Nuclear reno plan reckless

Re OPG to begin $12.8M nuclear plant renovation, Jan. 12 Ontario’s decision to proceed with refurbishing the Bruce and Darlington nuclear plants and to extend the life of the long-pastdue-for-closure Pickering plant, is stunning in its recklessness, its failure to engage in a rigorous public examination of alternatives and lack of transparency about risks and costs to the public.

The decisions will lock our electricity system into decades of dependency on expensive, risky and aging technology at a time when we are seeing the most significant revolutions in electricity generation, transmission, distribution and storage technologies since the emergence of electricity grids more than a century ago.

The future of sustainable energy systems lies in flexible, resilient, distributed generation systems, grounded on efficiency, renewable energy and smart grids, not high-risk megaprojects to rescue a technology whose time has passed. Mark S. Winfield, professor, Environmental Studies, York University If only your headline were correct.

Sadly, the true amount, $12.8 billion, is probably only the beginning of the money pit the Liberals are wading into once more.

And what happened to our new economic co-operation with Quebec? For a couple of billion dollars at the most, we could improve the transmission capabilities through eastern Ontario and buy their clean, renewable (actual) hydro power at less than the cost of nuclear generation. Terry Kushnier, Scarborough