Rumours of the decline in electricity demand have been greatly exaggerated. Today, August 10, 2009, Ontario electricity demand will hit its highest level of the year. That’s because it’s a weekday, and temperatures are expected to hit 28 degrees in the Greater Toronto Area, where most Ontarians live. Every air conditioner in the GTA will […]

Information leaked to the Toronto Star on July 14 provides fuel for interesting speculation on what we could call the political economy of the Ontario nuclear reactor competition. Two sources, one reported to be directly involved with one of the bids, are the basis for the Star’s claim that AECL’s bid was $26 billion and Areva’s $23.6 billion. Areva […]

When unit 2 at the Bruce nuclear plant comes back online this fall after a 14-year layup, it will, every year, inject around 6.5 billion kilowatt-hours of cheap, carbon-free power into Ontario’s grid. How much carbon will it offset? Between 3.5 and 6.5 million tonnes. At the often-mentioned price of $15 per tonne of carbon, Bruce 2 would save […]

Alberta could use nuclear power. Canada’s current economic engine is like one of those carbureted big-block V-8s from the 1970s: impressive power, but lousy fuel economy and lots of emissions. This is because Alberta’s electricity sector is mainly fossil-fired, and because the oilsands use enormous amounts of natural gas

Fighting the climate change war in Alberta is a two-front proposition. There’s power generation and there’s the oilsands. Both are the biggest emitters of their kind in Canada (see article). And unless there is progress in both, or at least a credible plan for progress, customers for the province’s major export, petroleum, will become increasingly […]

Alberta is Canada’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Most emissions come from two activities: power generation, and oilsands mining and processing. Combined they emitted over 102 million tonnes of GHGs in 2004—43 percent of the provincial total, and over 13 percent of the Canadian total. This is because Alberta power generation is largely coal-fired, […]

Get ready for a major dustup over energy in Southern Ontario. The central issue is how to replace the giant Nanticoke coal-fired generating plant, which is slated to be shut down by 2014. What will pick up the 4,000 megawatt slack, nuclear or gas? This dilemma is the Ontario version of a choice that operators […]

Negligible and unreliable: that’s how you could describe the contribution of wind to Ontario’s power supply. Wind turbines in this province, which collectively have 870 megawatts of capacity, are currently producing only 135 MW of actual electricity. That’s a capacity factor of less than 16 percent—nothing you’d want to hang an industrial strategy on. But […]

The new nuclear build project at the Darlington generating station has begun. But rather than sinking shovels into the ground, Ontario’s premier and energy minister have focused their initial efforts on expectations

It could be down to the wire in the ongoing battle between Ontario and the federal government over emission reduction credits. Specifically, wires—yet to be built—capable of wheeling 2,200 megawatts of nuclear and wind power from the Bruce peninsula to the southern Ontario market