I reckon you might actually be underestimating the Tesla move to Markham Ontario.
Because as you know with Tesla , its ALL about location of its Industrial Ecosystems. And you don't really get better ecosystems than what's available in Markham Ontario.
And I believe I am starting to see the ' hypothetical ' or ' Conceptual ' picture which may be emerging in the ' Wider ' electrification story.
So we know it's ALL about HUBs right . And as we've seen so far , there will be mineral exploration production HUBs , there will be Chemical conversion HUBs , there will be BOTH vehicle and battery assembly HUBs and allied industry and all sorts of components type HUBs. There will also be advance technology and continuing research and collaboration HUBs as well as ' Clean Energy and Renewable Energy ' HUBs .
And a move by some Companies .....especially those the size of Tesla will be attracted to these areas in part for Financial reasons of potential funding , but also for a number of these ' Other ' logistics and expertise HUBs. And it's important that Canada , Ontario , and Quebec as well as British Columbia are going to significantly play a strong role in this overall development. Particularly where it relates to the ' Grid ' and some of the emerging applications and developments.
And there are a few things here which I don't reckon Investors would be fully aware of with this latest Tesla move.
For starters and while most might not be aware of the ongoing discussions revolving around the remaining 6 reactors at the Pickering Nuclear Power station which are set to be gradually decommissioned from 2024 with reactors 1 and 4 closing , and fully shut by 2028 with the remaining reactors 5,6,7 & 8 being shut down..
And while there has been many arguments on BOTH sides of the closure refurbishment debates , a final decision on how Ontario will best meet the loss of this 3,100 megawatts of clean energy while also meeting its ZERO carbon energy emissions looms large in this ongoing debate.
So at the moment , Markham is only 26 minutes or 32.4 kilometres away from Pickering. But even if they do lose this ' Clean ' energy power from the Pickering reactors which were commissioned in 1971 , the Markham area still has access to Darlington Nuclear Reactor which was built in 1993 and is located at Bowmanville which is only 4 minutes or 2.1 kilometres away from Markham City. With this reactor which still has an operating licence out to 2025 will have had C$12.8 Billion spent on it which will no doubt extend its life beyond this license renewal in 2025.
So it gets even more complicated from here folks - but let's try and kick off ALL the attributes with the most simplest stuff first. So apart from the ' Science ' and benefits around the Nuclear ' clean energy ' availability of Markham , Markham is also ideally situated from a components standpoint of being only 36 minutes or only 52.6 kilometres from GM's Oshawa assembly facility and only 43 minutes or 68.8 kilometres the other way towards Ford's Oakville assembly plant.
O.K so lets talk about the ' Components ' side of the equation . Naturally given the fact that Markham has played an integral role in the supply chain of previous vehicle Manufacturing facilities in Canada , we ALL know how important the PCB ( Printed Circuit Board ) industry is to not only Tesla , but ALL the vehicle and ' Grid ' AI applications. So it should be no surprise then that Markham is home to no less than 10 PCB manufacturing companies and at least 2 of Canada's Top 10 including Juniper Circuits Inc who is located in Markham proper with its ' Flexible ' PCB division FPC Express being located only 21 minutes away in the Markham suburb of Concord .
So this concentration of PCB manufactures in Markham is obviously very very important to Tesla. Interesting that Tesla has a model named ' Juniper ' doesn't it ?
Apart from the PCB manufacturers , Markham has 14 electrical equipment and appliance manufacturers , 18 fabricated metals manufactures , 10 chemical manufacturers , 62 computer and electrical products manufacturers , 5 non metallic metal manufactures , 15 rubber and plastics manufacturers , 2 textile mills and 4 textile product mills , 4 primary metal manufacturers , 5 transport equipment manufacturers , and leather and allied product manufacturers.
The other thing here which is absolutely fascinating with the location of Markham is the Research Facility call ' Grid IQ ' which was established by GE with an $8 million grant from Ontario back in 2011. And to cut a lot of the analysis out of the research to shorten this post , a lot of their research has culminated in their more recent venture ' GE Hitachi ' which was also only just reported on 19th October which has primarily focused its research on the expansion of its ' Nuclear ' SMR ( small modular reactor ) program which is spearheaded by its BWRX-300 SMR's which was announced back in September.
So how does ALL this work then mesh and ' sync ' with Tesla and the EV manufacturing which revolves centrally around the PCB and AI industries.
Well in continuing to keep it simple , its ALL about Tesla's Interest in the ' Tech Advancements ' of SMR's in relation to its BIGGER and more powerful storage capability and ' longer life ' batteries with their ' revolutionary ' V2G ( Vehicle to Grid ) built in consumer enhancements.
Cutting a long story short on the Tesla version of its built in ' inverter ' is that the ' Car ' of the future will NOT just be for its transportation utility which is really only a faction of its use , but will be a TWO-WAY power generator which will be able to be used to ' backfill ' into the grid or power your home in ' off peak ' or ' Peak ' situations where perhaps one of your family vehicles is not in use.
So the technology which you can start to see which is evolving here quite rapidly around ' Renewable ' power and miniaturized SMR units , fast charging , affordable home charging , and multi purpose Vehicle / Power Storage applications through the A.I transformation is nothing short of astonishing.
And wouldn't it be rather Ironic if Tesla and GE came together in a similar way to that which happened with Nicola Tesla sold his polyphase system of alternating current dynamos, transformers and motors to George Westinghouse back in May 1888 and that Westinghouse which is now owned by Toshiba Corp who picked it up in 2006 for US5.4 billion of Viacom who paid US4.9 billion in 1997 has always been somewhat of a ' specialist ' in Nuclear Power Generation designing its first Nuclear power station in Beaver County Pennsylvania in 1957 which is still in operations today. GE of course bought Westinghouse's air brake divisions and one of the first established by George Westinghouse in 1886 and before Westinghouse even was established 22 years later.
Of course the irony would continue when Westinghouse who filed for Chapter 11 in 2017 with $9 billion in liabilities forced Toshiba to write down and sell this asset for US4.6 billion to the Canadian outfit and Toronto based Brookfield Partners in 2018.
So I guess the history is interesting here as well.
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