PAYNE INSTITUTE COMMENTARY SERIES: COMMENTARY

By Kruthika A. Bala and Robert J. Johnston

March 10, 2026

As Canada expands its nuclear ambitions through small modular reactors (SMRs) and legacy technologies such as CANDU and AP-1000 reactor designs, a new strategic value chain for critical minerals demand is emerging. This value chain is built not only on uranium but also on an additional narrow set of non‑fuel materials and qualification regimes that are thin, slow to change and hard to duplicate. In this context, the nuclear sector is emerging as a fourth value chain for critical minerals, alongside clean energy, defence, and artificial intelligence/semiconductors.

Uranium mining, conversion, enrichment and HALEU programmes are already well covered in policy and industry discussions. The less examined side is the non‑fuel materials that make SMRs work. The key questions are which minerals and components are critical, how thin their supply chains are, and where Canada can credibly participate.

Canada is not alone in this ambition. The United Kingdom and Czechia have framed SMR deployment[1] explicitly as an export‑oriented industrial strategy, the European Union is building an SMR industrial alliance[2] to adapt regional supply chains, and US vendors are positioning their designs as the core of a wider SMR export system.

Canada’s best move is to pick a small number of midstream and qualification roles it can realistically capture and embed them in allied arrangements while first‑of‑a‑kind (FOAK) projects still give it leverage. This strategy would have the further benefit of supporting Canada’s market diversification efforts and geopolitical realignment with like-minded middle powers.

The nuclear opportunity for Canadian critical minerals is by no means limited to SMRs as the same non‑fuel materials are common to Canada’s CANDU fleet and large light‑water designs such as AP1000[3]. These include zirconium alloys for fuel cladding, reactor‑pressure‑vessel steels, Nickel‑Chromium‑Molybdenum alloys and advanced balance‑of‑plant components.  Against this backdrop, Canada’s strengths in uranium, critical minerals and nuclear operations give it a credible platform to occupy durable positions in SMR non‑fuel value chains.

A closing window for leadership in the fourth value chain

The shift to factory‑built SMRs multiplies the impact of midstream bottlenecks in zirconium, hafnium, nuclear‑grade steels and advanced electronics. As first‑of‑a‑kind SMR projects move from design to component orders, the specialised non‑fuel materials they rely on, including nuclear‑grade zirconium and hafnium, high‑spec steels and nickel alloys, rare‑earth‑dependent components and advanced electronics, take on strategic importance alongside fuel and reactor technology.

This has created a rare opening to build a serial nuclear product and a mineral‑backed supply chain at the same time. As first‑of‑a‑kind (FOAK) SMR projects at Darlington with the BWRX‑300[4] and at Point Lepreau with ARC‑100[5] move toward construction, on broadly similar timelines to early European projects such as Romania’s planned NuScale units[6], they are effectively fixing the FOAK blueprints that later nth‑of‑a‑kind (NOAK) units will follow, from ASME Section III pressure‑boundary rules and their certified material-organization requirements[7] and ISO 19443 quality systems[8] to the specific zirconium and nickel‑alloy families used in core components.

Because nuclear regulation makes re‑qualification of materials and “N‑Stamp” suppliers slow and expensive, these early design and procurement choices at Darlington, New Brunswick and emerging Alberta projects will harden into de facto supply-chain standards for at least one reactor generation, making this decade’s decisions unusually difficult to reverse .

Canada will not be the only pole in this emerging system. The US and its vendors, including Westinghouse under the Brookfield‑Cameco umbrella, are already consolidating an “industrial moat” by locking in  non-fuel supply chains around mature large‑reactor and SMR technologies, supported by US government financing and industrial‑base programmes. The UK and France bring deep experience in nuclear‑grade zirconium, forgings and fuel through the Rolls‑Royce SMR and EDF/Framatome ecosystems, while Russia and China are moving ahead with operational and near‑operational SMRs such as Akademik Lomonosov, HTR‑PM and ACP100 backed by vertically integrated zirconium/hafnium and rare‑earth chains that are geopolitically inaccessible to Canada.

