on building nuclear to create hydrogen

The head of the IESO, the operator of Ontario’s electricity system, recently delivered a speech at an event organized by both the Ontario Energy Association and the Association of power Producers of Ontario (APPrO). I read the notes as it’s always interesting when the contractor speaks to the potentially contracted. Being a nuclear advocate this jumped out at me:

“We continue to work with Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation to assess the feasibility for 17,800 MW of new nuclear in the province – consistent with our Pathways to Decarbonization report”

As a nuclear advocate, and a consumer advocate, and as a commentator whose supply mix suggestions following a procurement orgy from 2009-2011 closely match where we ended up today, I felt obliged to follow up. It’s not feasible, but it is fashionably ridiculous.

The Pathways to Decarbonization is a report delivered by the IESO to the Ministry of Energy, at the request of the Minister, intended to, “evaluate a moratorium on new natural gas generation in Ontario and to develop a pathway to zero emissions in the electricity sector.” I didn’t pay much attention because I think those are facile topics, but seeing it cited as a reason for 2-3 times more nuclear, it was now worth ctrl f’ing the document.

There’s some lovely bar charts, with related data tables, displaying capacity that exists and is planned to still be operating in 2050, along with new capacity needed and the totals for both. The figure for capacity includes the 17,800 MW “New Capacity Online by 2050.” What slowed my enthusiasm was the energy number expected from this 17,800 MW: 63 TWh.

That’s very low. Upon checking, the only years of nuclear output below that level, since 1985, came when we’d deliberately idled the 5,000 MW of capacity a Pickering A and Bruce A (1998-2003), which would have put active capacity around 8,200 MW , so getting that same level of output out of 17,800 MW seemed a mistake. Unfortunately, it’s a little worse than that.

This presentation of the data lacks context for those not aware of today’s actual supply, but compared to now this is roughly doubling solar, imports and nuclear (not adjusted for the decreased real capacity due to refurbishment), and nearly tripling wind. Gas is disposed of and replaced, in its capacity role, largely with hydrogen.

Where, oh where, will we get the hydrogen? 

Examining capacity factors (the production expected divided by the production if capacity produced fully through all hours) I find wind, solar, and hydro, will get as much output from new sources as could be expected (and imports better than could be expected). The outlier is nuclear, which has historically had capacity factors around 85% but the Pathways report only sees 40% from new builds.

This is several layers of crazy – and one more now that the head of the contractor has stood in front of contracted and acted like 17,800 MW is a credible figure from a meaningful report.

I don’t think it is, but maybe that’s just me.

Who is all for building nuclear reactors primarily used to produce hydrogen?