Pickering Saved, Time to Revive Gentilly

Energy. Nuclear. Pickering.
Hoping reason prevails and what the previous generation of Ontarians built, will be retained for the next generation.

[Pickering Saved, Time to Revive Gentilly @SavePickering]

@Dr_Keefer asks @JustinTrudeau environment minister @s_guilbeault if he has reconsidered his opposition to #nuclearenergy in light of the IPCC scientific consensus and the success of Ontario’s CANDU-powered made in Canada's energy transition away from coal. #savepickering

[Canadians for Nuclear Energy @CanadiansEnergy]

Environment & #Climatechange minister #Guilbeault refuses to clarify his position on #Nuclear #energy when pressed by @Dr_Keefer . All 4 #IPCC #decarbonisation pathways call for increased nuclear. @s_guilbeault is out of touch with the scientific consensus. @SPEACanada THREAD 1/

[New York Energy Alliance @NYEnergyAllies]

"One project alone [the Champlain Hudson Power Express] could provide 1,000 megawatts of hydropower – 50 percent of Indian Point's capacity – and that project has all its approvals."
- Paul Gallay, Riverkeeper president, January 2017

Yesterday, CHPE delivered zero.

It wasn't an outage. NYISO listed the line as available at its full 1,250 MW for all 24 hours, and Hydro-Québec scheduled nothing across it. The last time that happened was July 28. The drop came fast: CHPE carried 15–20 GWh a day from Sept 28 to Oct 1, then 7.6 GWh on Oct 2, about 3 GWh on Oct 3 and 4, and nothing on Oct 5.

Is that allowed? Yes. Hydro-Québec's contract with NYSERDA has no daily or hourly delivery requirement. According to the PSC order approving it:

The only floor is seasonal. Hydro-Québec has to deliver 40% of its promised annual amount in each six-month period.
That floor isn't enforced yet. It's measured over three seasons and doesn't start counting until the third, so the first real test is around summer 2027.
Outages shrink it. It's reduced whenever the line is down, and for curtailment and force majeure.
Hydro-Québec is paid only for what arrives. A zero day costs ratepayers nothing, and also delivers nothing.

The promise was much bigger than the floor. Hydro-Québec bid 10.4 TWh a year. When the PSC approved the contract, it said that number showed the "objective to fill the CHPE line to maximum capacity for 95% of the year." Since June 1, CHPE has delivered 0.68 TWh, about 19% of that pace.

Over the entire day: New York used 378 GWh. Gas supplied 36%, nuclear 20%, hydro 18%, solar 9%, wind 9% and imports 8%. Demand peaked at 18.0 GW at noon, and NYC's highest-priced hour hit $97/MWh.

[Cold Air @ScottLuft]

"Hydro-Québec bid 10.4 TWh a year."

they closed a nuclear power plant for this alchemy?

In 2025 ON was a net exporter of nearly 8 TWh to QC - mostly when natural gas was the marginal generator.
through Q3, 2026's net exports to QC are up another 12%

[Paul Hader @PAHSS]

Continuing Russian terrorist attacks on innocent Ukrainian civilians proves Russia is a terrorist state. Sanction Russia out of existence and expel Russia from the UN for these war crimes!

[Pickering Saved, Time to Revive Gentilly @SavePickering]

@WindConcernsONT Has any candidate signed that pledge? Certainly anyone on that list is off my list!

[Wind Concerns @WindConcernsONT]

IESO delayed launch of next RFP because the Ontario municipal election was a "challenge". They didn't want proposals to be an election issue. Too bad. It is. An Ottawa (fake) enviro group asks candidates to sign a "pledge" to support renewables and make the city a "willing host".

[Liza Lockwood @DrLizaMD]

Want to hear something beautiful?👇🏽

[James Hopf @HopfJames]

Extending operation of CA's Diablo Canyon plant requires state legislation. Governor Newsom says that the legislation should be considered next year, and be left to the next governor. Article link in reply.

Analyses, and political leaders across the state, support operating the plant until 2045 (when it's new NRC license expires).

Newsom's statement should not be interpreted as a lack of support. After all, he spearheaded the effort to extend operation to 2030 (which also required legislation at the time). The problem is that there is only a couple weeks before the state legislature adjourns for the year. CA will have a new governor next year. Newsom's position is that there is not enough time this year for the legislature to adequately consider such new legislation.

There's reason to be confident that the CA govt. will do the right thing. There is both political and expert consensus.

