SunriseChampion
Senior Member
Legit question.
Is it that hard to run a generating and transmission system? I don't know, I work in construction.
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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario
- Thread starter animatronic
- Start date
Legit question.
Is it that hard to run a generating and transmission system? I don't know, I work in construction.
SunriseChampion
Senior Member
lenaitch
Senior Member
It's a valid question. The cynic in me wants to say that a politician in power has never met a public service or revenue stream that they figure they can run better than anyone else - and usually wrong about it. More closer to reality, the whole concept of power-at-cost was probably easier to manage in the days when the primary source was hydraulic, and perhaps even thermal. The cost, debt and ROI were probably more manageable. But when they embarked on nuclear, the upfront costs and debt required to carry them went off the dial.
Towered
Senior Member
Where's Burloaks's predictable rebuttal?
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
I think so - power generation and transmission is extremely capital intensive with long lead time (especially in Ontario, where a good chunk of the load is handled by nuclear) while demand can vary (and dip during the bad times). This create an incentive/pressure for politicians to act on the basis of short term interests - and then play catch up when demand inevitably rises - with the tendency to overcompensate.
There is also the unfortunate backlash at nuclear energy as a result of Chernobyl (and lesser extent Fukushima) - the industry in Canada basically stopped developing Candu and it became bit of a technological orphan (no economies of scale - prices remain high). If there is one public policy shortfall, it is the complete failure of the Feds on this file to instill nuclear power across the country where Hydro isn't readily availabile.
As to Quebec - my understanding is that they are more interested in selling to the US than Ontario (maybe with a sovereignty subtext?)
AoD
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Northern Light
Superstar
I'm not such a big fan of nuclear; but not for reasons associated with a meltdown; the risk of something like that, w/Candu design is not non-existant, but fortunately quite low.
That said, my concerns would be the cost of construction and finance when layered into the lifecycle cost of operation doesn't actually produce particularly cheap electricity.
Looking at Darlington, we'll be lucky to get total costs under 9c per KWH with an all-in calculation........
Worse though is we don't have an permanent site for holding nuclear waste; and even if we did; no one has factored in the real cost of maintaining that waste for the next 10,000 years and change (which may include the need to re container such waste).
In Ontario, permanent disposal issues aside, we have had multiple leaks of tritium-laced water; no small concern.
In fact a broader look at Pickering's Safety record should raise some real concerns.
Pickering Nuclear: Unsafe at any speed - Ontario Clean Air Alliance
The Pickering Nuclear Station has a long history of operational problems, accidents and poor performance. […]
www.cleanairalliance.org
Ultimately I'm not persuaded by the economic arguments for nuclear fission power, irrespective of safety; but when layering legitimate safety concerns on top, I no longer consider nuclear worthy of consideration as a power source at this time.
Perhaps with fusion; or with thorium reactors; but not with today's tech.
Quebec made an explicit offer to Ontaro to substantially ramp up interprovincial transfers; to my understanding, the price was very competitive and cheaper on a per KwH basis than the Darlington's refurb.
It was our side (Ontario) that spiked the idea.
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AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
I'm not such a big fan of nuclear; but not for reasons associated with a meltdown; the risk of something like that, w/Candu design is not non-existant, but fortunately quite low.
That said, my concerns would be the cost of construction and finance when layered into the lifecycle cost of operation doesn't actually produce particularly cheap electricity.
Looking at Darlington, we'll be lucky to get total costs under 9c per KWH with an all-in calculation........
Worse though is we don't have an permanent site for holding nuclear waste; and even if we did; no one has factored in the real cost of maintaining that waste for the next 10,000 years and change (which may include the need to re container such as waste.
In Ontario, permanent disposal issues aside, we have had multiple leaks of tritium-laced water; no small concern.
In fact a broader look at Pickering's Safety record should raise some real concerns.
Pickering Nuclear: Unsafe at any speed - Ontario Clean Air Alliance
The Pickering Nuclear Station has a long history of operational problems, accidents and poor performance. […]
Ultimately I'm not persuaded by the economic arguments for nuclear fission power, irrespective of safety; but when layering legitimate safety concerns on top, I no longer consider nuclear worthy of consideration as a power source at this time.
Perhaps with fusion; or with thorium reactors; but not with today's tech.
