Tag Archives: climate change

Time to get real about wind power in Ontario

07 Wednesday Oct 2026

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Wind turbines are an industrial land use: a low-density power source that uses up valuable farmland, and poses a risk to wildlife and groundwater. [Photo by D. Larsen for Wind Concerns Ontario]

October 7, 2026

We have plenty of organizations of different types in Ottawa who continually refer to “renewable” energy or “clean” energy as a goal for the city. Though deeply conflicted—most of them devoutly claim they love trees and birds and turtles and then in the next breath support land-gobbling, bird and bat killing industrial wind turbines—they maintain that “clean” energy will bring prosperity, jobs, and self-reliance.

Incredibly, one such group (CAFES) recently claimed that having local wind and solar would mean less reliance on “imported” power. As if electricity were avocadoes from California. The ignorance of Ontario’s electricity system is stunning.

Wind Concerns Ontario (we are a corporate community group member) recently published a summary of Ontario’s now 20-year experience with industrial wind power. What’s clear is, wind is not the solution. To anything, except more money in the pockets of developers.

Ontario’s rural municipalities are about to face the possibility of more industrial wind power proposals, when the Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO finally launches its long overdue “window 2” of its Long-Term 2 Request For Proposals (LT2-RFP),

The next RFP was meant to be released much earlier this year (after a not entirely successful 2025 which saw only two or three wind power contracts awarded out of more than 20 proposals), but Ontario’s rural opposition to being industrialized by noisy giant wind towers is such that the IESO (and probably the wind power lobbyists) declared the October municipal election a “challenge” for new proposals, and put the whole thing off.

That should tell you something right there: with 159 municipalities (out of 444 total) having declared themselves to be “Unwilling Hosts” to new industrial wind power projects, community opposition is a real force to be reckoned with.

In Ontario, wind power operators speak less about climate change and more about economic realities. That means promising cash-strapped and challenge-worn small rural municipalities cash in the form of community benefit funds (or “vibrancy” funds in the wind power lobby’s continuing adeptness at cutesy names for completely serious matters), and the prospect of multiple jobs. The community benefit funds of course are a pittance against what the wind power developers cart off to the bank and reward investors, and the  local jobs always turn out to be short-lived, related to construction. Even then, actual construction of wind power sites is done by specialized teams travelling to the site, usually by highly trained teams from the United States.

As Dr. Chris Keefer of Canadians for Nuclear Energy quipped, “There are no employee parking lots at wind farms.”

It is time then to see through the magician’s smoke and look behind the mirrors at what wind power in Ontario really is.

First, it is not a reliable source of power.  Ontario is a low “wind resource” area—we will never be able to produce significant power consistently from wind power, and that is that. Wind power is “part-time power”. Who said that? Only Ontario’s current Minister of Energy Stephen Lecce. Last January, while a certain Toronto-based faux environmental group was pushing to triple Ontario’s wind power capacity and abandon its nuclear ambitions, Mr. Lecce said that Ontario cannot “power a full-time economy with part-time power.”

Economist Edgardo Sepulveda undertook the first independent cost-benefit analysis of wind power in Ontario (though past Auditors General in the province have asked for one) in 2024. In his paper Chasing The Wind: the value of wind generation in a low-emission nuclear and hydro dominant grid, Mr. Sepulveda acknowledges that to keep costs artificially low, the Ontario government subsidizes 70 percent of the cost of wind. In fact, he alleges, “the costs of wind far exceed its societal and climate benefits for the 2020–23 period… Due to its nuclear and hydro dominant generation and elimination of coal, Ontario is one of the lowest-emission large grids in the world. The climate benefit from any new zero-emission generation will be limited to the extent it can displace gas generation. Relative to other areas, Ontario’s wind capacity factors are modest and out of sync with gas generation, all resulting in a relatively low wind emissions offset.”

The high cost to Ontario taxpayers was revealed recently with the release of the public accounts figure of $6.9 billion annually to subsidize electricity generation costs in Ontario. That represents more than half of Ontario’s $13-billion deficit.

