
Some years ago now, there was a More or Less episode investigating a claim that in order for the UK to electrify cars, just cars, that they would need to build an additional ten full-scale nuclear generating plants just to joule for joule replace the energy required to charge those vehicles instead of fuelling them with gas.
That turned out to be an overestimate. The actual figure was SIX. Six additional nuclear power stations, just to charge cars. Only cars.
Canada is a sprawling country most of which is sparsely populated. That makes our electricity situation much more difficult than the compact dense and tiny UK. While we no doubt have fewer cars to electrify, our density makes providing that electricity much more costly and problematic.
So, if we were gonna make all new cars zero emissions by 2035 it would be difficult to back that up with generating capacity for most of Canada because the ONLY technology we have for generating that much electricity works best in densely populated energy intensive areas. And while we are frantically working toward developing SMRs that could help, those are not nearly deployable yet. I would be happy to get a surprise, but SMRs in place lighting up the country by 2035 seems like wishful thinking.
Even if we started, shovels in the ground, today, eleven years is a big ask. We would struggle to hit this target for increased electricity generation. But the problem is that we are not as yet starting to do anything about building out the massive increases in electricity generation that would be necessary to achieve this goal. I do not foresee any start in 2024 and we would have to have a sea-change in policy and support to be doing site selection in 2025 or 6 or 7…
And for the love of all the old gods, don’t try to sell me your wind and solar fantasy. When we bring Pickering back up to full production that alone will dwarf all of our investments in that short-lived unsustainable delusion.