By Tom Millar
Egad, he’s at it again. Premier McGuinty is pulling away from it. He’s back pedaling from his Green Energy Plan.
Seems McGuinty is doing it every other day, right?! And for good reasons, too.
Just recently, on Friday February 11, 2011, McGuinty pull the plug on offshore wind farms. His reason: There isn’t a lot of science on offshore wind farms.…We need some time to review the science.
Egad, didn’t McGuinty do his homework before approving the tendered Green Energy projects for offshore wind farms?
Before this awakening, McGuinty read a headline in the newspaper: Ontario electricity customers paid $52.8 million in December 2010 to subsidize users in the United States and Quebec to take Ontario electricity surplus. When pressed by concerned Ontario taxpayers about this cash flow loss from Green Energy generators, McGuinty said: This is a matter that I will have to review and get back to you on. Still no answer from him.
Egad, didn’t McGuinty do a risk analysis and financial impact for Ontario electricity users and payers of having Green Energy generators providing electricity whether or not it is needed by us?
That’s right, McGuinty signed contracts to take all Green Energy production even if we in Ontario don’t need it. Such cash flow losses will be perpetuated but paid for by us. Like, Ontario pays Green Energy providers to generate surplus electricity and then Ontario pays Americans or Quebec to take it from Ontario. Really! And Ontario is us.
And then there is this wording that McGuinty legislated all electricity utilities must publish: The Ontario Government has taken 10% off your electricity bill to help you with the costs of building a clean energy future. But McGuinty did not go on to say that your Provincial Government is borrowing the needed money to ‘rebate’ to you as a discount. And he didn’t say you will have to repay the ever increasing loans with interest in the future. McGuinty estimates the annual debt will grow by $1.1 billions for each of the next 5 years, adding up to more than $5 billion. Like, McGuinty is paying us a ‘relief’ with borrowed money that we will have to re-pay. McGuinty claims he is giving us a ‘benefit’. Like, get real!
Egad, didn’t McGuinty know that the Green Energy contracts he is signing would exponentially increase electricity prices in the short term and even get more 45 percentage more costly by 2015 as still more such generation connects into the Ontario electricity network?
Like, McGuinty continues to contract for Green Energy producers at up to 60 cents per kilowatt hour, while paying Ontario Power Generation, the former Ontario Hydro, 4 cents per kilowatt hour. McGuinty, are you out to bankrupt us?
Last October, McGuinty cancelled an already approved natural gas turbine electricity plant to be built in Oakville. His reason: It won’t be built anywhere in Ontario because supply exceeds demand for electricity (and for the foreseeable future).
Egad, didn’t McGuinty know before approving such “FIT” Green Energy projects that Ontario Power Generation is bring on substantially more new hydro supply in the years to come? Like the work is underway even at Niagara Falls. But McGuinty continues to sign up additional Green Energy projects.
Well, McGuinty, with a backtracking Green Energy record like yours over the last few months, the facts are there to be seen and the writing is on the wall – No urgency for Green Energy Plan! No need for it!
A prudent person would say “Put a Moratorium on McGuinty’s Green Energy Plan for Ontario. The economic and social impacts of Green Energy Projects AT ALL COSTS must be thoroughly evaluated!”
There, that is your next Green Energy Plan action step and announcement, Premier McGuinty.
Tom Millar is a resident of Etobicoke, Ontario who worked as a chartered accountant in the Toronto area.
(We encourage you to share your views in the comment boxes below and we also encourage you to visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com – even if you are a subscriber please do that – for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
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The cost of not investing heavily in alternative energy sources is far higher than what we’re paying now for electric. Pollution kills, so does Climate Change. Already we’re becoming a branch plant for Chinese alternative energy manufacturing. They’re way ahead of us, to our detriment. Electric rates will continue to rise, but once our buildings are “smart”, our utility bills should descend dramatically, and the outside environment will improve. Carbon-based fuels like gasoline, diesel should be taxed more heavily, and those funds should be diverted to alternate energy research and Development etc. NIMBYism, in the form of resisting wind farms in, for example, West Lincoln, is expected, but regretable. China for a day.
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Mark, with all due respect. Kindly provide one example of a death attributable Climate Change. This is important in this discussion.
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John,
An answer to that question will require some research: climate refugees etc. To advance my position though, all I need to do is stick with the pollution example. There’s plenty of evidence which links pollution to mortality rates. Governments are using the pollution angle.
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John,
The World Health Organization has a summary “booklet” available on the internet. “Climate Change And Human Health – Risks And Reponses Summary”
Another way to look at it would be this: In order to get a mortgage for a house, we need fire insurance, yet the risk of fire is very low (maybe 2%?) We need “insurance” for these climate issues, but the risks are much higher than 2%.
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I think the focus is off topic and short sighted. Why are we generating more than we need. Why does Nanticoke still exist? Wasn’t the original closure date 2007? We should fully support the Green Energy Plan, and generate a new focal point of where inefficiencies lay and how to strengthen the plan itself. Shut down coal.
With regard to your discussion of climate change casualties; seniors die of heart attacks, not heat stroke; the financially marginalized die of starvation and poverty, not rising food prices, people die from asthma related events, not pollution.
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Heat can precipitate health issues in the sick which ultimately can and does kill them, each summer; rising food prices create civil unrest (likely part of the equation in overseas unrest now, and there are deaths); pollution definately triggers asthma – related deaths.