So, wind power’s scorecard so far: high cost, low benefit.

But does it help with power generation to keep the province running? Again, Mr. Sepulveda: he refers to “modest” capacity factors for wind in Ontario. It’s actually much worse. This past summer, 2026, saw lengthy periods of low wind power generation simultaneously with high demand. Mr. Sepulveda: “wind generation is uncorrelated with Ontario demand … correlation data with gas shows that wind is negatively correlated with gas generation. This indicates that wind did not efficiently displace gas in Ontario.”

Energy analyst and director with Canadians for Nuclear Energy Christopher Adlam took a snapshot of wind power in January this year and provided this analysis.

“On this frigid Saturday evening Ontario is generating 21,545MW. Of that capacity:
– 194MW is from 4,943MW of wind (0.9%)
– 0MW is from 478MW of solar (0.0%)
– 60MW is from 851MW of batteries (0.2%)
– 184MW is from 287MW of bio (0.9%)
– 4,639MW is from 8,866MW of hydro (21.5%)
– 7,682MW is from 10,551MW of gas (35.7%)
– 8,786MW is from 9,546MW of nuclear (40.8%)

We are also currently exporting 757MW to Quebec and 873MW to New York. To replace gas and nuclear with wind for this hour would require 422,256MW of wind capacity, or 122,749 of the 3.44MW wind turbines installed at Nation Rise, which, at $2.33M/MW would cost $984 billion dollars.”

In short, wind doesn’t work.

It truly is “part-time power,” and is further incapable of replacing fossil fuel power generation in periods of high demand.

Another critical factor in wind power is “energy density”, in short, how much energy can be delivered by a generation system relative to its physical size.

Here again, wind power disappoints, especially when compared to high density nuclear.

Wind turbines use up a significant amount of land, a grave concern here is Ontario where target communities for industrial wind power are also the location of successful agriculture. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) and others have expressed grave concern about the future of farming and farmland in the province.

“Farmland is vital to our survival,” the OFA said in a statement before the last federal election in 2025.  “We cannot rely on importing our food.  We must remain a food sovereign nation. We cannot achieve this if we continue to develop on agricultural land that is home to reliable and arable soils.”

The wind power industry not only maintains it uses very little land (we have seen preposterous claims of perhaps a quarter of an acre—suburban housing lots are bigger than that) but the lobby also claims that farming can co-exist with the power generation facility. That conflicts with again the OFA advice to landowners to be careful about signing contracts to lease land for industrial wind turbines, as land use may be restricted by the wind power enterprise, which comes first.

Well, OK, wind is expensive and maybe doesn’t work all that well in Ontario but isn’t it good for the “environment” and climate, cry the “environmental” agencies.

No.

Wind power generation is an industrial land use and its side effects are pretty much what you’d expect from industry: noise, altered landscapes, impacts on wildlife (that means they are killed dead despite assertions of care and mitigation by the industry), and danger to aquifers as evidenced by the travesty in North Kent where wind turbine construction an operation interfered with groundwater over a fragile geology (nothing has been done to help the dozens of families now without potable well water, despite a provincial science committee recommendation).

Ontario has now had industrial wind turbine complexes since 2006. It hasn’t gone well, spurring the Unwilling Host movement which began in 2014 when a rural municipality mayor protested against the contracting process which gave local governments virtually no say in approving the industrial sites.

She wasn’t the first: on April 5, 2011, Amaranth Mayor Don McIvor wrote to then Environment Minister John Wilkinson about the effects of the large Melancthon wind power project in his municipality. The mayor was not too proud to plead with the minister to halt all wind power development in the municipality: “There is no question that the impact of wind turbines and the transformer that connects this power to the grid have negatively affected the health and wealth of neighbouring residents. The Council of Amaranth is opposed to any further wind turbine projects.”

