NewmarketToday welcomes your letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication).
**************************
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance has once again misrepresented the cost of nuclear energy and put forward proposals that simply don’t work.
According to the OEB, the folks who create our bills, in 2019 the cost of nuclear energy was 8 cents per kWh. That’s 4.39 cents per kWh lower than the average cost to produce electricity in Ontario. Nuclear energy provided 60 per cent of Ontario’s electricity in 2018 helping to keep costs down.
Leveraging Ontario’s nuclear advantage, our province has phased-off of coal and eliminated smog days. That’s a real impact on clean air in Ontario that helps people with asthma and other respiratory illnesses enjoy a summer day and Torontonians enjoy a blue sky. This is a world-leading achievement that we must be proud of. Even Quebec, which has a large hydro fleet still has over 40 air quality warnings every year.
Refurbishing the Bruce and Darlington stations will extend their lives for decades, providing a cost-effective, long-term supply of clear electricity for Ontario. This investment in energy security for Ontario is also creating thousands of jobs within the province and generating life-saving medical isotopes in the process.
Market mechanisms in Ontario help to ensure we receive power from Quebec when we need it and when it makes economic sense. The reverse is also true. Last January, Ontario provided Quebec with more than 400 GWhs to support its winter demand for power.
Quebec simply does not have the capacity to send power to Ontario in the winter and relies on the nuclear fleet in Ontario to help keep the air as clean as possible.
Ontario is committed to a nuclear future with the life extension of the existing nuclear fleet, which is now scheduled to provide reliable and affordable electricity into 2060s.
The Financial Accountability Office (FAO) released a report that states there is currently no portfolio of alternative low emissions generation that could replace nuclear generation at a comparable cost.
The FAO report is clear: ratepayers are protected; the Ontario’s Nuclear Refurbishment plan is projected to provide ratepayers with a long-term supply of low-cost, low emissions electricity.
This transformational change in Ontario was accomplished through the strength of Ontario’s nuclear sector that provided 90 per cent of the incremental electricity needed to phase out coal.
Thankfully, today, the people of Ontario have cleaner air from cleaner energy.
With such a reliable supply of carbon-free energy being provided by Ontario’s nuclear fleet, the future is bright, and the sky is blue for Ontario residents.
Taylor McKenna, Ontario’s Nuclear Advantage
