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Ontario to waste $27 billions on electricity
Why would Ontario spend $33 billion rebuilding Darlington when we can get replacement power from Quebec at one-fifth the cost?
Hydro Quebec announced that it will not proceed with its proposed
Gentilly-2 Nuclear Re-Build Project. According to Hydro Quebec, the
total cost of re-building Gentilly-2 would be $6.3 billion, including
decommissioning.
On the other hand, the Government of Ontario is
still planning to proceed with the Darlington Nuclear Re-Build Project.
Darlington is 5.2 times the size of Gentilly-2 (3524 megawatts vs. 675
megawatts), which means that based on Hydro Quebec’s cost estimates, the
total cost of the Darlington Re-Build Project would be $33 billion.
Interestingly,
Hydro Quebec also reports that it will only earn 4 cents per kWh from
its electricity exports in 2017. That’s one-fifth the cost of power from
a rebuilt Darlington Station. Why would Ontario spend $33 billion
rebuilding Darlington when we can get replacement power from Quebec at
one-fifth the cost?
Please contact Energy Minister Chris Bentley
today and ask him to save us billions by cancelling the proposed
Darlington Re-Build Project.
Rebuttals & Replies:
Well I would have hoped that when you publish something in your community newspaper it would at least be factual but that is clearly not the case here.
The cost of refurbishing Darlington was stated in the recent OEB hearings at between 6 to 10 B not 33 b so the writer of that article is either off by a factor of just over 3 or as much as 5.5 times
So who cares about any accuracy when trying to promote the gas industry like the clean air alliance does?
Well recently it was published that the new Trans-Canada plant to be built near Kingston will be paid on average 15.2 c/Kwh plus the cost to purchase gas to generate which is over 3 times what OPG gets to produce power at its nuclear plants. So simple math is that nuclear power is less expensive than the gas generation being brought on line in Ontario and less than half the cost of wind power and 1/10 the cost of solar.
Sorry but for those of us who can do math, we reject that article and see it for what it is, just another attempt to paint nuclear power in a bad light incorrectly
Joe Fierro
While Joe Fierro is correct that Ontario Power Generation (OPG) did state that the cost of re-building Darlington would be $6 to 10 billion; he failed to note that OPG subsequently told the Ontario Energy Board that the total cost of the re-build would be $8.5 to 14 billion. Furthermore, every nuclear project in Ontario’s history has gone massively over-budget – on average by 2.5 times. Therefore, based on our historical experience, the real total cost of the re-build could be $21 to 35 billion.
According to our estimates, electricity from a re-built Darlington Nuclear Station would cost 19 to 37 cents per kWh. Fortunately, our electricity needs can be met at a much lower cost by a combination of energy conservation, bio-energy, wind power, combined heat and power and hydro-electric imports from Quebec.
Jack Gibbons
It is so utterly misleading the mind boggles. What kind of “research” leads to the conclusion that if one thing costs so much and produces so much electricity, then obviously something that produces five times as much must cost five times as much? Does this person live in the real world? Does she have any clue about engineering projects? She could have at least mentioned the projected costs of Darlington, instead of ‘calculating’ a completely specious number with no relation to the project whatsoever.
And as for Hydro Quebec reporting that it earns 4 cents per kWh from electricity exports, that is 4 cents per kWh PROFIT over and above what it sells its electricity internally for. Electricity imported from Quebec is dramatically more expensive than most electricity produced here (at least traditional means of generation, including nuclear), and is something that we should avoid where possible. Perhaps if the writer had found out how much we actually pay for electricity imported from Quebec, that would make her piece a little more factual? Of course, that would also weaken her argument, so we can’t have that, can we?
This “article” is thinly-disguised anti-nuclear propaganda, and poorly thought out at that. One hopes that thinking people will be able to see the gaping holes in the argument and question anything the Clear Air Alliance ever puts out.
Scott Taylor
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2012-10-04 14:31:02
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