The official statement confirms what the new Parti Québécois government has been saying for weeks: that the province won't pay to refurbish the Gentilly-2 reactor and instead will have it decommissioned.
Hydro-Québec's most recent economic analysis, made public on Wednesday, recommends against spending the billions of dollars that would be required to rebuild the reactor to allow it to continue operating.
The Crown corporation says it now estimates the refurbishment would cost $4.3 billion, up from the $2 billion that the previous Liberal government had budgeted.
"This report shows that refurbishing the Gentilly-2 reactor isn't an economically viable option for Quebecers. We have to learn from the example of the cost overruns during the refurbishment of the reactor at Point Lepreau, New Brunswick," Natural Resources Minister Martine Ouellet said in a release.
NB Power's Point Lepreau generating station was the first Candu-6 reactor to be refurbished. The process was supposed to take 18 months but suffered three years of delays and more than $1 billion in cost overruns, and the power plant still isn't back online.
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