View topic - Are you a member of an Environmental or other radical group

Domestic Content requirements for Ontario FIT Contracts (solar and wind above 10 kW capacity) is 50%. For solar installations between 10 kW - 10 MW, the domestic content requirement is 60%. What evidence do you have, as you claim above, that real costs/benefits are getting shipped "out of the province" in Ontario. This doesn't appear correct to me, and there is a boom in clean tech manufacturing in the Province (jobs and small businesses) as a consequence of these programs.

Please look at Ontario FIT Two Year Review Report. 20,000 direct and indirect jobs created to date, and on track to create more than 50,000 (p. 4), $20 billion in private sector investment (at zero cost to the taxpayer), 4,600 MW of capacity to help with tight energy markets in Ontario and scheduled service shutdowns and coal phase out (contributing to "lower" costs for rate payers), lower greenhouse gas emission from wind and solar (displacing conventional generation), and more. Wind farm opponents are no different than opponents to nuclear, coal plants, NG, or hydro development. If there is scientific merit to their argument, the more power to them (and serious people should listen to their concerns). If not, they are a loud and vocal minority who are standing in the way of local jobs, business, rural livelihoods, new employment and investment opportunities for First Nations, and economic development for your region and Province. With adequate siting guidelines in place, there should be no legitimate issue with wind and solar developments in Ontario (and local communities benefit from these developments more than they are hurt).

I'm not suggesting wind or solar is 100% wash - but painting rosey pictures of people living in bliss in a world without pollution based soley on reports provided by the very government that negotiated the contracts is not exactly unbiased. What would you expect them to report?

Here in Ontario the cost of eletricity in some areas has increased 3 or 4 fold in a relatively short time (1 or 2 years). Its complicated, and certainly cannot be blamed entirely on green energy and I don't profess to be an expert. However I don't believe its over-simplfying to state the Province negotiated initial wind contracts to lure investors at rates which we know now are too high but since they are guaranteed, and because we don't need the excess power - we end up subsidizing other provinces and even states like Michigan to take our electricty.

Quote from link below: "He's over-billing seniors and families by increasing [electricity] rates 75 per cent, and then subsidizing exports of power to Quebec, New York, New Jersey," said Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak.

"These jurisdictions are paying less for Ontario power than what Ontario families are being charged." Unquote.

The point here is that while statistically it may be generate a profit - if you happen to have a Grandma that is now paying 75% more for electricity and lives on a fixed income ...only to find out your neighbours to the south and east are the benefactors - its hard to stomach.

Statistics can mislead. And yes, politicians do their share. But I know actual people and initially I was skeptical until I saw their bills.

As far as living with wind, in some cases, wind turbines have interfered with flight paths of local airports because of poor planning and lack of transparency between Province and county and if you just DRIVE through northern Ontario - you will see signs everywhere - NO MORE WINDMILLS.

Then there is the debate on the safety of the turbines and the province has (under constant pressure from local government ie municipalities actually living with the stuff) declared a moratorium on further wind turbine development until an actual study can be completed (none were done -Wind power is exempt from Environmental Assessments and provincial decisions were made without inviting comment or opinion from locals )

Professing wind to be the saviour of all people will not make you popular in many parts of Ontario. If people are wrong, or misguided, then the government sure has a lot of explaining to do to convince them otherwise.

Its a frequent topic in local newspapers and on radio.

Finally, to say its a job creator is to exclude Nuclear - Ontario has 3 huge Nuclear generating stations in the south East, northwest, and south west, (Darlington, OPG, BP) that employ thousands of workers full time - people who live in the communities and have daily employment and a good standard of living with a reliable and cheaper source of power. Sure, wind power has created some jobs and I don`t know what if any impact it has had on manufacturing (which is hardest hit in Ontario in all sectors and would be nice if some of the components were manufactured here) - but that aside, investors who hire some contractors to set up some turbines on a farm and then let everyone go is a blip on the radar in comparison.

