Comments on: Energy and Global Warming News for July 1st: Ontario puts $20B nuclear upgrade plan on ice; ‘Green jobs’ pitch swayed Ohio lawmakers

By: Phillip Huggan

Phillip Huggan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:17:55 +0000

Canada considers nuclear because we have a history with the technology that goes back to the 1940s. We don’t have much of a wind industry because we’ve partially elected Neocons last two elections, and the turn of the century Liberal government errored in subsidizing hydrogen fuel cells. Our offshore wind resources surely exceed the USA’s despite 1/10th electricity demand. Maybe the only country on Earth with the ability to easily add hydro capacity (a line from Manitoba to nuclear Ontario is possible though not a political priority). EU made energy efficiency advances in 1970s oil shock. Pretty much the whole world is following in their stimulus bills except Canada. Our home retrofit portion of our stimulus bill is the most utilized by Canadians portion of the Bill to date (a massive version of this was attacked by our GOP during last election), but is GWB-era paltry. Pretty much all of Obama’s good green ideas were attempted as platforms by our opposition Parties and were successfully attacked by our media and rich-deserve-to-be-homeless Canadians as a threat to our economy, ala your GOP.

By: Leland Palmer

Leland Palmer — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:50:55 +0000

Nuclear could be part of the mix, IMO. If you look on the CARMA database of powerplants, linked into Google Earth, most of the big producing power plants are coal.

Of those that have a green icon, the ones that produce the most power are nuclear and hydropower.

I think we should make a nuclear deal with the GOP in the Senate. This would split the nuke crowd off from the fossil fools, and split the opposition.

Also, the cost of nuclear might well depend on both infrastructure and standardization. Infrastructure would include a permanent disposal site, and availability of loans. Standardization might include standardizing on a standard design, such as the French gas cooled pebble bed design, or a consensus American design.

Let’s make a deal, and get a bill through the Senate.

By: crf

crf — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:37:42 +0000

Nuclear isn’t a dead end. Nuclear is just expensive and daunting. It has the potential to reduce it’s costs with proper planning and good long term management of all its aspects: US leadership (political, financial, scientific and corporate) is needed here. In the near term increasing the fraction of nuclear in the power mix in the US would be a good plan. Building wind (especially) in a big way is part of a good near term plan. Increasing solar thermal would be part of a good near and long term plan for parts of the US. MASSIVELY increasing the fraction of US electricity provided by nuclear, in the short term, can only charitably be called “a plan”: it isn’t too realistic, and it isn’t needed. 40 years from now, though, MASSIVELY increasing the fraction of electricity provided by nuclear may be needed, in the US, and worldwide: so it makes some sense to not close off that future pathway: indeed, keep it as clear of obstacles as possible.

For northern countries, like Canada, that don’t have handy deserts on which to build solar thermal, it seems pretty necessary to reasonably plan on nuclear becoming a larger proportion of their power mix, on a time-frame quicker than the United States need follow.

By: paulm

paulm — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:46:59 +0000

Nuclear is a dead end. We are waking up to sustainable energy now.

By: crf

crf — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:04:02 +0000

Canada has less opportunity to use renewables like wind or solar than the US. It needs to use nuclear.

By: Randy

Randy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:54:10 +0000

George H.W. Bush, a 97,000-ton aircraft carrier named for the 41st president, officially joined the fleet of the U.S. Navy in Norfolk, Virginia, today.

The $6.2 billion ship, built by Northrop Grumman Corp., was the first aircraft carrier to be commissioned since the USS Ronald Reagan in July 2003, and is the 10th and last Nimitz-class nuclear
Year 2009. clean safe and modern. America has sucessful commitment to nuclear powered electricity.

By: Richard Levangie

Richard Levangie — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:14:45 +0000

Heaven forbid that Canada actually show leadership.

By: ClaudeB

ClaudeB — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:52:59 +0000

Joe: Canada is not obsessed by nukes, Ontario is. Smitherman (Ontario’s Liberal minister of Energy)’s recent announcement has little to do with rejecting the nuclear option and everything to do Harper’s Conservatives plan to privatize Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, which would decimate Canada’s Ontario’s nuclear industry and cost thousands more jobs in Canada’s Ohio (job-starved Ontario will determine if Harper keeps his job a few months from now).

Without the Ontario contract, Ottawa won’t be able to sell AECL. On the other hand, who would buy a company who hasn’t build a plant in a decade and would be liable for huge cost overruns with the contract?

So, what is most likely is this: Ontario will get its reactors, the Canadian taxpayers will cover the cost overruns, and the hydro-obsessed provinces (Quebec, BC, Manitoba and Newfoundland) will be pissed since they don’t get a penny from Ottawa to build their electricity infrastructure.

[JR: 1) Yes, sorry. 2) Yes, this looks to be playing hard to get rather than outright rejection.]

By: Dean

Dean — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:40:22 +0000

The Accuweather global warming blog has some good articles, one recent one being this interview:

http://discovermagazine.com/ 2009/ jun/ 30-state-of-the-climate-and-science/ article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

You just have to ignore the denialist domination of their comments.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:38:01 +0000

Exelon Energy has also dropped their plans to build a new unit at the existing South Texas Nuclear plant in Victoria.

“Power generator Exelon Corp. said Tuesday it has called off plans for now to build a new nuclear plant in Texas because of worries over the economy and the limited availability of federal loan guarantees.”

http://www.chron.com/ disp/ story.mpl/ business/ 6505528.html

They are also suspending work on a reactor in Missouri.