A team of university researchers took aim at the approval process for industrial wind power projects in 2016 and found that health and environmental concerns had been “dismissed” unnecessarily. Stewart Fast (then with the University of Ottawa) and others said in their paper, “Lessons learned in Ontario wind energy disputes,” (Nature Energy, January 2016) the insistence on rigid criteria of direct causation had resulted in an approach that ignored real concerns. “Depending on the evidence cited, there is epidemiologic evidence to sustain various interpretations of wind-turbine impacts on well-being,” Fast et. al said.

The process through which developers applied for approval did not properly engage communities and left citizens feeling like “victims”.  “Setting minimum engagement requirements, such as the requirement for two local public meetings, tends to be treated as the maximum requirements — a ‘tick box’ to be completed by developers.”

Ten years later, nothing has changed. In 2019 the Ontario government repealed the Green Energy Act and allowed municipalities some “say” in the siting of industrial wind power projects so that now, the IESO has municipal approval as a mandatory requirement for submissions. However, as seen in 2025, developers were acutely aware of opposition throughout the province and did not want to spend much money on impact studies and other information. As a result, they approached municipal councils with the scarcest of information, and sometimes with vague maps of a “study area” rather than precise turbine locations. In more than one location, developers said to a municipal council, if they got the council’s approval, then they would go ahead and do the complex impact studies. (That means that approval was given though and could not be taken back—councils were not fooled).

Chatham-Kent, where there are more than 500 wind turbines currently operating, had to deal with two proposals in 2025. At a crucial meeting of Council in October 2025, formerly turbine-friendly councillors voted No, citing the lack of information, and the poor process.

Councillor Alysson Storey said, “I am not comfortable” making a decision when there are so many questions and no answers. Staff confirmed upon her questioning that this meeting was the only time the issue could be brought before Council. Storey added that she was sick of the provincial government forcing “do or die” votes on Ontario municipalities.

That was 2025. Despite the IESO’s effort to avoid wind power proposals becoming an issue in the 2026 municipal election, it is one, as it should be.

 In Chatham-Kent again, the topic came up at a mayoral candidate debate  where most of the candidates spoke out against further wind power development. That included former mayor Randy Hope who was in the chair for much of the wind power project approvals, and who said in his view, the municipality was now “at capacity” for wind power. He added there was a need for greater community engagement.

As to the process, criticized by academics and by municipal councils, to say nothing of citizens who would be forced to live inside industrial wind power sites, nothing has changed. The IESO still only requires a minimum of one public “meeting” which isn’t a meeting at all in most cases, but rather a storyboard show with public relations hirelings representing the developer.

As professor Fast and others noted ten years ago, “Although such storyboard-style meetings can be a useful way of alleviating contentious issues, they often leave residents feeling like victims of a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy, in which answers and promises are given only to individuals and are not made publicly.”

So, time to come “clean” about wind power in Ontario.

Reliable affordable power? No.

Jobs and local prosperity? No.

Action on climate change and fossil-fuel use? No. Wind can’t replace anything.

As Ontarians go to the polls again this October, we must ask all candidates for their stance on the prospect of industrial wind power invading their community. And then, vote accordingly.

(C) Wind Concerns Ontario 2026

contact@windconcernsontario.ca

Has Ottawa lost its focus on city priorities?

12 Friday Jun 2026

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Rural issues, Wind power

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June 12, 2026

Has Ottawa lost sight of local issues such as food supply as it follows a climate change agenda? Is farmland just empty space for power projects? [Photo: Shady Lane Farms]

As we get closer to the October municipal election, and candidate nominations have begun, discussions about the current state of the City of Ottawa are starting to get interesting.

Mayor Sutcliffe has had the job of mopping up after the Watson years, and the difficult state of affairs with the Light Rail, for example.

Issues of concern are: transit, roads, affordable homes, food prices and taxes, among others

One commentator, Mike Patton, recently remarked that the reason Ottawa is having difficulty with these issues is that over recent years, Councils have lost focus on local issues and devoted time—and lots and lots of money—-to larger, non-Ottawa, issues like climate change, he says.

