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Ontario also has a huge amount of hydro resources. The Sir Adam Beck plant, which harnesses the power of the water tumbling over Niagara Falls, was upgraded in 2005. In 2013, a giant tunnel that funnels even more water to the plant was completed. To the north, several expansions of the Lower Mattagami River complex, a partnership between Ontario Power and the Moose Cree First Nation, will add up to 440 megawatts of hydro capacity when it is completed next year, essentially doubling that region’s power output.

By 2013, nuclear (56%) and hydro (22%) accounted for a total of 78% of Ontario’s electricity production. These emissions-free sources are actually quite cheap compared with coal. Bruce Power says the average cost of the power it produces is only 5.8 (Canadian) cents per kilowatt-hour.

Renewables, which are often sold as a way to displace fossil fuels, have played a smaller role. For the last several years, Ontario has maintained feed-in tariffs, which guarantee producers of renewable energy a fixed price. From essentially zero, wind and solar have risen in 10 years to account for 3%and 1% of Ontario’s electricity production in 2013, respectively. And rather than mothball the 51-year-old Thunder Bay plant, Ontario is planning to convert it so it can run on wood pellets, which are regarded as a renewable resource.

The most efficient power plant, the cliché goes, is the one that doesn’t have to be built. As Ontario’s 2013 energy report shows, reduction in demand—through conservation incentives, efficiency, and new standards for buildings and appliances—has helped sap the need for coal-fired energy production. “Through conservation, Ontario homeowners, businesses and industry have saved more than 1,900 megawatts of peak demand electricity since 2005—the equivalent of more than 600,000 homes being taken off the grid,” the report notes. In 2013, Ontario calculated that successful efforts to reduce electricity use below established baselines accounted for about 5% of total consumption. Put another way, efforts to permanently reduce demand for electricity alone allowed Ontario to remove about 20% of its coal capacity.