Not Fit For Purpose

The Province’s energy plan, ‘Powering Ontario’s Growth’, is one of those modern communications pieces that the more you read the less you find meaningful content. Once you strip away the bluster, ‘Government has made Ontario the best place to create jobs and build industries of the future’ and the telling and re-telling of what we already know – that Ontario is growing and if we electrify the economy we will need more electricity – there is not a lot left that is of substance.

To be fair, planning large infrastructure is fraught with difficulty – no one can predict the future and there will be blame if, in 15 years time, we end up with too much electricity or too little or in the wrong place or the wrong type or too expensive or too unreliable – much like the blame the current government hurls at the previous one.
On the plus side, we will be building more transmission lines – assuming distributed energy will not make them redundant – to supply electric-arc steel making and electric vehicle industries of the future – a future China already dominates as the largest exporter of EVs with a lock on battery materials and technologies. There will also be pumped hydro-storage close by, at Marmora, which I think is a very good thing.

My main observation, though, is that geothermal is not mentioned. Geothermal is a vast supply of cheap and green heating/cooling energy (the heat capacity of the earth). All that is needed is a deep hole. How cheap depends on how long a hole might last? Amortizing it over the 35 year life of a building will give one answer but whatever replaces the building can be re-connected and re-connected again, which will result in an amortized cost two to five times lower. This cheap, vast and green supply is not part of Ontario’s plan. As well, while much is made of collaborating with the Federal government there is no mention of Quebec – an essential neighbour and a key player in green energy.

‘Powering Ontario’s Growth’ also demonstrates a policy framework beholden to special interests: 1) a risky gamble on GE-Hitachi ‘small’ modular nuclear reactors that use enriched uranium (at 300MW – half the size of a CANDU – ‘small’ is a matter of debate and Ontario will be a first-mover in an industry has never been kind to first-movers in terms of cost or timelines); 2) having Enbridge manage energy conservation and extending its natural gas pipelines for residential heating while ignoring geothermal; and 3) planning massive lithium-based battery storage at a time when battery technology is rapidly evolving and electricity consumption is subsidized rather than conserved. We saw this in action in recent BESS (Big Battery Storage Systems) proposals in the County by companies, on behalf of other companies, owned by global companies, installing technologies by yet other companies, each taking its slice of the pie, while arm-waving about safety and with no idea of where the buck stops if anything goes wrong.

But the deeper issue is climate change or what is now called the polycrisis – the interlocking and accelerating crises of climate, inequality and social despair, loss of biodiversity, continuing assault on our environment, ocean heating, and soil degradation, among many others – all requiring careful and resilient choices. By its very title, ‘Powering Ontario’s Growth’ is wholly blind to this. The future it sees is the same as the past, just bigger, with more of yesterday’s jobs in yesterday’s industries and people living yesterday’s lives. Today’s choices require deep understanding and wisdom. Our children’s and our grandchildren’s futures will not be the same as our past. We know this as we see and smell the smoke from our burning forests. Time is running out and the Ford government is, sadly, not fit for purpose.

Don Wilford