The case against Nuclear by Frank De Jong

Building more nuclear power in Ontario is, at best, throwing good money after bad. Nuclear power is hugely expensive, extremely dangerous, requires heavy transmission grids, is prone to breakdowns, and is, in any case, non-renewable as there are only a few decades of high grade uranium remaining on earth at present usage.

Conservation and renewable energy is a far more cost-effective way to keep the lights on in Ontario. The cheapest, safest and most reliable solution to our energy requirements is to reduce demand through efficiency and then supply what we need through distributed renewables like wind, solar, biomass and biogas. With existing technology combined with appropriate financial incentives we can decouple our economy from our energy supply, allowing the economy to expand and our energy demands to shrink at the same time.

The best way to encourage conservation and efficiency is to reflect the true costs of electricity in the price. The true cost of electricity would include the cost of the limited insurance liability granted the nuclear industry, the costs of servicing the stranded debt from past nuclear station construction and repairs, nuclear power station decommissioning costs, the future costs of babysitting nuclear waste for thousands of years, and the related health care costs.

Charging the true costs of nuclear and fossil fuel generated electricity would significantly raise the price of electricity, however, instead of this being an additional tax, the new revenue should be used, dollar for dollar, to reduce income taxes. This way, without government subsidies, consumers and industry would have incentives to conserve electricity and to build as much renewable electricity as is needed.

Frank de Jong, GPO Leader