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Two new reactors for Canada

darlington.jpg

By Hamish Johnston

Summer can be a miserable time in Toronto. It can get very hot and humid, causing folks to turn up their air conditioning, which in turn puts the region's coal-fired generating plants into overdrive blanketing the city in a sickly yellow smog that can harm those with breathing difficulties.

As a result, local utilities have begun to shut down aging coal-fired plants in an attempt to improve air quality — but leaving some wondering where the city and surrounding province of Ontario will get its electricity.

Now, Ontario's Minister for Energy Gerry Phillips has given the go ahead for two new nuclear reactors to be built at the Darlington generating plant just east of the city, which is already home to four reactors. These are the first power reactors to be built in Canada in over 15 years.

According to the Toronto Star, the reactors will come online in 2018 and the design will be chosen in November from a short list of three firms: Atomic Energy of Canada; US-based Westinghouse; and Areva of France.

The reactors are expected to generate about 3200 MW of power, which will double Darlington's current capacity.

The move is part of Ontario's CDN$26 billion plan to maintain its current nuclear capacity of 14,000 MW through a series of upgrades over the next 20 years.

Darlington is located in a part of Ontario that has been hard hit by lay-offs in the automotive industry, so Phillips may be hoping that the promise of 3500 new jobs will offset the concerns of environmentalists.

Posted by Hamish Johnston on June 17, 2008 10:59 AM |

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Comments (3)

  • 1 Frank Swoboda June 20, 2008 1:28 PM

    I don't know who Hamish Johnston is but he must not live in Toronto. It is the first day of summer and the temperature is 15 C. We are wearing coats out side. We have 2 seasons in this part of Canada:Winter and July. I lived just 8 hours north of Toronto and I saw snow falling every month of the year, even July. We need the power to heat our homes. We all can live without air conditioning for the few days we need it.

    Frank Swoboda.

  • 2 Hamish Johnston June 20, 2008 2:45 PM

    I grew up in Burlington (an outer suburb of Toronto) and I have also lived in Hamilton, Guelph and Oakville. All totalled I have spent about 25 summers in and around the city so I think I am qualified to comment on the weather!

    It may be 15 degrees today, but it has already been over 30 degrees there several times this year.

    Indeed, I can remember doing my high-school exams in June many years ago. The classrooms were not air-conditioned and when it got hot, the sweat dripping off the end of my nose would cause my writing to smear into a blue mess -- at least that's my excuse for not doing better!

    Hamish

  • 3 laptop batteries August 14, 2008 1:42 PM

    Over the next few years chassis development in the junior formulas will be fascinating. The success of Ligier and Mygale in F3 is forcing the tectonic plates of the single-chassis formula apart, and surely it can only be a matter of time before other marques attempt to enter cars into GP2 or WSR.

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