New Nuclear at Wesleyville Project
when you are in a hole, stop digging
- Reference Number
- 807
- Text
I have been a follower of the electricity system in Ontario for a couple of decades now, a ratepayer for over 40 years. During that time I have seen that our system has moved from being a competitive advantage to being a disadvantage. Our population sees this through their electricity prices, but those have been so obfuscated by shifting costs from consumers to taxpayers (we still owe $13B for the last wave of nuclear build). As a result, we need to look outside to view how we fare, rather than looking internally. To help with this, Ihave attached the most recent Ember global electricity review. It shows that renewables for the first time are the largest provider of electricity globally Renewables and batteries, particularly solar have grown exponentially, and will only increase faster given the current issues in the gulf. This is because they are the lowest cost, fastest to install, most reliable and provide energy security. In fact, now solar and batteries combined have lower capex than natural gas, on top of providing almost zero marginal cost of generation. Nuclear is even more disadvantaged, and as a result, is continually losing share, (it is now ~ 1/4 of what renewables are) So, Canada, and Ontario needs to be able to answer why the rest of the world are moving in a different direction. It is not due to land, physics or geography, or wealth, many smaller, poorer countries with less solar and wind resource have orders of magnitude more renewables than we do. It is not even an issue of system stability, we already have sufficient nuclear and hydro, to provide stability in our system to support extremely high levels of renewable introdution. The only rationale the government uses is that it creates Canadian jobs. This is backwards. The choice of electricity generation should be based on providing low, cost, flexible, reliable electricity to enable productive industries to be competitive. Instead, nuclear will do the opposite, and will destroy jobs in other industries while using construction and trades workers who could be more productively used elsewhere, including building the houses that we are in such short supply. Here is the thing, none of these trends that I outlined is changing, renewables and batteries are going to keep getting less expensive and easier to install, while nuclear continues to lengthen and get more expensive. We should have learned this lesson from the 1980's, the last time that we expanded nuclear, and we are still paying for that mistake. The case is even worse today. It is inconcievable to me, that we are even having this discussion again. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Please stop this insanity!
- Submitted by
- Mike Andrade
- Phase
- Planning
- Public Notice
- Public Notice - Comments invited and information sessions on the draft Integrated Tailored Impact Statement Guidelines and draft Public Participation Plan
- Attachment(s)
-
- Global-Electricity-Review-2026.pdf (19.9 MB)
- Date Submitted
- 2026-04-22 - 10:31 AM