Canada’s leverage lies not in duplicating these systems, but in building a small number of specialised nodes – in zirconium/hafnium, nuclear‑grade alloys, testing and rare‑earth midstream that allied programmes cannot easily substitute. In this sense, Canada’s choice is whether to remain primarily an upstream supplier and project host inside other countries’ SMR systems, or to negotiate recognised midstream roles within those alliances.

Nuclear‑grade zirconium and hafnium, specialised steels and nickel alloys, rare‑earth‑dependent components and the associated testing and qualification infrastructure are thin, in the sense that only a small number of plants worldwide can produce nuclear‑grade material, qualification cycles take years, and capacity additions require large, lumpy investments, yet they are high‑value segments where allied demand will be strong and where additional reliable capacity is still possible. Mapping these chains, selecting a small number of midstream and qualification roles where Canadian participation would materially improve resilience and export credibility, and aligning SMR deployment and critical‑minerals policy with those choices together define the core of an SMR‑focused industrial strategy.

These properties make SMR non‑fuel materials a fourth strategic value chain. They are thin, hard to substitute and governed by qualification systems in much the same way as batteries and semiconductors. In all three cases, a small number of midstream processors and specialized fabrication facilities exert outsized influence over costs, access and standards, which is precisely the dynamic emerging around SMR non‑fuel materials. Many of the key inputs, including hafnium and beryllium, also sit on the aerospace and defence side of the ledger, adding a dual‑use security dimension to any SMR materials strategy.

Canada’s new Defence Industrial Strategy[9] already commits to accelerating critical‑minerals projects and building sovereign capabilities in defence‑relevant supply chains; treating nuclear‑grade zirconium, hafnium and rare‑earth‑based components as part of that agenda would anchor SMR materials firmly in security policy rather than energy policy alone.

When nuclear becomes a high‑spec manufacturing business

The shift toward small modular reactors moves nuclear deployment from a construction‑led to a manufacturing‑led industrial model, and with it the mineral profile that sets the constraint shifts from bulk commodities like cement, structural steel and copper to high‑performance specialty materials. Beyond the familiar lithium and cobalt used across the energy transition, SMRs depend on nuclear‑grade zirconium for fuel cladding and internal structures, hafnium in some control elements, nuclear‑grade graphite and beryllium in certain high‑temperature and fast designs, and rare‑earth‑based magnets in pumps, drives and compact generators.

Hafnium supply is particularly thin and is tied to zirconium refining, which makes supply inelastic to demand from new reactor programmes. Zirconium ore is abundant, but the processing steps that turn it into nuclear‑grade metal with very low hafnium content are capital‑intensive and concentrated in a small number of facilities, primarily in China US and France. Rare‑earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium, used in high‑performance magnets, show a similar pattern where mining is diversifying, but separation and magnet manufacturing remain heavily concentrated in a few jurisdictions. In Canada, Ontario’s Ring of Fire region, with chromite, nickel, cobalt and other critical‑mineral prospects, illustrates how upstream endowments could underpin Nickel‑, Chromium‑ and Cobalt‑bearing alloys for SMR components, but only if paired with nuclear‑grade midstream processing rather than raw‑ore exports.

In this landscape, the binding constraint is often not the mineral itself but the ability to produce nuclear‑grade components at scale. High‑spec steels and nickel‑, chromium‑ and molybdenum‑bearing alloys for SMR pressure boundaries and high‑temperature internals must meet stringent design codes, and only a limited number of mills and forges worldwide are certified to produce these heavy sections. Many of the non‑fuel materials used in SMRs require very tight impurity control and extensive irradiation and corrosion testing before they are accepted into nuclear standards. The supply base for such components is much smaller than the underlying commodity markets.

As SMR designs diversify across water‑, gas‑, lead‑ and salt‑cooled concepts, qualification requirements also fragment. This raises first‑of‑a‑kind costs and slows the emergence of the “economies of series” that modular deployment assumes. For Canada, understanding these midstream and qualification bottlenecks is a precondition for deciding which parts of the non‑fuel value chain it wants to host and which it will secure through allied supply.

