[cdn-nucl-l] Hard to see how this can be done without investing in nuclear power.

["Jerry Cuttler" <jerrycuttler@rogers.com>]

"Take electricity in Ontario. Between now and 2020 Ontario will need 25,000
megawatts of new or refurbished power generation capacity, at a cost of $25
billion to $40 billion. It needs to refurbish 10,500 megawatts of existing
nuclear capacity, find a replacement for 7,500 megawatts of coal-based
electricity production, and provide for an additional 6,500 megawatts of new
capacity to meet projected growth in the economy."
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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1114725013417&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907620326&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
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Toronto Star, Apr. 29, 2005. 07:46 AM

Politicians steer clear longer-term issues
World oil supplies are shrinking

DAVID CRANE

If the role of government is to represent the future to the present, then
governments in many countries would get low marks. Our political
institutions and the politicians who serve in them appear to fall far short
of what's urgently needed today - an ability to deal with difficult
long-term challenges.

Take growing concerns about both the reliability of future world oil
supplies and prices, as well as concerns over the impact of climate change,
much of which is caused by our consumption of oil.

The U.S. House of Representatives just recently defeated, 254-177, an
amendment to U.S. energy legislation which would have raised automotive
fuel-efficiency standards from the current average of 10.63 kilometres per
litre to 14.03 kilometres per litre by 2015. The U.S. National Academy of
Sciences had recommended this to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 10 per
cent in 2015.

Yet U.S. President George W. Bush lauded passage of the energy bill, which
he described as "an important step to secure our energy future and to reduce
our dependence on foreign sources of oil." This week he met with Saudi
Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah in a bid to persuade the Saudis to boost oil
production. Yet oil imports are a large part of the mushrooming U.S. trade
deficit.

But with the world moving from today's population of about 6.4 billion
people to a world of about 9 billion people 45 years from now, demand for
oil will be much higher without major changes in technology and lifestyles.
Moreover, there is now increasing recognition that the world's oil supplies
may be peaking out. There is disagreement over the exact date, but not
disagreement over the peaking in supply. Many analysts have this happening
sometime in the next 5 to 10 years.

If the implications of tightening oil supplies against growing demand and
the consequent impact on prices is ignored as an important signal of the
need to change, then the urgent need to address climate change should be
another signal. But it too is being largely ignored.

A few days ago, the British Antarctic Survey reported that glaciers on the
Antarctic peninsula were shrinking at a rapid rate, contributing to rising
sea levels. We are seeing similar disturbing developments in our own Arctic.

Earlier this week, a symposium at Britain's Royal Society on the impact of
climate change heard an alarming report from the University of Illinois's
Steve Long, who warned that as a result of climate change "we need to
seriously re-examine our predictions for future global food production as
they are likely to be far lower than previously estimated."

In Canada, the federal government has negotiated an agreement with the
automotive industry to cut greenhouse gas emissions. However, no changes in
fuel-efficiency standards have been made and the agreement is voluntary.

Another example of governments' failure to take a long-term strategic view
is the unwillingness to implement serious early childhood development
programs, despite the significant advantages in terms of readiness to learn
when youngsters enter the school system.

In Canada, federal and provincial governments have been talking about this
since the mid-1990s. But 10 years later we still don't have a serious
program. Prime Minister Paul Martin included a provision in his most recent,
and now controversial, budget to fund a federal-provincial strategy. But
several provincial governments have dragged their feet and now Opposition
Leader Stephen Harper says he would scrap the initiative.

Yet if Canada is to prosper in a knowledge-based economy it needs a highly
literate population, with much higher overall literacy than we have today.

There are many other examples of the failure of our political institutions
to make vital choices.

Take electricity in Ontario. Between now and 2020 Ontario will need 25,000
megawatts of new or refurbished power generation capacity, at a cost of $25
billion to $40 billion. It needs to refurbish 10,500 megawatts of existing
nuclear capacity, find a replacement for 7,500 megawatts of coal-based
electricity production, and provide for an additional 6,500 megawatts of new
capacity to meet projected growth in the economy.

It is hard to see how this can be done without investing in nuclear power.
Yet no political party wants to deal with this, another example of how our
political institutions seem incapable of dealing with long-term and urgent
challenges.

So this is the most serious problem of all: Our political system does not
seem able to address the issues that matter most. The question is how much
longer can we afford this.

David Crane's column appears on Friday. He can be reached at
crane@interlog.com by email or by fax at 416-926-8048.