Author Archives: Ottawa Wind Concerns

Samsung project “dead” in Southgate

03 Thursday Apr 2014

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Mayor says there were too many “issues” and not enough municipal control. Samsung’s proposed agreement demanded all building permits, access to roads and virtually everything they needed, in return for payments of $180,000 per year for the wind power project. Each of the 56 turbines would have netted Samsung $775,000 per year, under the government’s Feed In Tariff subsidy program.

The community held a meeting a few weeks ago, featuring a local Realtor who said property values in Southgate would disappear, and University of Guelph economics professor Ross McKitrick, who said wind power is expensive and ineffective as a reliable source of power.

Here is the news story.

News Centre

Samsung Project Dead

Thursday, April 3, 2014 8:28 AM by Jon Meyer

Southgate Council votes against the wind project with unwilling host status.

There is audio for this story.

MP3 - click to open click to open MP3 version

or click the play button to listen now.

(Southgate) – The large wind turbine project in Southgate has apparently been stopped.

Mayor Brian Milne says the Samsung, Pattern Energy project needed willing host status from the Township to move ahead.

At last night’s meeting, Milne says Council voted unanimously to stop the wind  project by declaring itself an unwilling host.

Milne says there was no way the township could resolve a number of issues it had with the project, without more control.

He says it was apparent the project would tear the community apart.

Samsung needed willing host status to move ahead with its 50 turbine, 120-megawatt wind farm proposal.

Milne applauds the Province for giving them that out clause, and the ability to say no.

But Milne wishes the Province gave them site plan control.

Instead, he says council had to say yes, with no conditions.

He says just three weeks ago Southgate was in the process of considering being a willing host.

But Milne says that was only if they could come to terms on a agreement on a number of issues — which included a good neighbour policy and issues around health and property values.

But Milne says they couldn’t come to those terms, and they had no choice but to stop the project.

The decision comes…

Read the full story here.

David Suzuki: turbines OK at my place (except I don’t really live there)

03 Thursday Apr 2014

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David Suzuki says he’s OK with wind farm near his cabin

David Suzuki: Supporting wind power makes sense

by David Suzuki on Apr 1, 2014 at 4:07 pm

I have a cabin on Quadra Island off the British Columbia coast that’s as close to my heart as you can imagine. From my porch you can see clear across the waters of Georgia Strait to the snowy peaks of the rugged Coast Mountains. It’s one of the most beautiful views I have seen. And I would gladly share it with a wind farm.

Sometimes it seems I’m in the minority. Across Europe and North America, environmentalists and others are locking horns with the wind industry over farm locations. In Canada, opposition to wind installations has sprung up from Nova Scotia to Ontario to Alberta to B.C. In the U.K., more than 100 national and local groups, led by some of the country’s most prominent environmentalists, have argued wind power is inefficient, destroys the ambience of the countryside and makes little difference to carbon emissions. And in the U.S., the Cape Wind Project, which would site 130 turbines off the coast of affluent Cape Cod, Massachusetts, has come under fire from famous liberals, including John Kerry and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
It’s time for some perspective. With the growing urgency of climate change, we can’t have it both ways. We can’t shout about the dangers of global warming and then turn around and shout even louder about the “dangers” of windmills. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges humanity will face this century. Confronting it will take a radical change in the way we produce and consume energy—another industrial revolution, this time for clean energy, conservation, and efficiency.
We’ve undergone such transformations before and we can again. But we must accept that all forms of energy have associated costs. Fossil fuels are limited in quantity, create vast amounts of pollution and contribute to climate change. Large-scale hydroelectric power floods valleys and destroys habitat. Nuclear power plants are expensive, create radioactive waste and take a long time to build.
Wind power also has its downsides. It’s highly visible and can kill birds. But any man-made structure (not to mention cars and house cats) can kill birds—houses, radio towers, skyscrapers. In Toronto alone, an estimated one million birds collide with the city’s buildings every year. In comparison, the risk to birds from well-sited wind farms is low. Even the U.K.’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says scientific evidence shows wind farms “have negligible impacts” on birds when they are appropriately located.
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Read the full account here.