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Why are wind genrators being installed within 500 m of peoples homes when there are plenty of great sites in existing industrial areas? As an example, the soon to be defunked Nanticoke Coal plant is right on the shores of windy lake Erie and the site has huge existing transmission lines that will no longer be used once coal is gone. This is one example that makes technical and community sense. Unfortunately it does not serve political interests. Politicians are selling out to individuals hungry to get a piece of long term contracts massivly subsidized by the tax payers. If you want to buldoze communities and ram private, tax payer subsidized, green projects through by screaming NIMBYism at a community then you will come off as an angry green nazi and the cause for sustainable energy will suffer.
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Jane, check out the “Sigration” web site. Most of this winter, Nanticoke is only running one unit at minimum load for building heating. The new combined cycle gas power plants have all but replaced it already.
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The premise of Tom’s article is simply can we afford the Green Energy Act, at any cost. That’s a fair question. When I challenged Mark on his response it was to clarify and focus the question away from the urgency of some people who believe that Climate Change is a clear an imminent danger to humankind and the less convinced like me. I’m not against renewable energy nor am I against conservation. What I’m against is going into a massive investment with eyes wide shut. The crux of Tom’s argument and I tend to agree is the rapid implementation of this Act without a measure of due diligence.
The sooner we have an adult conversation (we includes me) about a cogent energy strategy the better. Massive subsidies and high feed in tariffs with borrowed money is not fiscally prudent. The promise of “x” number of jobs in the new green economy is highly suspect as well (just like lowering the corporate tax rate will provide 200,000 jobs, but I digress). Meanwhile Nanticoke still burns coal and still emits yet when it was to be either converted to NG or mothballed entirely. The McGuinty government failed to act on this, yet proceeded helter skelter into solar and wind. That is not good planning that’s a government that doesn’t know what the hell they are doing.
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Bill, the Nanticoke industrial area is suited to wind farms but also is on the eastern edge of the tip of Long Point (27 km offshore). It is also a World Biosphere and the biggest single bird migration zone on Lake Erie.
30 km west from Port Rowan to Port Burwell is the 100 or so Lake Erie Wind Farm producing 99MW of electricity at capacity. That location is less harmful to bird migration as it sits behind sand bluffs.
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glad Bill raised the Nanticoke plant…..McGuinty talks about the coal burning in Ontario to generate electricity. it’s a red herring….that plant, or one of the four last units, is called into service only as a last resort…as like the fall back and not ‘resort’ in the vineyards of Niagara, eh, Jane?!
coal isn’t the issue….it’s what John nailed, saying…..McGuinty’s ‘rapid implementation of this Act without a measure of due diligence.’ That’s what’s frustrating me, big time!!!
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Port Rowan was a good choice for wind. But there are proposals to stick wind generators right beside (500M) homes in Jarvis, 13 km inland from the Nanticoke site. It would make more sense to put them on the shoreline (more wind Duh) at the site of the former coal plant and not inland. The release process is flawed, just like the proposed massively subsidized run of the river plant (one that only makes power when there is lots of cheap hydraulic power already) smack in the middle of Bala, a historic small town. This town now has to fight government and a rich profiteer to try to keep it’s tourism alive. Political shenanigans driven by greed and not the goal of sustainable energy for Ontario.
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Sorry I’ve been absent from posting my comments. Have reasons, alas …
Sent the following off to Tim Hudak yesterday, and since it seems appropriate to this article, thought I’d share it with NiagaraAtLarge readers:
Have you reviewed the “Electricity prices are changing: Find out why” sent out to the public from the province yet? If not, you can download it from http://www.mei.gov.on.ca/en/pdf/EnergyPlan_EN.pdf
Now, perhaps I’m not reading this right, but here’s some things that cause me to be cynical.
Page 1: According to the 2003, 2010 Projected(?!?) and 2030 Projected Generation pie charts;
* Water -5% from 2003, +1% for 2030
o (Why the decrease? And why just only a 1% increase when well before 2030 the N.F. expansion (pictured on page 2) should be completed, and according to page 4, a new hydro-electric project is to be built on the Mattagami River?
* Nuclear +10% from 2003, -6% for 2030
o How can the nuclear portion have increased 10% over 2003 when existing power plants have been under on-going, over extended repair?
o Why, with the recent announcement of $87B investments in nuclear over the next 20 years, which I assume are covered under “Upgrade nuclear plants…” on page 4, does the nuclear portion drop?
Please tell me I’m not totally mathematically challenged!
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Ok, so WHY -if we had a surplus of Wind power in Dec- did Ontario Power generation not reduce the amount of Nuclear power generated? Not shut down a reactor, just insert a few control rods and Reduce the amount of power the reactor produces. Perhaps it would even extend the life expectancy of the reactor.
Because of the recession, our power needs are way down – Coal is almost not needed. In Dec, we obviously went below the normal Renewable supply (hydro/wind/solar). Why can’t OPG reduce Nuclear supply when it’s not needed and we can replace it with Renewable?
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The biggest mistake George Smitherman and Dalton made was ,they never upgraded the Provincial Electric grid, much of it was rotting and half a century old and could not accomodate the solar and wind farms they had allowed to be built , over 20 thousand solar producers are unable to hook up to the grid, they put the cart before the horse , every thing that Dalton touches turns into a disaster, E-Health for instance and the OLG scandal.
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