Hydro-Québec considers reopening Gentilly-2 nuclear energy station

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QUEBEC — With the opposition calling for an open debate earlier than something occurs, Hydro-Québec has confirmed it’s learning the potential of reopening the mothballed Gentilly-2 nuclear plant in Bécancour to spice up Quebec’s obtainable energy sources within the face of hovering demand.

On Thursday, Hydro officers confirmed the information first reported by Le Journal de Montréal.

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“Regarding the Gentilly-2 station, an analysis on the present state of the station is underway, to guage our choices and to feed our reflection on Quebec’s future power providing,” Maxence Huard-Lefebvre, a spokesperson for the utility, mentioned in a press release to the Montreal Gazette.

The brand new CEO of Hydro-Québec, Michael Sabia, is already on the file saying he has “an open thoughts (on future choices) given the context of a powerful improve in demand,” the assertion added.

“We’re evaluating completely different attainable choices to extend the manufacturing of unpolluted electrical energy. It will be irresponsible right now to exclude sure power sectors.”

In 2012, the Parti Québécois authorities endorsed a advice from Hydro-Québec to shut Gentilly-2, a CANDU reactor, primarily owing to the excessive prices of upgrading the set up. On the time, it had reached the top of its service life.

Shutting it down was additionally a expensive choice. Hydro officers mentioned Thursday the entire value of decommissioning Gentilly-2 is $2 billion over 50 years. In December 2014, the reactor accomplished the transition to a protected storage state, that means that its gasoline was saved in used gasoline swimming pools (moist storage) or in CANSTOR modules (dry storage).

The information that Quebec’s solely nuclear reactor would possibly in the future come again on-line took many abruptly.

The opposition events quickly denounced the transfer, saying such a choice — a departure from Quebec’s current pro-hydro growth insurance policies — requires extra public debate.

In a press release, interim Liberal chief Marc Tanguay criticized the Coalition Avenir Québec authorities for making choices in secret.

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“The return to nuclear is a gigantic determination and it’s crucial to listen to from Quebecers and consultants earlier than going forward,” Tanguay mentioned. “It’s unacceptable that the power way forward for our nation is being determined behind closed doorways.”

Québec solidaire power critic Haroun Bouazzi added that “we made a collective option to get out of nuclear (energy) in Quebec.”

“It’s disturbing to see Michael Sabia and (Vitality Minister) Pierre Fitzgibbon wanting immediately to reopen this file with out having demonstrated it’s essential to fulfil our ecological transition goals, with out in the slightest degree of debate, with out even having introduced an power transition plan.”

Bouazzi mentioned he desires to listen to Sabia justify himself and clarify his imaginative and prescient earlier than a committee of the Nationwide Meeting.

In its assertion, Hydro mentioned it desires to maintain all its choices open.

“To be able to decarbonize the Quebec financial system, the demand for clear electrical energy will improve considerably,” Huard-Lefebvre mentioned. “It’s an immense problem.”

Fitzgibbon’s workplace, nonetheless, harassed there was no closing determination on re-opening the plant.

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“The evaluation Hydro-Québec is conducting at Gentilly-2 is just preliminary,” the assertion mentioned. “The thought is to get an replace on the state of the location and the reactor. There is no such thing as a undertaking underway (to re-open the location).”

The assertion added, nonetheless, that Quebec will want considerably extra energy to satisfy the wants of transitioning away from fossil gasoline energy and for financial growth.

“We now have to look globally in any respect the choices which can assist us improve electrical energy manufacturing to decarbonize Quebec.”

With a capability of 675 megawatts, the Gentilly-2 reactor began producing energy in 1983. At its peak, it was producing two per cent of Quebec’s energy and employed 800 staff.

Gentilly-2 is certainly one of 5 nuclear producing vegetation in Canada. The 4 others are nonetheless in operation. Ontario has three: Bruce, Pickering and Darlington. The fifth is Level Lepreau in New Brunswick.

Price to revive could be very excessive: skilled

Pierre-Olivier Pineau, professor of power sector administration on the HEC Montréal enterprise college, doubts reviving nuclear energy could be worthwhile in Quebec.

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Greater than 10 years after the choice to shut the plant, “prices can solely go up as a result of we’ve began dismantling the plant,” Pineau defined in an interview. A rise in development prices within the final decade means “the nuclear invoice may grow to be very excessive,” he mentioned.

The professor pointed to alternate options to develop the power provide, comparable to growing power effectivity in houses, wind, photo voltaic and geothermal energy. “All this may help us scale back our consumption” at a decrease value, he mentioned. “And it will keep away from the debates which are all the time tough on applied sciences like nuclear, the place there are dangers (and) there’s waste administration that’s by no means straightforward.”

That doesn’t imply nuclear energy is inappropriate in all contexts, Pineau urged.

“There are international locations on Earth that want nuclear energy as a result of they’ve a lot coal and no entry to … hydroelectricity or wind energy,” he acknowledged. In these instances, he continued, nuclear power could also be a more healthy various to coal, which pollutes the ambiance and whose extraction endangers the well being of miners.

Greenpeace Canada spokesperson Patrick Bonin mentioned nuclear energy is an pointless danger for a province with many different choices. “There’s little doubt that if the federal government and Hydro-Québec wish to go forward with nuclear energy once more in Quebec, there shall be an unprecedented outcry,” Bonin mentioned in an interview.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.

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