Don’t get me wrong, I like wind and solar and think the Samsung deal is alright mainly because it requires lots of good manufacturing locally, but an AECL deal would do at least as well in maintaining the local economy on a per-kwh-delivered basis over 60 years, and for a LOT less money per-kwh-delivered.

$23 billion for the nukes would be the all-in cost of building the thing and operating it, and much of it would be an upfront cost before the thing starts generating power. The Samsung power is sold as generated over 20 years, so the province pays the feed-in-tariff plus 4 per cent incentive for every kilowatt-hour of wind and solar generated, and only when it is generated. The only correct comparison is price per kilowatt-hour, and since we don’t know what that would be for nuclear we can’t compare, but some studies suggest it’s as high as 15 cents — more than the wind portion of what Samsung would be paid (i.e. representing 80 per cent of Samsung’s build).

“Ontario planned a $23 billion deal for new Canadian made reactors to be built for about 2,500MW worth of reliable base-load power for 60 years (life span of reactors). This current deal is $7 billion for 2,500Mw of stochastic power for 20 years.

Nuclear deal=$153,333 per MW-year
Samsung wind/solar deal=$1,400,000 per MW year.

This new deal is almost 9 times as expensive as the planned nuclear plant that was canceled because it was ‘too expensive’.

Anyways just found that very interesting.

On the whole, I agree with your assessment. With this deal, I see the glass more full than empty. The province needs to develop a new, job-spinning manufacturing base, and cleantech is the best option of the available candidates. What’s more, Samsung clearly has major-league aspirations, and it now has the incentive to commit to the province for a large measure of its future success.

Where I would quibble with you is in your criticism of the government for not having confidence in the local cleantech vendor community. While the government could do more nurturing of local players, we also should consider that our investment community has let us down, demonstrating — yet again — its own lack of confidence and vision. That’s one of the reasons we never developed a thriving IT sector, notwithstanding RIM and a few other successes.

Rather than letting history repeat itself in a different sector, the provincial government sought a major international player that was committed to make things happen. I can’t fault it for cutting the deal with Samsung.

Seriously, I pretty much agree with Tyler’s Star article. A good point: if it had been called a tax break, or called a “temporary refund adjustment”, would people still complain?

And, isn’t this sort of government-led industry incubation is precisely the strategy that brought Korea from third world status to the economic powerhouse in lightning time. We should always be skeptical of this kind of thing–the government needs to be kept on its toes, and we need to be aware of the downsides of protectism/favoritism. But we shouldn’t just reject government involvement for dogmatic or ideological reasons.

I’d also address the criticism that this sort of thing is just a dressed-up, and expensive, makework program. Even if that were true, it’d be a good thing. No, government shouldn’t keep industry propped up forever. And we probably need to accept that Ontario in the future is not going to be the manufacturing centre it once was.

But too-rapid de-industrialization is disastrous for the many people caught up in it. When a town loses its manufacturing base, the young, the qualified and the mobile can move on, often to better things. But many, many other people don’t. They get stuck in a spiral of declining property values and rising social problems. It’s a huge waste of human capital in an environment of depression, despair, drink and drugs. Post-manufacturing towns die a long, squalid death. I’ve seen this situation up close, in the North of England, and it’s not pretty. So if this deal helps us make it through a rough transition–a transition that may well do in midwestern cities like Detroit, with great human cost–then I say chalk up one more in the “win” column.