Hydro bill rally set for tomorrow

03 Thursday Apr 2014

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A number of people have organized a rally in front of Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli’s office at noon tomorrow, to protest Ontario’s rising electricity bills.

Despite the powerful wind power industry lobby group’s efforts to downplay the cost of renewables in Ontario’s electricity bills, the fact is that since Ontario launched its program to put wind and solar first to the grid, Ontario’s power prices to consumers is now the highest in North America. In fact, since wind and solar get preferential treatment, when supply exceeds demand, Ontario has been forced to waste power from other clean sources–hydro and nuclear–at great cost to the province.

See news story from Metro News on the Ottawa rally here. 

Note that there is also a rally planned for Carleton Place at 11 a.m.

 

Police allege criminal breach of trust McGuinty former chief of staff

27 Thursday Mar 2014

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Police allege criminal breach of trust against McGuinty chief of staff over gas plants scandal

By Keith BONNELL, OTTAWA CITIZEN March 27, 2014 11:54 AM
 Police allege criminal breach of trust against McGuinty chief of staff over gas plants scandal

The OPP allege that David Livingston, former chief of staff to Dalton McGuinty, committed criminal breach of trust in giving an outside tech expert access to 24 computers in the premier’s office.

OTTAWA — Police are pursuing a criminal charge of breach of trust against the right-hand man of former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty in an investigation sparked by the controversy over deleted gas plant emails.

Authorities say they believe McGuinty’s former chief of staff, David Livingston, gave an outside tech expert access to 24 computers in the premier’s office — access it’s suspected was used to permanently delete information.

By allowing someone who was not an Ontario Public Service employee to alter government computers, police allege, Livingston breached the public trust.

And while just what exactly the outside expert may have done to the computers in the premier’s office is not fully known, police now have two dozen hard drives in hand and are trying to see if they can figure it out.

The case against Livingston is detailed in the “information to obtain” (ITO) Ontario Provincial Police used last month to request a search warrant for a storage facility in Mississauga, where the government hard drives were being stored.

Some of the allegations are being made public for the first time after the Citizen and other media went to court to have the police document unsealed.

The accusations have not been tested in court, but a judge has ruled it is in the public interest to make them known.

Police allege that during the transition period after McGuinty had resigned from office under a cloud of allegations over the cancellation of gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville, Livingston arranged to get special computer access so that one user would be able to access the computer profiles of the entire premier’s office.

…

Read the full story here.

Stay of execution for Ostrander Pt turtles…for now

26 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Ottawa Wind Concerns's avatarWIND CONCERNS ONTARIO: On WordPress

Blanding’s turtle has won a temporary reprieve.

Blanding’s turtle blocks turbines again

A judge has placed a temporary halt on a wind farm that naturalists say could harm the threatened animal in Prince Edward County.

By:John Spears Business reporter, Published on Wed Mar 26 2014
Blanding’s turtle has won a temporary reprieve, as a court blocked construction of a wind farm that could damage its habitat at Ostrander Point in Prince Edward County.
That means construction of the wind farm can’t start before next fall at the earliest.
Mr. Justice R.A. Blair of Ontario Court of Appeal issued an order Tuesday placing a stay on construction until the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists can seek leave to appeal an earlier court ruling.
Gilead Power wants to erect a nine-turbine wind farm at Ostrander Point. It was at first blocked by an Environmental Review Tribunal, which said the development might harm the habitat of Blanding’s turtle.
The…

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We write to OFA rep Straathof

21 Friday Mar 2014

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We learned this week that Ontario Federation of Agriculture Executive Member Debra Pretty-Straathof made remarks that our community is “split” over the proposed wind power development.

Really.

So, Ottawa Wind Concerns wrote to Ms Straathof to correct her. Here is an excerpt of that letter.

It is possible you have not seen the news stories about this particular project, and in specific, the fact that the majority of voting age residents last year signed a legal petition which was then presented to and accepted by the City of Ottawa at Council; Council then went on to pass a resolution of support, and to demand that local land-use planning powers be returned to Ontario municipalities.

