We rented a Tesla to explore Ontario’s EV supply chain. We saw the dirty, the clean and everything in between – by Marco Chown Oved and Steve Russell (Toronto Star – March 10, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

In the Great Ontario EV Road Trip Part 2, two Star journalists head to the refineries and plants kickstarting the province’s clean revolution.

NORTH BAY—How fast can you get those burgers out? The wait staff appears taken aback by our question. We’re in North Bay and have stopped to charge our EV on the way to Sudbury. We plugged in and hurried over to Syl’s Neighbourhood Kitchen for a quick bite.

But we only have 25 minutes or so before Tesla starts charging us an idle fee for taking up a charger spot when it’s full. Fortunately, Syl’s kitchen is quick and the food’s delicious. We make it back to our car with time to spare. Charging your EV isn’t like gassing up your car.

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We took a Tesla on a road trip through northern Ontario in the coldest week of the year. Could our EV handle it? – by Marco Chown Oved and Steve Russell (Toronto Star – March 9, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

Star journalists drove a Tesla 2,300 km around northern Ontario, exploring the emerging EV supply chain from mine to refinery to battery plant to assembly.

HWY. 11, SOMEWHERE NORTH OF NORTH BAY—It was -12 C and dropping. The snow was blowing diagonally and traffic was crawling in single file, sticking to the ruts between white humps on Highway 11. Then my car started talking to me.

“You’re almost too far from known chargers,” it said. “Plan your next charge. All known charging locations will be out of range soon.” The map on the GPS showed the nearest charger behind us, in North Bay. We were driving north — away from it. Soon, we wouldn’t have enough charge to make it back.

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OPINION:The strengthening case for nuclear – by Marcus Gee (Globe and Mail – February 10, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Last week, the Ontario government announced plans to spend many years and billions of dollars refurbishing an old nuclear plant in Pickering, just east of Toronto. Pure folly, said its critics. In fact, the decision makes good, solid sense, both for Ontario and the planet.

Winning the battle to control global warming depends in large part on powering more things with electricity – specifically electricity that isn’t produced by burning fossil fuels. Making that energy shift is a huge task, but Ontario has two big advantages.

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OPINION: The folly of Ontario’s nuclear power play – by Mark Winfield (Globe and Mail – February 7, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Mark Winfield is a professor of environmental and urban change at York University and co-chair of the faculty’s Sustainable Energy Initiative. He is also co-editor of Sustainable Energy Transitions in Canada (UBC Press, 2023).

The Ontario government’s announcement last week of its intention to pursue the refurbishment of the Pickering B nuclear power plant on the shore of Lake Ontario between Toronto and Pickering represents a strategic triumph for the provincially owned Ontario Power Generation utility. The project would significantly reinforce the utility’s already dominant position in the province’s electricity system.

How well the decision serves the interests of Ontario residents, taxpayers and electricity ratepayers, and advances the sustainable decarbonization of the province’s electricity system, is another question altogether.

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Ford says Northern Ontario mines will help create economic boom – by Staff (Sudbury.com – January 24, 2024)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Premier addresses municipal leaders at the annual meeting of the Rural Ontario Municipal Association

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he is counting on the Northern Ontario mining industry to help build Ontario into an economic powerhouse for the battery electric vehicle (BEV) industry.

Ford was speaking Jan. 23 at the annual conference of the 2024 Rural Ontario Municipal Association(ROMA) when he spoke about the importance of the Ontario critical minerals strategy for the future of EVs in Ontario.

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Ontario is about to decide whether to overhaul Canada’s oldest nuclear power plant. Does it deserve a second life? – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – January 22, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station’s dull, mottled-grey concrete domes testify to its more than half a century of faithful service. Lately, its six operating reactors have produced enough electricity to supply 1.5 million people, about one-tenth of Ontario’s total population.

In the coming weeks, Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith is expected to reveal whether the province will extend the plant’s life. A study last summer from Ontario Power Generation, the station’s owner, examined the feasibility of refurbishing Pickering’s four “B” reactors, commissioned between 1983 and 1986.

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Ottawa, Honda to hold talks on potential EV factory in Canada – by Bill Curry and Adam Radwanski (Globe and Mail – January 9, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Federal officials are planning to meet this week with Honda representatives about the possibility of the Japanese automaker building an electric-vehicle factory in Canada, adding another name to the list of manufacturers Ottawa is courting as part of a multibillion-dollar effort to transform the domestic auto industry ahead of a shift away from fossil fuels.

The meeting has not been publicly announced, but a senior government official told The Globe and Mail on Monday that it will take place this week, and that several federal departments will participate. The official said there had already been a meeting in December between federal representatives and Canadian and international personnel from Honda.

