FOURNIER: Billions for load, nothing for baseload generation

Whatever one thinks about electric cars, the great question unanswered by the government has always been this: If everybody switches over to them, where is the power coming from? Electrification is a priority government goal, and money has been poured out over industries making the cars and the batteries they need. Big money — something like $52 billion in tax-payer dollars have been allocated over 13 projects in the form of investment tax credits, production subsidies and other supporting mechanisms, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Add in the private funds going into the production of batteries, and the figure rises to almost $100 billion.The first question that came to mind when reading this summary report however, was where are the announcements of matching public to private sector investments to the tune of $100 billion in new base-load power generation in Canada?To be succinct, where's the power coming from so that all these cars can be driven without the lights in everybody's kitchen flickering?Governments will point to an exceptional deployment of public-private investment capital towards electric generation. This is indeed unprecedented.However.... In late March, I wrote in the Western Standard that There is no energy transition in Canada. There I highlighted evidence showing there has been no increase in power generation in Canada since 2015.Sure, tens of billions have been invested in intermittent wind and solar, plus back-up natural gas power generation infrastructure, but these investments have not been able to keep pace with the rate by which power generation from coal power plants have been eliminated across Canada.This is especially true here in Alberta.Thus I share the sentiments of the Royal Bank of Canada, which in their 2022 report titled The $2 trillion transition, they suggested that unless power generation increase by 50% over the next decade, rolling blackouts are on the horizon.And one thing that won't be rolling may well be your car.Note to the relentlessly cynical, you have reason to be. When we examine recent history for cases where the federal government has invested in base-load power generation, it is in Romania and not in Canada.Late in 2023, Ottawa announced that it will finance $3 billion in loans to Romania to refurbish its existing two CANDU nuclear reactors and to build two more. While I am pleased to see Canadian CANDU nuclear technology being advanced overseas, I struggle to understand why the same has not been extended to any Canadian enterprise?My vision is that every city in Canada with a population above 500,000 will someday soon, have a Canadian CANDU reactor built near-by. There are 12 cities in Canada that qualify.The latest iteration of CANDU reactor technology called Monark, could and should be sited near each of these metropolitan city centers to provide load following services.The Conference Board of Canada recently reported that for every 1 GW CANDU Monark reactor built, potentially over $60 billion in economic activity can be produced over their 76 year lifetime with an initial construction cost of $5 billion per reactor. If Ottawa was to finance 12 CANDU Monark reactors across Canada, this would result in a $720 billion boost to the Canadian economy over the next 76 years at a price tag of approximately $60 billion.The upside to this large public investment would be that the investment dollar would be almost entirely localized within the Canadian economy. The CANDU technology supply chain is virtually contained within our borders, as opposed to wind and solar, where 80 plus percent of the supply chain is dominated by China.Given Ottawa, Ontario and Quebec have allocated almost the same equivalent amount of public funds towards electrical load investments, it only seems logical that Canadians consider balancing the equation by investing equivalently in base-load nuclear. If we do not see an equal commitment to base-load power generation capacity, Canada remains on a collision course with rolling blackouts.