by Toby A.A. Heaps (First published in the October edition of Corporate Knights Magazine)

How we can quench our thirst for energy and break our addiction to fossil fuels.

When Amory Lovins, the Colorado-based energy efficiency guru and chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Institute, learned that Ontario plans to plough $40 billion into nuclear power, he blew a gasket.

Download the pdf of the full article, which includes photos and charts.
From an e-mail he sent to us (which we circulated to Queen’s Park): “Nuclear power has died of an incurable attack of market forces and is way beyond any hope of revival. How can Ontario afford the most uneconomic, capital-intensive, long-lead-time technology?”

Still, the Ontario government is moving full bore ahead with plans to build two new nuclear reactors and refurbish up to half a dozen others.

What gives? Simple economics. Ontario is a power-hungry province and if nothing is done, demand will soon exceed supply. By 2025, the Ontario Power Authority estimates the province will need between 30,400 and 36,000 MW of power generation to meet peak demand times for a population projected to grow by 25 per cent, up from peak needs of 24,200 MW today. Ontario has a little over 34,000 MW at hand today, which seems enough to satisfy even the upper end of the OPA’s estimated demand in 2025. But the problem is, previous NDP and Conservative governments did almost nothing to address Ontario’s future electricity supply. As a result, most of Ontario’s current power base will be decommissioned by 2025 and only about 12,000 MW of today’s current generating capacity will be around by then (hydro, oil and gas, and one unit of Pickering A nuclear station). Interestingly, the renewables part of the provincial power portfolio seems to have the longest lasting power.

Ontario already has procurement initiatives in place for 9,520 MW, mostly from natural gas. That leaves a power gap of more than 10,000 MW on the horizon. Critically important is the fact that most of this gap is for base-load [‘reliable power’] generation capacity, which the OPA says “... dictates the types of resources which must be used to meet this need.”

‘Dictates the types of resources’ is a euphemism for ‘pump up the nuclear.’ Notwithstanding some initial political enthusiasm for energy conservation and new hydro and wind resources, Queen’s Park’s confidence in these resources as base-load supply has wilted. No wonder, when you consider the heat wave in July that drove Ontario’s energy consumption (read ‘air conditioning affinity’) to a record 27,000 MW. Meanwhile, droughts reduced water flow to hydro facilities and—the straw that broke the camel’s back—any MPPs driving past Toronto’s landmark Wind Turbine at Exhibition Place could see the turbine blades hanging motionless, contributing absolutely no power to the grid. At the same time, the province was trying to woo businesses to relocate to Ontario and having a tough time answering questions like: “Where is my factory going to get MWs when you close the coal plants?” Energy-efficient light bulbs and wind turbines don’t cut it for these guys.

The government’s answer: Natural gas-fired plants, and a promise not to get rid of coal until enough nuclear base-load capacity has been brought online. That answer seems to have worked for companies like Linamar Corporation and Toyota Canada, which recently announced investments in Ontario totalling $1.9 billion, which will create 4,300 high-quality jobs.

When you adopt this mindset, a rational person might understand why the government decided to pump $40 billion down the old nuclear path.

But when you consider that this nuclear path is littered with 300 (...read more...)