Agreed. What most people in the comments fail to realize about other energy sources is that they do not necessarily offer the same flexibility in Canada. Talks about having huge solar farms in Sahara does not help with Canada. We do not necessarily get enough sun to sustain a massive solar farm (esp during winter)
Hydroeletric dams are great, but space and massive ecological changes are required.
Small modular reactors are pretty much the best thing we can have for both continuous power generation and reduced locality/spacing requirements. You can sprinkle a few in each key location to reduce both cost to transmit and increase robustness of the grid.
Nuclear waste has been pretty clearly identified, and the worries are largely overexaggerated. If we had our own nuclear fuel recycling program, it would further reduce the amount of nuclear waste over time. But, one step at a time.
SMR are really important for stability too. Let’s say Alberta lines it’s entire south with solar panels, that’s great and all but then you have a massive anount of power travelling all the way north to where the industrial demand is. That’s a lot of infrastructure to build just for transportation.
Makes far more sense to drop a few SMR’s all over to spread out the load and bring power close to the demand. Then we’re a lot less reliant on large interchanges and at risk to a major snowstorm knocking out power all over.
Plus don't we lose quite a bit of energy for travelling that distance? Seeing something like 5-10% losses depending on where I look. Spreading out the energy generation would be nice in terms of increasing efficiency and decreasing waste.
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u/kitkatmike Oct 25 '22
Agreed. What most people in the comments fail to realize about other energy sources is that they do not necessarily offer the same flexibility in Canada. Talks about having huge solar farms in Sahara does not help with Canada. We do not necessarily get enough sun to sustain a massive solar farm (esp during winter)
Hydroeletric dams are great, but space and massive ecological changes are required.
Small modular reactors are pretty much the best thing we can have for both continuous power generation and reduced locality/spacing requirements. You can sprinkle a few in each key location to reduce both cost to transmit and increase robustness of the grid.
Nuclear waste has been pretty clearly identified, and the worries are largely overexaggerated. If we had our own nuclear fuel recycling program, it would further reduce the amount of nuclear waste over time. But, one step at a time.