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September 21, 2021
The Environmental Protection, Water and Waste Management committee for the City of Ottawa has just approved a motion calling for Ontario to phase out its natural gas power plants by 2030.
Speakers at the meeting supported the phase out and a move to “alternate” or renewable forms of power generation. A speaker for the Ontario Clean Air Alliance erroneously said that Ontario has too much power which is why the province sells it to other jurisdictions at a loss—this is not correct. Often the surplus power comes from wind power which is generated in Ontario out of phase with demand. He also said that wind turbines in the Great Lakes could produce 80% of Ontario’s power, which is also not supported by the facts.
Speakers also referred to extreme weather events as a reason to phase out the natural gas power generation; in fact, at present, natural gas provides peaking capacity so in times of high demand due to weather extremes, gas is there to provide power whereas renewables like weather-dependent wind and solar cannot.
A spokesperson for Canadians for Nuclear Energy, Al Scott, commented that if the City of Ottawa wants to proceed with decarbonization, the choice is nuclear. Wind and solar cannot meet demand, he said, adding that wind power in Ontario had been an “unmitigated disaster.”
One councillor asked if there was any information on exactly what the impact would be on Ottawa’s power supply should the gas plants be phased out. This was not available.
Committee Chair Scott Moffatt commented that the City does not have plans to develop wind power itself and it would deal appropriately with any proposals; a staff member confirmed that the Energy Evolution document does mention the use of wind power to get to its Net Zero goal.*
Staff also commented on the detailed information received from Ottawa Wind Concerns.
The Committee voted and the motion carried.
OWC made a submission to the Committee as well as a copy of the Ontario Society for Professional Engineers comment on natural gas phase-out.
*See page 17 of the Energy Evolution document
ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com
Ottawa Wind Concerns 
Breaking news!!!!
I just got off the phone with another contractor from Rockland Ontario asking me to help them get caught up with residential generator installs. Most new construction includes a gas fired backup generator along with an 80 amp electric vehicle charging plug legislated by government code.
Yup,,,, the same people that are discussing phasing out gas fired generation.
Oh, and by the way, for anyone interested, the 3 baseload gas plants that do operate daily are right across the river from Detroit and are privately owned by international consortiums supplying industrial operations that employ thousands.
Most of the other gas fired electrical generating stations are on standby as backup to the Ontario windfarms which drop out of production many times a day except for the Milton station which provides peaking power usually twice a day for the local industries.
Get rid of that one, no big deal,,,,,,BUT,,,,,, you get rid of more Ontario industries and you get rid of more Ontario jobs.
Move in Industrial Wind Turbines and move out industry, hey, it has been proven, the data is everywhere, Ontario windmills don’t work plus they are built using gas fired and coal fired power generation, just not in Ontario.
Lucky for us China has gone in the opposite direction.
Ok, enough new old news for today, gotta go hook up another generator.
Stan the power man
This is not breaking news, just sort of old broken record news. Maybe better to call it braking news, because it describes why gas plants are a necessity for industrial wind turbines.
This last weekend I was asked to explain why large industrial wind turbines need backup power supplied during operation and during shut down.
Braking systems are electric, no power, no control, possible runaway scenario and internal damage or catastrophic failure.
Positioning motors to rotate the nacelle are electric, side to the wind for safety, face to the wind for production.
Cold weather sometimes requires continuous movement, heating and safety components live for real time monitoring.
After a shut-down the blades must begin to rotate in the proper direction and slowly increase the monitored speed and vibrations until the synchronization cut-in is achieved.
This and much more happens continuously as the wind builds and wanes and changes direction sometimes many times an hour.
Another power generator such as nuclear or hydro cannot be expected to supply a continuously variable amount of standby power for an industry competitor.
The prediction is simple, stop the gas plants and force a lock down of the wind turbines or catastrophic failure.
I do believe we have reached the BRAKING POINT!
Stan the power man
Wednesday, September 29th 2021.
Read em and weep!
31 of the 45 Ontario windfarms have had no output since midnight. Total projected and expected capacity of 9500 megawatts, give or take a few thousand, is in reality this morning right now a grid operating nuisance at 287 megawatts into the grid with demand just under 16,000 megawatts, about 1+%, you do the math.
The backup gas plants for the windmills are at 5 times the windfarms output at close to 1100 megawatts, and without those gas plants the windfarms could not fulfill their contractual obligations and we taxpayers could expect more megawatt size legal consequences.
Kudos to the men and woman that keep our power grid stable!
Nuf said.
Stan