Ontario Power Generation is planning to build a new nuclear reactor in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) despite the fact that the forecast cost of power from such a reactor would be two to five times higher than the cost of power from wind and solar energy.
The proposed new GTA nuclear reactor would produce highly toxic radioactive waste that would remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. Despite decades of searching, Canada has still not even identified a location for a long-term high-level waste storage site. In the interim, the proposed reactor’s wastes would have to be stored in the GTA, at the Darlington Nuclear Station site on the shore of Lake Ontario.
OPG’s plan is to use technology that is currently still at the “concept” stage and for which there is no working prototype. This means there are a tremendous number of unknowns about the safety and reliability of this still largely theoretical technology.
Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency projects that readily available renewable technology will account for 95% of the growth in global power capacity over the next five years. Why would we spend money on unproven, higher-cost nuclear technology when we have safer and less costly solutions at our fingertips?
Since the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, wind and solar must be combined with a storage system if they are to displace nuclear generation during every hour of the year.
According to an MIT study, Quebec’s hydro-electric reservoirs are the lowest cost storage system for wind and solar energy. By integrating our wind and solar generation with Hydro Quebec’s reservoirs, Ontario can convert its intermittent wind and solar into a firm 24/7 source of baseload electricity supply.
It doesn’t make sense to build a new nuclear reactor in the GTA when wind and solar energy can keep our lights on at less than half the cost without producing toxic radioactive wastes.
To learn more please click here to read our new fact sheet: A New GTA Nuclear Reactor vs. Wind and Solar.
And see this more recent fact sheet: An Unreasonable Risk: A new GTA reactor
What you can do
Please click here to tell our political leaders that you want Ontario to invest in wind and solar energy, not a new GTA nuclear reactor. It’s time to lower our energy bills by going green.