Clean energy solution demands nuclear

Ontario electricity reliability faces scrutiny after ice storm outages and a Manby Station failure, exposing grid vulnerabilities. Businesses, seniors, and farms suffered, spotlighting nuclear investment, conservation, smart meters, and infrastructure upgrades.

Ottawa and eastern Ontario had its electricity infrastructure updated in 1998, though it wasn't a voluntary undertaking: The ice storm ripped down wires, snapped poles and wrecked transmission towers.

The interruption of electrical service caused by the ice storm had profound effects. Seniors had to be gathered from residences and plunked into community centres, where generators kept them warm. Church halls and high schools became shelters. Farmers lost valuable animals when their automated equipment could no longer work. Some eastern Ontario residents just emptied their home pipes and moved to Toronto where the storm had left power intact.

Electricity runs our businesses, provides sustenance, pumps and cleans our water. Electricity is a necessity. Yet the other day there was a failure at Etobicoke's Manby Transformer Station, and the electricity went out in parts of Toronto, during the royal visit there, even as a no blackout from stalled purchase was expected according to system planners.

One of the critical components of an industrial society is access to affordable, reliable electricity. Without it, a high-tech society simply cannot thrive or even survive.

The one notable benefit of an economic recession is the reduction in energy consumption, and that is what has happened in Ontario this last year and a bit, as a cool summer cooled the nuclear debate too. Ontario, in other words, has been given a bit of breathing room to get its electrical supply sorted out. But the province needs to move quickly, even as it was asked to turn down power expansion by some. This is not a new problem. During the Harris years, remember, the province considered putting diesel generators at strategic locations in Ottawa to create enough energy to prevent the electricity system from running short.

Unfortunately, electricity infrastructure is expensive, and green power can carry considerable costs as well. Equally unfortunately, it is not a vote-getting expenditure. It only becomes important when it doesn't work.

For awhile, the McGuinty government was poised to invest heavily in nuclear reactors to produce the electricity the province needs. But those efforts have stalled. Does the government believe that Ontario's industrial future is so troubled we might not need that electricity after all? Or could it be that other measures — conservation, smart meters and the like — have made nuclear unnecessary, suggesting we could get by without new power in the near term? Or is the province looking to other jurisdictions to serve the needs of Ontarians?

In the end, however, it's hard to envision a long-term energy solution for Ontario — a clean energy solution — that doesn't require new investments in nuclear. The McGuinty government even went so far as to hold an international bidding process for a new plant, but due to cost concerns the project is on hold. Ideally the province would have hired the local guys — Atomic Energy of Canada Limited — to design and construct any new reactors, but the AECL's ability to build on time and on budget, given a troubled nuclear history, is open to question. If Ontario doesn't have sufficient confidence to buy from AECL, then who will purchase Canadian reactors overseas? Probably no one, and that spells the end of Canada's nuclear industry.

None of this is easy. AECL has the kind of high-tech jobs Canada needs, but at what cost? Meanwhile, conservation and wind turbines are clearly not enough to fuel the RIMs of Ontario. Canadians need clear nuclear policy from the federal and provincial governments, and many nuclear questions remain unanswered today.

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