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BC should revisit nuclear energy to address BC Hydro shortages

Published

1 year ago

5 minute read

From Resource Works

The short-term costs of nuclear SMRs are preferable to paying hundreds of millions to import foreign energy in the long-term.

British Columbia takes great pride in its tremendous hydroelectric resources, which result from the province’s many long, powerful rivers. For decades, BC has found it easy to rely on hydroelectricity as a clean, renewable source of power for homes, industry, and businesses.

However, the ongoing viability of hydropower in BC should be called into question due to worsening summer droughts and declining snowfalls, which have negatively impacted the annual supply of hydropower. BC has not seriously entertained the possibility of alternatives, even though other provinces have begun to embrace one particular source of energy that has been illegal here for over a decade: nuclear power.

By refusing to strike down the law passed in 2010 that prohibits the mining of uranium or the building of nuclear reactors, BC has made itself an outlier among its peers. Since last year, Ontario has announced plans to expand its existing nuclear capacity, which already provides the majority of the province’s electricity.

Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia have also begun to explore the possibility of expanding nuclear power to help power their growing provinces. BC has prohibited nuclear energy since passing the Clean Energy Act of 2010, which bans the building of reactors or mining uranium.

This prohibition is a barrier to diversifying BC’s energy supply, which has become more reliant on foreign energy. Due to energy shortages, BC Hydro had to import 15 to 20 percent of the energy required to meet the province’s needs.

Do not expect the situation to improve. Snowpacks are shrinking in the winter months, and summer droughts have become more frequent, which means BC’s dams will see a reduction in their power capacity. Power shortages may be on the horizon, leading to vastly more expensive purchases of foreign energy to meet BC’s growing electricity demand, driven by the construction of new homes and projects like LNG facilities on the coast.

Energy diversification is the solution, and nuclear power should be included, especially Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

Low-carbon and reliable, SMRs can provide steady nuclear power in any season. They are flexible and much more cost-effective than traditional, large-scale nuclear reactors.

For a vast province like BC, filled with small communities separated by mountainous terrain, SMRs can be deployed with great ease to ensure energy stability in remote and Indigenous communities that still struggle with energy access. The Haida Nation, for example, is still reliant on diesel to supply its energy, which goes against the BC government’s clean energy goals and relies on fuel being shipped to the Haida Gwaii archipelago.

While SMRs are cheaper than massive nuclear reactors, they are still expensive and require strict safety regulations due to the ever-present risks associated with nuclear energy. However, is the cost of building nuclear facilities in the short term more expensive than importing energy for years to come?

In 2023, BC Hydro spent upwards of $300 million USD on imported energy, while the cost of the smallest SMR is $50 million, with the more expensive units costing up to $3 billion. Building SMRs now is the right decision from a cost-benefit perspective and in terms of BC’s clean energy goals because SMRs guarantee low-emitting energy, unlike imported energy.

The Clean Energy Act stands in the way of nuclear power’s emergence in BC. Amending it will be necessary for that to change.

BC is not going to need any less energy going forward.

It is high time to get over old fears and stereotypes of nuclear energy. Hydroelectricity need not be displaced as the cornerstone of BC’s energy supply, but it alone cannot face the challenges of the future.

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Energy

Minus Forty and the Myth of Easy Energy

Published on October 20, 2025

By

By Stewart Muir

It’s not about ideology at  forty degrees below zero. It’s about survival

When the thermometer plunges to forty below, ideology no longer matters. Survival does.

That lesson was driven home in January 2024, when a brutal cold snap swept across America’s Pacific Northwest and western Canada. For four days, the region’s interconnected energy system teetered on the brink of collapse. Power lines snapped, gas pipelines strained, and four states of emergency were declared. In Portland, a falling power line killed three people and injured a baby.

This was no ordinary winter storm. It quickly became known as the January 2024 Event – a capital-letter crisis that planners are still analyzing nearly two years later. As recently as August 2025, experts continued to hold panels to ask the same question: how did the grid survive? Their verdict is grim.

