Ontario’s nuclear plans
I hoped the coming energy revolution was going to be a whole lot more exciting than this. This is more of the same, only bigger. More atoms to split, more energy produced, bigger transmission lines. Also more cost overruns, more nuclear waste, higher risks of accidents, more expensive energy. Big, BIG, BIG. This isn’t revolutionary, it’s stupefying.
The world of the future will be all about reductions. Reducing distances travelled. Reducing energy inputs. Reducing consumption. Reducing resource extraction and degradation. Making products, foods and energy locally. Using resources wholly, so that byproducts of primary production are integrated in cyclical use patterns. Making producers (and their consumers) responsible for whole-life product cycles.
Just imagine what it would cost for the users (us) to pay for the whole life cycle cost of a product whose wastes remain highly toxic for hundreds of thousands of years.
| — Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu on 2008 Mar 15 in Ecology & sustainability, News |
I haven’t read the latest energy plan, but I’m churning through Pembina’s “Renewable is Doable” literature. One of the craziest things is that the OPA is only using 60% of the *economically sensible* amount of CDM (Conservation & Demand Management) — this is the economically cheapest, fastest, cleanest way of “generating” energy, and they’re not doing it all. So weird.
According to Ralph Torrie, the “economically sensible” amount of CDM is what is cheaper than the cheapest kind of generation calculated without externalities. So obviously we should target 100%. In fact, new sources of CDM are always popping up so CDM potential should be rising.
More importantly, if the economically sensible CDM identified is cheaper than generation from coal, shouldn’t we consider the external costs of coal generation too (the costs of more transmission, the health costs associated with declining air quality, higher carbon emissions, the agricultural costs of acid rain and so on)? If we did, the amount of economically sensible CDM identified would be much larger still.
As you say, CDM is by far the cheapest, fastest and cleanest option to meet new demand, and where we should be focusing our attention.