Ontario may need to import electricity during extreme weather: report
CBC
Ontario's electricity system operator says the province should have enough electricity to meet growing demand this year and next, though it may have to import power during extreme heat at times.
The Independent Electricity System Operator says in its 18-month reliability outlook report that there will be enough supply of electricity generated in Ontario under normal weather conditions.
However, under extreme weather the province may need to rely on importing up to 2,000 megawatts of power from other jurisdictions to ensure reliability, particularly in August and summer of 2025.
Nuclear power provides more than half of Ontario's electricity supply and during the 18-month outlook, some units are being refurbished while others are set to be retired.
The IESO expects electricity demand in the province to increase by one per cent this year, then by nearly three per cent next year.
The higher demand partly comes as economic activity is expected to pick up, but also due to large industrial projects such as electric vehicle battery plants and steelmakers' electric arc furnaces.
With the B.C. NDP and B.C. Conservatives neck and neck heading into election day on Saturday, there are also a record number of Independent candidates who — if voted in — could hold the balance of power in a minority government scenario. British Columbians have only elected one Independent MLA in the last 60 years. Vicki Huntington won a seat in 2009 and was re-elected in 2013. But University of the Fraser Valley political scientist Hamish Telford said the situation could be different this election cycle. Of the 40 Independent candidates running, six of them are incumbent MLAs, who carry the benefit of name recognition in their community. "So we've got Independents in this election who I think we could deem to be viable shots at actually winning a riding, which is not normal," Telford said. "They're still long shots, but they are certainly plausible candidates."
Though Bill C-282 has received cross-party federal support in Ottawa, Alberta's provincial government says it's not a backer of the Bloc Québécois legislation that aims to prevent Canada's supply-managed sectors — dairy, poultry and eggs — from being included in future international trade negotiations.
A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder and 15 others are facing criminal charges for allegedly running a drug-trafficking operation that shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to Canada and used violence — including murder — to achieve the group's goals, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday.