nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Tripling nuclear power: public relations fairy dust

January 2024,  https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/664455/111177290781558405

The federal government recently endorsed two similar nuclear fantasies.

This month, Natural Resources Canada published a statement endorsing a plan to work with other countries to “advance a global aspirational goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity from 2020 by 2050.” 
The global nuclear declaration attracted endorsements from only 22 countries. In contrast, the official COP28 pledge to triple renewable energy by 2030 was signed by 123 countries and adopted by consensus as the official COP declaration.Earlier, in 2023, the Canadian energy regulator projected a tripling of Canadian nuclear generation capacity by 2050.

Why is Canada engaged in a nuclear fantasy?

Nuclear power plants operate in only two provinces. About 60% of Ontario’s electricity is produced by 18 nuclear power reactors. New Brunswick’s one power reactor produces about 19% of the electricity used in that province, when it’s not shut down. The federal energy regulator models envision tripling nuclear capacity by building small modular nuclear reactors in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is promising that its SMR design will be the first in the world to be deployed commercially starting in 2030, although the design has not yet been licenced to build in Canada or anywhere else.

Assuming that this unit is chosen for widespread deployment in Canada, nearly 90 would need to be built and operating effectively on the grid between 2030 and 2050 to achieve the proposed tripling. Given the known construction time overruns for nuclear power plants, this is impossible.

Environment and Climate Change Canada published the official COP28 statement that does not mention nuclear energy. Instead, it highlights “groundbreaking goals to triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency, and, for the first time ever… a historic consensus to move away from fossil fuels in energy systems.”

Tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 is sensible and doable, as long as the requisite political will is present. It is past time to get real about the energy generation technologies we need to be supporting.

January 27, 2024 - Posted by | Canada, spinbuster

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

« Previous | Next »