A Commentary by Karl Dockstader
(A Brief Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – Karl Dockstader submitted this commentary to NAL, declaring right up front that he works in the fledgling renewable energy industry in Niagara, Ontario. His commentary was driven by his view that Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak has been spinning falsehoods about the costs and promise wind and other renewable energy alternatives, all in an effort to pander to a vocal minority of people who support the status quo in the energy production field and/or do not want wind turbines, solar or other renewable energy facilities near their backyard.)
An Umbrella solar panel system at work generating energy for the grid
In a recent webcast to the Niagara, Ontario online news site Bullet News Niagara, Tim Hudak, the leader of the province’s opposition Progressive Conservative Party continued to pillage and plunder the pockets of an emerging green energy business sector in his home region.
This usual rant found Mr. Hudak, once again, on the hunt to take out environmentally friendly energy in the name of lowering our energy bills.
To make his point, he talked about the owner of Stanpac, a business in Stevensville, complaining that their energy bill, which is “65 per cent” higher than their bills in Texas, are making expansion too expensive.
A little research revealed that Texas has the greatest amount of electricity generated by wind over any other U.S. state. They have been at it longer than us too, so maybe wind isn’t such a bad investment if it’s providing Stanpac with the cheap energy it needs to be an incentive for investment.
More research also revealed the bad side of their market. Texas almost doubles the next highest state of Florida in CO2 emissions, making it by far the biggest carbon emitting state south of the border. Is this what Hudak wants for Ontario’s energy mix? Lots of wind and lots of CO2? We know that Mr. Hudak has nothing on his lengthy public service record in the way of regard for the environment but has Mr. Hudak thought this bigger energy picture through?
On that note, I am just old enough to remember that Tim Hudak was part of the government that broke up Ontario Hydro (not actually the worst idea, if you ask me) and started saddling business owners and residential rate payers alike with the Debt Retirement fee that we all love so much. Why was there so much debt? A big part of it is the well documented 14.4 billion dollar cost of The Darlington Nuclear station that cost over double the budgeted amount.
Wind energy feeding into a grid pulsating on to the plugs of homes and businesses
“Nuclear, that’s emission free and I count that as green energy,” said Hudak. “It lasts 60 years and it offers affordable base-load power…”
My definition of what is affordable and Tim Hudak’s definition must be quite different. I don’t call power that we have no real plan for disposing the everlastingly disastrous waste of affordable. I don’t call constant never ending multi-billion dollar hydro corridor infrastructure upgrades affordable. I don’t call whatever is going to happen with the never ending fallout at Fukishima affordable or green for that matter.
I don’t have a degree or two in economics like this son of two civil servants does, but Darlington Nuclear is under review for refurbishment, it was commissioned in 1990 and 1993 and it is not 1950 yet so either they are way ahead of schedule, or Mr. Hudak is having a hard time understanding what 60 years of affordable base-load power is all about.
Fort Erie’s Tim Hudak did say that we “should have a competitive transparent process with municipal support.”
I agree. It is long overdue that we get access to all associated costs for natural gas contracts in the province. We need to know, penny for penny, what Nuclear is getting per kilowatt hour generated. I want to know what the associated costs of running massive Hydro Transmission corridors from some of the most beautiful parts of the province all the way down to the ever-expanding GTA is costing us here in Niagara on our utility bills. I think that instead of privatizing energy we should have a carefully monitored and highly financially and functionally transparent central energy model that values our safety, price and longevity as its core functions.
Texas has lots of wind, CO2 a deregulation framework and it was spared the disastrous collapse of private energy deregulation that still cripples the California energy market to this day. It is 65 per cent cheaper in energy costs for Stanpac to operate there too, so maybe we should turn the taps of time back to 2003 when the energy market was being deregulated in Ontario.
In 2003 hordes of people lost power for days on end because of shoddy maintenance by a publicly traded Ohio utility operator. That stalled electricity privatization in this province with good reason. The cascading power failure, one of the most blunder-laden oversight errors in the history of the modern transmission grid, was exacerbated by the “common-sense” government’s decision to try to deregulate the governments energy sector leading to a need to import power from the US, instead of making centralized investments in Ontario’s energy needs. This was a factor that led to the PC government losing power that it hasn’t since regained.
Utilities need to be accountable to the people who have paid for the framework that they use to administer power, not to investor and profit margins. I understand the need for business to establish itself in the marketplace, but dangerous electricity is not one of the area where we should dabble with some of Tim’s experiments. We watched this movie back in the common sense revolution days, and SPOILER ALERT: privatized electricity ends badly for the consumer!
