nuclear-news

With nuclear power plants approaching end of life, what’s next in Ontario?    Barrie Today, Peter Bursztyn 25 Nov 20, ‘Two decades is just enough time for major new electricity generation projects to go through the planning and permitting process, get built, and come on line,’ says reader

In other words, these dams spill a great deal of water which could instead flow through a turbine to generate power.

Taken as a whole, James Bay is one of the world’s largest power generation projects. Its capacity is 15,527 megawatts, the equivalent of 16 nuclear power plants.

In 1971, when the project began, the Canadian government tried to persuade Quebec to choose nuclear power instead.

With hindsight, Quebec was wise to choose hydroelectricity. Ontario, which did not have similar hydroelectric resources, built
nuclear.

Unfortunately, we found nuclear to be a costly method of producing electricity; expensive enough that much of the debt incurred to build Ontario’s nuclear “fleet” still remains on the province’s books a half-century on. We never managed to pay it off…….

our fleet of nuclear power plants is coming to the end of its design life. Over the coming two decades, most of our nuclear fleet will begin to wink out.

We know that we cannot replace them with new nuclear units; they are simply too costly. The last Liberal government called for tenders to build nuclear plants, but insisted the bidders had to be responsible for cost over-runs. As a result, two of the three potential builders dropped out. The third offered to build, but refused to accept responsibility for cost escalation.

The nuclear plan was quietly dropped………..

Ontario cannot generate enough renewable, carbon-free electricity to replace our current nuclear output within our own borders. (It is worth saying that nuclear power is not renewable.) Fortunately, our neighbouring provinces — Manitoba and Quebec — have the potential to generate considerably more than they currently use.

Many of Quebec’s already completed dams have space in their turbine halls for more units. Quebec could “drop in” about 13,000 MW of generation. This is roughly equal to Ontario’s nuclear capacity, and not all of our nuclear units are running at any one time.

Quebec has also surveyed other potential hydroelectric sites, both to the south and to the north of the James Bay project. More hydroelectric power could be exploited in northeast Quebec.

Our western neighbour, Manitoba, has a number of sites with hydroelectric generation potential on the Nelson River near major existing power stations. There is also untapped potential hydroelectric power available to the southeast of Lake Winnipeg, even closer to Ontario. ……….

Although the wind doesn’t blow continuously, expanding wind generation would reduce the amount of electricity Alberta needs to purchase from B.C. Since hydro power can be ramped up very rapidly, it would also reduce or even eliminate the need for gas-fired generation to meet demand peaks. Of course, the same applies to Ontario.

We are a country blessed with a great deal of hydroelectric potential. Inexpensive, carbon-free electricity generation is within our grasp. All it needs is vision and leadership. https://www.barrietoday.com/letters-to-the-editor/letter-with-nuclear-power-plants-approaching-end-of-life-whats-next-in-ontario-2902273