Anyway, I'm not going to invest more time because it doesn't really matter what I think and I respect your right to believe whatever you wish. I also realize it is unpopular to state that "being green can be mean".


However, you asked. Here are some links.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/s ... eaway.html

http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/moratorium-on ... o-1.606518

http://www.recorder.ca/2012/07/12/worri ... -windmills

The last is the most recent dated July 12 2012.

I don't recall myself, or the government, suggesting such a thing?

I agree with you on two points: the rollout of the FIT program could have been done better (and minimized concerns from local landowners), and the electricity system in Ontario is a mess (and has been for a long time). You have debt that hasn't been paid in a generation (DRC), contracted prices (on hydro, renewables, and nuclear) leading to a high "global adjustment" (as you call it in the Province), and an imbalance between inflexible resources (at a 57% share for nuclear) and flexible resources (hydro, NG, and renewables), which severely hurts consumers when consumption isn't matched to production, and retail prices skyrocket (or you dump electricity for a loss on your neighbors). And you DO need the electricity … you're mothballing your coal plants in 2014, doing a refurbishment of the Darlington plant, and shutting down Pickering B. Unless you want to make up the difference with imports, you need to do some resource planning now (or pay a much higher price later). And any new construction on nuclear isn't needed (another inflexible source, ugh), it's unaffordable (the taxpayer is maxed out), and can't be done in a reasonable time frame. The electricity market in Ontario needs a lot of help, and paying down debt, adding certainty to developers exposed to uncertain deregulated markets, and building capacity (renewable or otherwise) is the correct thing to do (although rate payers aren't necessarily going to see it as such looking only at their current and rapidly rising bills).

Uh, about ignoring traditional forms of energy and making the shift to renewables, wind and solar... there still are big, gigantic, holy-crap megacorp megabucks going into nukes, along with of course fossil fuels (duh).

The United Arab Emirates just bought three billion $$$ worth of uranium to fuel four new nuclear plants to provide power to their rapidly-growing population. There is abundant solar energy in that region and yet nukes were favored instead of solar panels and solar farms. There is abundant natural gas in the region... same story, why were nukes chosen? This says something about the economics and costs related to the various options, carbon credits with CO2-free nukes may have also been an incentive (to keep things on topic, Gaia radical Lovelock says go nukes).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... lenews_wsj

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These are petro dollars being spent in a country that has a lot of sovereign wealth to spend. The UAE has the largest sovereign wealth fund of any country on the planet. It's actually fairly hard to spend this money domestically in a country with only 7 million residents. While they have signed non-proliferation agreements and will be getting uranium primarily from Russia, Canada, and France, this doesn't mean they don't want to be a nuclear player in an emerging nuclear region (Pakistan, India, Israel, and Iran) that has a fair number of security and proliferation threats close to their borders. Syria also signed a non-proliferation agreement, but had it's black market reactor (possibly used for weapons production) bombed in 2007 by Israel. They may call it a civilian program, but they are buying their way into a small club, and you are correct: solar, wind, and everything else are being developed there too (and at a significant scale and impact).


On this topic, one tidbit from today's news. Ford Motor Company, the company that put the "horse and buggy" out of business, has big plans for what they believe will be the next generation of consumer vehicle. "Ford research showed 60 percent of customers would buy a hybrid or electric vehicle if there was no price penalty." So I agree with you, but on a different point, Ford doesn't necessarily want to insult the intelligence of the consumer. Consumers appear to have a pretty good sense of what they want (but aren't yet willing to pay any extra for it). Ford is hiring 60 new engineers (for a total of 1,000) in their electric vehicle divisions (dubbed the "Ford Advanced Electrification Center"). Among their short term goals: double battery capacity, reduce hybrid costs by 30%, and speed development by 25%. They see 25% of their vehicle sales in 2020 to be in the hybrid or electric vehicle market.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-1 ... -cars.html