Ontario Nuclear Update - Dec 16th 2022 - Ontario may double nuclear capacity

OVERKILL

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Soooooo the government recently instructed our grid operator to conduct a gas phaseout feasibility assessment. The results of this are in, and, while they didn't include the recent decision to direct OPG to look at refurbishing Pickering B, what it shows is that for our 2050 scenario, we'll have to roughly double Ontario nuclear capacity to 26.45GW:

2035, without Pickering B or the uprates at Bruce (this will change):
Screen Shot 2022-12-15 at 3.28.03 PM.png


2050. Nuclear remains the largest single source. I think the wind and hydrogen pairing (15GW of hydrogen to back 17.7GW of wind) is abject fantasy:
Screen Shot 2022-12-15 at 3.29.21 PM.png

Screen Shot 2022-12-15 at 3.32.32 PM.png


You can see that Hydro capacity is pretty close to tapped-out and doesn't increase much.

The cost of this insanity? $375 to 425 BILLION. The odds of it happening as described? Low. This scenario playing out this way is highly unlikely.

OPG is the body ultimately responsible for what gets built under the current government and they won't build wind. They do however, have three potential nuclear sites, which I suspect we'll see developed as demand increase projections materialize.

I see a role for limited quantities of solar PV and PHES. OPG is already well underway on the development (paper) portion of a large PHES facility, Bruce Power is working on another. PHES pairs very well with nuclear and can be used to cover the morning/evening ramps to displace peakers when solar isn't available, this will reduce gas usage, though not in the winter. We currently have about 2.6GW of solar, so the 2050 scenario does a bit more than doubles that, not a huge increase. The remarks by the IESO indicate the limited value of solar during the winter, which Ontario will transition toward in terms of peaking, as heating is further electrified.
 
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