Quebec made an explicit offer to Ontaro to substantially ramp up interprovincial transfers; to my understanding, the price was very competitive and cheaper on a per KwH basis than the Darlington's refurb.
It was our side (Ontario) that spiked the idea.
That's what I meant - building reactors as one-offs is of course expensive (and Darlington was expensive partly because of design changes mid-stream); and even if it isn't, it is a carbon free way to deal with the base load.
Pickering also hosts the oldest reactors (and reactor designs) in the system - and like I have said, we have stopped advancing reactor designs (improvements require iteration!) precisely because of the fear over meltdowns. Tritium, with a half life of around a decade through beta decay (basically an electron), really isn't that big a deal. That horrible TBq figure quoted by the Pickering report sounds a lot worse (trillion!) than it is - considering 1Bq = 1 atom decay/s (and to put it into perspective, 1 mol is ~6 x 10^23) - the more meaningful measure to human life is Sv. Also, don't look to fusion to resolve this concern - current reactor designs are intended for - you guessed it - D-T fusion. In fact, it is proposed that Li-blanket be used to specifically breed T via the reactor neutron flux.
My personal priority is decarbonizing energy - the slight risk of nukes is a fine tradeoff against fossil fuel consumption and the guaranteed (and global) negative impacts that comes with it. That's not to say renewables doesn't fit in the mix either.
AoD
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old boy
Senior Member
I'm not such a big fan of nuclear; but not for reasons associated with a meltdown; the risk of something like that, w/Candu design is not non-existant, but fortunately quite low.
That said, my concerns would be the cost of construction and finance when layered into the lifecycle cost of operation doesn't actually produce particularly cheap electricity.
Looking at Darlington, we'll be lucky to get total costs under 9c per KWH with an all-in calculation........
Worse though is we don't have an permanent site for holding nuclear waste; and even if we did; no one has factored in the real cost of maintaining that waste for the next 10,000 years and change (which may include the need to re container such as waste.
In Ontario, permanent disposal issues aside, we have had multiple leaks of tritium-laced water; no small concern.
In fact a broader look at Pickering's Safety record should raise some real concerns.
Pickering Nuclear: Unsafe at any speed - Ontario Clean Air Alliance
The Pickering Nuclear Station has a long history of operational problems, accidents and poor performance. […]
Ultimately I'm not persuaded by the economic arguments for nuclear fission power, irrespective of safety; but when layering legitimate safety concerns on top, I no longer consider nuclear worthy of consideration as a power source at this time.
Perhaps with fusion; or with thorium reactors; but not with today's tech.
Quebec made an explicit offer to Ontaro to substantially ramp up interprovincial transfers; to my understanding, the price was very competitive and cheaper on a per KwH basis than the Darlington's refurb.
It was our side (Ontario) that spiked the idea.
Please explain why Ontario spiked the idea, in your opinion.
zang
Senior Member
We really should return to nuclear as a large source of power, at least in the interim. There are much safer designs available (salt-cooled reactor cores for instance) that are nearly impossible to melt down. We should also look at SMR (Small/Medium Reactors) in/closer to urban areas, which would cut transmission loss, be overall safer, have a cheaper and faster upfront setup, and be more environmentally friendly with a coolant system that doesn't need to be dumped into local waterways.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
I don't think those meltdown proof Gen IV (vs. Gen III/III+ meltdown resistant) reactors are anywhere near ready for deployment yet though. SMRs would be especially useful in the Canadian setting for our smaller urban centres. But again, these options can only be of reasonable cost if there is a commitment to not use them as "one-offs".
AoD
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Northern Light
Superstar
I can't be sure, honestly.
I wasn't in the room, and my closest source would be at least once removed.
I've heard different reasons given.
These included:
-The cost of upgrading the transmission corridor (in my opinion this is a poor reason as it was still far more cost effective that the latest Darlington rehab)
- The desire for to nominally maintain full self-supply capability within Ontario.
and
-Saving the nuclear industry, in Ontario (I find this one most believable, but still highly questionable
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BurlOak
Senior Member
You people are just goading me into a comment so I can be threatened to be banned - no thanks.
Towered
Senior Member
In other words, you've got nothing.
zang
Senior Member
"Nothing" is better than a repeat of "this is why Doug Ford is the best premier ever in the history of Canada!", followed by cherry-picked metrics that have little actual relation to anything Ford's actually done..
picard102
Senior Member
Wow.