Could we get by without new power?

If most of us lived like Dave Braden, could Ontario get by without $40 billion worth of new nuclear power plants? Would the lights still glow brightly in Toronto if we didn’t erect a generating station on the eastern waterfront?

Braden is a beef farmer, small-scale developer and municipal politician who builds energy-efficient houses. His designs slash heating-fuel consumption and — key to a debate over Ontario’s energy future that’s to play out at public hearings across the province this month — cut electricity use at least in half.

“In an ideal world, we could get to where we need to go through conservation and renewables like wind,” Premier Dalton McGuinty said this week. “But we don’t live in that world. We live in this one.”

Toronto Star