If you live in Ontario, you’re likely familiar with the Great Lakes. Maybe you’ve visited them, maybe you live near one. They’re important in the province, the region, the country and even the world.
Collectively, lakes Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior, along with the St. Lawrence River, make up the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem, containing 21 per cent of all available surface freshwater on the planet. The Great Lakes Basin is home to 30 million people — including more than 30 per cent of Canada’s population — and it supports the world’s third-largest regional economy. With that comes a lot of demand for something other than water: energy.
Heading east from Toronto alongside Lake Ontario, there are some hulking figures on the shoreline. First, the concrete towers of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, in its namesake community, and then the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station farther east in Bowmanville, Ont.
The relationship between energy and water runs deep here: water is needed for cooling the nuclear systems. But beyond nuclear power, energy demands and shifts in fuel sources in the Great Lakes region place increased pressure — and risk — on these critical waters.
The Narwhal’s Ontario bureau is part of a group of nonprofit news outlets working together to enhance coverage of the Great Lakes basin. Funded by the Michigan-based Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the collaborative also includes four U.S. media outlets: Bridge Michigan, Michigan Public, Detroit Public Television’s Great Lakes Now program and Circle of Blue.
Every year, this group collaborates on one big project. In 2024, it was The Checkup: Water and Human Health in a Changing Climate, and in 2025 it was Cash Flows: Industry, Ecology and the Future of the Great Lakes Blue Economy. This year, we’re diving into the energy boom across the region, and what it means for the Great Lakes that sustain us, in the series Shockwave: Rising energy demand and the future of the Great Lakes.
Every outlet will be producing stories focused on this theme — you’ll find all of them below.
The energy boom is coming for Great Lakes water: Circle of Blue
A nuclear shift buoyed by billions — and the waters of the Great Lakes: Circle of Blue
Small modular reactors, big dreams: Ontario’s nuclear pitch: The Narwhal
The Great Lakes are wasting a massive source of clean energy: Circle of Blue
Keep scrolling for all of our Great Lakes coverage:
12 min. read