Analyses show that extended operation to 2045, will save $1.3 billion annually (i.e., it will reduce power costs, vs. what would happen if it closed). It also bolsters grid reliability and reduces air pollution and CO2 emissions. The economic impacts on the local area are more profound. The plant provides a large number of very high-paying local jobs. It will also make huge contributions to the local tax base. Closure of the plant in 2030 would devastate the local economy.

For these reasons, political leaders, on both the state and local levels, are expressing strong support for extending operation to 2045. At one of the debates, all eight of the CA governor candidates said that they would keep the plant running.

[Pickering Saved, Time to Revive Gentilly @SavePickering]

@ExnerPirot @cadlam In your opinion should enrichment capacity be purely an economic outcome or should Ottawa weigh in with policy and subsidy mechanisms?

[Cold Air @ScottLuft]

seems a strange question.

Should Ottawa strategize with no interest in the outcome of a strategy?

Should an incumbent supply chain be an influence?
technological independence?

yeah.
unlikely to save CANDU- that decline was set in motion by McGuinty open bidding on Darlington B

[Arneri Design @ArneriDesign]

New peer-reviewed study just dropped: adding a tiny 4% dose of $HGRAF Fractal Graphene to ordinary activated carbon nearly QUADRUPLED a supercapacitor’s energy storage. Let me translate what that means for your daily life 🧵⚡ #graphene #EnergyStorage

(Thanks 🙏🏻 @thatkidbigmike)

[Cold Air @ScottLuft]

TC Energy reported today, and scanning the results for Bruce Power I'm feeling they're joining OPG in damaging the pro-nuclear story - and I ought to have noticed how earlier than this.

Hoping for some pushback to put me in my place on this thread...

1/5

[Mark Nelson @energybants]

Vintage photos from building a nuclear plant in the 1970s on a few hundred acres of corn fields in northern Illinois.

Byron still powers two million people in Chicago today and can keep going for at least half a century more.

We will get back to building.

More pics below.

[Nick Touran @whatisnuclear]

We're hiring broadly across nuclear and maritime disciplines at Ocean Atomics. If you've got the skills and want a challenging, fun, and impactful change, hit us up. The untapped potential of civil nuclear-powered ships and other maritime infrastructure is a thrill. Job board below

[Pickering Saved, Time to Revive Gentilly @SavePickering]

@ScottLuft Lol. Indeed, his job depends on continuing to be the village idiot.

[Cold Air @ScottLuft]

I am still confused why this man continues to present himself as an idiot-
but I'm starting to suspect he has no choice.

[James Hopf @HopfJames]

Aalo Atomics’ advanced reactor design, Aalo-X, successfully completed a zero-power fueled criticality demonstration on July 4. It is the fourth micro-reactor to achieve criticality under the DoE Reactor Pilot Program. Article link in reply.

[Cold Air @ScottLuft]

My guess is NRC certification would be helpful in marketing the reactor elsewhere in the world - far more than it indicates hopes for sales within the USA

[Cold Air @ScottLuft]

IAEA PRIS data shows Pickering B NGS had its best annual output in 37 years in 2025 - its last full year of operation before the refurbishment won by the efforts of people including @cadlam and others at @CanadiansEnergy

[James Hopf @HopfJames]

A bipartisan pair of senators, and a bipartisan pair of representatives, have introduced the "Build Nuclear with Local Materials Act", which would allow use of commercial grade concrete and steel for non-safety-related structures. Article link in reply.

That would significantly reduce nuclear plant construction costs, as nuclear-grade components are much more expensive than the commercial-grade equivalent.

Nuclear-grade materials would still be required for safety-related components. The NRC would retain the authority to determine whether a component or structure is safety-related.

One would have thought that the NRC already allows the use of commercial grade for components they deem to be non-safety-related. Is the issue that NRC was not trying hard enough to determine which components were not safety-related? That they took the easy approach of just classifying every thing as important-to-safety? (I've worked for companies that took the simplistic approach of just classifying everything as nuclear grade in their licsence applications.)

One thing I would add. I hope the NRC will give small reactors proper credit for their much smaller potential hazards. For such reactors, far fewer components should be classified as important-to-safety. That would allow more use of much less expensive commerical-grade components.

[James Hopf @HopfJames]

Another day, another application for an NRC license to run a nuclear plant for 80 years. This time, for the Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska. The license will allow the plant to run until 2054. Article link in reply.