In the three years since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) designated Ontario Tech University as its official Collaborating Centre for Canada, the university has been hard at work as a vital member in the nuclear-engineering-research field, through scholarship and through education. In partnership with IAEA, Ontario Tech has organized and/or participated in numerous international meetings, workshops and conferences, with the most recent activities taking place in Austria and Italy.

In early July, Dr. Igor Pioro from the university’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science (FEAS) was a presenter in Vienna at the IAEA’s first Co-ordinated Research Project (CRP) on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). The project brings together research institutes to collaborate and disseminate new knowledge and discovery.

SMRs are compact, simplified, nuclear-reactor designs with enhanced-safety features. In addition to generating carbon-free electricity, SMRs are seen as a sustainable pathway to supply off-grid heat and power for heavy industries, as well as providing power, heating, and desalination in remote communities.

In Ontario, the Darlington New Nuclear Project, overseen by OPG, is leading the way in the advancement of SMRs in Canada, with one SMR unit expected to be operational by 2029 and three further reactors planned for the 2030s, pending regulatory approvals.

In addition to the IAEA’s SMR project, Dr. Pioro has previously participated in other CRPs with the IAEA, on SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactors (SCWRs) and on heat-transfer behaviour and thermohydraulics code-testing for SCWRs.

Following the Austria event, Professor Pioro went to Trieste, Italy, where representatives from 21 countries met at the IAEA-UNESCO International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Joint ICTP-IAEA INPRO School on Strategic Planning for Sustainable Nuclear Energy to discuss the status of the global nuclear-power industry, including SMR development and deployment. Dr. Pioro presented his latest Handbook of Generation IV Nuclear Reactors, a resource used at Ontario Tech as a textbook for the FEAS undergraduate and graduate courses he teaches, as well as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, of which he is a Founding Editor and Editor-in-Chief since 2014.