See Mr Patton’s comment here: https://x.com/Mike__Patton/status/2065222913062580673?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Of course, the City should do what it can to improve performance in areas such as air pollution and emissions, but is a $57-billion “Energy Evolution” plan, which calls for an investment of $4 billion in unreliable, unaffordable wind power the way to go? (The electricity section of the report was written by activist group Pollution Probe.)

The Ontario experience with wind power demonstrates it is not an appropriate use of funds, and an unsuccessful way to generate reliable power.

Energy economist Edgardo Sepulveda published a report in 2024 documenting the failure of wind power to replace any problematic power generation sources, and to be a reliable power source. Read that report here: https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/chasing-the-wind-the-value-of-wind-generation-in-a-low-emission-nuclear-and-hydro-dominant-grid-the-case-of-ontario/

Yet there are promoters here in Ottawa. The Ottawa Climate Action Fund or OCAF recently released a statement claiming that Ottawa’s farmland was “opportunity” … not for local food production and food security, but for renewable energy.

“Nearly eighty percent of Ottawa’s land is rural, including farmland, greenspace, forested land and of course rural communities. For OCAF, thinking about sustainable city planning and climate solutions in Ottawa extends far beyond the urban boundary and must include rural strategies,” says OCAF.

Farmers, not to be totally left out as we industrialize farmland for an energy resource plantation, can make money through these rural strategies, OCAF asserts.

(In a very unfortunate sidebar, OCAF suggested that farmers could perhaps do a better job of using their land more productively, via “regenerative farming”, as if they are not already do that and everything they can. This suggestion was not met with enthusiasm by farmers we know. )

Another group, CAFES (very busy building up its “environmental” cred by hosting bird-spotting and tree-planting events), is ideologically committed to invasive, noise-polluting, wildlife-killing wind power, and has suggested that there should be fewer approval requirements, not more, so big wind power projects can get built faster.

As we move toward October’s election, Mr Patton’s comments about priorities might also guide questions to candidates.

What plans do we have for the whole city, that benefit everyone, not just a certain ideology and agenda? Do candidates really see Ottawa’s valuable and important farmland as simply empty space? Where will the food come from?

Let’s think about it.

OttawaWindConcerns@gmail.com

What does wind ‘farm’ construction really look like?

10 Friday Jan 2025

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Rural issues, Wind power

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Destruction of woodlands, loss of farmland, disruption of rural community life for an unsupportable, intermittent source of power

View of trucks and oversize turbine parts from Green Madness

A documentary film made in Upper New York State provides much needed insight into what really happens during construction of an industrial wind power site.

Green Madness: the waste and destruction of one wind turbine project follows the two-year period during which 37 gigantic industrial-scale or grid-scale wind turbines were erected at the Cassadaga wind power project.

It’s one thing to read about the environmental destruction that results from the construction of these industrial sites, but it’s another to actually see see the horrific damage day by day, as filmed by the crew.

A well written voice over details the reality of wind power: it is supported by subsidies, it is intermittent and out of phase with demand in New York as in Ontario (in fact, Ontario energy economist Edgardo Sepulveda says Ontario is bad for unreliable wind power—New York is worse), and it is simply a tool to make money for investors.

“Wind power is a charade sponsored by investment banks,” is one comment. “Somebody’s making money but it’s not the little guy.”

Promises of jobs are also false, as the film makers demonstrate by filming the license plates on cars and trucks owned by workers on the project: Texas, Arizona, California…anywhere but upper New York State.

Likewise, promises of increased revenues for the municipality are not accurate—expenses incurred outweigh any pittance revenues from the huge multi-national wind power developers.

It’s important for the people of Ottawa to see this film and to understand the reality of wind power construction and development.

Local “environmental” or “climate” groups promote tree planting and wildflower gardens while also hypocritically pushing for industrial wind power in rural Ottawa. The loss of good farmland and woodlands, plus the danger to wildlife and the environment will be horrendous.

The IESO will be launching its Long Term 2 Request For Proposals early in 2025. Wind power is included in the RFP.

