Canada has one of the cleanest electricity grids in the world, and the country has ambitions
to get even cleaner, with Prime Minister Trudeau promising that Canada’s grid will be net-zero
by 2035.
However, Canada is about to hit a major setback in achieving these goals.
The problem lies in Ontario, Canada’s largest province and home to almost 2-fifths of Canada’s
population.
Currently, Ontario is above average when it comes to generating clean electricity – almost
all of the province’s electricity comes from non-emitting sources.
But in 2025, a full 15% of its clean electricity is scheduled to come offline, and the gap
in production will likely be made up with fossil fuels.
So why is this happening, and is there anything that can be done about it?
Well, to understand why this setback is happening, we first need to go back in time and understand
how Ontario cleaned up its electricity grid.
In the late 90s, environmental and medical groups started advocating for a phase-out
of coal electricity generation in Ontario, mainly due to concerns over air quality and
the negative health impacts of coal.
These grassroots efforts were successful, and in the 2003 election campaign all three
major political parties pledged to phase out coal generation in the province.
There were a few factors that made shutting down coal generation more politically palatable
in Ontario than it is in other jurisdictions – for one, the Ontario government owned
all of the province’s coal plants, so it could absorb that shutdown costs.
Coal also wasn’t mined in Ontario, so not many jobs would be lost by the phase out.
At the time, coal made up about a quarter of Ontario’s electricity supply.
Coal was completely phased out by 2014, and that 25% gap in electricity production was
largely filled with nuclear power.
Today, nuclear still makes up the majority of Ontario’s electricity.
All that power comes from just three nuclear stations: Bruce, Darlington, and Pickering.
It’s that last station, Pickering, that’s important here.
Today, Pickering supplies close to 15% of Ontario’s electricity, all without emitting
greenhouse gases - but it’s scheduled to be shutdown in 2025.
Why does it have to be shut down?
Well, it’s old.
Pickering started operations in 1971, and was expanded in 1983, which makes it Canada’s
oldest nuclear generating station.
And 2025 is actually later than Pickering was originally meant to shut down – its
operations have been extended to help maintain Ontario’s supply of electricity while Bruce
and Darlington temporarily reduce their output during refurbishments.
Wait, refurbishments?
If the other nuclear reactors are being refurbished, why not do the same for Pickering and keep
it running?
Well, the Ontario government is already spending billions to refurbish the newer Bruce and
Darlington stations and decided not to refurbish Pickering too.
In the early 2000s, there were some refurbishments done on Pickering A – which is the oldest
part of Pickering that was completed in 1971 – but those refurbishments went massively
over budget and were not fully completed.
Ok, so Pickering is definitely shutting down in 2025.
Thankfully, Ontario’s not bringing back coal to replace it – but the gap in electricity
production will likely be made up with natural gas, which is still a CO2 emitting fossil
fuel.
But why does it have to be replaced with natural gas – why not replace it with another non-emitting
power source?
Because the government just never made a plan to replace it with non-emitting power sources,
despite knowing for over a decade that Pickering would have to be shut down eventually, which
isn’t really a great reason.
But it might not be too late to find more environmentally friendly replacements for
Pickering, at least according to this report from Pollution Probe.
Pickering generates around 20 TWh of electricity every year, but because Ontario actually has
a surplus of baseload electricity supply, Pollution Probe estimated that only 10 TWh
of additional electricity production would be required to replace Pickering.
And since Pickering’s electricity heavily supplies the Greater Toronto Area, the report
proposes that Ontario could reduce the need for natural gas through a combination of reducing
the GTA’s demand for electricity while increasing energy production from non-emitting sources.
Pollution Probe’s suggestions to reduce electricity demand include making new Buildings
more energy efficient and providing incentives to reduce electricity use during peak hours.
On the supply side, the report suggests installing solar panels on roofs and using waste heat
instead of natural gas or electricity to heat buildings.
The report also suggests using bi-directional charging to essentially turn electric vehicles
into mobile batteries that store energy when there’s excess supply of clean electricity,
and sell that energy back to the grid when demand increases, which would reduce the need
for natural gas generation during peak periods.
There’s another elephant in the room that I feel needs to be addressed, and that’s
hydro power from Quebec.
In researching this video, I noticed that a lot of groups online seem to be convinced
that buying hydro power from Quebec would be a silver bullet to simultaneously provide
clean power to Ontario and reduce electricity bills.
This made me ask the question, could Ontario replace Pickering’s electricity with hydro
power imports from Quebec?
The answer is a resounding… maybe.
There are already electrical interties between Ontario and Quebec, but those are used to
exchange power depending on the demand in each province – they are not meant for importing
firm baseload power.
If Ontario wanted to import firm power from Quebec to replace the baseload power generated
by Pickering, more interties between the two provinces would have to be constructed.
Furthermore, Quebec actually imports power from Ontario during the winter, so to provide
Ontario with firm year-round capacity, Hydro-Quebec would need to build additional resources above
what they currently have for their own internal needs.
All that additional infrastructure would cost billions – but would it be worth it?
Well, all the articles and reports against importing more hydro power seem to be written
or paid for by those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
On the other hand, the most vocal group in favour of Quebec hydro power is an anti-nuclear
environmental group who clearly has a vested interest in shutting down Ontario’s nuclear
fleet.
In any case, the Ontario government seems to have decided against the imports, at least
for now.
There is one more energy source that could help reduce Ontario’s reliance on natural
gas in the future, and that’s a small modular reactor that will be built alongside the existing
nuclear reactors at the Darlington site.
The BWRX-300 is a small modular nuclear reactor designed by GE Hitachi which would generate
300 MW of electricity and it should be completed by 2028.
That’s a little later than Pickering is shutting down, and its power output is nowhere
near what Pickering currently generates, but it’s certainly better than nothing.
What makes small modular reactors unique, other than their small size, is that they
can be built in factories and have their parts shipped instead of needing to be constructed
on site, which should make them less costly than traditional nuclear reactors.
And while the BWRX-300 might not generate much power compared to Pickering, it’s not
the only SMR that will be built in Canada.
The governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, Alberta, and Saskatchewan are all collaborating
to build a number of SMRs over the next decade, which would help Canada reach its goal of
net-zero electricity generation by 2035.
But if you want to learn more about these small nuclear reactors, you’ll have to watch
this video next.