The Darlington Nuclear Generating Station just outside Toronto has four CANDU nuclear reactors with a total output of 3,512 MW. It generates about 20 percent of Ontario’s electricity needs, enough for roughly two million homes. I recently toured the facility on a quick business trip to the area.
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Darlington Nuclear Generating Station
At the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station.
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Darlington Refurbishment
The Darlington Nuclear Generating Station came online in 1990, and was in operation when I lived in Toronto between 1986 and 1997. Three of the four reactors are back online after a major refurbishment project that began in 2016. The final reactor is scheduled to be refurbished and back online in 2028.
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Flow Element
Cutaway of a flow element at Darlington, used to monitor the pressure and flow rate of the heavy water coolant circulating through the nuclear reactor core, crucial for maintaining safe and efficient reactor operation.
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Reactor Vault
Looking down to the reactor vault for Darlington’s Unit 2. The first reactor to be refurbished, it came back online in 2020. Each reactor and its four accompanying steam generators are enclosed in separate buildings with heavily-reinforced 6-ft-thick (1.8m) concrete walls.
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Turbine Generator
The steam turbine generators for Unit 2 reactor. The generators for all four reactors are housed together in a massive turbine hall measuring 1900 ft long, 450 ft wide and by 146 ft high (580 m by 137 m by 45 m). The color-coding for the generators—red for Unit 1, yellow for Unit 2, green for Unit 3 and purple for Unit 4—extends through all systems for the unit and into the control room. The three larger housings at left cover the turbine blades that spin at 1800 rpm to turn a shaft that connects to the generator in the smaller housing at right.
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