[nfitz]

Current end of life dates are 2019 for Pickering A1, A4, B3, and B4

A1 and A4? I hadn't heard that - though I haven't researched it. That seems to be an awfully short life-span after refurbishment. I'm quite surprised that Ontario thinks we can do without 6 more nuclear reactors. I assume there'll at least be some natural gas plants going in at Pickering to take advantage of all the infrastructure there.

I don't know what you mean "I'm not aware of any shutdown dates for P2 and P3". They were shut down several years ago.

I think it's very clear given the context of how I'd already discussed A1, A2, A3, and A4, that it was a typo and I meant A1 and A4. The same way you typoed P2 and P3 and meant A2 and A3. Is that Murphy's law, or is there a special law for making typo or spelling mistakes while complaining about typo or spelling mistakes!

The Pickering station is very inefficient, incurring considerably higher operating cost than other CANDU units and requiring much more expensive maintenance. For example, average generation cost is about $66/MWh for all Pickering units, compared with about $33 for Darlington and $41 for industry median according to a benchmark study conducted in 2012.

OPG is investing to refurbish the Darlington units, and Bruce is negotiating an agreement to refurbished the remaining 6 Bruce units. No one even proposed to refurbish the Pickering units. It is simply not on the table whatsoever. There is no such electricity demand, and it makes no economic sense either. If more nuclear energy is required (not in the near term), a new plant will be built at Darlington.

Interesting ... I guess that explains why the Liberals cancelled the original Tory plans to refurbish A2 and A3.

I'm surprised that Pickering B reactors wouldn't be refurbished though, as they were newer than some of the Bruce reactors. In retrospect though, I wonder why the Pickering B reactors weren't more similar to the Bruce A reactors.

Pickering is safe as far as I know. I will be very surprise if that's not the case.

I've never heard any suggestions that any of our reactors were unsafe. I'd think the worst case scenario would be a leak of radioactive water, compared to the melt-down scenario that can happen to some other designs.

 

[ksun]

Sorry for questioning about A2/A3... I was really just confused about your question without realizing it was just a typo...

Pickering B units have operated since 1983, so in theory they should have been either shut down or refurbished by about 2013 (normal life is 30 years), but OPG managed to extend their lives by a few years to align better with the Province's energy plan.

As to Pickering being safe, I meant the city is safe from any new nuclear plans.

 

[nfitz]

As to Pickering being safe, I meant the city is safe from any new nuclear plans.

Given how clean nuclear energy is, and the recent construction of large natural gas turbines in and near the city, not to mention all the good jobs at Pickering and Darlington - I'm not sure safe is the right word!

Though I'd think Pickering would be a great spot for other types of generation, or even fusion reactors if they get that technology sorted in a couple of decades, with all the transmission facilities already in place.

 

[M.R.Victor]

I should have been more specific when I said vibrant urbanism.

West-side neighbourhoods tend to flow into one-another. Little Italy kind-of just runs into UofT, which borders Chinatown, which borders Kensington Market. Going along Dundas, Little Portugal is around the corner from the Ossington Strip, which runs into West Queen West, which runs into Parkdale, which runs into Roncesvalles.

The east-side neighbourhoods are still fairly isolated, with large dead zones in between the lively clusters of activity. That's all

 

[ksun]

Given how clean nuclear energy is, and the recent construction of large natural gas turbines in and near the city, not to mention all the good jobs at Pickering and Darlington - I'm not sure safe is the right word!

Though I'd think Pickering would be a great spot for other types of generation, or even fusion reactors if they get that technology sorted in a couple of decades, with all the transmission facilities already in place.

I agree.
However, many people are not rational. Whenever the word nuclear is mentioned, they imagine the worst possible nuclear meltdown scenario. An example is Germany overacting is such a dramatic way that they are shutting down all nuclear plants, when it is clear Germany is not remotely similar in terms of earthquake not to mention tsunami risks that caused the Fukushima disaster. But people don't care. They just want nuclear out.

