A nuclear power station in Austria now uses clean, safe nuclear energy — the sun!
Greenpeace isn’t usually invited to hang banners from nuclear stations, but the Austrians asked us to do just that. And how could we refuse? It was to mark the conversion of Zwentendorf nuclear plant solar power plant.
More proof the so-called nuclear renaissance is dead on arrival: Bruce Power announced today it is abandoning two proposals to build new reactors at the Bruce and Nanticoke sites in Ontario.
Yet another warning this morning that Ontario should not buy Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s (AECL) prototype Adavanced CANDU Reactor. AECL’s incompetence and failure at building two reactors to replace the 50-year old NRU nuclear station has caused another shortage of medical isotopes. Today’s radioistope shortage could be tomorrow’s electricity shortage if Ontario doesn’t rethink its commitment to relying on AECL - or AREVA’s - prototype reactor to come online on time and on budget.
On Tuesday I attended a screening of the Suzuki Diaries, a special episode of the CBC’s Nature of Things that follows David Suzuki and his daughter Sarika on a tour of renewable energy projects in Europe. While the show was inspiring, it quickly became a sideshow to Dr. Suzuki’s dressing-down of Energy Minister George Smitherman for his government’s commitment to nuclear power.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is set to visit a wind farm in Port Alma this morning. Premier McGuinty will undoubtedly tout his government’s strides to develop wind power. What Premier McGuinty won’t mention, however, is the cap his government has put on the development of wind power.
The graph below shows how the deployement of wind power flatlines around 2019 when the government hopes new nuclear stations will come online. So while we are seeing wind power developed relatively ambitiously until 2010, it will be reined in afterward to make space for long lead–time nuclear projects.
The McGuinty government has always said its first priority is conservation and renewables. It should start to walk the talk and take the cap off renewables. If it did, there would be no need for expensive new nuclear stations.
