However, as has also been pointed out, the current build-out of gas plants is actually to fix the dispatch problem with nuclear, not renewables. Peak load is a little under 2x base load, which the nukes have no ability to address.

How does it work — Greenpeace spoon feeds you your lines, then you regurgitate them here? The CANDU EC6 can route 100 percent of its steam through the condenser, while remaining at 100 percent reactor power.

As for the build out of gas plant — have you been actually following Ontario electricity? Because the build out of gas is to address the unreliability of wind, and to eat into the baseload market. If that latter were not the case, the new buildout would not be based so much on combined cycle plant.

I know you support that, via a bit of bizarre rhetoric in which you say you’d prefer to dump millions of tons of carbon dioxide into Ontario’s air rather than go through a nuclear build. What, are you worried it’ll come in under schedule? Myself, I’d prefer to install a few more reactors at existing sites and dump zero carbon, while enjoying cheap and reliable power. Then we could take on the gas salesmen in other markets.

Here’s why FIT is dumb and backing AECL was smart. FIT wind costs 13.5 cents per kWh, and needs backup from fleets of gas-fired plants which have their own costs. Electricity out of AECL’s plants costs at most 6.8 cents and the companies running the reactors still turn profits (one of them does so on our — Ontario’s — behalf). End of story.

So you propose using a base load power supply to provide energy into a storable product? That seems… dumb.

As I write this there’s about six months of Canada’s total electrical power use sitting backed up behind the dams in northern Quebec, and some similarly large fraction in Lake Winnipeg.

“But those other ways are very, very few: two in fact. They are coal and natural gas”

Ahh, the fallacy of the excluded middle… again. Steve continues to promote this false dichotomy in spite of being repeatedly presented ample counter evidence.

In Ontario there are 20 GW of undeveloped hydro(1), 7 GW in PV on empty commercial rooftops(2), about 50 GW of wind of which we have about 10 GW developed(3). If you add that up and multiply by the capacity factor, that’s more than all the power we use. So no, coal and gas are not the only power systems available.

At this point Steve traditionally replies with an argument about capacity factors and dispatch… again.

However, as has also been pointed out, the current build-out of gas plants is actually to fix the dispatch problem with nuclear, not renewables. Peak load is a little under 2x base load, which the nukes have no ability to address.

This claim also includes the inherent political boundary-drawing issue unique to Canada – there’s already enough power developed in Quebec and Manitoba to feed all our supply, available for the taking by building a wire.(4) That wire would be HVDC, a Canadian invention no less(5). In case you’re wondering, a 768kWdc line would burn about 5% of the power when run all the way from James Bay.(6)

The fact that energy is still in the hands of the provincial governments and not the private sector is the only reason this problem even exists in the first place. Ontario’s grandiose plans to become a major worldwide player in nuclear allowed it to gather about $10 billion in funds(7) from the rest of the country to dump into AECL and then buy it ourselves as the lead customer. And people complain about FIT?

Now that that particular financial black hole is being disassembled, I’m all ears on how one makes the financial argument for fission in Ontario these days. We have our choice of giving those $30 billion to the French or US, because we can’t possibly think about giving only a tiny fraction of that to Quebec, our fellow countrymen?

Vive la différence!

1) http://www.owa.ca/assets/files/links/Waterpower_Potential_Nov2005.pdf
2) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0198971510000025
3) http://www.uwig.org/OPA-Report-200610-1.pdf
4) http://www.siemens.com/press/pool/de/events/2011/energy/2011-09-mallorca/factsheet-hvdc-e.pdf – losses for
5) http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:Nelson_River_HVDC_Transmission_System,_1972
6) http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-transmission/hvdc/hvdc-ultra/#content=Benefits
7) http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/media-room/news-release/2011/57b2/1593

James Greenidge
Queens NY

In general people are unaware of the amount of energy they use.

To make matters worse, they’re unaware of the different sources of electricity and their limitations (and costs).

With this lack of information, people can become inflicted with “renewable-itis”. The only cure is to take a physics pill.

This can be done in school form. But learning about energy by reading up on it can work too. A great starting place is to learn about the units of energy and work (calories and so forth).

Darcy