This Canadian province is set to phase out coal by 2030
Nova Scotia is a province with a rich history in coal mining, especially in Cape Breton. Former miner Sheldon Gouthro gives a tour of the Ocean Deeps Colliery in Glace Bay and policy makers look towards the future of energy.
David Miller is Nova Scotia's Director of Electricity Policy and Programming and part of a province-wide team that has recently announced plans to phase out the use of coal by the year 2030, a move cheered by environmentalists.
But there's a lot of money tied up in the coal plants still in use.
In conversation with The Weather Network, Miller said the province keeps reinvesting in these plants to keep them operating because they can't just let them become decrepit over time.
“Otherwise we run into losing power in the winter,” he said.
“At present there's about 900 million dollars worth of investment in those coal plants that has yet to be used up," Miller continued. “So there's a very large amount of money that we have to figure out how to manage as we transition away from these coal plants over the next ten years.”
Executive Director of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Keith Collins is involved in the energy discussion in Nova Scotia as well and told The Weather Network the province’s transition has been moving relatively quickly over the past decade.
"It was 80 per cent about a decade ago, down to 50 now, and as soon as the full hydro electricity supplies come on from Newfoundland we'll be down to around 30," said Collins.
See more in the video above and tour one of Cape Breton’s historic mines.
Thumbnail credit: Chris Leboutillier/Unsplash