If wind power proposals come forward, everyone needs to know what is really involved: it’s not “clean” “green” innocent “windmills,” it’s industrialization of our rural communities and farmland.

To join our mailing list, email ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com and be sure to subscribe to this page.

A documentary film follows the construction of a 37-turbine industrial wind power project in upper New York State, and is a chilling portrayal of the destruction that comes with these industrial power projects.

How many birds do wind turbines kill?

11 Sunday Aug 2024

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Uncategorized, Wind power

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Nobody can say for sure … but it’s “far too many” says the American Bird Conservancy

Raptors such as Red Tailed Hawks and eagles, critical to the eco-system, are killed by wind turbines (not cats)

Ottawa-based Community Association for Environmental Sustainability or CAFES, which describes itself as a “network of local environmental and climate leaders”, has undertaken a campaign against “climate misinformation.”

In a newsletter to followers this week, it has a list of topics it says are sources of misinformation, including “Wind turbines kill big numbers of birds and bats.”

“We don’t have to choose between wind energy and wildlife,” CAFES says. “We can have both.”

To support their claim they offer a number of research reports including —our favourite—an article that says keeping cats indoors will prevent bird deaths. Cats do kill birds, of course, and there are many factors behind the millions of birds killed in North America each year.

But wind turbines are not blameless, and the bird kill numbers are not insignificant. We offer this 2021 statement from the American Bird Conservancy:

“Countless studies have shown that climate change will cause far-reaching and devastating impacts to wildlife and humans alike. Renewable energy development is a critically important component of the transition away from fossil fuels, making our air cleaner and reversing the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, we have also learned that wind energy development has a substantial negative impact on birds.

“But just how many birds are killed by wind turbines?…

“Rather than going down the proverbial rabbit hole to decide which study might be the most accurate, let’s take the average of the results from these studies. This gives us an estimate of approximately 366,000 birds killed by wind turbines in the U.S. in 2012.

“It’s important to consider that wind energy capacity has grown considerably since then. The study by Loss and others reported that there were 44,577 turbines in operation in 2012, while the U.S. Wind Turbine Database indicates that there are 65,548 today — an increase of 47 percent. Adjusting for this industry growth, we can project that approximately 538,000 wind turbine-caused bird deaths occur in the U.S. each year.

“However, projecting mortality based on energy produced is more frequently used because it accounts for the size of turbines in addition to their numbers. The American Wind Energy Association reports that there were 60,067 megawatts (MW) of wind energy capacity in the U.S. in 2012, versus 111,808 as of this writing in 2021 — an 86-percent increase. Taking this change into account, it can be projected that approximately 681,000 birds are currently killed by wind turbines in the U.S. each year.

“These estimates likely underestimate the true extent of the problem due to the fact that many bird fatalities escape human detection.

“Consider that small songbirds are the most abundant birds in the U.S., and are the most frequently killed by turbines. A study published in March 2020 found that dogs located 1.6 and 2.7 times as many small bird fatalities as human monitors did at two wind sites in California. This was true even after attempting to correct for searcher detection error, which is a standard practice for such studies.

“The Erickson* study reported that 62.5 percent of the birds in their data set were small birds. Taking 62.5 percent of the 681,000 annual mortality estimate calculated above and adjusting this with the 1.6- and 2.7-fold multipliers from the dog search study (and adding the other 37.5 percent of birds back in), this would translate into a total of 936,000 and 1.4 million birds based on the numbers from the two sites. Averaging the two, this would suggest that 1.17 million birds are killed by wind turbines in the United States each year.

Indirect effects

“In addition to the bird fatalities discussed above, wind power projects also cause  important indirect effects that must be considered.

“For example, many wind facilities are located far from the existing power grid and require the construction of new powerlines, which are yet another source of bird mortality.

“In a 2014 study, researchers estimated that 25.5 million birds are killed each year due to collisions with powerlines, and another 5.6 million are killed by electrocutions. Therefore, powerlines built exclusively to connect new wind facilities to the existing energy grid result in additional bird mortalities that should be factored into the total toll in birds associated with wind energy development.