Hydropower, long the Northwest’s reliable backup, faltered. Wind turbines stood still as the winds died at exactly the wrong time. Solar panels offered little under heavy gray skies. Natural gas supplied about two-thirds of the energy as furnaces worked around the clock – but even gas has limits.

The Real Problem: Capacity, Not Cold

Here’s the twist: post-event analysis shows the real problem wasn’t the cold. It was demand growth colliding with a system stripped of firm capacity. The cold snap may not have been unprecedented, but the risks were, BC Hydro’s Powerex reported.

They also warned that fashionable fixes like batteries and pumped hydro aren’t the cavalry many hope for. These technologies can even worsen shortages by competing for scarce electricity when it’s needed most. One Alberta utility estimated it would take a battery bigger than 13 years of the world’s entire EV battery output to cover its customers’ electricity needs for those few days.

Meanwhile, the renewables lobby was left scrambling for answers. Investigations by ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting highlighted the obvious: Oregon and Washington had set “100% green” targets without solving the transmission bottlenecks needed to deliver that power. Instead of addressing the flaw, advocates doubled down, calling for more wind, more solar, more batteries without any credible plan for the impossibly large quantities required.

And so, in the depths of that frigid January, reality intruded. Gas-fired generation carried the essential load. Imports were pulled in. Utilities called for conservation, and households responded. System operators dug deep, showing remarkable resilience under pressure. Heroic efforts kept the lights on. But it should never have come to that.

The lesson is not that renewables are bad or that we should cling to the past. It is that energy policy must begin with humility. Weather is unpredictable. In a cross-border region of 26 million people, demand is also growing much faster than once forecast.

A Wake-Up Call Ignored

When lives are on the line, nothing replaces firm, dispatchable power. A balanced system – yes, with more renewables, but anchored by natural gas and supported by robust transmission – is essential. Pretending we can run an advanced economy on press releases and hope is how ideology masquerades as policy, and how families end up shivering in the dark.

The January 2024 event should have been a wake-up call. Yet too many leaders remain captivated by slogans and blind to physics. The grid doesn’t read legislation. It doesn’t listen to speeches. It responds only to supply, demand, and the weather. And when the weather turns deadly, the reckoning is swift.

Dreamers will keep promising a painless transition. British Columbia, for example, is shutting down domestic gas generation in what’s branded a “pivot” to renewables – even as the province ships its first LNG cargoes to a world hungry for reliable gas. At the same time, the explosive growth of data centres driven by artificial intelligence has experts agog at what this means for an already strained system.

Eighteen months after the event, the people we expect to have answers are still asking questions.

Questions Still Unanswered

Here’s one more: is our energy system’s fragility the result of wishful thinking colliding with reality? To many experts, the answer seems obvious.

At minus forty, there is no spin, no ideology—only survival.

If Canada and the Northwest want to avoid a repeat of January 2024, the path is clear: double down on reliability, build the neglected transmission, and keep firm power in the system. Because the next deep freeze—or heat wave—will not wait for us to get our politics straight.

References

LA Times (Jan 17, 2024). Pacific Northwest ice storm kills three.

NewsData (Aug 2025). Panelists: January 2024 gas shortage sparked conversations on coordination.

USACE (2024). Don’t bet on the weather: the role hydropower plays in balancing the grid.

Western Power Pool (2024). Assessment of January 2024 Cold Weather Event.

Powerex (Mar 2024). Analysis of the January 2024 Winter Weather Event.

ProPublica/OPB (May 2025). How the Pacific Northwest’s dream of green energy fell apart.

NW Energy Coalition (2024). Customer-side resources critical to reliability.

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Alberta

Busting five myths about the Alberta oil sands

Published on October 20, 2025

By

Construction of an oil sands SAGD production well pad in northern Alberta. Photo supplied to the Canadian Energy Centre

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

The facts about one of Canada’s biggest industries

Alberta’s oil sands sector is one of Canada’s most important industries — and also one of its most misunderstood.

Here are five common myths, and the facts behind them.

