Garden in front of Dalhousie Community Centre - Photo by Brett Delmage

Green Party of Ontario and Nuclear Power: yes or no?

8:15pm on Sunday, July 4, 2010 

Someone recently emailed a very short question to us. I answered from the Green Party of Ontario’s point of view.

What is your stance on nuclear power?

The short answer is the Green Party of Ontario doesn’t support nuclear power generation. The long answer is more nuanced than simply being a default reaction against nuclear power generation from a purely environmental view point.

A Smart and Green Energy Grid

When it comes to power generation in Ontario the Green party calls for a re-engineering of the power grid itself.  Currently the system is calibrated to distribute power from a few large power generation centres (nuclear, coal, hydro, etc) over long distances to the consumer.  This is the result of decades of believing the the only solution to Ontario’s power needs is large scale industrial projects.

The Green Party wants to see Ontario move to a smart grid that focuses more on local power generation and local power consumption and a shift away from one-way long distance power distribution.  This would allow for low impact sustainable power generation (solar, wind and hydro electric) to meet local needs, with the ability to fall back to bi-directional regional networks when needed.  If it’s sunny then solar generation ships power to those who use wind generation, and vice versa.

The Green Party also wants to see Ontario take proactive steps to reducing energy demand by improving our energy efficiency. A robust “green buildings” program would go a long way to cutting energy demand; it would help lower our reliance on “big power” to meet that demand.  Oh – and it would also create thousands of skilled jobs to boot.

That’s the Green Party of Ontario’s primary goals: a smart grid, sustainable local power generation and demand reduction through increased efficiency.

Getting back to nuclear power: it doesn’t fit in with our goals.  Without even discussing the environmental impact of the spent fuel and risk of contamination during regular operations, nuclear simply doesn’t fit into the energy model the Green Party believes is the best way to move forward.

Comments
  • Pat Warren
    The Green Party support for distributed power sources, sustainable green power generation and green buildings, cars and equipment is great but it won't get the job done in time unless you have some people changing magic not seen before now. Your objections to nuclear also appear to be a hangover from another era. GenIII and GenIV nuclear power are enormous improvements that can begin producing clean, safe base power within ten years. Small and micro nuclear power generation can bring cheap, clean, safe base power to places remote from the Grid within a few years. In the meantime good luck with the NIMBYs and Deniers and the other game players. But good luck!
  • Thanks for your thoughts Pat. I'm just between work and picking my daughter from daycare, so I don't have lots of time to reply in detail.

    However calling "nuclear" clean makes sense if we only think about airborne emissions - but when you consider the full lifecycle: mining, processing, operations and "disposal" nuclear quickly gets dirty.

    We will need something to provide a base load: natural gas plants and local co-generation (building heat and hydro) are viable options until capable Canadian engineering skills lead to better technology for storing energy when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.

    Instead of throwing billions into more nuclear we should divert that investment into a true and final solution. We don't have extra billions lying around to do both.

    Cheers!
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