By Doug Draper
Less than a month after Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty celebrated the “Big Becky” hydro power dig in Niagara Falls as another act in bringing “tremendous progress (and) strength” to the province’s electricity system, the province’s Conservative opposition leader, Tim Hudak, is charging that it is a “boondoggle” contributing to “hydro bills that have been skyrocketing.”
Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak with Niagara Falls riding PC candidate George Lepp.
”It may not be a line item on your hydro bill,” said Hudak during a media briefing he held this February 18 in Niagara Falls, “But you need to know that you’re paying the full cost of Dalton McGuinty’s mismanagement. For Big Becky, your bill should read $137 – and counting.”
Hudak went on to charge that the Big Becky project, involving the underground dig of another water tunnel to the Sir Adam Beck Generating Station is now more than $600 million over budge and five years behind schedule – costs for which present and future generations of residents in the province will be stuck picking up the tab.
Niagara At Large posted a release from Premier McGuinty’s office earlier this February, stressing his support for the Big Becky hydro project as what he stressed is an important step in greener energy production that gets away from power generated from the likes of coal.
Following is a media release from Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak circulated during his media briefing in Niagara Falls this February 18.
We welcome you to share your views below.
Tim Hudak Highlights Dalton McGuinty’s Mismanagement
Of Big Becky
NEWS:
NIAGARA FALLS – Today, Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak pointed to Big Becky as an example of Ontario families getting stuck with the bill for Dalton McGuinty’s mismanagement of major government projects. The Big Becky boondoggle is one of the many reasons why hydro bills have been skyrocketing under the McGuinty Liberals.
To date, Big Becky is $615 million over budget and five years behind schedule because of McGuinty mismanagement. As a result, each Ontario family is paying $137 more. Hudak also made it clear that, while the PCs identified the Big Becky project as a priority, the McGuinty Liberals have turned it into a boondoggle. As with the $1-billion eHealth boondoggle, the McGuinty Liberals have shown that they’re incapable of being on time and on budget.
In the next election, Ontario families will have a choice between Dalton McGuinty, who thinks families have an endless ability to pay for his mismanagement, and Tim Hudak and the Ontario PCs, who respect that families pay the bills.
QUOTES:
– Tim Hudak, Ontario PC Leader – ”It may not be a line item on your hydro bill, but you need to know that you’re paying the full cost of Dalton McGuinty’s mismanagement. For Big Becky, your bill should read $137 – and counting.”
“According to Dalton McGuinty, ‘these things happen.’ I think that Ontario families have had enough of these things happening.”
– Tim Hudak, Ontario PC Leader
QUICK FACTS:
· The Big Becky cost overruns mean each Ontario family is now paying $137 more than they ought to be.
· The project was originally supposed to cost $985 million and is now pegged at $1.6 billion. The project was originally to be completed by 2009, then August 2010, then 2012, and now it is supposed to be completely operational by December 2013.
· Hydro rates have increased 75 percent under Dalton McGuinty or over 100 percent for homeowners with a smart meter. Worse still, bills are expected to skyrocket 46 percent by 2015, and that’s according to McGuinty’s own lowball estimates.
(Visit Niagara At Large at http://www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
Sorry, but that’s the price of progress. We can’t go back to cheap, dirty, coal. Or beer for a buck a bottle.
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We don’t have to be happy about the overruns for a proven technology but it’s a far cry from the preposterous costs of wind and solar . I can live with that.
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Hopefully wind and solar will become some of the new “proven” technolgies. We can also look forward to “smart houses”, electric vehicles, and new, innovative conservation measures. We can expect fuel bills to rise, but a household’s utility bills should decline if we do it right. This may also be the manufacturing spark that the Canadian economy needs.
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Ok, I think Dalton’s been somewhat sleazy as a politician, and gotten away with murder, while his opponents have often struggled & failed to argue excellent points, BUT let’s evaluate the Green Energy Plan:
http://www.PowerAuthority.on.ca/the-plan
2010 2030
52% 46% of power = nuclear
19% 20% of power = water (hydro)
8% 0% of power = coal
15% 7% of power = natural gas (+oil in 2010)
2% 10% of power = wind
.3% 1.5% of power = solar
1% 1.3% of power = bioenergy
4% 14% of power = conservation
(Hopefully, it adds to 100!)