“We can’t build a modern economy on when the wind blows and the sun shines,” ranted Hudak. “We can’t afford it, it’s bankrupting the province…it’s driving up the bills…it’s tearing communities apart!”
What seems to be tearing Niagara apart is that the silent majority of people who are in favour of clean and renewable forms of energy that are being attacked by a noisy anti-wind lobby with it’s take no prisoners protest tactics. Towns like West Lincoln refuse to pass blanket support for Feed-in-Tarrif (FIT) solar programs because they are opposed to the Green Energy and Green Economy Act. Like the leader of the opposition they are in opposition to these forms of energy generation, but is ramping up multi-billion dollar nuclear really sensible? Is paying for peak power from gas plants that could be phased out with solar power over time making financial common sense?
“Energy is like your investment portfolio,” said Tim Hudak. “You don’t want to put it all in one area.”
I agree with what he says there, but since he just wants to waste more money on dated nuclear technology, instead of getting in line with the power generation methods of robust economies like Germany and Japan, I don’t think he has a real plan to back up his chatter. The international investment portfolio is shifting to renewables, and so is Ontario, is this the time to slam the brakes on this investment for the provinces energy future?
That’s the running theme here. Mr. Hudak has no real plan. Nuclear, with its major catastrophe every decade, is the kind of ticking time bomb of technology that I am not willing to saddle our children with. More natural gas? Where will that come from? The shale above our drinking water that gets extracted by unnamed but highly dangerous toxic chemicals?
I have learned that we borrow the land from our grandchildren and that it is our responsibility to leave it in good shape for them so they can reciprocate to their grandchildren in perpetuity. Maybe this is an unfair standard to hold ourselves too, but then again maybe we should thank the generation that built the Sir Adam Beck Generating Station and try to thank them by reciprocating their efforts for the benefits of our children.
Karl Dockstader is a Niagara, Ontario resident, a Renewable Energy Technician for Umbrella Energy, a Niagara College Renewable Energy Technician Graduate, an environmental advocate and active community volunteer.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)
Niagara At Large 
The damage perpetuated by certain politicians and their parties will one day (not far off) be accurately described in terms of crimes against humanity. No exaggeration intended.
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I just got back from a trip to the UK,what I found was they are embracing wind and solar power, big time,new council houses have solar panels on their roofs . everywhere homes have solar panels on the roof, Scotland high up in the mountains among none complaining sheep, windmills, off the coast near Anglesey North Wales rows of windmills hard to see as they are on the horizon. their trains are sleek and modern, filled with people and they even have a snack trolley service much like those on a transatlantic plane. meanwhile back in Canada we are living in the equivalent to the horse and buggy age.
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I hate myself when I agree with Mark Taliano, but in this case, I can happily say I agree with him! I just saw an item on the Hamilton Spectator website in which Hudak is touting the “benefits” of the “right to work” system (union busting). One of the commenters there warned that such a system will only lead to severe social problems in the future. That person was right as well.
As someone who leans slightly to the right of centre, I can honestly say that I am terrified of what would happen in Ontario if Hudak were to win the next (or any) election! He will actually make Steven Harper look good!
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Well said Mr. Taliano. How do we get on the jury for their trials? I’m sure there will be a long list of volunteer jurists.
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I agree with Doug, not a fan of coal, leary of nuclear, fracking really disturbs me.
But does that mean that shoving green alternatives down our collective throats is right?
I have and will always maintain that green strategies have merits that must be explored and that the design and execution of those strategies have to be well thought out. That is where the Liberals get a failing grade from me. They screwed this opportunity up, like they have everything else ( they are batting a 1000 in my books).
Its sad that Tim doesn’t get this and has adopted a knee jerk reaction to satisfy a certain section of our population.
All this being said we are still paying to ship our excess energy to Quebec and the US which I find frustrating to no end. Our prices are going up and the current solution is not going to change that. Unfortunately, companies that look to Ontario as a place to invest will consider how this affects their bottom-lines and that is a reality that we can not escape from.
The thing that disturbs me most, is when we look to Germany, they have saddled the people with the costs attached to a green approach alleviating the burden from business in order to remain competitive. Can that happen here? Afraid so…. we have to do something to increase our attractiveness as a province for investment. And we all know Human Resource Productivity isn’t one of our strongpoints.
Just sayin….
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Green energy isn’t being forced on anyone, it is being incentivised to encourage investment. The cost of our power is much higher than Quebec and Manitoba, but we’re the only ones with privatized power companies, if you can’t see that a profit incentive is drive up costs more than the ever dropping cost of renewable than you should look more into the programs as I fear you have been fed misinformation. As for the excess energy, in 2009 when the Green Energy Act was enacted we had a need for power, since then our manufacturing sector has crumbled and therefore our power needs dropped, does that mean we stop our plan to phase out coal-fire generation? Plus it is still more cost effective to run solar and wind than stand-by gas plants year round, which cost a fortune while producing no energy.
