Ontario reactor overhaul $300M over budget

[jpak]

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Business/2008/02/12/ontario_reactor_overhaul_300m_over_budget/7695/

TORONTO, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Two nuclear reactors being overhauled northwest of Toronto are $300 million over budget and that could increase, the Toronto Star said Tuesday.

In a conference call with financial analysts, Glenn Menuz, vice president of TransCanada Corp., which owns 47 percent of the Bruce nuclear plant, said the original $2.75 billion overhaul was "going to exceed $3 billion," the newspaper reported.

The refurbishment of the idle Candu reactors is 60 percent complete and once finished would add 1,500 megawatts to the provincial grid, enough to power more than 1 million homes, the newspaper said.

Critic Keith Stewart, an energy expert with WWF-Canada, compared the overrun with alternative energy spending.
"The increase in costs on this project is more than all the wind turbines we've put up so far in the province," Stewart told the Star.

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