Nuclear power in Ontario: a controversial history

Ontario is showing no signs of backing down on plans to replace its aging nuclear fleet in the wake of a possible meltdown in Japan.

The province’s long-term energy plan, released in November 2010, called for a re-investment by the government and the private sector to build two new nuclear reactors at Darlington and refurbish 10 older units.

It confirmed Ontario’s intentions to keep getting half of the province’s electricity from nuclear and to phase out coal-fired generation by 2014 at the latest, with two coal burning units at Nanticoke set to close next year.

In 2009, nuclear power generated 55.2% of Ontario’s power.

But the history of nuclear power in this province has not been without ballooning costs and political interference.

FIRST NUCLEAR REACTORS – PICKERING

Ontario Power Generation (OPG), then known as Ontario Hydro, committed to the construction of four reactors at Pickering, about 32 km east of Toronto on the shore of Lake Ontario. These reactors, at what is known as Station A, came online between 1971 and 1973 with capacities of 540 MW each. From 1983 to 1985, OPG brought four more similar reactors online at the Pickering site in Station B; adjacent to Station A.

Pickering Nuclear Generating Station

BRUCE POWER

Additional nuclear power reactors were constructed from 1977 to 1979 at the Bruce Nuclear Power Development site on Lake Huron about 250 km northwest of Toronto. Ontario Power Generation brought four 905 MW reactors online in Station A and, from 1984 to 1987, four more 915 MW reactors came into operation at Bruce Station.

The Bruce site, is the largest nuclear power station in North America and the second largest in the world next to Japan.

Today, the Bruce Station is operated by a private sector company called Bruce Power.

Two reactors at the Bruce site, which were mothballed in 1997, were supposed to be back online by the end of 2009, but are now scheduled to go into commercial operation in 2012.

Energy Minister Brad Duguid has said a $2-billion cost overrun to refurbish the reactors will be covered by the private energy company, not by electricity ratepayers or Ontario taxpayers.

TransCanada Corp. has reported that refurbishing the two units has cost $3.8 billion so far, with the final cost now expected to hit $4.8 billion. The original cost estimate when the project was announced in 2005 was $2.75 billion.

Bruce Power Nuclear Generating Station

DARLINGTON

Started during the high-demand era in 1977, four more 935 MW reactors were constructed at Darlington, about 70 km east of Toronto on the shores of Lake Ontario and came online from 1990 to 1993. The construction of Darlington was plagued with delays and numerous starts and stops to the project schedule due to a number of factors including political interference by three separate Ontario governments.

In 1985, Ontarians voted out the Tory government of the day in favour of David Peterson’s Liberals, who had promised to stop Darlington. By 1985, Darlington was wildly late (its planned completion date had been 1983) and wildly over budget (the $3.5-billion that had then been spent exceeded the project’s estimated $2.5-billion price tag of 1978). The Liberals ended up voting to complete Darlington.

In 1990, voters threw out the Liberals in favour of the New Democratic Party of Bob Rae, who had campaigned on a promise to impose a moratorium on nuclear power. By then, Darlington’s costs had soared to $12.9-billion and was close to completion. The NDP completed Darlington A in 1993, a decade late, for $14.4-billion, almost six times the initial estimates.

In 2008, Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government announced its approval of the construction of two new nuclear reactors at the Darlington site.

But, in June 2009, they suspended the request, expressing concerns over the uncertain future of Crown-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

Today’s announcement calls for $33 billion in investments by government and the private sector to build two new nuclear reactors at Darlington and refurbish 10 older units.

Darlington Nuclear Generating Station