However, nuclear is not as cheap as we believe it to be. Refurbishment cost of Bruce 1 and 2 was over budget by 80% (not to mentioned millions more we have paid during the past few years in addition to the original amount), and it is very usual for new projects to be run over budget by 100% or 200% (Both France and Finland are experiencing that).

 

[nfitz]

However, nuclear is not as cheap as we believe it to be. Refurbishment cost of Bruce 1 and 2 was over budget by 80% (not to mentioned millions more we have paid during the past few years in addition to the original amount), and it is very usual for new projects to be run over budget by 100% or 200% (Both France and Finland are experiencing that).

It's certainly not cheap. We'd have been far better off to do what Quebec started in the 1960s, and instead of going nuclear, to dam our northern rivers into James Bay and Hudson Bay to create Hydro instead. Quebec had similar plans to Ontario with plans for many nuclear reactors, but only ended up building 2 - one of which never worked, and the other now decomissioned.

Now Quebec is laughing, with much cheaper hydro costs than Ontario, and little need for much other generating, other than standby.

Of course though, there are environmental concerns about huge hydro dams.

 

[ksun]

It's certainly not cheap. We'd have been far better off to do what Quebec started in the 1960s, and instead of going nuclear, to dam our northern rivers into James Bay and Hudson Bay to create Hydro instead. Quebec had similar plans to Ontario with plans for many nuclear reactors, but only ended up building 2 - one of which never worked, and the other now decomissioned.

Now Quebec is laughing, with much cheaper hydro costs than Ontario, and little need for much other generating, other than standby.

Of course though, there are environmental concerns about huge hydro dams.

Not sure if Ontario has as much hydro resources as Quebec (we probably do) but it certainly sounds a better idea than going nuclear, which is both controversial and costly. What prevented Ontario from doing so?

Now as a major manufacture base, Ontario's sky high electricity prices either scare away potential investors, or the province has to make concessions to them at the expenses of other ratepayers (Ring of Fire for example).

As to "environmental concerns", we just have to deal with the fact the environment will have to impact to some level no matter what. Does nuclear minimize environmental impact? We still have millions of cubic meters of highly radioactive nuclear waste the province currently has no solid plan for - they will be radioactive for the next 1,000,000 years.

 

[nfitz]

Not sure if Ontario has as much hydro resources as Quebec (we probably do) but it certainly sounds a better idea than going nuclear, which is both controversial and costly.

Not sure if it's as much. Quebec has about 16 GW installed already, with perhaps another 12 GW potentially. I've seen estimates of 3 to 4 GW for Ontario's Albany River scheme alone. That could replace Pickering twice. And then what about the other large rivers? Harricana, Moose, Attawapiskat, Winisk, etc. Or what about buying it from Quebec's future schemes for less than new Nuclear costs?

As to "environmental concerns", we just have to deal with the fact the environment will have to impact to some level no matter what. Does nuclear minimize environmental impact? We still have millions of cubic meters of highly radioactive nuclear waste the province currently has no solid plan for - they will be radioactive for the next 1,000,000 years.

Environmentalists are split on this. Some see nuclear as saving a lot of environmental damage or eliminating green house gases. Some think it's the devil.

 

[AlbertHWagstaff]

Sorry to go off topic on this nuclear power plant thread, but development of the commercial buildings on Danforth from Broadview east was rather disjointed with many vacant lots that up until the early 1970s were occupied by new and used-car dealer lots. In Eric Arthur's "No Mean City" there is a section near the end of the book where the Toronto of the day (mid-1960s) is assessed, and I think it was Arthur who refers to the "cult of ugliness" on Danforth Avenue, with its preponderance of used-car lots and gaudy lights to illuminate the lots at night. Just from memory: Carrot Common was once home to a car dealership (Hogan?), there was a car lot and gas station at the bottom of Donlands (one of the Joy stations), Robertson Motors was west of Coxwell, there were more large ones between Woodbine and Main (City Pontiac-Buick and a Ford dealership), and several small used-car lots were scattered all the way along in between. Some remnants of these remain as the auto garage between Lamb and Gillard, the vacant lots on the south side west of Main St. and of course there are still a couple of dealerships in business in the area - Honda and Hyundai.