Alberta and Ontario already host heavy‑vessel and oil‑sands fabrication shops that handle large pressure equipment; the question is whether selectively upgrading some of this capacity to nuclear codes is more realistic than trying to replicate ultra‑large forging capability that will remain concentrated in Japan, Korea, Europe and the United States.

For most of these materials, the real competition is over midstream processing and qualified products that meet nuclear, aerospace or power‑electronics standards; it is at this stage that SMR non‑fuel materials overlap most directly with clean‑energy, semiconductor and defence supply chains. Many of these non‑fuel materials are not just dual‑use but shared, at broadly similar specifications, across other strategic value chains.

Rare‑earth magnet metals such as neodymium, dysprosium and terbium support SMR pumps and generators, the same class of motors in EVs and wind turbines, and actuators and guidance systems in defence platforms. High‑nickel superalloys and alloying metals such as molybdenum and niobium underpin both nuclear‑grade steels and the turbine blades and hot‑section components of civil and military jet engines, while beryllium and hafnium sit at the intersection of nuclear, aerospace and advanced sensing. Silicon‑carbide power devices for SMR drives and converters are drawn from the same semiconductor ecosystem that serves EV inverters and other high‑reliability power electronics, including many defence applications.

Canada’s strengths, gaps and leverage

Canada’s role in these non‑fuel value chains is uneven. It combines strong positions in upstream mining and nuclear operations with a much thinner presence in nuclear‑grade midstream processing and component manufacture.

Zirconium and hafnium are the most nuclear‑specific non‑fuel materials. Zircon‑bearing mineral sands are mined in several regions globally, and Canada has identified heavy‑mineral sand potential[10], but nuclear‑grade zirconium sponge and metal production amounts to only a few thousand tonnes per year, most of it consumed in the nuclear sector, with capacity concentrated in specialised plants in France, the United States, Russia, China and India[11]. Metallic hafnium has no independent mine supply. The roughly 70-100 tonnes[12] of hafnium metal that reach the market each year are recovered almost entirely as a by‑product of zirconium refining by this same small group of zirconium refiners[13] and are not fungible with generic zirconia, or industrial zircon uses. Canada has no zirconium/hafnium separation facilities, no zirconium sponge or zirconium‑alloy production, and no hafnium refining or control‑rod manufacturing and all nuclear‑grade zirconium alloys and any hafnium‑bearing components for SMRs are imported from allied suppliers[14],  although Canadian firms do fabricate zirconium‑alloy tubes for CANDU fuel using imported nuclear‑grade material. In this chain, Canada’s current role is limited to geological potential and downstream reactor use, with the entire nuclear‑grade midstream located abroad, which means it has no direct leverage over Zr/Hf availability or pricing for SMRs.

The policy case for developing Canadian zircon‑bearing mineral sands turns less on ore scarcity than on whether Canada can pair them with a stake in Zirconium/Hafnium separation and zirconium‑alloy production, at home or through allied plants. Zircon ore is geologically abundant and heavy‑mineral sands are already produced at scale in Australia, South Africa and elsewhere; the scarcity and strategic leverage sit in the nuclear‑grade processing steps and in hafnium separation. Without a midstream role, potentially through partnership with established players such as Framatome and Orano that already control fully integrated zirconium and hafnium manufacturing chains,  sands alone do little to change Canada’s position in SMR supply chains.

High‑spec steels and nickel‑, chromium‑, molybdenum‑ and niobium‑bearing alloys show a different pattern. Canada is a major producer of nickel with 125,364 tonnes[15] of mine output in 2024, fourth in the world and an important source of cobalt and other alloying metals and maintains domestic steelmaking and fabrication capability. Globally, only a limited set of mills and forges in Japan, Korea, Europe, North America and China can produce large sections and forgings to nuclear design codes; for most such components Canada remains a price‑taker relying on foreign supply. For large nuclear components and many code‑qualified materials, Canadian utilities and vendors still rely on suppliers in the United States, Europe and Asia, with the United States providing the North American anchor for reactor vendors, codes and finance. In this chain, Canada is upstream‑strong in metals but largely an importer in the nuclear‑grade component segment, so it has limited influence over the cost and timing of heavy SMR components. Alberta’s heavy‑vessel shops and BWXT’s CANDU‑focused manufacturing base offer partial platforms, but at present they assemble and finish components built around forgings produced in a small group of foreign nuclear‑qualified mills rather than displacing those mills[16].

