Ontario has announced the “biggest acquisition of clean energy in Canada’s history”, unveiling a plan to expand nuclear power generation and procure large developments of utility-scale solar and wind, hydropower, and biogas to meet the province’s growing electricity needs.

Energy Minister Todd Smith said the province would also be investing over a billion dollars in energy efficiency programs through 2030 and beyond, reports CBC News.

The move comes after Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) recommended early planning to meet a projected demand of 88,000 megawatts in 20 years, as more energy end uses—like cars and home heating and cooling—are electrified in the wider transition away from fossil fuels.

“That means all of our current supply… would need to double to meet the anticipated demand by 2050,” Smith said during his announcement in Windsor Monday.

He added that the planned purchase of clean power will pair well with recent energy storage procurements, so that power generated by solar panels, for example, can be stored and injected into the system when needed. Separate analysis indicates those batteries may be powered largely by high-emitting natural gas plants, at least until the new renewables come online at a future date that the government has not yet specified.

Much of Ontario’s electricity comes from nuclear and hydroelectric sources, but the government is planning to expand natural gas infrastructure as many aging nuclear plants are set to go offline to be refurbished as part of a multi-year, C$25-billion plan, the Globe and Mail says.

Once the current gas and storage procurements are finished in 2026, the plan would have IESO launch a new round of requests for proposals for “non-emitting energy technologies such as wind, solar, hydroelectric, and biogas,” the Toronto Star reports.

The province also moved last week to expand nuclear generation, though the additions will take a decade or more to come online. Plans include adding a new nuclear station to the massive Bruce Power site near Kincardine, extending the life of the Pickering nuclear plant, and installing three more small modular reactors at the Darlington nuclear site.

Too Much Nuclear, Not Enough Detail, Critics Say

Ontario frames its drive for new nuclear around projections that demand for electricity will more than double in the coming decades. But there is a continuing technical debate about how much new capacity Ontario will actually need.

“We are urgently in need of a thorough and open public examination of that question,” said Corporate Knights Research Director Ralph Torrie, adding that it is risky to start making large investments in large-scale generation without first maximizing the efficiency gains that are available, especially in buildings.

“You can end up with half-built plants that aren’t needed,” Torrie told The Energy Mix. “At least with solar and wind, the increments are relatively small, and you can scale up and down quickly.”

By comparison, “the risk is much greater with these prototype nuclear plants being proposed that take a long time to build, are very expensive, and that leave you with a handful of very large eggs in a single basket.”

Ontario’s emphasis on nuclear is taking the province in the wrong direction, wrote Mark Winfield, a professor at York University’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, in a blog post this week. A better strategy would be to prioritize options with the lowest economic, environmental, technological, and safety risks.

“Higher-risk options, like new nuclear, should only be considered where it can be demonstrated that the lower-risk options have been fully optimized and developed in the planning process,” Winfield said. “This would suggest maximizing demand-side measures to increase energy efficiency and productivity and reduce energy demand.”

The Most Expensive Path

Climate advocates are also questioning the persistence of nuclear when solar and wind are cheaper, easier to develop, and faster to bring online.

“This is the equivalent of shopping for a VCR because you want to watch movies,” said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada.

“Building new nuclear plants is the most expensive way possible to meet our future low-carbon energy needs. Wind and solar power, even with storage, are one-half to one-third the price, with no radioactive waste or risk of catastrophic accidents.”

Smith has defended the province’s backing for nuclear, saying past governments did not have to worry about rising electricity needs “because demand was flat in the province and jobs were leaving for other jurisdictions.”

“This is the first time in 18 years that electricity demand is increasing,” Smith said.

[Smith’s politicized assessment left out the rapid decarbonization of home heating and cooling, personal mobility, and many industrial processes that are driving up electricity demand in many jurisdictions around the world, including Ontario—Ed.]

The expansion plans for Bruce Power would be the first new, large-scale nuclear plant construction in Canada in three decades and would double the plant’s output to up to 4,800 megawatts, or enough to power 4.8 million homes average Ontario. But the work would also take at least a decade to complete, CBC reports.

Its proponents say nuclear power will be a critical factor in the province’s decarbonization strategy because it can supplement renewables with a consistent, reliable energy supply, while other sources—like wind and solar—are intermittent.

And Canada’s CANDU reactors are among the safest in the world, said Dr. Chris Keefer, a Toronto emergency physician and president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy.

But the country’s nuclear industry has had its share of serious mishaps, CBC reports. “There have been a number of nuclear incidents involving Canadian reactors since the 1950s, including the world’s first nuclear reactor accident in 1952, when an experimental reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, experienced significant damage to its core caused by overheating fuel rods.” Future U.S. president Jimmy Carter played a memorable role in the clean-up after that incident.

Critics of the project also cite the high cost of nuclear projects, which may end up being borne by power consumers. Costs from the province’s last nuclear project, the Darlington facility, became so inflated that it left energy users with a 14-year surcharge on their bills to pay off the $20 billion in stranded construction debt that bankrupted Ontario Hydro, at the time the second-largest power utility in North America, climate reporter Marco Chown Oved recalls in the Toronto Star.

On top of that, Premier Doug Ford’s government is being tight-lipped about the cost of adding this new nuclear capacity.

His political opponents say the new plan, though ambitious, lacks specifics.

“It’s light on details, including key questions of cost, climate impact, waste management, and financial risk,” said NDP Opposition Leader Marit Stiles.

“Ford’s Conservatives should be playing catch-up after undermining clean energy in their first term. Instead, they’re offering generalities and a vague sense of what they might do.”

Ontario Greens leader Mike Schreiner said Ford has “grossly” mismanaged the province’s energy supply by cancelling 758 previously-contracted renewable energy projects and slashing efficiency programs.

“Now, faced with an opportunity to become a leader in a world that’s rapidly embracing renewable energy, this government has chosen to funnel taxpayer dollars into polluting fossil gas plants and expensive new nuclear that will take decades to come online,” Schreiner said.