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Bob about those standby gas plants , that you say cost a fortune while producing no energy . How is wind and solar cost effective , when the only reason they exist is because of their unrealiable nature of they require these very expensive back ups ? Believe me I am not against any alternative method of generating our electrical needs . I am just against the way it has been rolled out . We , in my opinion , should have wrung every kilowatt out of our system through efficiencies and retro fitting . Once we acheived our new baselode requirement then we could have easily made the decisions to eliminate the most polluting forms of generation . Thus at that point we could have replaced future generation needs with the Cleanest and most cost effective generation . As of now we heavily subsadize our green efforts and still waste this costly green generation out the window .
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John: You say there are huge subsidies and costs on solar, yet they are currently less than half of what they were only 4 years ago and are scheduled to drop annually. My issue is most people are unaware hydro, nuclear, gas and coal are all subsidized as well, some at much higher rates, yet that never manages to enter the conversation. All power is subsidized. The cost of retro-fitting is typically huge and runs overtime/budget, while renewables are only paid for what is generated, though I do not dispute your point that renewables are not as stable but why wait until we’ve dumped billions into retrofitting old, dirty power sources before looking into new energy storage options? A billion dollar coal retrofit is much less than the FIT programs cost.
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Bob, the people of Wainfleet…… would disagree with you. Everyone that receives an bill inflated by green energy costs I think would disagree with you. I am not saying that something shouldn’t be done in a green sense. What I am saying is that what was done was poorly designed and executed very poorly to the detriment of personal and corporate Canada.
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Thanks for your reply Bob . I could not respond in the proper spot because there was no reply option there . When I talked about Retro fitting I meant old and new existing buildings ( up graded insulation ,windows etc. ) Every thing brought up to Platinum Leeds Standards . Also finding a use for the steam that is generated in these 17 Co-Gens that are being built to accomadate alternative generation . Co – Gen means there is a secondary use for the steam generated when they produce electricity . As of now , as far as I know , this is just waste steam . A use for it would be to incorporate it into heat for a Glycol system that could heat instatutions , Malls and residential ( Apartments ) .
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Greg, you again say “Everyone that receives an bill inflated by green energy costs I think would disagree with you.” Please prove this statement, since as I’ve said, we pay double the rates of our neighbouring provinces, but they don’t have privatized power companies. You’re missing the obvious profit incentive to these LDCs, who continually raise the rates by the maximum allowed annually by the OPA.
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After having recently returned from a short vacation to western NY state to visit family and friends, we were once again reminded of those that have engaged wind and solar technology to their benefit. My cousin and husband were the first in their small Fly Creek (outside Cooperstown) to install solar panels on their farm, to the great benefit of all (and to them, economically speaking). As one drives the wonderful Hwy 20 (much recommended over the Freeway, and paralleling it, there are the most gorgeous small communities along the route, including the Finger Lakes communities, the Madison County communities, and yes, high on the hills in this rolling countryside, wind powered windmills. Quite spectacular they are, and no one is complaining.
Take a long day drive along old Hwy 20 and see what can be embraced. Having said this, I will say we noticed many anti-fracking signs along the route. So…..
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Gail: you say no one is complaining, but I believe you mean that you did not stop and speak to anyone about the situation – if you had stopped, you would have come to a different conclusion. Perhaps you meant that you, yourself , were not complaining in that case, I am sorry I must have misunderstood you.
Could it be that you are afraid of the NIMBY (Next It Could Be You) and you are afraid that next they might come to your backyard?
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Having recently witnessed the engineering intelligence of Germany and the German people and to NOW understand they are going all out to eliminate Nuclear Generation I can only assume their intelligence is far superior to that of the Canadian Politicians. The bye product of Nuclear Generation is not anything to be fool with or store in the ground for future generations to look back and think what the hell were they doing???
Too bad our scientist are all being relegated to the unemployment role by this Harper Government as their knowledge could have been directed at making Canada a better place to live and raise a family
The billions Squandered by the Canadian Government in the past decade to change our military from a revered “Peace Keeper Nation” to a war machine trained by a bloody Private Mercenary Firm in the U.S.A.
Then the billions Squandered by the Ontario Liberal Government during the last decade could have finance this move to Green Energy without having to mortgage the Province and they could have done so by leaning from other countries as well as Canadian jurisdictions who have taken the time to LEARN and inact.
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