Hydro-Québec mulls reviving province's nuclear reactor, 10 years after shutdown

In its quest to increase electricity production in Quebec, Hydro-Québec is contemplating a move back to nuclear power. 

The government-run utility confirmed Thursday that it is considering the revival of Gentilly-2, the province's only nuclear power plant, which was shut down in 2012. 

"An assessment of the plant's current condition is underway," a Hydro-Québec spokesperson said in a statement.

The company says it's hoping to "inform our thinking on Quebec's future energy supply," considering it's globally analyzing the various options for increasing electricity production to decarbonize Quebec.

"Given the anticipated situation of energy in Quebec in the next few years, it would be irresponsible at this time to exclude certain energy sources and premature to draw any conclusions," the spokesperson, Maxence Huard-Lefebvre, said.

The public utility confirmed that the assessment was requested by Hydro-Québec's new CEO, Michael Sabia, who in interviews after his appointment made it clear he was open to nuclear power in Quebec.

This assessment, first reported by the Journal de Montréal, comes more than 10 years after Pauline Marois's Parti Québécois government decided to mothball the plant, located near Bécancour, Que., about 150 kilometres northeast of Montreal. 

The reactor, with a power of 675 megawatts, had been in commercial operation since 1983 before it was decommissioned, following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011.

The plant employed some 800 people and generated approximately two per cent of all the electricity produced in Quebec at the time.

Its closure was slated to cost $1.8 billion over a period of more than 50 years.

Gentilly-2 is one of five nuclear power plants in Canada. The other four are still in operation. Ontario owns three of them — in Bruce, Pickering and Darlington — and is considering building a new one.

The fifth, Point Lepreau, is in New Brunswick. However, the government is considering financing the construction of new, smaller reactors.

But at a moment when the world — and many Canadians — are sharply divided over whether nuclear power is an essential ingredient for solving climate change, reviving Gentilly-2 will likely stir up controversy.

Surge in demand for electricity looms 

Quebec currently enjoys inexpensive power through the Churchill Falls contract with Newfoundland and Labrador. It pays 0.2 cents a kilowatt-hour and sells it to Quebecers for 7.3 cents.

That power accounts for about 15 per cent of Quebec's energy.

But with the contract ending in 2041, Premier François Legault is already setting his sights on alternative energy sources in the event that tariffs imposed in a new contract are no longer advantageous.

A week after Hydro-Québec CEO Sophie Brochu unexpectedly resigned in January, Legault repeated his intention to have Hydro-Québec build a new dam to meet the province's growing energy needs. 

But the social acceptability of building more dams is questionable. 

The province's latest dam construction project — La Romaine 4 — cost $7 billion and produces  power for more than 10 cents a kilowatt-hour.

HEC Prof. Sylvain Audette, an associate member of the Research Chair in Energy Sector Management, thinks Quebec should evaluate harnessing nuclear energy, as other provinces have done, to meet the spike in demand for electricity, especially to heat households in winter.  

"I'm not for or against nuclear, but I think it's a good idea to look at it and see if it can solve some problems that we will have in the future," he said. 

Quebec must also look to find green energy sources if it hopes to reach its GHG emissions reductions targets. 

By 2030, the province needs to reduce its emissions by 35 to 45 per cent below the 1990 levels. It hopes to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Need for nuclear energy not proven, critics say

Jean-Pierre Finet, an analyst from the Regroupement des organismes environnementaux en énergie, says that Quebec and Ottawa labelling nuclear energy as clean is a misrepresentation. 

"It is completely dirty," Finet said. "Considering the potential for energy savings that we have, considering also the wind energy potential, the government hasn't done its homework about adding new renewable energy on the grid." 

Anne-Céline Guyon of Nature Québec emphasized that Hydro-Québec has done nothing to demonstrate a need for nuclear energy in the province.

"There is electrification to be done, but we know that there is first energy sobriety work to be done and energy efficiency work to be done before producing electricity from new sources," she said. 

Pointing to ongoing debate about a proposed waste disposal facility at Chalk River, Finet and Guyon are particularly concerned with nuclear accidents and radioactive contamination.

Martine Ouellet, who was responsible for Hydro-Québec as minister of natural resources at the time of the plant's closure in 2012, took offence at the company's use of the energy transition to justify a return to nuclear power.

"It's pure greenwashing," she said, when reached by email Thursday. 

"It's mind-boggling to see a Hydro-Québec CEO, [nine days after] taking office, wanting to relaunch nuclear power in Quebec. And all wrapped up in false pretences," said Ouellet, who has founded the Climat Québec party and will be a candidate in the upcoming byelection in the Jean-Talon riding.

Haroun Bouazzi, the Québec Solidaire MNA responsible for energy, says it's high time the new Hydro-Québec CEO presents his vision of Quebec's energy future to a parliamentary committee, seeing as he has yet to propose an energy transition plan.

"We made the collective choice to get out of nuclear power in Quebec," Bouazzi said in a statement. "It is worrisome that Michael Sabia and Pierre Fitzgibbon want to reopen the file today without having demonstrated that it is necessary to meet our ecological transition objectives, without the slightest public debate." 

Rather than an energy transition plan, Finet added the province needs an "energy revolution," which would entail the government updating the construction code and implementing a home energy rating system to optimize the energy performance of buildings. 

"Quebec is not an all-you-can-eat buffet where you can come and just take all the resources you want," he said. "We don't have to say yes to every request for energy, and we also have to better manage what we have at the moment."

No preference, says Ottawa

Canada's minister of the environment and climate change, Steven Guilbeault, unveiled Ottawa's draft net-zero electricity regulations on Thursday, which include nuclear power, and with which electricity producers will have to comply as of 2035.

Asked about Hydro-Québec's possible move back to nuclear power, Guilbeault, a former Greenpeace activist, said he found no problem with it.

"The federal government has no technological preference in terms of non-emitting [greenhouse gas] technology," he said.

"We don't dictate to the provinces or territories what type of non-emitting technology they should use. It's up to the provinces and territories to decide." 

That said, Guilbeault noted there are less expensive technologies that can also be considered, such as solar and wind power.