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Honda considering $18.4B electric vehicle and battery plant in Canada: media report – by Ian Bickis (Canadian Press/CTV News – January 7, 2024)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

ALLISTON, ONT. – Honda Motor Co. Ltd. could invest upwards of $18.4 billion in an electric vehicle plant in Canada, according to a report from a Japanese news outlet.

Nikkei Asia said on Sunday that Honda is considering building both a vehicle and battery plant in the country as part of efforts to catch up in the electric vehicle market.

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Ontario’s plan to build new gas plants just got more complicated – by Marco Chown Oved (Toronto Star – November 30, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

At a meeting on Monday evening, Loyalist Township declined to support a new gas plant. On Tuesday, Napanee council endorsed a bid by Atura power to build a new gas plant in their community.

Local municipal councils in Eastern Ontario rejected one new gas plant but welcomed another this week, complicating the province’s plan to build new fossil fuel projects. At a meeting on Monday evening, Loyalist Township declined to support a new gas plant, with councillors saying they could not support energy projects that both pollute local air and make climate change worse.

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Ontario and Ottawa put up nearly $1 billion for EV battery parts plant – by Rob Ferguson (Toronto Star – October 16, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

Ontario is going bigger on the electric vehicle battery business, joining the federal government in providing almost $1 billion in subsidies toward a $2.7-billion parts plant near Kingston employing 600 workers to start.

Ontario is going bigger on the electric vehicle battery business, joining the federal government in providing almost $1 billion in subsidies toward a $2.7-billion parts plant near Kingston employing 600 workers to start.

The factory, to be operated by Umicore Rechargeable Battery Materials Canada Inc., will make cathode materials crucial for producing EV batteries, which a Volkswagen subsidiary near St. Thomas and a Stellantis joint venture in Windsor will soon be assembling at plants now under construction.

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Canada has gone big to match U.S. clean-tech subsidies, report finds – but not big enough – by Adam Radwanski (Globe and Mail – July 18, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada will continue to lag the United States significantly in government incentives for low-carbon sectors that both countries are courting, even after new policies promised in Ottawa’s most recent budget, according to new research to be released on Tuesday.

The findings are in an update of an influential report earlier this year by the think tanks Clean Prosperity and The Transition Accelerator, which contributed to the budget’s focus on responding to hundreds of billions of dollars in green subsidies introduced by Washington through last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. A copy of the new version was provided in advance to The Globe and Mail.

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Ontario finally dumps the Liberals’ naive green-energy ideology for reality – by Randall Denley (National Post – July 14, 2023)

https://nationalpost.com/

Ford government’s plan dares to put new emphasis on nuclear energy to meet future supply needs

The age of energy ideology is over in Ontario, replaced by power pragmatism. The Ontario government’s new and ambitious plan to meet the province’s power needs until 2050 draws on pretty much every known technology to meet a demand for power that could double by that year.

One doesn’t have to look too far back to remember the era of overhyped and overpriced wind and solar projects that former premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government was so eager to foist off on Ontarians. Across the province, the countryside is scarred with wind farms and solar installations.

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Is Ontario entering a clean power renaissance? Why there’s still hope for a turnaround – by David Olive (Toronto Star – July 13, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

Business opportunities — or the loss of them — are driving Doug Ford’s new energy strategy, David Olive writes.

In the space of just a few days, Ontario has unveiled a thoroughly holistic new approach to securing the province’s energy future. Last week, the Ford government committed to building as many as five additional reactors at Ontario’s Bruce Power nuclear facility.

That could expand Bruce Power’s electricity generating capacity by as much as 76 per cent, with the first new reactors coming onstream in the 2030s. Bruce Power, near Kincardine, about 240 kilometres northwest of Toronto on the shores of Lake Huron, is already one of the world’s biggest nuclear power plants.

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OPINION: Nuclear power is a key part of a green future – by Editorial Board (Globe and Mail – July 12, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

It’s an utterly predictable chain reaction. Any proposal to expand nuclear-generated electricity as part of the effort to reduce carbon emissions is met with instant condemnation from environmentalists who can’t see past their historical antipathy to atomic power.

So it was last week in Ontario, when the Progressive Conservative government sensibly proposed further expansion of its nuclear-generation capacity, which already supplies about half of the province’s electricity.

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Canada mimics U.S. strategy by offering nearly $30 billion for Stellantis, Volkswagen battery plants – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – July 7, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

Canada, Ontario providing Stellantis up to $15 billion

Seven weeks after the fate of Canada’s first electric-vehicle battery plant was thrown into jeopardy, a new government agreement with the plant’s main investors ensures the project is back on track to start production in 2024.

The Windsor, Ont., lithium-ion battery plant, a joint venture of Stellantis NV and LG Energy Solution Ltd. was first announced in March, but construction was halted in May after Stellantis said the federal government had not met its financial commitments.

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