Repurposing Pickering – An Innovative Approach to Identify New Uses and Reuses of a Nuclear Site

Abstract

As part of planning for the Pickering end of commercial operations and decommissioning, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has begun to explore the possibilities for new uses and reuses of the Pickering Nuclear site. The aim of OPG’s Repurposing Pickering initiative is to identify and eventually implement land uses that take advantage of existing assets – without interfering with decommissioning or limiting the site’s long-term potential.By developing and applying an approach that is inclusive, systematic and traceable, more than 600 ideas were received, consolidated and assessed in terms of suitability for implementation during the decommissioning period. As a result, 24 land use options – pertaining to four different land use categories – are recommended for further study on specific portions of the site.The majority of the land uses suggested was received through various public and stakeholder engagement activities.The assessment results correlate strongly with the input received directly from the public, whose ideas primarily related to the same four categories as above: power (33%) and recreational (31%) land uses, followed by institutional (19%) and industrial (14%). The remaining three categories – office, residential and retail – received negligible support; with regards to residential, about the same number of people explicitly said that they are against as those who said that they are for. Since developing a repurposing vision helps to shed light on a site’s assets, probability that these are recognized and can be leveraged will likely increase. For this reason, creating a repurposing plan can be a valuable complement to planning for shut down and decommissioning at any site – large or small, urban or rural.