The USA produces ~75% of its electricity from Coal.
Personally, I’m glad we’re getting rid of Coal; I’m sure the mercury & other pollutants in the smoke from Nanticoke affects my asthma, but I’ll never know if it killed my mother with Alzheimers. Clean air, water & soil will help everyone to have fewer Health issues.
Now, here’s what Ontarians pay for electricity per kiloWatt hour [kWhr] :
2010 2030
~$.07 ~$.15 ?
This is an AVERAGE of ALL rates paid over the year, as the Independent Electrical System Operator ( http://www.ieso.on.ca ) buys power from different suppliers when our demand rises & falls each day. It includes $1.50 /kWhr they sometimes pay on a hot August day when we all turn on our air conditioning, or on a bitterly cold February night when our furnaces work overtime. Check out their website to see for yourself.
Then we add Delivery, Stranded Debt, etc. & HST to bring it to what we pay (divide your total bill by the number of kWhrs you consume) :
2010 2030
~$.16+ ~$.33 ?
(And Hudak predicts that it may soon be higher with Smart Meters, when we’ll pay highest rates at peak times and lowest at midnight!)
The Feed-In-Tariff [FIT & microFIT] contracts are 20 years long, and will pay out fixed rates per kWhr for those 20 years as follows:
$.802 Solar roof-mounted (microFIT up to 10kW)
( .644 for ground-mounted microFIT and less for large Solar Farms)
$.135 Big Wind on land
$.190 Big Wind offshore (suspended on 2011-02-11 for further study)
Wind prices look fairly good compared to guesstimates of 2030’s rates.
And they’ll only be 10% of supply, so they won’t affect rates too much.
Solar prices are high, but can be cheap on a hot August dog-day-afternoon.
And Solar will be a mere 1.5% of supply, so it won’t affect rates much.
What WILL affect rates will be Repairing and Replacing NUCLEAR.
Dalton’s gang guesstimated $27B for the job, but in June 2009, the bid came in at $26B to do just One Third of it. The revised guesstimate is now $87B!!!! And nuclear has Never come in under budget (anywhere?).
I can’t imagine how big is a Billion Dollars!? How many schools or hospitals can be bought? And that doesn’t include the cost to store the expired nuclear plants for 10,000 years – they still haven’t solved that.
Right now, they’re spending money on commercials & grants to get us to Conserve. That’s amazing, because for every kWhr we conserve, they can’t charge us for future hydro or taxes!
Imagine if ‘they’ were to spend only $ONE Billion of the $87B and help us to buy Renewable Energy, as our Yankee friends in New York State are doing – the US gov’t gives a grant of ~25% plus NYS gives ~25%, for people and businesses to install Renewable Energy and generate power for themselves.
How will Ontario companies compete with US companies when US companies pay less for energy than we do? Businesses can move across the Niagara River much more easily than people can. And Americans don’t have as many legal holidays as Ontario does, nor as high a minimum wage. Businesses don’t want to move, but if someone puts one too many straws on their back, they do what’s needed to survive ….
To summarise:
Ontario has BIG problems ahead with energy costs. Tim Hudak will likely do a better, more transparent job than McGuinty, but he still hasn’t told us how the PC’s will solve our soaring hydro costs. More Coal? More gas? More Nuclear? Or more Renewable?
To protect yourself from this future, ask the question:
What can I do to to get rid of Coal and Nuclear – cut my power consumption BY THREE QUARTERS, or produce my own power?!!
(Notice of conflict of interest: I’ve learned all of this information because I’m in the business of selling small-scale Renewable Energy, and I believe in my product.)
“A Conservative is -by definition- a careful conservationist”
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Very interesting. Lorne, can you send me some info. on your product?
Thanks,
ma.taliano@hotmail.com
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