Canada wants to solve US Northeast nuclear woes with faraway dams
THE KEY to replacing ageing nuclear plants in the US Northeast may lie 1,000 miles away, along a remote river tumbling through the Canadian wilderness.
In boreal forests above the Gulf of St Lawrence, Hydro-Quebec is building a series of dams that will generate enough electricity for more than one million homes. The US$5.2 billion project on the Romaine River is part of a sweeping expansion the government-owned utility began in 2007, with the intention of selling power to the US where nuclear reactors are closing.
It’s not clear Americans will buy. While New York and Massachusetts want to avoid fossil fuels when they replace the soon-to-be-shuttered Indian Point and Pilgrim nuclear plants, wind and solar developers are also jockeying for the job. That’s left Hydro-Quebec, Emera Inc., Nalcor Energy and other Canadian generators promoting the idea that hydroelectric power is cheap, dependable and -- despite what environmentalists assert – clean.
“If people decide to let nuclear go, and they still want to be zero carbon – there are not a lot of options besides hydro,” Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “You can supplement your needs with wind and solar, but you absolutely need a stable and reliable baseload.”
Hydro-Quebec, Canada’s largest hydroelectric generator, has plenty at stake. It’s pledged to double revenue by 2030, even as demand within the province stagnates. That makes exports crucial. The utility has proposals pending with New York and Massachusetts to deliver as much as 2.2 gigawatts, through state-run clean energy auctions that also drew bids from scores of wind and solar companies.
“Hydro-Quebec has to find a way to increase profits,” said Normand Mousseau, a University of Montreal professor who coauthored a 2014 government study on the province’s energy market. “Since demand in Quebec is not going up, they have to sell.”