Donald Jones, Tom Adams
Toronto Star
February 19, 2001

The article by John Spears on the cost of the delay in implementing the new hydro market quotes Tom Adams of Energy Probe as saying that under a competitive market the Darlington nuclear generating station would not have been built. But Tom, that’s the problem with the competitive market, we would have gone to the lowest coal provider, coal.

An equivalent sized coal station would now be spewing out millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, together with all the other evils of coal combustion.

Even using our present-day love child, natural-gas fired combination cycle-gas turbine generation, would result in a Darlington-sized plant producing over 12 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide.

Darlington was over budget for many reasons and is not representative of today’s construction costs but who said solving the greenhouse gas problem was going to be cheap? We have to put our money where our Kyoto mouth is.

Donald Jones
Mississauga

Tom Adams’ Reply:

Donald Jones, who fails to disclose that he is an employee of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, is correct in saying that, in a competitive electricity market, the Darlington nuclear plant wouldn’t have been built (Letter-Feb 14). But he wrongly assumes that a competitive market would result in more coal — Ontario Hydro’s legacy is our current codependency on coal and nuclear.

In all the jurisdictions in the world switching to competitive markets, coal and nuclear power investment have stalled. High-efficiency natural gas technologies, and sometimes renewable energy, have proven to be the power sources of choice.

Tom Adams
Energy Probe
Toronto