NUCLEAR POWER IS THE FUTURE

Liberal Innovation and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said recently in an interview with the Canadian Press that nuclear power has to be a part of Canada’s green energy future.

That’s not just because nuclear power is one of the few forms of present-day technology we have that does not produce greenhouse gases or pollution when it is used to generate electricity.

It’s also because nuclear power is needed to bolster Canada’s electricity grid, which will be under unprecedented strain in the coming years as society reduces its use of fossil fuels to generate power.

Nuclear power, combined with natural gas — the least harmful fossil fuel, which burns at about half the carbon intensity of coal — was the reason Ontario was able to eliminate its reliance on coal to generate 25 per cent of its electricity in just 11 years.

One of the world’s most successful and rapid projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it was only possible, because nuclear power, unlike wind and solar energy, can provide base load power to the electricity grid on demand.

Not every province has inexhaustible supplies of non-emitting hydropower, like Quebec.

That’s why the federal government, along with Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick, is looking to expand the use of nuclear power through the development of small modular reactors known as SMRs.

Champagne isn’t the first federal Liberal cabinet minister to talk honestly about the absolute need for nuclear power to assist in meeting Canada’s energy and environmental goals.

In 2020, when he was the federal natural resources minister, Seamus O’Regan told CBC’s The House that, “We have not seen a model where we can get to net zero emissions by 2050 without nuclear. The fact of the matter is that it produces zero emissions.”

Anti-nuclear campaigners reject all forms of nuclear power out of fears of nuclear accidents, terrorists acquiring so-called “dirty bombs” and the need to store radioactive nuclear waste.

But if climate change really poses the threat to humanity that those advocating for green energy claim, the math is simple.

Nuclear power must be a part of meeting Canada’s future energy needs.