At its height, the nuclear refurbishment at the Bruce power plant on the east shore of Lake Huron was the biggest capital infrastructure project in Canada. It generated 3,000 jobs, mostly in the building and construction trades, at a time when jobs were scarce and urgently needed in Ontario. At the time the refurbishment project…
What is the most important number in clean electricity? It is the carbon intensity per kilowatt-hour (CIPK): the total amount of carbon dioxide, or CO2, in metric tons, emitted by the emitting generators feeding the grid, divided by the total amount of electricity generated, in kilowatt-hours. As you can see in Table 1 on the…
Why, in this time of fiscal constraint, tight budgets, iffy economic prospects, and persistent unemployment is Ontario throwing away two perfectly good billion-dollar electricity generating plants that have already been paid for and that are capable of generating huge amounts of cheap, reliable electricity? Like probably every computer owner on the planet, I sometimes fantasize…
In 1997, Japan hosted a conference at Kyoto, in which most of the world’s industrialized countries agreed in principle to reduce their man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to roughly five percent below 1990 levels. Nearly 14 years later, Japan abruptly abandoned that goal after a tsunami of unprecedented power destroyed hundreds of communities along its…
Okay, so I’m no Tennessee Ernie Ford. But that doesn’t mean I can’t lament the sheer non-recognition of Ontario’s CANDU nuclear fleet for outstanding services rendered over the past four decades to me, my fellow Ontarians, and the planet. Sticking only to the most recent decade, while the world has argued endlessly over what to…
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