Tag: pickering

this is why I did wind power instead

07:32 - This is a Province of Ontario emergency bulletin which applies to people within ten (10) kilometres of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. An incident was reported at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. There has been NO abnormal

Update, a few panicked minutes later: false alarm. Still no news release from OPG or province-wide phone alert to stand down, but there is this:

Just as a reminder, you can get potassium iodide pills for free if you live within 50 km of an Ontario nuclear installation. Go to preparetobesafe.ca

50 km buffer from GTA nuclear stations
50 km buffer from Pickering and Darlington nuclear stations. Includes all of Toronto and much of the GTA
50 km buffer from Bruce station
50 km buffer from Bruce station

I don’t know if I should be including Chalk River in this.

Further update: yup, they retracted it. But a scary wee-waa-wee-waa siren while the text is read in a robot voice is not very reassuring

EMERGENCY ALERT / ALERTE D’URGENCE There is NO active nuclear situation taking place at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. The previous alert was issued in error. There is no danger to the public or environment. No further action is required.
Issued 09:11

a little bit on the toronto offshore wind farm and the Hélimax study

Many people (such as 1, 2, 3, 4) cite the Hélimax study Analysis of Future Offshore Wind Farm Development in Ontario [PDF] as a good reason not to even measure wind speeds off the Toronto shoreline. I would be quite surprised if most commenters had read it, as it’s not a light read, but there are three basic reasons that the report doesn’t apply:

  1. The report is not prescriptive; it does not outline the only viable sites in the Great Lakes. Indeed, the very last paragraph of the executive summary says “… it should be emphasized that the sites … selected do not necessarily correspond to the projects currently being developed. This report by no means seeks to disparage any sites currently under development which are not part of the 64 sites selected. There are wind power projects that can be feasibly developed beyond the sites that are identified in the present study.” A statement like that leads me to believe that the report was intended for capacity planning, and not site selection.
  2. The report specifically excludes Lake Ontario around the GTA on population density, even though it notes “… utilities generally prefer to have power generation close to population centres” [p.10]. Simply put, if Toronto Hydro wishes to bring wind power into Toronto, it can either have local generation where everyone sees it, or remote generation with pylons that everyone can see. Pick one.
  3. The mesoscale modelling that the report relies upon is unproven offshore: “… the accuracy of mean wind speeds derived from onshore mesomaps is generally assumed to be ±7%, the precision of such maps for offshore applications is not well known” [p.4]. ±7% for a mean wind speed means a lot more than seven percent in energy yield – that’s roughly good enough to tell you where you might want to start doing site selection. Indeed, the report confirms this: “… on-site meteorological measurements are required to perform a truly judicious assessment of the local wind resource and ensuing energy yields of a given site”.

So that about wraps it up for the Hélimax study pertaining to Toronto.

Others have commented that the low capacity factors of the Pickering and ExPlace turbines. Despite that fact that capacity factors for a given site are highly machine specific, there are some issues here too:

  • Both sites are near large buildings which disrupt air flow. This issue goes away even a moderate distance offshore.
  • Both sites are really demonstrators, and positioned for maximum public exposure rather than generation.
  • The Pickering Vestas V80 was a very early model of its type, and needed a lot of TLC to get operating. I wouldn’t call it quite a prototype, but it’s not far off.
  • The Pickering turbine is designed for windy (Class I) sites. It has shorter blades (80m diameter) and a bigger generator (1.8MW) than the turbines I’m most familiar with (82m diameter, 1.65MW). It will catch less wind and thus drive the generator less hard (quick, you come up with a better analogy for capacity factor … I couldn’t) than a Class II or III machine.
  • The Explace turbine has smaller blades than it was supposed to – the supplier ceased trading before they were able to replace the interim 52m blade set with 58m ones. As the tower was designed for longer blades, the turbine can never be run at full speed or full generation.
  • Due to the closure of Lagerwey, the ExPlace turbine has never had what I’d class as an industry-standard maintenance contract. The joint venture of TH and WindShare volunteers directs the maintenance, but there’s no permanent crew like a commercial operation would have.

So put that lidar out in the lake, and let’s see what we’ve got.

the nuclear family holiday (last) resort

I’ve been invited onto the committee that looks after a small (and almost full) cemetery in Ajax, so I went out to take a look at it. It’s nice; it’ll last you. One thing I learnt there: RB67 polaroids don’t come out too well if you leave the darkslide in.

On the way back, I headed down Liverpool Road to take pictures of the Pickering wind turbine with the RB67. It’s a strange place, the beachfront at Pickering. There’s beach volleyball with the nuke station lurking toxically in the background.

welcome to pickering

I don’t know why the town doesn’t rename itself “New Prypiat“, and be done with it.

4 beeeeeeeeeeeellion dollars?!

Yup, it’ll cost $4,000,000,000 to restore the Pickering nuclear power station to full operation. Oh, and five years, too. And all because of bungling management.

This isn’t just a day late and a dollar short. In 1997, the refurb was estimated at $780m and five years. Now, they’re saying more than 5× the cost and twice the time. Someone please nominate ousted OPG chair Bill Farlinger — author of such classics as The Commonsense Revolution and How to Privatize Hydro for Fun & (my) Profit — for the Giller Prize, since it’s Canada’s Premier Literary Prize for Fiction.

Look, I’ll make Ontario a deal. Give me the CAD 4bn, and I’ll give you enough renewable energy to make Pickering history. And I’ll only bungle on my own time. Deal?