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69 comments on A Political Storm Over Canadian Energy Security
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Or they could just build more nuclear power plants...
Good point. Canada has a great nuclear power plant design in the new CANDUs. But they would still be wise in the meantime to consider how much oil and gas they need internally before committing so much of it to the U.S.
No one is running a 'new' CANDU (ie a 3rd Generation one) so I'm not sure if they can be proven to be a 'great' design?
The old CANDUs were a complete disaster for Ontario Hydro, effectively bankrupting the company. The taxpayer of Ontario is still carrying the $30bn liability.
However many of them are running again, and running fairly well. Except for 2/14 units (?) which are complete writeoffs. There is an outline application to build 2 new ones at the Darlington site.
The policy decision taken (which makes sense economically) is that nuclear capacity will not exceed baseload. Ontario will never be giving electric power away at periods of low demand.
Of course, the eternal problem of transmission line capacity persists. There isn't enough capacity to get all the power into the centre of the GTA, at summer peak demand.
Quebec I can't see ever making a big new commitment to nuclear. New Brunswick I don't know what the plans are. The other Maritime Provinces I can't see going nuclear.
Electricity is roughly 1/3rd of the energy use in the economy, so if half Ontario's terrawatt hours are nuclear, then about 1/6th of its' energy will come from nuclear. If we really pushed heat pumps, etc., I could see that rising to 40%, so say 20% nuclear.