Yesterday, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) announced that its project to build one of the world’s first so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMR), on its Darlington nuclear site, is late and over budget. The first of 4 proposed SMRs will now cost MORE than a whopping $7.7 Billion.
The most head shaking part of this risky project is that Ontario willingly chose to be a guinea pig for an unproven American (GE-Hitachi) nuclear technology (that requires imported fuel). While other jurisdictions stood back and said “after you,” Ontario rushed forward and recklessly committed to a design that has not been built anywhere in the world.
Here’s the truth: solar and wind energy are eating nuclear’s lunch – in Ontario and around the world – due to faster deployment, much lower costs, and ever better ways to store energy.
Despite much happy talk (particularly from the Ford government) about a rebound in nuclear power, nuclear energy supplied just 9% of global electricity in 2025, down from 17.5% in 1997. Solar alone now produces more power than nuclear around the world, with wind not far behind.
It doesn’t make sense to build high-cost, slow to deploy new nuclear reactors, when wind and solar projects can be built in two years or less, and provide us with electricity at less than one-third the cost.
Please ask Premier Ford to cancel the Darlington New Nuclear Project, and to lower our electricity bills by doubling renewable energy by 2035 and tripling it by 2050.