Ontario Energy Technology is shifting forward with a plan to increase the lifetime of the ageing Pickering Nuclear Producing Station by a long time, because the province tries to safe extra electrical energy provide within the face of accelerating demand.
Vitality Minister Todd Smith had requested OPG in 2022 to check the feasibility of refurbishing 4 of the items on the nuclear plant, which have been working for the reason that Eighties, and he introduced Tuesday that the challenge will proceed.
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“Our province nonetheless wants this station and its staff,” he stated at a information convention exterior the nuclear plant. The development part will create about 11,000 jobs, he stated, and supply about 6,000 jobs for many years.
OPG plans to spend $2 billion on engineering and design work and securing key parts for the challenge that’s anticipated to be accomplished within the mid-2030s.
Neither Smith nor OPG officers would give an estimate for a way a lot your complete refurbishment will price.
Ontario commits to refurbishment of Pickering nuclear plant to fulfill electrical energy demand. #nuclear #Ontario #onpoli
“It might be irresponsible at this cut-off date to place a quantity on the market, as a result of it is this important design and scoping and engineering work that’s going to get us to the place the place we will have a quantity,” Smith stated.
OPG stated a refurbishment at its Darlington Nuclear Producing Station is costing $12.8 billion and is on time and on price range.
Ken Hartwick, CEO of OPG, stated the Darlington refurbishment in addition to one at Bruce Energy will assist information the Pickering life extension.
“We’ve discovered loads about what it takes to refurbish a nuclear station the appropriate means with hundreds of classes discovered from Darlington and Bruce Energy that we are going to apply to Pickering,” Hartwick stated.
The 4 items produce about 2,000 megawatts of electrical energy, sufficient to energy two million properties.
The Impartial Electrical energy System Operator has stated Ontario’s electrical energy demand is predicted to develop by about two per cent every year, however may very well be even larger. A promise to construct 1.5 million properties by 2031 and several other large-scale manufacturing investments comparable to electrical automobile battery vegetation are serving to to push demand larger.
The province wants extra provide significantly beginning within the mid-2030s, the IESO has stated.
Keith Stewart, a senior vitality strategist with Greenpeace Canada, stated the value of wind and solar energy with battery storage has “dropped like a stone” and ought to be extra central to Ontario’s vitality coverage.
“Any credible unbiased cost-benefit evaluation would discover that we ought to be investing within the renewable-powered vitality system of the long run, relatively than pouring billions extra into rebuilding nuclear reactors long gone their best-before date,” he wrote in an announcement.
NDP vitality critic Peter Tabuns known as on the federal government to launch OPG’s feasibility research.
“It’s important that we get vitality selections proper, particularly when billions in investments are on the road,” he wrote in an announcement.
“We are able to’t assess this challenge with out these particulars. We wish to guarantee they’re prioritizing the wants of Ontarians over anything.”
Pickering produces about 14 per cent of the province’s electrical energy however its present licence to function the 4 items in query expires on the finish of this 12 months. OPG has requested the Canadian Nuclear Security Fee to increase that to 2026, however a public listening to for that software has not but been scheduled.
Inexperienced Social gathering Chief Mike Schreiner stated Greens perceive that nuclear energy will proceed to be a part of the vitality combine for many years, however the province additionally wants way more wind and solar energy and no extra pure gasoline technology.
“As a substitute of attracting jobs and funding in low-cost renewables, the Ford authorities is making Ontario’s grid dirtier and dearer by prioritizing soiled fossil gasoline vegetation and the expensive, poor-performing Pickering plant,” he wrote in an announcement.
The IESO introduced final month that it’s wanting so as to add 2,000 megawatts of non-emitting electrical energy technology on-line comparable to wind, photo voltaic, bioenergy and hydro to the system. Nonetheless, it additionally says pure gasoline remains to be required to make sure provide and stability within the brief to medium time period, although it would additionally improve greenhouse-gas emissions from the electrical energy sector.
Ontario’s electrical energy system was 94 per cent emissions free in 2020, however as we speak that determine has fallen to 90 per cent.
Opposition critics have stated Ontario would not be in as a lot of a provide crunch if the Progressive Conservative authorities hadn’t cancelled 750 inexperienced vitality contracts throughout its first time period.
However Smith vigorously defended the transfer Tuesday, saying the contracts that paid above-market costs made charges too costly for Ontarians and drove companies out of the province.
“We might cancel these tasks once more, given the chance,” he stated.
“It was simply backwards the way in which that the earlier authorities operated. What they need to have executed was constructed out the storage – which is what we’re doing now – to accommodate including renewables, however we’re doing it in a aggressive means.”
The nuclear security fee would nonetheless should approve the Pickering refurbishment.
Two different items at Pickering are additionally set to cease working on the finish of this 12 months. They’re a part of what’s generally known as the A items, which got here on-line within the Nineteen Seventies and have been faraway from service in 1997. Two of the items have been refurbished and started working once more in 2003 and 2005.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 30, 2024.
