The Ontario government wants to build the world’s largest nuclear plant on the shores of Lake Ontario at Port Hope. This is an incredibly ineffective – and costly – way to meet our electricity needs. Our new report finds that wind and solar power could provide the same amount of power while saving us $6.2 to $19.3 billion per year in electricity costs!
It would take at least 20 years to design and construct a new nuclear plant at Port Hope. Meanwhile, Ontario would remain reliant on polluting gas imported from the United States. By developing wind and solar energy instead, we can quickly lower our need for American gas, reduce climate damage and improve local air quality – all at a lower cost than nuclear.
A great opportunity lies in offshore wind in the Great Lakes. By harnessing winds that blow strong and steady across Lake Ontario and using Port Hope’s transmission system connections, we can tap into zero emissions wind power that is less than half the cost of new nuclear. We can also use the Port Hope site owned by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to develop a large solar farm covering 634 acres.
By expanding our east-west grid connections, we can balance variable renewable power supplies by using Quebec’s vast hydro-electric reservoir system to store power. We can also use stationary and mobile (EV) batteries to store renewable energy and to build a more modern, dynamic energy system without turning to costly and slow nuclear.
Back in the 1970s, OPG’s predecessor Ontario Hydro started to develop a large oil-fired generating station at Port Hope. But the energy crisis of the 1970s led to Ontario Hydro abandoning the project after building the shell of the plant. In many ways, trying to develop a huge new nuclear plant represents a similar bet on the wrong technology at the wrong time. Renewable energy and storage costs continue to plummet and most of the rest of the world is shifting to low-cost renewables, not nuclear.
Our report compares the costs of using the Port Hope site for a giant nuclear station vs. a combination of solar and on- and offshore wind power. We find that Ontario could reap massive savings by lifting the unnecessary moratorium on offshore wind development and by using the Port Hope lands for solar instead of an eye-wateringly expensive nuclear plant.
Please click here to read our report: Port Hope’s Electricity Future: Wind & Solar or New Nuclear?
There has never been a better time to move Ontario onto the smart energy path of renewables + storage.
Tell Premier Ford we need to get building low-cost renewable energy now – not wait 20 years for high cost, high risk nuclear projects to finally be complete.