Maybe. But there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome before it’s a serious consideration.

Nova Scotia premier Tim Houston announced the province was betting big on renewable energy. In introducing the “Wind West” project—a plan for massive offshore wind-powered electricity generation—Houston’s government proposed an initial phase that would produce 5,000 megawatts of power, with the potential to go all the way up to 62,000 MW, and possibly even more. The Wind West strategic plan, aimed in part at enticing the federal government to invest, said the project could turn Atlantic Canada into a “fully-fledged clean energy superpower.”

But no matter how much energy Wind West may ultimately produce, it won’t be enough to green the grid according to Larry Hughes, a retired Dalhousie University engineering professor and a founding fellow of the university’s MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance.

Hughes, who has written extensively on energy security and climate change, said, “If you want a zero emissions grid, you’re going to have to have something else in addition to renewables. And yes, storage is essential. There’s no disputing that. But if you have long periods of time when there’s no sun or wind, and the batteries have been exhausted, you will need something else.”

That something else is power that can always be available, or fired up quickly. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are planning new natural gas plants to bridge the gap. But could part of the solution come from nuclear energy, in the form of baseload, always-on power from small modular reactors, or SMRs?

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