Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Mark Winfield. I'm a professor of environmental and urban change at York University in Toronto. I'm also coordinator of the master of environmental studies/juris doctor programs, a member of the university senate and co-chair of the sustainable energy initiative at the university, although I am speaking today in my capacity as an individual and not on behalf of York University as an institution.
I've written extensively on energy, electricity, environment and climate change issues in Canada, particularly Ontario. I've been a member of NSERC and SSHRC funded research networks and energy storage, smart grids, clean energy planning and transportation and climate change. I'm a founding advisory member of the Energy Modelling Hub. Most recently, I was co-editor of Sustainable Energy Transitions in Canada, which was published by UBC Press last fall.
With respect to the Lake Erie connector, this project was first brought to my attention via media inquiries about three years ago now, I guess. I must admit, my first reaction was that it just didn't make a lot of sense, given what was happening with electricity in Ontario. The notion that the province was going to be in a position to export clean electricity to the U.S. markets simply did not accord with the generally accepted situation on the ground in the province.
Put bluntly, there is no clean electricity to export, and we don't foresee any, probably out into the 2040s at best. The province's nuclear fleet is at end of life, with all three plants scheduled to have units going off-line for refurbishment or retirement. The procurement of renewable energy was formally terminated in 2018, although, in fact, that had stopped earlier, around 2014. The province's energy efficiency strategy was terminated in 2019.
The current government had declined to engage with Quebec around the possibility of interjurisdictional exports and imports despite repeated offers from the Quebec side to do so. The province is actually now projecting and seeing a major increase in greenhouse gas emissions and nitrous oxide emissions from gas-fired generation. That's now up by a factor of three, relative to the low point in 2017 in the aftermath of the coal phase-out. It is now almost on a vertical growth curve, looking at a five time increase by the late 2020s, and that will continue through the 2030s.
There are IESO projections which, indeed, saw ongoing growth in natural gas generation and related emissions through the 2040s. The implication here is that the marginal fuel in Ontario for the foreseeable future will be fossil gas-fired and therefore not clean, as has been generally understood. The situation did beg the question about what level of understanding of the situation on the ground in Ontario was informing the decision-making and the level of due diligence in financing the project. I understand that is now on a definite hold.
I also have to note that similar questions have arisen around the Canada Infrastructure Bank's role at the moment as the only significant investor in the proposed nuclear reactor at the OPG Darlington site. Again, there are lots of questions. This is technology that does not exist, even as a prototype. There is no construction licence. The technology is different from anything the CNSC, the nuclear regulator, has seen before. There are debates within the CNSC itself about how it should even approach the review and approval of the project. There are many serious technical and economic questions about the technology reinforced by the failure of the flagship NuScale SMR initiative at the end of last year.
Just to finish up, regarding the implications here, it does seem there needs to be a higher level of due diligence on the Infrastructure Bank's part in making investment decisions that could be helped by informing and engaging with not just the relevant proponents and authorities, but also making sure there are discussions with people with knowledge and understanding of the local systems and issues within the academy and civil society.
There is a very definite need to reach beyond proponents and their lobbyists. I've been an external adviser on audits for the Auditor General and the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. This is part of the audit practice. It's a way of ground truthing to indicate where they're going with their audit findings in terms of people with an understanding of the situation on the ground. This is very relevant in this case because I think there is a very serious need to separate the sales pitches around what's being portrayed as clean or green technology from the realities of their technical and economic status and viability.
I think I'll end there. I will be happy to take any questions.
Thank you.