWe; commercial operation February 1, 1983; NB Power licensee; operating licence July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2032; onsite solid radioactive waste; Bay of Fundy, about 40 km southwest of Saint John; resident inspectors
• Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station temporarily offline — NB Power — September 14, 2026: offline September 11 for an instrumentation-line repair; 660 MW net capacity; about one-third of provincial electricity in 2025
• Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station returns to operation — NB Power — September 28, 2026: back online September 26; elevated tritium in the reactor building, contained; NB Power's 2026 newsroom lists earlier returns on August 20 and September 9
• Nuclear — NB Power, our business — "the 660 MW unit" and first CANDU-6 in commercial operation; station profile including 715,000 kW gross, 380 channels, 4,560 bundles of 37 elements, on-power refuelling, four coolant pumps, four boilers, steam at 260°C, turbine layout, 26,000-volt generator, seawater condenser at 25.8 m3/s, low-pressure prestressed concrete containment
• How CANDU 6 works — NB Power — natural uranium; heavy water as moderator and as coolant in two systems; 12 bundles per channel; bundle about 20 kg; residence of six months to a year; ordinary water boiled in the boilers; containment building 42 metres tall with 1.2-metre walls, dousing, coolers, airlocks, and filtered discharge
• Ontario's World-Class Nuclear Supply Chain Building Canada's First Microreactor Project — October 5, 2026: Lecce and Legacy (Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance, Treasury Board and Energy); BWXT Canada to fabricate and deploy; "pilot project"; nearly 200 jobs; Legacy's "first Indigenous-led nuclear project" quote; more than 150 development jobs and about 40 long-term positions; up to 40,000 homes; First Nations-owned campus and visitor centre
• Pabineau, Eel River Bar and Prodigy to deploy a TNPP — September 1, 2026: exclusive agreement; up to 50 MWe; reactor-agnostic plant; letter of intent; Major Projects Office intent; Chief Richardson and Chief George; 150 site-prep jobs and 40 permanent jobs; factory-built, heavy-lift delivery, about 18 months, arrives fully assembled; removal for centralized decommissioning; Licence to Prepare Site and an 18-month final-investment target; operating organization still to be hired
• Prodigy Clean Energy — developer of the transportable plant