“Wind facilities also require relatively large areas of land. Facility development can fragment or otherwise alter habitat in ways that make it unsuitable for species that have historically been present. For example, a study at wind facilities in the Dakotas found displacement effects for seven of nine grassland bird species after one year. While these effects have been documented in various studies, they have yet to be broadly quantified.

“When the facts above are considered, it becomes clear that existing estimates of the toll of wind energy development on birds are narrowly considered and do not account for the industry’s full impact.

“It should be noted that the estimates above are imperfect, as they are based on studies derived from an incomplete data set.

“While most wind facilities are required to conduct bird surveys to inform project planning and post-construction bird mortality studies, they are unfortunately not always obligated to share their data, and many companies maintain a proprietary hold on this information. If these data were made publicly available, bird mortality could be better understood and conservation prescriptions could be tailored accordingly.   

“On a similarly important note, the species being negatively affected by wind turbines must be considered. Some species are more susceptible than others to collisions with wind turbines, and some have slower rates of reproduction and thus their populations may be more dramatically affected by losses. Some of our rarest and most iconic species, including California Condors and Marbled Murrelets, fit this bill and are at risk of collisions with wind turbines. Others like Whooping Cranes are losing habitat as a result of wind energy development.

“As noted above, our projections leave little doubt that the annual toll in birds lost to U.S. wind turbines is at least more than half a million, and a similarly conservative estimate would put that number at nearly 700,000 birds. There is a case to be made that the number could exceed 1 million. And for multiple reasons stated above, these are all likely to be under-estimates.

Far too many

“Regardless of the specifics, this is far too many when one considers the many other threats to birds on the landscape, and the massive declines we have already seen in our bird populations.

“What’s the solution to this conundrum? How do we continue to add wind turbines to fight climate change when this development is harming birds? Our answer: Bird-Smart Wind Energy. Smart wind energy development starts with good data collection and appropriate siting to avoid high-risk areas for birds. Available measures can then be incorporated to further minimize risks, and impacts should always be offset by solid on-the-ground mitigation measures.”

So, siting is important, says the American Bird Conservancy.

But that’s not what CAFES says—they want wind turbines, period. And if you are concerned about bird deaths from industrial wind power sites in the Ottawa area you are guilty of spreading “misinformation.”

It’s worth noting here that the Ottawa area is on the Atlantic Flyway, a pathway for migrating birds.

Our question is, of course there are multiple causes for bird deaths, but why do you want to kill more?

In our view “environmental and climate leadership” would be looking for the best solutions, and doing a full risk-benefit analysis.

 Huge wind turbines in a migratory bird pathway is not the answer for protecting the environment, or dealing with climate change.

Ottawa Wind Concerns

ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

A safe environment…for everyone

  • *A Comprehensive Analysis of Small-Passerine Fatalities from Collision with Turbines at Wind Energy Facilities, by Wallace P. Erickson , Melissa M. Wolfe, Kimberly J. Bay, Douglas H. Johnson, Joelle L. Gehring, in PLOS ONE, 2014 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107491

Wind power lobbyist opposes protection of prime agricultural land

12 Friday Apr 2024

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Rural issues, Wind power

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Farmland Trust warns that current use of prime agricultural land is “unsustainable” while wind power developers make threats if they don’t get access to it for power generation. And money. (Don’t forget the money.)

Berwick area farm: 29 huge industrial wind turbines now operate, despite community opposition [Photo D. Larsen]

The Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO is preparing to launch a new Request for Proposals in 2025, and is gearing up now with consultations for municipalities and stakeholders, prior to releasing final documents.

At issue is the policy of the Ontario government —and the City of Ottawa —that prime agricultural land must be protected.

The wind power industry sees this policy as an obstacle and is fighting back. With some success. In a recent IESO web event, a spokesperson said the question of protecting prime ag land is a topic of “active discussion” in government.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, which is not an environmental organization but a trade association and lobbyist, had this to say in a comment to the IESO. (The emphasis is ours.)

