Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power station located 2 km northeast of Point Lepreau, New Brunswick, Canada. The facility was constructed between 1975 and 1983 by NB Power, the provincially owned public utility. The facility is located on the northern shore of the Bay of Fundy and derives its name from the nearby headland situated at the easternmost part of Charlotte County, although the generating station itself is located within Saint John County. The generating station is administratively part of the local service district of Musquash, west of the city of Saint John. The Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station is the only nuclear generating facility located in Atlantic Canada and the only operating Canadian nuclear power station located outside of Ontario. The facility consists of a single CANDU nuclear reactor, having a net capacity of 660 MW (705 MW gross). History Construction The construction of a nuclear powered electrical generating station in New Brunswick had been discussed since the late 1950s. For over fifteen years, engineers from the New Brunswick Electric Power Commission visited AECL's Chalk River Laboratories to keep abreast of the latest trends in the field. Formal talks between the Government of New Brunswick and the Government of Canada began in 1972. Discussions accelerated the next year, in the midst of the 1973 oil crisis, as the provincial government began to seriously consider options for diversifying New Brunswick's electrical generation and reduce its reliance on oil. However, financing the venture was a problem since the province had a limited borrowing capacity. The borrowing capacity was solved by the federal government in January 1974 with the announcement of a loan program covering half the costs of a first nuclear plant in any province in Canada. Premier Richard Hatfield announced his intention to build a nuclear generating station in New Brunswick on 5 February 1974. Hatfield's Progressive Conservative Party was reelected in that fall's general election, despite misgivings of the nuclear generation plan by part of the population. In March 1975, Hatfield declared on television that the decision was final, and that the reactor would be built regardless of the ongoing environmental assessment process, in a move described by New Brunswick sociologist Ronald Babin as the "nuclear fait accompli policy". On 2 May 1975, the Atomic Energy Control Board authorized the construction of two 635-MW reactors on a site designed to host four in Point Lepreau, 20