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Ontario to close the last few coal power plants

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Bittersweet, really. A large contributor to Ontario's ability to shut down coal came from large drops in demand due to big losses in the manufacturing sector that never came back after the 2009 recession. Renewables (wind, solar) cannot make up for the loss of coal and most of the shortfall (aside from reduced demand) is coming from new gas plants (which, of course, are a lot cleaner). Some new nuclear came on line as well. (Bruce Nuclear is the world's largest nuclear generating site, and it is in Ontario).
 
Thank you for the additional context. Let us hope that the changing global economic landscape begins to favor the return of said manufacturing, and also that Ontario and its citizens/corporations can redirect themselves towards other income sources and industries to come out of this challenge even stronger than before.
 
Bittersweet, really. A large contributor to Ontario's ability to shut down coal came from large drops in demand due to big losses in the manufacturing sector that never came back after the 2009 recession. Renewables (wind, solar) cannot make up for the loss of coal and most of the shortfall (aside from reduced demand) is coming from new gas plants (which, of course, are a lot cleaner). Some new nuclear came on line as well. (Bruce Nuclear is the world's largest nuclear generating site, and it is in Ontario).

Variable renewables need natural gas (or hydro) back-up anyway so I don't think of this as an "instead of". I think of any new natural gas capacity as enabling new renewable capacity. With natural gas capacity cheap to build and more efficient than ever, natural gas prices currently cheap in NA and with wind and solar prices/W continuing to fall it makes sense to shift more baseload from high-capital-cost, inflexible capacity to natural gas.
 
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A big reason why Ontario's manufacturing sector is in decline is the high Canadian dollar, which makes our exports uncompetitve. Our dollar is being driven up because it is now being seen as a "petro-dollar". Go figure.