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Tag Archives: air pollution Ontario

Canadian Nuclear Association: wind is not ‘green”

14 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

air pollution Ontario, Canadian Nuclear Association, Canadian Wind Energy Association, GHGs, green wind power, Ontario, power sources Ontario, Southwestern Ontario, Wind Concerns Ontario, wind energy, wind farm, wind farms, wind power

Wind’s dirty little secret: fossil fuel back up essential

JOHN MINER | QMI AGENCY

October 13, 2014

LONDON, Ont. — I’m green, you’re not.The battle to be embraced as the best environmental choice for Ontario’s power supply is getting down and dirty.

Fed up with the wind-farm sector enjoying what it considers an undeserved reputation as a pristine energy supplier, Canada’s nuclear industry — it generates the lion’s share of electricity in Ontario — has launched a public relations assault against wind.

Both nuclear and wind are major players in the power mix of Southwestern Ontario, home to one of the world’s largest nuclear plants — Bruce Power, near Kincardine — and many of Ontario’s biggest wind farms.

“Wind power isn’t as clean as its supporters have claimed. It performs unreliably and needs backup from gas, which emits far more greenhouse gas than either wind or nuclear power,” said Dr. John Barrett, president and chief executive of the Canadian Nuclear Association, in an e-mail to QMI Agency.

The Canadian Nuclear Association hired Toronto-based Hatch Ltd., a global consulting and engineering firm, to compare wind farm and nuclear energy.

Hatch reviewed 246 studies, mostly from North America and Europe. Its 91-page report concludes wind energy over the lifetime of an installation produces slightly less greenhouse gas — implicated in climate change — than nuclear and both produce a lot less than gas-fired generating plants.

But Hatch says it’s an entirely different picture when wind energy’s reliance on other generating sources is considered.

The engineering firm calculates wind turbines only generate 20% of their electrical capacity because of down time when no wind blows.

When gas-fired generating stations are added into the equation to pick up the slack, nuclear produces much less greenhouse gases, the Hatch study concludes.

Its analysis is that for every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced, nuclear power emits 18.5 grams of greenhouse gases. Wind backed by natural gas produces more than 20 times more — 385 grams per kilowatt hour.

The nuclear industry attack on wind might not be a welcome message for the Ontario Liberal government that has justified its multibillion-dollar investment in Southwestern Ontario wind farms on the basis it’s providing green energy.

But its a position that resonates with Ontario’s anti-wind farm movement.

“We share their concerns on this issue and have been speaking about this for years. We have taken advice from engineers in the power industry, who say that wind power cannot fulfill any of the environmental benefit promises made for it, because it needs fossil-fuel backup.,” said Jane Wilson, president of Wind Concerns Ontario.

On the other side of the debate, the Canadian Wind Energy Association said it has had an opportunity to review the Hatch study.

It said there’s no surprise that when wind and natural gas generation are paired that the mix creates more greenhouse gases than nuclear. But when wind is paired with other potential electricity suppliers, the results are different.

“Unfortunately, by choosing to focus on only one scenario, the study failed to consider a broad range of equally or more plausible scenarios for the evolution of Canada’s electricity grid,” the Canadian Wind Energy Association said.
WHERE ONTARIO’S POWER COMES FROM

For the year 2013:
Nuclear: 59.2%
Hydro: 23.4%
Gas: 11.1%
Wind: 3.4%
Coal: 2.1%
Other: 0.8%

For one minute in time:
(Oct. 13, 2014, 8 a.m.)
Nuclear: 65.8%
Hydro: 24.6%
Wind: 5.9%
Gas: 2.7%”

Source: Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator

Read the original article and reader comments here.

Better ways to spend $40 billion in Ontario

20 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

air pollution Ontario, CCSAGE, County Coalition for Safe Affordable Green Energy, Feed In Tariff Ontario, FIT Ontario, Garth Manning QC, GTA, Ontario hospitals, prince Edward County, subsidies for wind power, Toronto gridlock, transit GTA, transit Ontario, transit Toronto, wind power Ontario

See the news release from the County Coalition for Safe Affordable Green Energy, in which the group suggests that maybe, just maybe, there might be better things to do with the $40 billion Ontario will hand over in subsidy to giant corporate wind power developers (who have suddenly developed a taste for litigation against communities resisting the invasive power plants).

Transit improvements really would solve the problem of air pollution in Toronto and southern Ontario.

For immediate release   

Ontario’s $40-billion wind power subsidy: spend it  on transit and hospitals

PICTON, ONTARIO, JUNE 20TH, 2013–  On June 17th the County Coalition for Safe and Appropriate Green Energy (CCSAGE) wrote to all Ontario MPPs advising that the McGuinty/Smitherman wind power fantasy will cost citizens $40 billion in increased electricity and tax bills over 20 years.  CCSAGE believes this money is better spent on transit and hospitals.

$40 billion is 145 times the mere $275 million recently reported by the Auditor-General as the cost for relocating the Mississauga gas plant.  Garth Manning, Chair of CCSAGE, noted that: “Our electricity bills are increasing dramatically.  That $40 billion could be much better spent,” he said.  “Let’s put a hold on wind power generation—an inefficient and unreliable technology—and reallocate those huge wind power subsidies to areas of much greater need.”

Manning urged MPPs to consider how half of that amount could upgrade an eco-friendly Metrolinx transit system for the GTHA.  “MPPs should also know how the other half could save threatened community hospitals,” he said.

“People in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area (GTHA) are living with gridlock, creating an urban air pollution cloud over all,” said Jane Wilson, RN, President of Wind Concerns Ontario. “At the same time, residents of rural communities are being forced to live with massive industrial scale wind power projects that result in sleep disturbance, property devaluation, wildlife killings, destroyed landscapes, tourism losses, lost quality of life, and divided communities,” she said.

CCSAGE recognizes that half of Ontario citizens live in the GTHA where gridlock and air pollution are worsening.  The other half live in rural areas and smaller cities where community hospitals are on virtual life support.

“Let’s turn off that $40 billion tap that is flowing to noisy spinning turbines in Ontario’s once peaceful countryside.  Let’s use it to pay for practical green transit systems and caring community hospitals,” said Manning.  “Ontario has become occupied territory…occupied by the Big Wind developers.  Let’s get our Ontario back,” he said.

—30—

Contacts:          Garth Manning email gmanning@xplornet.com

Jim McPherson email ccsage@kos.net

Jane Wilson email  wco.president@gmail.com

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