Toronto Star

March 3, 2006

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty long ago admitted his promise to shut down all of Ontario’s smog-producing coal-generated electricity by 2007 was impossible.

Ontario was already staring at a future supply shortage when he became premier and prices for that tenuous supply continue to be artificially suppressed by provincial subsidies. Where on earth would McGuinty find a new energy supply cheaply and quickly?

The answer, which was not at all evident during his campaign, has become crystal clear over the past few months and it promises to be neither cheap nor quick. Ontario is going nuclear.

In the process, McGuinty has had to rethink the merits of coal. Ontario has four remaining coal-fired generating stations — Lambton near Sarnia, Nanticoke on Lake Erie and Thunder Bay and Atikokan in the northwest — that account for 17 per cent of the electricity generated in the province. While Nanticoke and Atikokan are to be closed outright by 2009, the government plans to convert Thunder Bay and Lambton to natural gas.

As an SES Research/Osprey Media poll this week showed, however, that public opinion is fractured on the government’s plans to phase out coal and replace it with more expensive nuclear power. Just 26 per cent of voters surveyed strongly support government plans to mothball its coal stations, while 14 per cent strongly oppose the decision to stop using coal and 15 per cent somewhat oppose it.

Two years ago, Falconbridge and Noranda officials told an Ontario legislative committee that every $1 increase per unit causes the companies’ Ontario costs to rise $2 million. Together, they spend about $100 million a year on electricity. That’s worrisome because their competition in Manitoba, for example, enjoys electricity rates 57 per cent lower than Ontario’s.

The cost of energy, Ontarians recognize, is a key factor in making investment decisions. Reducing generating capacity, then, and making Ontario more reliant on importing energy or costly nuclear, all but erases the impetus to invest here.

So, what are the alternatives? An Energy Probe report last fall shows two of Ontario’s coal-fired power generation units are among the cleanest in North America while a third, Unit 4 at the Lambton generating station, ranks as fourth cleanest among 403 coal generation units in Canada, the United States and Mexico. All are unfairly slated for closure.

Energy Probe’s research is compelling. Phasing out all of Ontario’s coal plants by 2009 means we’ll have to import coal-generated power from Michigan and Ohio, thereby worsening our air quality problems.

And, in the longer term, Ontario taxpayers will be exposed to the potential for massive cost overruns on nuclear plants. This is one promise neither McGuinty nor Ontarians may be able to afford.

This is an edited version of an editorial that appeared yesterday in the Sudbury Star.