No New Nukes in Ontario Please

Dalton McGuinty is trying very hard to erode any support he has from the middle and left core that supported him in the last election.

The latest blow comes now to current voters, but to voters for the next 1,000 generations.

It’s very likely that Dalton McGuinty will announce a massive and glutonous investment in nuclear power later today.  The word is that Dalton’s plan will be to greatly increase the dominance (and spending) on nuclear, likely to the tune of $30-$50 billion dollars over several years (likely decades).

This translates to a cost of roughly $3,000 to $5,000 for EVERY SINGLE ONTARIO RESIDENT.

This is a waste of money and is a foolish way to develop a hydro plan and future for this province (and for Canada).

Instead of tossing good money into technology that has yet to work efficiently in this province, there are changes that the McGuinty fiberals should consider implementing immediately that will put a cap on electricity demand in this province.

The first thing to do is shift the mind-set from provincial generation and wasteful distribution to local independence.

These may seem like a pipe dream, but it can be a very simple reality.

Now that they have a majority (and it’s unlikely they’ll return to office given the volume of SNAFUs that have affected this government), they should create a legal mandate that ALL NEW DEVELOPMENT (residential housing, industrial, manufacturing and other activities that will increase future demand) be 100% sustainable and capable of producing energy rather than demanding it.

This is a simple implementation and all it takes is the will to make it happen.

There is no new investment required.  There is no new cost to taxpayers.

People that complain can stuff a sock in it.  If you aren’t interested in never paying for electricity again, then don’t bother looking to Ontario to invest.  This is a unique opportunity and we need to jump on it.

Renewable technologies and sources are ubiquitous and this legal mandate would create a turbo-boost to the renewable energy sector.  It wouldn’t just include major suppliers, but also instigate small and medium-sized businesses to respond to the challenge.  Installers, engineers, electricians and mechanics – just to name a few professions – would all have the opportunity to rise to this new challenge and to do what’s right for this economy.

New housing developments would become local power grids.  You wouldn’t need vast and wasteful distribution systems because the ‘node’ approach would satisfy local demand and would in fact be developed according to what might be demanded by a local community.

The core production would be based on solar, some wind and lots of geothermal.  Most of our residential costs in the summer are related to air conditioning and most of our costs in the winter are related to our furnaces.  Geo-thermal eliminates the need for both of these excessive formats.

Houses would have better standards applied and would cost more, but again, most people could be convinced to pay more if they weren’t confronted with monthly bills for the following:

• Natural gas
• Gas for your car
• Electricity
• Water
• etc

Over the life of a mortgage, the cost is marginalized and the potential revenue opportunity from excess power could easily outweigh the initial upfront cost.  If you don’t like the extra cost, rent an apartment downtown.

Of course, this strategy doesn’t account for existing property, be it residential or commercial.  Again, this problem could be solved with legal requirement, but there are admittedly a lot of issues that arise from this.

• What about those on fixed incomes?
• What about businesses that simply don’t have the cash-flow for an initial outlay?
• How do you find qualified people?
• What if my house or building doesn’t have room for geo-thermal or doesn’t face south for solar?

And so on.  I don’t have a magic bullet solution on this, but I’m sure a few dozen smart policy wonks would be able to cobble together some ideas.

Despite that potential road-bump, I’ll remind you that there are two other ways to look at this broader strategy:

• Encourage local communities to become net energy producers for the oncoming age of electric cars
• Complete transfer of power to individuals

As we enter the age of the electric car, this will prove to be an excessive point of demand for electricity.  This is why McGuinty and the fiberals are panicking and why they’re ready to dump good money into the world’s most wasteful electrical production method (nuclear).

The only way to satisfy demand for electric cars is to make individuals responsible for creating that energy.  More importantly, communities that are effective at encouraging local production will become magnets for new investment, as people will seek out those communities that are making it easy to produce your own energy.

19th century laggards will get punished and will suffer a long slow economic death.

Finally, the most important realization in all of this is that power will be transferred to the people in more ways than one.  Giving people the ability to generate their own independence translates to exactly that:  independence.  A bold government will realize this and give the people what they should have.

If they don’t, they’re just another pack of control freaks that see us as peons rather than people.