Where Bloor St. West had a more solid line of commercial buildings, Danforth had a far more porous commercial strip.

Also, the gap created by subway construction for the wye connection to the Greenwood Yard took out a number of buildings on the north side west of Greenwood, now occupied by the Greenwood Towers highrise. At Coxwell, there was the streetcar yard/bus garage on the south-east corner and at Main St. there was a large lumber/coal yard on the south-east corner before it all went up in flames in 1967 or 1968.

Bloor West has Christie Pits, the only park fronting on Danforth is West Lynn Park near Woodbine, much smaller than Christie Pits. Bloor West had an industrial zone between Lansdowne and Dundas near the rail lines (Canada Bread was a major occupant at Bloor & Dundas) but that was about it.

The only other thing I can think of is that the old city limits were only three blocks or so north of Danforth from Broadview to Woodbine, while in the west, the city limits were much further north (north of St. Clair) so development within the city limits would have been much more dense on the west side.

TLR version - Bloor was a more solid commercial street serving a denser area that was built up much earlier than Danforth, which had a lot of car lots and other non-retail uses resulting in a much less vibrant commercial strip.

 

[King of Kensington]

Average price of freehold housing last 12 months for selected areas:

East side:

The Beach $1,011,951
Riverdale $915,839
The Danforth $797,894
Upper Beach $629,005
Leslieville $616,847
Danforth Mosaic $600,386

West side:

South Annex $1,108,593
High Park $949,099
Little Italy $885,567
Roncesvalles $810,558
Trinity Bellwoods $782,829
The Junction $700,196
Brockton $661,127

http://www.realosophy.com/Neighbourhood/Map/Toronto

 

[nfitz]

Average price of freehold housing last 12 months for selected areas:

East side:

The Beach $1,011,951
Riverdale $915,839
The Danforth $797,894
Upper Beach $629,005
Leslieville $616,847
Danforth Mosaic $600,386

West side:

South Annex $1,108,593
High Park $949,099
Little Italy $885,567
Roncesvalles $810,558
Trinity Bellwoods $782,829
The Junction $700,196
Brockton $661,127

http://www.realosophy.com/Neighbourhood/Map/Toronto

I always figure these numbers seem to bias a bit high compared to what I see ... and then it struck me - these are averages, not medians.

Is the median data available anywhere?

 

[King of Kensington]

Median figures are available in monthly TREB Market Watch reports, but they're at the TREB district level (i.e. C1, W1, etc.)

 

[nfitz]

Median figures are available in monthly TREB Market Watch reports, but they're at the TREB district level (i.e. C1, W1, etc.)

Thanks! That will at least confirm (or not) my suspicions that the Toronto price distribution might not be normally distributed, and the average doesn't have a lot of meaning.

Looking at September - www.torontorealestateboard.com/market_news/market_watch/2014/mw1409.pdf and referring to the map at www.torontorealestateboard.com/buying/district_map ...

District	Average	Median
E01	$658,500	$648,888
E02	$748,659	$668,950
C01	$487,981	$408,000
W02	$676,948	$650,000

Hmm ... hard to draw too many conclusions. Though for the entire Toronto Central region the average is $721,480 but the median is only $485,000.

I'd guess overall the median is more meaningful, but the average seems to hold up in some neighbourhoods.

 

[King of Kensington]

One thing that's immediately evident is that C1 district is dominated by condo sales.

 

[Cooper]

I should have been more specific when I said vibrant urbanism.

West-side neighbourhoods tend to flow into one-another. Little Italy kind-of just runs into UofT, which borders Chinatown, which borders Kensington Market. Going along Dundas, Little Portugal is around the corner from the Ossington Strip, which runs into West Queen West, which runs into Parkdale, which runs into Roncesvalles.

The east-side neighbourhoods are still fairly isolated, with large dead zones in between the lively clusters of activity. That's all

Ah. That makes sense. I wouldn't use terms like "dead zones" and "isloated" but yes, it is quieter and less clustered east of the downtown. Once you start heading out towards Parkdale, I don't see as much of difference, though. They have different vibes and demographics, but the clustering starts to equal out in my experience.