“CanREA recommends that Ontario consider orienting agricultural land use policy in a manner similar
to Alberta’s recently announced ‘agriculture first’ approach for renewable energy project approvals.
This approach allows wind and solar generation on Class 1 and 2 lands if they can demonstrate that
they can co-exist with agriculture.


“We believe that this is a sensible approach. CanREA’s law firm members who represent Ontario
farmers in negotiations with renewable energy developers describe numerous cases where siting of
renewable energy projects on agricultural lands has provided additional income to allow farmers to
stay on the land – making farming careers sustainable for them and their families.


“Should additional restrictions be imposed, renewable energy development would be forced into less
desirable areas with lower wind and solar potential, located further away from load centres. This
would result in system inefficiency, reduced levels of project investment and higher cost solutions for
Ontario ratepayers.”

Very clever wording on their part and not without active threats to the Ontario government, even going so far as to mention the association’s “law firm members.” Phrases like “additional restrictions” are meant to foreshadow legal action if CanREA doesn’t get what it wants, which is unfettered access to Ontario’s farmland for profit.

People want farm land protected

The lobbyist is out of step with Ontario’s citizens and the primacy of protecting our food supply. At a time when “eat local” echoes throughout the province, and the COVID experience of interrupted food supply is fresh in everyone’s mind, the protection of Ontario’s cropland is important.

The Ontario Farmland Trust has this warning for us:

“Every day in Ontario, we lose 319 acres of farmland to non-agricultural land uses like urban development and aggregate extraction; this rate of farmland loss is unsustainable and cannot be allowed to continue. Everyone in Ontario relies on agriculture, from the food we eat, to the jobs in our communities.Without strong protections in place for our farmland, we may not be able to provide enough food to feed our growing population.”

Wind power developers: we want the money

Several wind power developers lined up to file comments with the IESO too—any resemblance to the comments from CanREA are not accidental. Here is Capital Power.

“Broad, overarching limitations or restrictions for specific classifications of agricultural land or
technology types will likely limit the development of cost-effective projects in locations near existing
energy infrastructure. It will also result in a loss of potential non-agricultural income for farmers.
Capital Power submits that the appropriate use of land and potential impacts on agricultural use is
most effectively determined between landowners, developers, and through current project approval
processes. No further limitations, rated criteria, or other considerations needs to be considered for
LT-2 or potential projects.”

Translation: hands off our negotiations with farm owners.

Similarly, U.S.-based Invenergy commented:

“We would work with the landowners to minimize impact to
the land and form an agreement to return land to its
original state. Some projects may be able to allow for the
same productivity levels of the agricultural land like a wind
facility.”

Invenergy also said restricting prime agricultural land mean that municipalities would lose out on tax revenues from wind power projects. That is true but with the tax rates currently capped, the amount paid is a pittance in comparison to wind power operator profits, and would need to be assessed along with municipal costs such as the need for fire services, inspections, etc. It is not possible to return land fully to its “original state”—wind turbines require massive concrete and rebar foundations that cannot be removed.

Wind power developers also under-represent the amount of land used for wind turbines. At least one developer currently claims a turbine uses only 0.2 of an acre but obviously, this does not take into account access roads and other infrastructure.

You can read more industry comments here but make no mistake: they want that prime farm land and will do anything, and say anything to get it.

Why wind power is not the right choice for Ottawa

19 Tuesday Oct 2021

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Wind turbines: not efficient, not effective against climate change or to help the environment [Photo: D. Larsen for Wind Concerns Ontario]

Intermittent, unreliable, weather-dependent wind power is not the best idea for a city that says it is serious about acting to help the environment

Below is an excerpt from our submission to the City of Ottawa for its new Official Plan on why industrial-scale or grid-scale wind power is not a good choice. Our chief concerns are: reliability of the power source; cost; safety; and, impact on the environment.

