nuclear-news

GIBBONS: Hydro power, not nuclear, is best for Ontario, BY JACK GIBBONS  https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/gibbons-hydro-power-not-nuclear-is-best-for-ontario   (Regarding Lorrie Goldstein’s column, “Nuclear power key to solving climate change,”Dec. 2.) 12 Dec 19, Using nuclear energy to address climate change is like offering every Toronto commuter a limo ride to work instead of building subways.

It’s simply the most expensive way to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.  Every nuclear project in Ontario’s history has run massively over budget. Remember the debt retirement charge on your hydro bill? You can thank bloated nuclear projects that left the old Ontario Hydro essentially bankrupt.

Ontario is one of the few places left that still sees nuclear as a viable way to keep the lights on. And that’s going to hit you where it hurts – in the wallet.

Ontario Power Generation has stated it needs to double the price it charges for nuclear energy to rebuild the Darlington nuclear station. Ontario has many better ways to simultaneously tackle climate change and lower electricity bills, something Premier Doug Ford has promised, but failed thus far to deliver.

Quebec has the lowest electricity prices on the continent thanks to its cost-efficient, water-power system. It also has a large and growing power surplus and is keen to make export deals.

Quebec has offered to sell Ontario power at half the cost of what we are paying for nuclear power today – one-third the cost of what we will be paying for nuclear power in five years.

Both the Kathleen Wynne and Doug Ford governments have turned up their noses at this offer to protect our high-cost nuclear industry.

Combine Quebec water power with energy efficiency programs in Ontario and you have the lowest-cost option for keeping the fridges humming.

Ontario pays, on average, two cents per kilowatt hour for efficiency measures that reduce the need to generate electricity in the first place. You may have doubts about solar and wind energy, but one thing is certain — prices for these sources are plummeting as costs for nuclear rise.

Quebec, by using its ability to store water, can act as a giant battery to smooth out the peaks and troughs of green energy in Ontario.

It can supply Ontario with plenty of power virtually every hour of the year. And it has that power right now – it doesn’t need to build new dams. In the few hours a year when Quebec’s own demand maxes out, Ontario has plenty of gas-fired power plants that can fill the brief gap.

For a fraction of the cost of rebuilding one nuclear reactor, we can upgrade our transmission links to get even more low-cost power from Quebec.

Instead of banking on phantom solutions like non-existent “small modular reactors” that, if they are ever built, will have all the waste, cost and security problems of conventional nuclear plants, Ontario should make a money-saving deal with Quebec.

As the people of Pickering are now discovering, Ontario has no long-term facility to store the huge pile of radioactive waste that has been built up over 50 years of nuclear operations.