The petition was the result of a three-week long campaign, which began with a public meeting attended by 300 communities members; in the weeks that followed, dozens of community members gathered signatures on the legal document, and we held a final public event which again, attracted hundreds more residents. The signatures on the petition numbered more than 1,230—this was equal to the TOTAL NUMBER of residents [in North Gower] voting in the municipal election in 2010, according to our Councillor.

The event was reported on by the Ottawa Citizen, the CBC and CFRA, among other media outlets such as the local community papers.

It will also interest you to know that our MP Pierre Poilievre prepared his own petition back in 2012, gathered hundreds of signatures from North Gower residents, and then rose in the House of Commons to present it, and demand that the North Gower wind power project not be approved, or at least wait until the results of the Health Canada study are known.

Our community has been involved in the fight against this inappropriate wind power project for more than four years. Here’s why:

  • Ontario has a surplus of power generation and does not need this wind power project.
  • The project as proposed before the pause in procurement of large scale power projects, was to be a 20-megawatt facility with 8 wind turbines; the turbines would have been within 3 km of more than 1,000 homes—this is completely inappropriate siting.
  • According to property value research done in Ontario, the projected property value loss for the North Gower area would be $134 million. This would pose a hardship for residents, particularly young families and seniors, for whom their home is their prime investment.
  • Reports of health effects due to the environmental noise produced by these machines are mounting throughout Ontario, as you must know; if only 10 percent of North Gower residents were affected, that would still be hundreds of people, many of them children. As proposed, this project would have meant that some children would be exposed to the noise 24 hours a day.

Again, the message this community has given is clear and without argument: a wind power project so close to the village and area residents is not appropriate, not necessary, and not wanted.

Any opinions to the contrary are uninformed.

We have not had the courtesy of a response from the OFA rep as yet. OFA members may wish to write to her themselves and express concern at her lack of awareness on this important issue.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Documentary on wind power in Quebec

21 Friday Mar 2014

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MP Pierre Poilievre sent along this clip for us; it’s a documentary that aired last week on TVA, on the situation with wind power generation developments in Quebec.

It is in French, but here are some of the high points:

-the government noise regulations are that turbines cannot exceed 40 decibels; however, some have been measured at 55+

-“greed” is cited as a factor in the turbine development

-legal actions are ongoing, and citizens are requesting independent noise testing

The link to the documentary is here.

 

Energy Minister Chiarelli fails to answer FIT contract question

20 Thursday Mar 2014

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MPP Laurie Scott asked Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli today whether there was still a FIT contract in place for the now withdrawn Sumac Ridge wind power project in Kawartha Lakes. After making a lame joke about shoe stores, Minister Chiarelli said his government will not cancel contracts and to do so would result in $20 billion worth of litigation for Ontario. (That is the amount of contracts for the 55 wind power projects still in the approval process.)

This is false. The FIT contract is the first step in a long process leading to Renewable Energy Approval; the government has the ability to choose not to fulfill the contracts, and not to grant a renewable energy approval at any stage, or to rescind such approval once granted.

In a rare appearance on this issue, Environment Minister Jim Bradley also stands to not answer the question, replying with platitudes about how rigorous the approval process is, and how the public can appeal any project. Right.

Here is the clip from Queen’s Park today. Note the mention of Wind Concerns Ontario’s letter to Minister Chiarelli.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rDjrTGRVoQ&feature=youtu.be

European countries revising wind power contracts

20 Thursday Mar 2014

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Europe tearing up renewable energy contracts (you can too, Bob)

Europe’s renewable energy investors are facing a harsh reality – that the promises from politicians can be taken away at any moment. Canada’s renewable energy investors may soon face that same reality.
Idyllic isn’t it? Also not the truth.

