Speeches

Nuclear power will continue to be an important component of our electricity supply for the foreseeable future. But whether this will be on a diminishing or increasing scale will depend on the capacity of the industry to resolve public concerns over environment, health and safety risks and to compete successfully with alternative sources.

Our experience over the past quarter century has demonstrated that solutions are available, or can be found, when there is a clear political will for concerted action through a combination of policies, regulations and incentives. Even the most local of solutions must be applied in a global context.

The challenge at hand for engineers goes well beyond career choices or job opportunities. For that, one has to look at the issues in a broader context. Uniquely in our times, human numbers and the scale and intensity of human activities have reached the point at which we have become the primary agents of our own evolution. The explosion in knowledge, science and technology, particularly in the last century, has made us the most successful of ail the species of life on earth. They have also set us on a pathway which is not sustainable and which threatens to make us the victims of our own success.

We either can position ourselves on the leading edge of this new wave of change, and benefit from it, or be engulfed in its backwash. Ontario Hydro has determined that its responsibility as stewards of the immense investment Ontarians have in the existing electric power industry has a responsibility to lead.

Migration which has historically helped relieve the pressures of poverty, suffering and persecution, is no longer a practical alternative for most. Although the pressures for migration will continue to mount, the borders of the world are closing for all but the privileged few.

There is a major shift of economic power away from governments, of which the widespread movement towards privatization is but one manifestation. As we approach the limits of government, a wide variety of new actors are emerging within civil society who are becoming primary agents of change.

Asia will have to build new facilities to meet the rising energy demand that will accompany their growing economies. But they must also recognize that improving the efficiency of existing plants and existing uses, is usually the fastest, often the cheapest, and certainly always the most environmentally advantageous way to increase energy supply.

Page 9 of 10

Weblogic

Nuclear power, competition and sustainable development (8 September 1995)

Environmental Stewardship And The New Parochialism (5 August 1995)

The Engineer as Agent of Global Change (4 August 1995)

Competition, Customer Choice and Convergence (4 July 1995)

Sustainable Development: The New Liberation Front (1 June 1995)

A major shift of economic power (21 April 1995)

Asia and a Sustainable Earth (6 June 1994)