In principle Canada could try to close this gap by building its own ultra‑heavy nuclear forging capacity, but the global market is thin, capital requirements are extreme, and a handful of existing allied forges already dominate orders, so Canada’s comparative advantage lies in leveraging imported forgings into high‑value nuclear fabrication and assembly rather than replicating the presses themselves.

Rare‑earth‑dependent components and advanced electronics are at an earlier stage. Canada has significant rare‑earth element resource potential and early‑stage efforts to build domestic separation and metal capacity, including Saskatchewan Research Council’s Rare Earth Processing Facility, which has received about CAD 70 million from the provincial government and CAD 30 million federally to build a vertically integrated “minerals to metals” hydrometallurgy, separation and metal smelting plant[17] targeting roughly 400 tonnes per year of neodymium-praseodymium magnet metals. Commercial REE magnet manufacturing, however, remains concentrated in a small number of countries, and Canada has no established silicon‑carbide power‑electronics fabrication for nuclear‑relevant applications. For SMRs, rare‑earth‑based magnets, actuators and advanced electronic components will, for the foreseeable future, be sourced from global OEMs and their upstream supply chains rather than from Canadian plants, leaving Canada as a price‑taker with little ability to shape these segments of the supply chain.

Canada is well positioned in mining and conventional nuclear operations but has limited presence in the nuclear‑grade midstream stages such as Zr/Hf separation and zirconium alloys, heavy nuclear forgings, rare‑earth separation at scale, magnet manufacture and specialised device fabrication where most scarcity and strategic leverage arise. In practical terms, political and commercial leverage in SMR non‑fuel materials sits primarily in these midstream and qualification stages rather than in mining itself. An SMR‑focused industrial strategy must therefore be explicit about which of these midstream roles Canada intends to build or host, and which it will secure through allied capacity and long‑term offtake. In forgings and heavy sections, the key question is whether existing Canadian heavy‑vessel and oil‑sands fabrication capacity, including plants in Alberta, can be credibly upgraded to nuclear‑grade codes at reasonable cost. If so, that may justify targeted investment, but a greenfield ultra‑large forging plant would require multi-billion-dollar presses and a long, uncertain order book and is best treated as a high-risk moonshot rather than a baseline assumption of Canada’s role in the fourth value chain

Choosing Canada’s role in SMR non‑fuel value chains

For Canada, three decisions matter most.  It must decide how explicitly to govern these chains, which midstream roles to build, and what form of structured alliance to rely on for the rest. Canada’s position across SMR non‑fuel value chains now supports clearer industrial choices. Given the pace of SMR procurement, not choosing where to participate in these chains over this decade is effectively a decision to accept whatever role emerges by default. The aim is to focus domestic effort on stages where a Canadian node would materially improve resilience and industrial advantage, and to secure the rest through allied capacity and long‑term supply arrangements.

A first step is to treat SMR non‑fuel materials as an explicit value chain inside Canada’s critical‑minerals and SMR strategies. That implies structured mapping of nuclear‑grade zirconium and hafnium, high‑spec steels and nickel‑based alloys, rare‑earth separation and magnet metals, and key advanced components in the same way batteries and semiconductors are already analysed. Such mapping would identify where strengths in geology, processing, testing and nuclear operations already exist and where gaps in zirconium/hafnium separation, zirconium‑alloy production, nuclear‑grade forging, rare‑earth midstream and device fabrication create concentrated risk. It would also distinguish clearly between production and processing capacity in Russia and China, where vertically integrated chains already exist, and the more fragmented capabilities in the United States and other allies, providing a sharper basis for deciding which parts of the fourth value chain Canada should try to host versus secure through allied arrangements rather than relying on general appeals to “supply‑chain resilience.”

