The Power of Nuclear Power

There is five nuclear generating stations in Ontario: Darlington, Pickering A and B, and Bruce A and B.  The Darlington Generating Station has four CANDU reactors with a total output of 3,524MW.  That can support enough electrical power for a city of two million people (Versace, 2008).  The Darlington Station is undergoing an expansion of four new reactors to be ready in 2018.  The Pickering A and B Generating Station is one of the largest stations in the world having eight CANDU Reactors, however two of the reactors have been out of commission due to cost issues surrounding safety and reconstruction of their cores.  The six other reactors on the site can produce a total output of 3,100MW.  On Dec. 31^st 1997 there was a partial shutdown of the “A” plant for not meeting safety standards.  Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is the largest plant in North America with a total output of 6,232MW.  However that is with all eight of the CANDU Reactors working at full power, there are only six of the reactors working producing 4,640MW. 

There is only 16 CANDU Reactors operating in Ontario and still they are producing enough energy to support approximately six million people.  Ontario has a population of 12 million people.  Nuclear power already supports 50% of Ontario’s needs of electricity.  The OPG should go through and build the four CANDU Reactors planned on the Darlington site and then build four more on another new site.  The eight new reactors could produce approximately 6,000MW going on that each CANDU Reactor can produce approximately 740MW (AECL, 2008).  Fossil fuel-fired plants produce approximately 8,500MW.  That means that with eight new reactors we can replace 70% of fossil fuel consumption.  Four of the five fossil fuel plants in Ontario could be put out of commission and that includes all of the coal-fired plants.  The other fossil fuel plant is a duel natural gas and oil-fired generating station.  This station can produce 2,120MW.

The OPG could potentially make coal-fired plants obsolete in Ontario.  Doing this would take time though and would have to be done in steps to not go over the budget fast.  In the long run Ontario needs to look at Nuclear power as a permanent alternative to fossil fuels because it can produce enough energy to meet the power needs of approximately 65% of Ontario with the construction of eight new reactors.