Nuclear Energy and Ontario

[rbt]

Pickering refurbs of reactor 5 through 8 have been approved and funded.

This is a timeline for Bruce/Darlington refurbishments. It''s not clear when Pickering will start.

Ontario Green Lights Nuclear Refurbishment of Pickering CANDU Units

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will refurbish four units at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, Canada’s first major commercial generation plant—

www.powermag.com

I presume this giant stack of Hydrogen which seems to replace natural gas in the 2050 Ontario grid is also somehow related to Nuclear generation: time shifting night nuclear generation to daytime via hydrogen storage.

 

[jje1000]

CANDU and our nuclear energy program still remain something to be very proud of as Canadians.

 

[afransen]

Pickering refurbs of reactor 5 through 8 have been approved and funded.

This is a timeline for Bruce/Darlington refurbishments. It''s not clear when Pickering will start.

Ontario Green Lights Nuclear Refurbishment of Pickering CANDU Units

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will refurbish four units at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, Canada’s first major commercial generation plant—

www.powermag.com

I presume this giant stack of Hydrogen which seems to replace natural gas in the 2050 Ontario grid is also somehow related to Nuclear generation: time shifting night nuclear generation to daytime via hydrogen storage.

Hydrogen is not a great way to shift energy on a 24h time frame. Hydrogen production could be a good way of soaking up excess power (in overnight time frames, and increasingly around noon due to solar), with the hydrogen being used in industrial processes such as reducing iron for steelmaking, and feedstock for various chemical supply chains. Then maybe hydrogen for seasonal energy storage, though it is questionable whether that will ever make sense vs alternative storage technologies.

I suspect solar/wind generation is wildly underestimated given expected cost declines and process efficiency improvements in permitting and installing new deployments. Australia is achieving crazy low cost per watt (ie, regardless of the solar resource), ~$1/watt vs ~$3 in the US.

Really cheap solar means you build more than you need in summer to manage winter needs and reduce storage requirement, and have huge excess supply in summer. It will also make sense to deploy bifacial vertical mounted solar, perhaps as agrivoltaics (coupled with agricultural uses). This provides shoulder hour power, and benefits from reflections off of snow in winter.