Governments rip up renewable contracts

Brady Yauch, Special to Financial Post | March 18, 2014 | Last Updated: Mar 19 7:13 AM ET
More from Special to Financial Post

Companies ‘do not have a right [to expect the compensation] not to be changed’
Governments across Europe, regretting the over-generous deals doled out to the renewable energy sector, have begun reneging on them. To slow ruinous power bills hikes, governments are unilaterally rewriting contracts and clawing back unseemly profits.
In Italy, one of Europe’s largest economies and one that lavished billions in subsidies on the renewable sector, the government in 2013 applied its so-called “Robin Hood tax” to renewable energy producers. Under the new rule, renewable energy producers with more than €3 million in revenue and income greater than €300,000 must now pay a tax of 10.5%.
That follows a 2012 move to charge all solar producers a five cent tax per kilowatt hour on all self-consumed energy. The government also told solar producers that it would stop taking their power – and would offer no compensation – when their output overwhelms the system.
The result of these and other changes, says the solar industry, has been a surge in bankruptcies and a massive decrease in solar investment.
In Belgium – where both regional and federal bodies hand out renewable subsidies – a number of retroactive changes have capped the largesse renewable producers once received. In one region the price for “green certificates” – which producers received for renewable energy – was slashed by 79%. The government original committed to buy green certificates at a benchmarked price for 20 years, then cut it to 10 years.
Belgium’s regulators tried to impose a fee on all energy added to the grid from small- to medium-sized solar producers. While the country’s court of appeals struck down that fee, a defiant regional government plans to reintroduce it next year, forcing all solar producers to pay an annual fee that varies with the power they pump into the grid. Various municipalities, meanwhile, are introducing taxes on new and existing wind turbines.
As in Italy, Belgium’s renewable sector in the county has gone dark –“imploded” in the view of a solar industry publication. Many companies shrank or went bankrupt.
In France the government last year cut by 20% the “guaranteed” rate offered to all solar producers, and retroactively applied it to projects connected to the grid in the previous three months. The government is also considering ending an 11% tax break on solar energy producers.
Perhaps the most dramatic moves occurred in Spain, for years the poster child for those touting a transition to green energy. Since 2000, Spain has given renewable producers $41-billion more for their power than it has fetched on the open market. To recover those subsidies, the Spanish government recently killed its Feed In Tariff (FIT) program for renewables,….

Read the full story here.

Ottawa economist on the Fraser Institute report: Ontario in bad shape

18 Tuesday Mar 2014

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE FRASER INSTITUTE REPORT

Comparing the Debt Burdens of Ontario and California

On March 8, 2014, the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute published a research study comparing the debt burdens of the state of California and the province of Ontario. Within the United States, many people consider California to represent a prime example of irresponsible government spending coupled with poor cash management. However, the Fraser Institute report uses a number of measures to compare Ontario’s situation to that of California. In almost all cases, Ontario is much worse.

Here are the highlights of the report:

  • California’s current debt in the form of government-issued bonds is US $144.8 billion, while Ontario carries CDN $267.5 billion, almost double the amount of California.
  • This figure actually understates the disparity between the two regions, as California has a much larger economy. The gross debt in the form of bonds is 7.6% of California’s economy, while it is a “whopping” 40.9% of Ontario’s economy, more than five times as large as California.
  • Per capita, each Ontarian’s share of provincial government debt is CDN $20,166 (i.e. $80,664 for a family of four), compared to US$ 3,844 in state government debt for each resident of California.
  • Servicing this debt through interest payments is more costly in Ontario. 9.2% of budget revenues in Ontario are devoted to interest payments, compared to 2.8% in California.
  • Ontario’s expenditures as a share of the economy grew from 15.5% in 2001-2002 to 19% in 2011-2012.
  • Over this period, total government spending in Ontario has been steadily increasing from one year to the next. Thus, unlike California, Ontario has not managed to stabilize the growth of the debt in terms of GDP.
  • Ontario’s net debt for 2012-2013 is the second highest as a percentage of GDP of any Canadian province, trailing only Quebec. However, Quebec’s annual budget deficit was only half as large – 0.7 % compared to Ontario’s 1.4 %.
  • Ontario’s budget analysts project that from 2012-2013 to 2015-2016 net interest payments will represent the fastest growing expense for the provincial government, growing at 5.5 % annually – more than twice the projected rate of health care expenditures.

Robert Lyman

Ottawa, March 18, 2014

Editor: It’s worth noting that Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli admits Ontario is spending $1B a year on power generated from wind energy; he also admits we don’t need it. Sound financial planning!

The Fraser Institute report is available here.