Nuclear power has been an economic failure, despite being larded with subsidies and shorn of liabilities that face its competitors. Oil price hikes have not made it economic, either.   read more »

The U.S. doesn’t have a market for the nighttime power surplus that nuclear inevitably produces.

"If France can produce 80% of its electricity with nuclear power, why can’t we?,” asks U.S. presidential candidate John McCain. Nuclear power is a cornerstone of Senator McCain’s plan to combat climate change, which he is unveiling this week.  read more »

Good morning. I have some good news for you this morning. The good news is that Ontario has an easy and painless way out of the energy fix that we're in. I have some bad news for you, too. Our government doesn't know it, and, I am certain, neither do most of you in this room. Because of what you don't know, we face a future in which we all may freeze in the dark.  read more »

Nuclear runs all night, can't be ramped up in day.

After scores of bankruptcies and bailouts, many if not most energy analysts recognize nuclear electricity for what it has been: the single biggest business disaster in history.

But nuclear power's failings extend beyond the red ink on the balance sheets to the limitations in the technology. The nuclear reactor, though efficient in medical and military applications, is ill-suited for the production of electricity in a sophisticated power market of diverse customers with diverse needs  read more »

The only private operator of nuclear plants in Canada, Bruce Power LP, plans to bring nuclear power to Alberta, saying Thursday it hopes to build a $10-billion-plus generating complex near Peace River.

But experts on nuclear power were quick to note that even though nuclear generation has massive capital costs, it has a dismal track record at meeting cost estimates and construction schedules and that, once operational, the reliability of nuclear stations has been spotty, at best.  read more »

Two Canadian mega-projects in works, but critics still battling

CALGARY — With two nuclear mega-projects planned for Alberta and Ontario, the sector is showing signs of growth for the first time in decades, but critics warn those sorts of major projects are fraught with risk.

On Thursday, Ontario power firm Bruce Power said it wants to build Western Canada’s first nuclear power plant near Peace River, Alta. The proposed $10-billion facility could produce enough electricity to power two million homes by 2017.  read more »

MR.RUBIN: Madam Chair, my comments deal with issues concerning nuclear power, and we offer them to urge this Board to do two things: To stipulate and construe the nuclear issues as broadly as possible; and, in particular, to seek mechanisms to ensure that Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers are protected from the peculiar risks presented by nuclear power.  read more »

The Ontario government had several objectives in entering into a sole-source contract with Bruce Power to buy electricity from Bruce's nuclear expansion. One of them, detailed in the Auditor-General's report, was to conceal the consumer impacts.  read more »

Thanks to the report by Ontario Auditor General James McCarter, issued on the afternoon before the long weekend by the Ontario government, Ontario's electricity ratepayers are much closer to understanding what electricity from the Bruce A nuclear refurbishment will cost. The bottom line: The McGuinty government signed a disastrous deal in deciding to resurrect nuclear plants that had no cost justification.

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Financial Post January 14/2005
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) has cost federal taxpayers an estimated $17-billion in failed attempts to develop commercially viable nuclear reactors. Even the sales that AECL has made have proven to be wildly unprofitable, going back a generation to its perplexing reactor sale to Argentina, when AECL agreed to price its contract in pesos. Today, the federal Crown corporation is poised to blow more billions.

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Dear Friend:

The federal government, and three provincial governments, are about to sink billions more dollars into another attempt to salvage the nuclear industry, the country's least economic energy industry – and its most dangerous.

Last month, New Brunswick discovered that its nuclear reactor at Point Lepreau had cracks in its main steam pipe. Cracks in the same piece of equipment at a reactor in Japan just months before had led to an accident that boiled alive four workers and severely scalded seven others.  read more »

We have learned that the federal government has quietly begun giving its friends in the nuclear industry new access to the public purse, in order to fund plans for massive nuclear power growth.

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For decades, nuclear power has been a promising industry. First, it promised electricity too cheap to meter, and nuclear-powered cars and airplanes. Later, it promised safe, reliable and economic electricity. Today, those promises are hard to make with a straight face, and even harder to keep: More than one-third of Canada's billion-dollar Candu reactors have stopped producing any electricity (or income), and the unsupportable debt created by Candu reactors has far surpassed $10-billion, not including the additional nuclear billions in the federal debt.

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