POWER POINTS

Letters to the Editor

David Suzuki fails to make a case for “thousands of ‘laptop’ power plants” rather than “a few giant nuclear or coal ‘mainframes’” in the future Ontario energy mix, partly because his “laptop versus mainframe” metaphor is complete rubbish (“Recall the Mainframes v. Laptops debate? Ontario’s power-generation choice is like that”, March 10).

While he claims the Ontario Power Authority is “mired in 1970s thinking” because it is working to grow nuclear and alternative energy simultaneously, it is Suzuki's analysis that's outdated. Not only does he fail to identify what these “laptop power plants” might be, but worse, he claims Ontario faces a dichotomy that simply doesn’t exist.

The consensus 15 years ago was that because mainframe platforms were increasingly replaced by personal computer networks, the death of the mainframe market would soon follow.

But that view changed when, in the late 1990s, corporations found their mainframes could service the clientele of hundreds of smaller computers, but with much lower energy and administration costs. Today IBM’s mainframe products are a business success story. The analogy is ironically correct only in that the "laptop" energy plants such as wind are much more costly per unit of power than the "mainframe" plants like nuclear.

Furthermore, Suzuki’s underlying metaphor doesn't work for an additional reason. The computing sector does not face a “mainframe vs. PC” dichotomy, but rather it grapples with deciding, on the basis of market inputs, what is the appropriate hardware mix.

That is, in fact, precisely the challenge for energy generation as well. Ontario has taken on a significant commitment to eliminate greenhouse gas-emitting coal (currently 17 percent of Ontario’s energy supply) from the energy mix by 2009. At the same time, the province is pushing its energy suppliers to increase renewable energy sources to five per cent by 2007 and 10 per cent by 2010.

Nuclear will be an essential part of the Ontario energy formula, because it provides reliable, safe, cost-effective base load, along with existing and new hydro. Ideally, gas and wind will alternate within the mix, and will provide intermittent, more expensive power - gas for peaking and wind for reducing fossil fuel consumption from gas.

These are ambitious, smart decisions being made in Ontario. Suzuki could help by focusing more clearly on renewables, and by saying specifically what he's in favour of rather than just attacking nuclear energy, that after all supplies 50% of Ontario's electricity.

How will renewables play a growing role in Ontario’s overall power mix? That, in my view, is the real challenge.

Yours very truly,

Dr. Patrick Moore

An advisor to government and industry, Dr. Patrick Moore is a co-founder of Greenpeace, and Chairman and Chief Scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd.