Calgary-Mountain View Alberta Liberal MLA David Swann has some interesting thoughts on today’s Peace River nuclear power plant announcement.
Now, being skeptical about nuclear power is one thing (and another issue that I plan to elaborate further in a future post), but the secrecy surrounding who the plant’s largest customer will be is another bizarre story:
Bold plans to bring nuclear power to northern Alberta were unveiled Tuesday, but just exactly who’ll be using most of the megawatts remained a mystery even to many in the oilpatch.
It’s assumed that Energy Alberta Corp.’s proposed $6.2-billion project to put a Candu twin reactor in the sparsely populated Peace River area in the province’s northwestern corner is all about the oilsands, which require an immense amount of energy to squeeze oil from the ground.
The company and its partners said Tuesday that about 70 per cent of the 2,200 megawatts of electricity will be going to “one large, industrial off-taker” but declined to name names.
“At this time we’re not going to discuss those arrangements,” said Dale Coffin, spokesman for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which is teaming up with Energy Alberta to build Canada’s first new nuclear power in nearly 25 years.
