Thursday, June 19, 2008

Darlington to get 2 new reactors

Robert Benzie
Debra Black

Power-hungry Ontario wants new sources of electricity near Toronto. Hard-hit Durham Region wants jobs. Those factors won out over environmental fears and huge costs yesterday as the province announced that the Darlington nuclear plant will be expanded to accommodate two giant reactors.

Canada's first new reactors in two decades are expected to generate up to 3,200 megawatts of power. That is almost enough to power all homes and businesses in Toronto and nearly doubles Darlington's current capacity.
Toronto Star

Just in case we thought Queen's Park was actually listening... I love this though:
"Phillips declined to give a price tag for the Darlington project other than to say it would fit within the overall $26.3 billion replacement and refurbishment nuclear plan over the next 20 years.

"I won't give you an estimate today. The reason for that is we are going to use this very good, competitive process to get the possible deal," he said, acknowledging that even though the winning company would face "penalties" for some extra costs, ratepayers would be on the hook for the cost overruns. "

Has no one been paying attention to their hydro bills in the last 20 years? We're still paying for the first set of reactors, and not all of them are actually working.

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