Articles

Donald Jones, B.Sc., M.A.Sc., and Retired nuclear industry engineer, has written articles appearing on a number of blogs, including Rod Adams’ Atomic Insights, Stephen Aplin’s Canadian Energy Issues, and Scott Luft’s Cold Air Currents.

A lot of the articles in the blogs also appear in the BULLETIN, journal of the Canadian Nuclear Society, in full or in abridged form.  Although not mentioned in the articles, items 4, 7, 10 and 13 appeared in the BULLETIN. Item 4 appeared in the 2010 December edition, item 7 in the 2011 March edition, item 10 in the 2011 December edition and item 13 in the 2012 March edition. Item 8, as it appeared in the 2009 June edition of the BULLETIN, is referenced by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) but wrongly affiliated the author with Ontario Power Generation when in fact he was retired from AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited).

Donald joined the CANDU design team of AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) at Sheridan Park, Mississauga, Ontario, in 1967 and retired from AECL in 2003. The timing was perfect since he was there as a Section Head, Process Control, at the very beginning of the design work on the first of the CANDU 6 projects, Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in New Brunswick, in the early 1970s at the time when the technical decisions had to be made. He moved on to other positions within AECL and was promoted to Principal Engineer in 1981. Prior to joining AECL Donald had spent five years as a Professional Engineer in the Technical Department of Orenda Engines, a Division of A. V. Roe Canada Limited (that later became Orenda Limited, a Division of Hawker Siddeley Canada Limited) at Malton, Ontario.  Before coming to Canada from the UK in 1962 he was with the de Havilland Aircraft Company Ltd., Manor Road Site, Hatfield, England, in the Thermodynamics Department. He has served a Student Apprenticeship in the UK aerospace industry and graduated from the University of Wales, Cardiff, in Mechanical Engineering and has a post graduate degree from the University of Waterloo, Ontario. Donald’s father was a steam locomotive engineer on the GWR (Great Western Railway) and later on the Western Region of British Railways (with a transition to diesel-electric locomotives in his last year before retiring), and this fostered Donald’s interest in engineering as a career from an early age.

Here are links to articles, on various sites, written by Donald Jones, B.Sc., M.A.Sc.:

1. “IESO – less dispatching of nuclear if you please”
2. “An alternative Long-Term Energy Plan for Ontario – Greenhouse gas-free electricity by 2045“. An earlier version of this article is posted here
3. “IESO – will Ontario’s wind turbine power plants reduce greenhouse gas emissions?“
4. “Gas and wind on the Ontario grid – not a chicken and egg thing“
5. “Ontario needs more than 2,000 MW of new nuclear despite what the Long-Term Energy Plan says“
6. “More wind means more risk to the Ontario electricity grid” – also posted here
7. “Why Ontario has to export electricity“
8. “Nuclear and Wind on the Ontario Electricity Grid“
9. “Time for the Ontario government to rethink this gas and wind thing“
10. “Ontario’s CANDUs can be more flexible than gas-fired generation and hydro generation” – also here, here, and here
11. “Ontario’s future economy dependent on precarious natural gas“
12. “Another inconvenient truth“
13. “Failure to condemn wind may condemn Darlington B“
14. “No future for wind in Ontario”, Don Jones, Opinion, Toronto Star, 2009 March 2,
15. “Natural gas prices go lower and Ontario’s electricity prices go higher”
16. Why wind power does not work in Ontario – and the solution
17. Ontario’s Darlington B must be on line before 2020 and must be CANDU
18. Ontario’s already “flexible nuclear” CANDU even better by satisfying IESO requirements to replace flexible coal
19. Contenders for nuclear flexibility at Ontario’s Darlington B, AP1000 and EC6, and the winner is …..
20. Dash for Gas could threaten Ontario’s Darlington B
    
21. New Nuclear Power Plants for Ontario – 2008 March
22. Load-following capability essential – 2007 June BULLETIN
23. Bring Load-Following Into Open – 2005 December
24. Will the Lights Be On in 2027 – 2009 March BULLETIN
25. What’s Wrong with Ontario’s CANDUs – 2009 September BULLETIN
26. Ontario’s Green Energy Act not so green – 2009 December
27. Dash for Gas: Will Ontario repeat the UK’s mistake
28. A quick primer on how CANDUs fit into Ontario’s windy power grid – 2013 July
29. Candu Energy Inc. says Enhanced Candu 6 is flexible – so revise the boilerplate
30. Ontario’s IESO prefers Enhanced CANDU 6 over AP1000 for new build at Darlington
31. Nuclear experts get it wrong and Ontario’s Bruce Power gets it right – 2013 September 
32. No more nuclear can mean more wind in Ontario – gazing into the crystal ball
33. What’s preventing Ontario’s Darlington Nuclear Generating Station from going flexible?
34. Ontario’s electricity – greenhouse gases up, cost up, security down – 2013 December
35. Flawed engineering input to Ontario’s Long-Term Energy Plan – 2014 January
36. Wind and nuclear and the increasing irrelevance of capacity factor in Ontario – 2014 February
37. CANDUs with 80 year operating life! – 2014 March
38. How wind affects Ontario’s power system dynamics and effect on CANDU refurbishment
39. How CANDU has faired in handling small loss of coolant events in the 35 years since TMI
40. Pedigree of the Enhanced CANDU 6 (EC6) proposed for Darlington B
41. Performance of Ontario’s CANDU nuclear generating stations in 2013
42. CANDU 6 shares the load with light water reactors in China and South Korea
43. Energy storage flywheels and batteries needed to help out wind on Ontario’s electricity grid
44. IESO – The only diverse generation Ontario needs is CANDU and hydro
45. The impact of fuel cell vehicles and electric battery vehicles on Ontario’s electricity grid
46. More wind generation on Ontario electricity grid means more pollution
47. South Korea’s first CANDU 6, Wolsong unit 1, is cleared to restart
48. Performance of Ontario’s CANDU nuclear generating stations in 2014
49. CANDU 6 Performance in 2014
50. CANDU cousins in India – Performance in 2014
51. 1,000 day breaker-to-breaker run is possible with CANDU
52. Performance of Ontario’s CANDU nuclear generating stations in 2015
53. CANDU 6 Performance in 2015
54. CANDU cousins in India – Performance in 2015
55. Enhanced CANDU 6 and NuScale SMR have capability to easily integrate wind and solar
56. CANDU 6 Performance in 2016
57. Performance of Ontario’s CANDU nuclear generating stations in 2016
58. CANDU cousins in India – Performance in 2016
59. Confusion with the IAEA reactor performance data in the PRIS
60. Can nuclear power plants deliver on all the attributes U.S. energy secretary Rick Perry claims
61. CANDU 6 Performance in 2017
62. Performance of Ontario’s CANDU nuclear generating stations in 2017
63. Why Ontario’s CANDU nuclear reactors don’t load-follow
64. CANDU nuclear generating station response to a blackout of the power grid
65. CANDU cousins in India – Performance in 2018
66. Performance of Ontario’s CANDU nuclear generating stations in 2018
67. CANDU 6 Performance in 2018
68. Ontario’s IESO uses wind and solar to reduce the carbon intensity of its electricity system
69. Small Modular Reactors in Canada’s future
70. CANDU 6 Performance in 2019
71. Performance of Ontario’s CANDU nuclear generating stations in 2019
72. CANDU cousins in India – Performance in 2019
73. Coexistence of nuclear with renewables on electricity grid
74. Load-cycling and load-following, a quick explanation

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