Doug Alexander
Bloomberg.com
January 25, 2005

Ontario needs to reconsider its resistance to coal as an energy source with the government pledging to phase out coal-fired power plants by 2007, the head of the new provincial power authority said.

"I don’t see that coal is necessarily ruled out providing it can be used in a more environmentally acceptable format than the present technology allows," Jan Carr, appointed to lead the Ontario Power Authority two weeks ago, said at a conference in Toronto.

Carr’s comments may be at odds with Premier Dalton McGuinty’s promise to shut down Ontario’s five coal plants, which produce 25 percent of the province’s electricity. Ontario faces energy shortages because there aren’t enough new power projects being built to replace the electricity produced by coal, according to a report for the provincial energy ministry.

"It’s just a matter of time before the McGuinty government is forced to admit the obvious: that they cannot meet their promise," said Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, a research group that advocates energy conservation. Phasing out coal "is not achievable."

Ted Gruetzner, a spokesman for the energy ministry, said the government is "committed" to shutting down its coal operations by 2007.

Carr said technological advances in the next 20 years could make coal a viable, less-polluting energy source.

Ontario needs to add 25,000 megawatts of generating capacity by 2020 at an estimated cost of C$25 billion ($20.2 billion) to C$40 billion. One megawatt of electricity is enough to light 1,000 homes.

The Ontario government is reviewing proposals for new power projects that generate as much as 2,500 megawatts in the next two years. A C$900 million refurbishment of a reactor at Ontario Power Generation Inc.’s Pickering A nuclear station, scheduled to be restarted by July, will add another 515 megawatts.

The government set up the Ontario Power Authority earlier this month to oversee long-term planning of the province’s energy needs and to supervise the electrical transmission and generation systems. The agency also can award contracts to private companies wanting to build power facilities.