On the build side, the most credible Canadian midstream and qualification roles are those that extend existing nuclear and minerals capabilities. Participation in zirconium/hafnium separation and zirconium‑alloy production, whether in Canada (potentially anchored in zircon‑bearing mineral sands development) or through equity and offtake in allied facilities, would reduce complete dependence on foreign cladding and hafnium sources and align with broader critical‑minerals ambitions. Expanded nuclear materials testing and qualification capacity using Canadian laboratories and operating units to move new alloys, welds and components into design codes would make Canada a reference environment for SMR materials, giving it some influence over which alloys and components enter codes and therefore over who can supply them, without requiring that all manufacturing occur domestically. Further development of rare‑earth separation capacity, tied into North American or allied magnet production, would position Canada as a contributor to REE midstream across EVs, wind and SMRs rather than a perpetual exporter of concentrates. Priorities should be limited to stages where Canada has real adjacencies and where added capacity would shift system‑level risk or bargaining power, rather than simply adding another high‑cost plant to segments that are already edging into oversupply on current projections, especially if those projections under-price geopolitical de-risking from Chinese dominance in rare-earth separation and magnet manufacturing.

Other stages are better secured through alliances and long‑term contracts than by attempting full domestic replication. Advanced silicon‑carbide power‑electronics fabrication, large nuclear‑grade forgings and highly specialised ceramic or isotopic processes are capital‑intensive, globally concentrated industries where SMR demand alone is unlikely to justify a full Canadian build‑out. In the case of forgings, Alberta’s experience with high‑temperature, high‑pressure vessels for the oil sands does provide a base for exploring targeted upgrades but matching the very largest dedicated nuclear forging presses in Japan, Korea or Europe would still be a high‑risk, capital‑intensive stretch rather than a near‑term baseline.

In these areas, acting as a reliable early offtaker, using Canadian SMR projects as anchor demand in North American and allied plants and embedding component access in structured industrial and fuel‑cycle agreements, rather than ad hoc procurement, is a more practical path, even if it entails a deliberate resilience premium and continued dependence on foreign technology in those segments.

In these segments, Canada’s most realistic path is as a structured anchor customer in allied plants, with access embedded in broader industrial and trade arrangements, including any future USMCA revisions, rather than attempts at full domestic replication that SMR volumes alone cannot support. Recent debates over F‑35 industrial benefits and US critical‑minerals initiatives such as Project Vault underline that Canada cannot take stable access to US defence and critical‑materials supply chains for granted; anchoring SMR non‑fuel materials in updated USMCA provisions is the cleanest way to turn that dependence into a rules‑based interdependence rather than a vulnerability. In practice this means structured arrangements with a small group of key partners, built around shared qualification rules and coordinated offtake, and offering predictable demand and local value‑addition opportunities to trusted suppliers, with formal guardrails in trade and industrial agreements, including USMCA reviews that explicitly cover nuclear‑grade alloys, zirconium/hafnium midstream and rare‑earth‑based components  to avoid one-sided dependence on any single  ally’s supply.

Together, these choices define an SMR‑focused industrial strategy that combines targeted domestic nodes with deep, rule‑based allied links, turning Canada’s SMR deployment into durable industrial leverage within an emerging fourth value chain.

References

[1] “UK and Czechia to Lead Global Race on Small Modular Reactors.” GOV.UK. July 13, 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-czechia-to-lead-global-race-on-small-modular-reactors.

[2] “Small Modular Reactors.” n.d. Energy.ec.europa.eu. https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/nuclear-energy/small-modular-reactors_en.

[3] 4. Reactor AP1000 Design Control Document Tier 2 Material 4.5 Reactor Materials 4.5.1 Control Rod and Drive System Structural Materials 4.5.1.1 Materials Specifications.” n.d. Accessed February 19, 2026. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1117/ML11171A447.pdf.

[4] Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. 2021. “Darlington New Nuclear Project.” Cnsc-Ccsn.gc.ca. 2021. https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/reactors/new-reactor-power-plant-projects/new-reactor-power-plant-facilities/darlington-new-nuclear-project/.

[5] Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. 2023. “New Brunswick Power’s ARC-100 Project.” Cnsc-Ccsn.gc.ca. 2023. https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/reactors/new-reactor-power-plant-projects/new-reactor-power-plant-facilities/nbpower/.

