Ontario's energy needs ready to go critical — can the province's nuke plants keep up?
Ford's cancellation of green projects, lack of back-up plans puts Bruce NPP on capacity ramp-up
The Ford government has announced a hastily planned and expensive expansion to the Bruce nuclear plant, nearly doubling its capacity, because the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator tells us that Ontario will need to almost double its power generation capacity in the next 25 years and the government didn’t have a plan to meet that need.
That’s partly because upon his election in 2018, Ford cancelled over 700 green energy projects initiated by the previous Liberal government.
Critics suggest that Ford’s move was inspired solely by the fact that he seemed to be on a mission to destroy anything that the previous Premier had put in place.
Whether that’s true or not is up for debate, but what is fact is that Ford didn’t have a Plan B for energy generation — even while he was committing to more and more EVs on Ontario roads.
I guess that’s what happens when you’re guided by political ideology and not common sense.
He didn’t like any of the green energy initiatives and he seemed to be leaning toward decommissioning our tired nuclear facilities.
But now, it seems the premier has had an electrical epiphany and I suppose: better late than never.
We just hope it’s not too late; it takes years to consult and gain approval and build these facilities.
And with more homes being built and more EVs, demand for power is growing rapidly.
If Ontario starts seeing a repeat of rotating blackouts because the government dragged their heels on this issue, things could get real ugly, real fast.