Re: Choose green energy: Stop Darlington, Sept. 8
The authors of the opinion piece ignore the fact that Pickering B and its 2000 MW of electricity will be removed from the grid within the next 10 years or so.
They also seem to ignore basic science — i.e. you cannot replace steady electricity provided 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with intermittent sources such as wind power and solar, which have capacity factors of between 25 and 30 per cent. The only way that you can do this is to provide back-up fossil generation 70 to 75 per cent of the time, such as natural gas or coal.
From a greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) point of view it may make sense to replace coal-fired generation with a combination of renewables and, mostly, natural gas. However, it makes no sense to replace nuclear power with mostly fossil fuel since the GHG footprint goes up dramatically.
Germany and Switzerland may be successful in replacing nuclear energy with a combination of fossil fuel and renewables. If they are not, they can always import more cheap nuclear-generated electricity from France, which they currently do anyway.
In Ontario we don’t have that kind of “insurance.”
Dr. Michael Ivanco, Society of Professional Engineers and Associates, Mississauga
