 | Ecological Footprint, Energy Consumption, and the Looming Collapse | The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: May 17, 2007 |  |
69 comments on A Political Storm Over Canadian Energy Security
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
User login
Archives
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
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.