[6] “Nuclearelectrica Romania Approves SMR Nuclear Plant.” 2026. Energy News. 2026. https://energynews.oedigital.com/nuclear-power/2026/02/13/nuclearelectrica-romania-approves-smr-nuclear-plant.

[7] Nuclear Component Certification. n.d. Www.asme.org. https://www.asme.org/certification-accreditation/nuclear-component-certification.

[8] ISO – International Organization for Standardization. 2018. “ISO 19443:2018.” ISO. June 13, 2018. https://www.iso.org/standard/64908.html.

[9] “Prime Minister Carney Launches Canada’s First Defence Industrial Strategy to Strengthen Security, Create Prosperity, and Reinforce Strategic Autonomy.” 2026. Prime Minister of Canada. 2026. https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2026/02/17/prime-minister-carney-launches-canadas-first-defence-industrial.

[10] Zircon – Insufficient Supply in the Future? DERA Rohstoffi Nformationen 14. n.d. https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DERA/SharedDocs/Downloads/Rohstoffinformationen/rohstoffinformationen-14.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2.

[11] Argus. n.d. Review of Zr Sponge Demand to Rise on Nuclear Construction. https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2266283-zr-sponge-demand-to-rise-on-nuclear-construction.

[12] Argus. 2025. “Hafnium Approaches Two-Year High on Fresh Demand.” Argusmedia.com. Argus Media. October 8, 2025. https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2740115-hafnium-approaches-two-year-high-on-fresh-demand.

[13] Morace, Cole. 2025. “Hafnium Price-Surge – Quest Metals.” Quest Metals. September 8, 2025. https://www.questmetals.com/blog/hafnium-price-surge.

[14] Canada Zirconium Ores and Concentrates Imports by Country.  2023. Worldbank.org. 2023. https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/CAN/year/2023/tradeflow/Imports/partner/ALL/product/261510

[15] Canada, Natural Resources. 2023. “Nickel Facts – Natural Resources Canada.” Canada.ca. 2023. https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-analysis/minerals-metals-facts/nickel-facts.

[16] “Powering Progress with a Can-Do Mindset.” 2025. Canadianmetalworking.com. Canadian Metalworking. September 23, 2025. https://www.canadianmetalworking.com/canadianfabricatingandwelding/article/fabricating/powering-progress-with-a-can-do-mindset.

[17] Traviss, Megan. 2023. “Inside Canada’s First-Ever Rare Earth Processing Facility.” Innovation News Network. September 19, 2023. https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/inside-canadas-first-ever-rare-earth-processing-facility/35978/.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Kruthika A. Bala
Managing Director, Resources Now
Kruthika brings over two decades of experience in driving growth, innovation, and impact at the intersection of global energy, industrial development, climate solutions, and natural resource management. Based in London, she is the Managing Director of Resources Now, where she leads advisory and consulting work across energy markets, critical mineral supply chains, and geopolitics, advancing strategies that underpin industrial development, economic resilience, and energy security. With previous leadership roles at J.S. Held, Eurasia Group and Frost & Sullivan, Kruthika has led strategic engagements with executive teams in navigating multifaceted geopolitical, market, and decarbonisation challenges. She advises organisations through complex challenges across energy, technology, policy, and sustainability, bringing together technical insight with extensive strategic consulting and project leadership experience.

Robert J. Johnston
Senior Research Fellow, Payne Institute for Public Policy
Robert “RJ” Johnston is the Director of Energy and Natural Resources Policy at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy and Senior Research Associate at the Colorado School of Mines Payne Institute of Public Policy.

Previously, RJ was Senior Director of Research at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. RJ also served as the founder of the Eurasia Group’s Energy, Climate, and Resources practice and was the firm’s CEO from 2013 to 2018.

RJ is an independent advisor to the First Nations Climate Initiative and serves as an advisor on North American energy policy to a New York-based diversified investment management firm. He serves as a counselor for the Canada-US Trade Council. He also served as Project Director for the Aspen Institute Task Force on US Critical Minerals Policy.

RJ is a member of the Trilateral Commission and co-chairs the Open Minds Next Generation initiative on the dual energy/climate policy challenge. He was a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center from 2017 to 2021.

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