New Nuke Plants North of the Border?

As many as eight new nuclear reactors might be built over the next twenty years if recommendations are acted on north of the border. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports… dwindling energy supplies have put Ontario’s new government in a corner, and political leaders say there may be little choice but to build more nuclear plants:

Transcript

As many as eight new nuclear reactors might be built over the next twenty years if
recommendations are acted on north of the border. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan
Karpenchuk reports, dwindling energy supplies have put Ontario’s new government in a corner,
and political leaders say there may be little choice but to build more nuclear plants:


Dwight Duncan is Ontario’s new Energy Minister.


And in a recent speech to business leaders in Toronto, he said his biggest challenge is to rebuild
the province’s capacity to provide power over the next twenty years.


His government has promised to close coal burning generating stations by 2007. In addition, all
of the province’s nuclear plants will reach the end of their natural lives by about 2020 unless
they’re refurbished. Government officials predict a huge energy shortfall unless decisions are
made soon.


And Duncan says that could mean more nuclear plants, despite opposition from
environmentalists.


“Absolutely, there’s a body of opinion in this province that I imagine would oppose any nuclear,
and that will be a debate if we go down that route, we will all have to engage in.”


Atomic Energy of Canada, a federal government corporation, is pushing a 12-billion dollar
proposal to build four pairs of new nuclear reactors in Ontario over the next twenty years. Those
plants would produce energy at a cost cheaper than natural gas fired plants or wind energy. The
problem is that they represent a new generation of reactors that use more enriched uranium than
their predecessors.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

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