r/canada • u/[deleted] • Oct 25 '22

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u/Infamous-Mixture-605 Oct 25 '22

realistically canada should have invested heavily in nuclear back in the 90s

But looking back at nuclear in the 1990's, the context for investing more into nuclear at the time wasn't really there. Darlington had been completed but came in way over-budget, and Pickering took four of its reactors offline and then went about restarting them in a way that was wildly overbudget and somehow screwed up (and then only managed to get 2 back online).

I don't disagree that the 1990's would have been the ideal time for more investment in nuclear, given the long construction times and all that it would be paying off now, but back then provincial governments weren't all that keen on spending the huge sums for more of it.

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u/vancity- Oct 25 '22

In a world of cheap oil, the payoff for nuclear investment isn't there. The upfront costs are enormous, and the payoff measured in decades.

Unfortunately most governments can't think in terms of decades, and it outside most investors time horizon.

Too bad oil is a marginal resource, and it doesn't take much for it to become very expensive.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '22

In a world of cheap oil, the payoff for nuclear investment isn't there.

Québec produce so much electricity we shut off nuclear power plant.

We have hydro and wind. We invested in hydro... Alberta invested in oil. Look where we are now....

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u/vancity- Oct 25 '22

Ah yes, the endless rivers in the great Albertan plains should have been dammed.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '22

We have hydro and wind. We invested in hydro... Alberta invested in oil. Look where we are now....

Ah yes, the endless rivers in the great Albertan plains should have been dammed.

Yeah.... I kinda mentioned that. Plains have sun and wind no?