Ontario finally dumps the Liberals’ naive green-energy ideology for reality
‘Ford government’s plan dares to put new emphasis on nuclear energy to meet future supply needs’
The age of energy ideology is over in Ontario, replaced by power pragmatism. The Ontario government’s new and ambitious plan to meet the province’s power needs until 2050 draws on pretty much every known technology to meet a demand for power that could double by that year.
One doesn’t have to look too far back to remember the era of overhyped and overpriced wind and solar projects that former premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government was so eager to foist off on Ontarians. Across the province, the countryside is scarred with wind farms and solar installations. It was the sort of approach that a government could toy with, knowing that the province had surplus power so it didn’t need to rely on wind and solar.
In the early days of electric vehicle enthusiasm, people were told that we could handle a massive increase in power consumption without needing a massive increase in generation and transmission. That optimistic notion has been proven wrong. With population expansion and the expected mass electrification of automobiles and home heating, it’s time to get real.
The PC plan, released this week, dares to put new emphasis on nuclear energy, the technology that already provides 51 per cent of the province’s power. Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith has announced preliminary work to add a new reactor at the Bruce nuclear plant on the shore of Lake Huron. The existing nuclear station there is already the world’s largest, with a 6,550-megawatt capacity. The proposed new reactor will add 4,800 megawatts more and is the first new full-scale reactor in Ontario in 30 years.