Myth: Oil sands emissions are unchecked

Steam generators at a SAGD oil sands production site in northern Alberta. Photo courtesy Cenovus Energy

Reality: Oil sands emissions are strictly regulated and monitored. Producers are making improvements through innovation and efficiency.

The sector’s average emissions per barrel – already on par with the average oil consumed in the United States, according to S&P Global – continue to go down.

The province reports that oil sands emissions per barrel declined by 26 per cent per barrel from 2012 to 2023. At the same time, production increased by 96 per cent.

Analysts with S&P Global call this a “structural change” for the industry where production growth is beginning to rise faster than emissions growth.

The firm continues to anticipate a decrease in total oil sands emissions within the next few years.

The Pathways Alliance — companies representing about 95 per cent of oil sands activity — aims to significantly cut emissions from production through a major carbon capture and storage (CCS) project and other innovations.

Myth: There is no demand for oil sands production

Expanded export capacity at the Trans Mountain Westridge Terminal. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

Reality: Demand for Canadian oil – which primarily comes from the oil sands – is strong and rising.

Today, America imports more than 80 per cent more oil from Canada than it did in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

New global customers also now have access to Canadian oil thanks to the opening of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in 2024.

Exports to countries outside the U.S. increased by 180 per cent since the project went into service, reaching a record 525,000 barrels per day in July 2025, according to the Canada Energy Regulator.

The world’s appetite for oil keeps growing — and it’s not stopping anytime soon.

According to the latest EIA projections, the world will consume about 120 million barrels per day of oil and petroleum liquids in 2050, up from about 104 million barrels per day today.

Myth: Oil sands projects cost too much

Heavy haulers at an oil sands mining operation in northern Alberta. Photo courtesy Suncor Energy

Reality: Operating oil sands projects deliver some of the lowest-cost oil in North America, according to Enverus Intelligence Research.

Unlike U.S. shale plays, oil sands production is a long-life, low-decline “manufacturing” process without the treadmill of ongoing investment in new drilling, according to BMO Capital Markets.

Vast oil sands reserves support mining projects with no drilling, and the standard SAGD drilling method involves about 60 per cent fewer wells than the average shale play, BMO says.

After initial investment, Enverus says oil sands projects typically break even at less than US$50 per barrel WTI.

Myth: Indigenous communities don’t support the oil sands 

Chief Greg Desjarlais of Frog Lake First Nation signs an agreement in September 2022 whereby 23 First Nations and Métis communities in Alberta acquired an 11.57 per cent ownership interest in seven Enbridge-operated oil sands pipelines for approximately $1 billion. Photo courtesy Enbridge

Reality: Indigenous communities play an important role in the oil sands sector through community agreements, business contracts and, increasingly, project equity ownership.

Oil sands producers spent an average of $1.8 billion per year with 180 Indigenous-affiliated vendors between 2021 and 2023, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Indigenous communities are now owners of key projects that support the oil sands, including Suncor Energy’s East Tank Farm (49 per cent owned by two communities); the Northern Courier pipeline system (14 per cent owned by eight communities); and the Athabasca Trunkline, seven operating Enbridge oil sands pipelines (~12 per cent owned by 23 communities).

These partnerships strengthen Indigenous communities with long-term revenue, helping build economic reconciliation.

Myth: Oil sands development only benefits people in Alberta 

The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) on Bay St. Getty Images photo

Reality: Oil sands development benefits Canadians across the country through reliable energy supply, jobs, taxes and government revenues that help pay for services like roads, schools and hospitals.

The sector has contributed approximately $1 trillion to the Canadian economy over the past 25 years, according to analysis by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI).

That reflects total direct spending — including capital investment, operating costs, taxes and royalties — not profits or dividends for shareholders.

More than 2,300 companies outside of Alberta have had direct business with the oilsands, including over 1,300 in Ontario and almost 600 in Quebec, MLI said.

Energy products are by far Canada’s largest export, representing $196 billion, or about one-quarter of Canada’s total trade in 2024, according to Statistics Canada.

Led by the oil sands, Canada’s energy sector directly or indirectly employs more than 445,000 people across the country, according to Natural Resources Canada.

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