Reliability of power source

We are unaware of any review of the Ontario experience with wind power as part of the electricity supply since 2006 and, significantly, since the Green Energy Act in 2009. This is an important omission as the experience has been problematic, and resulted in multiple recommendations from Auditors General as to the sort of analysis that ought to have been done, but was not.

As part of the necessary review of the Ontario experience with wind power since 2006, it is essential to do a cost-benefit analysis for wind power, and to prepare a full and honest estimate of what the costs would be for the people of Ottawa, and the taxpayers of Canada who are apparently going to be asked to help pay for these plans.

The fact is, wind is not a reliable source of power. In a Commentary prepared for the Council for Clean & Reliable Energy, author Marc Brouillette said this:

“Wind generation output is inherently intermittent as it depends on Mother Nature. For example, in 2015 Ontario’s wind farms operated at less than one-third capacity more than half (58%) the time. That means 70 per cent of wind energy was produced in the remaining 42 per cent of the time…Indeed, wind output over any three-day period can vary between zero and 90 per cent of capacity.”

He went on:

“Seasonally, Ontarians’ energy use is highest in winter and summer and lowest in spring and late fall. This is almost a mirror image of wind [power] production patterns”.

In short, wind might be somewhat useful as part of a mix of power supply, but it cannot be relied upon. Although there is a popular statement that wind replaced coal as a power source in Ontario, that is completely false: coal was replaced by the refurbishment of nuclear plants with natural gas being used to meet short-term, peak power needs.

Wind turbines are intermittent sources of power that are not aligned with grid requirements.

Again, a cost-benefit analysis that justifies this in terms of actual effectiveness in climate action will be mandatory.

We ask, has the City carried out any investigation that would allow it to plan for power outages and power shortages? This situation is occurring now in jurisdictions in Europe and the UK, where a move to mostly wind and solar has resulted in a severe shortage of power, such that the outlook for the coming winter is nothing short of grim. Can Ottawa not learn from these situations and conduct proper planning so as not to endanger its citizens?

Ontario’s power grid is designed for a stable supply of power, not intermittent surges and shortages.

A recent court decision in the State of Minnesota was the result of a cost-benefit analysis. In ruling that the proposed wind power project should not proceed. In her decision, Judge Louise Dovre Borkman relied on information from the state’s public utilities analyst coordinator, who said that “wind and solar capacity does not always translate into available energy because those resources are unpredictable and uncontrollable—the wind is not always blowing and the sun is not always shining.”

A critical factor in the decision was a statement in Minnesota Statute §216B.2422, subsection 4(3)  saying that due to the “intermittent nature of renewable energy facilities” there could be an impact on the cost of energy.

“In fact,” the Judge wrote, “as Minnesota Power illustrated in its EnergyForward , the output from those resources can ebb significantly even over the course of a single day. When that happens, or customer demand increases, Minnesota Power must increase output from more reliable resources, like coal or natural gas generators, or purchase power on the regional market.”

The Judge noted testimony from a consulting expert on energy who said that adding more wind power would leave the power company “doubly vulnerable to market pricing, both to sell surplus energy into the market when prices are low and to buy energy when prices are high.”

The final conclusion was that a “wind or solar alternative is not in the public interest” because the costs are higher.

In short, Ottawa’s choice of large-scale, or grid-scale wind power will be a high impact on the environment and electricity consumers for little benefit.

Cost

In a recent article in the Financial Post, economist Dr. Jack M. Mintz emphasized the need for honest accounting of the costs of climate policy, and he used the Ontario example:

“Despite implementing various cost-reduction measures the Wynne government was saddled with expensive sole-sourced contracts for wind and solar electricity awarded by the McGuinty government. Those subsidies were put on the backs of Ontario ratepayers who saw their electricity bills jump.”

As for the choice of wind power, Dr. Mintz noted:

“Governments generally do not understand and certainly cannot predict the evolution of technology so should not try to pick the ‘winning’ technologies themselves. They should instead put a price on environmental damage”.

In the Pathway Study on Wind Power in Ottawa, the author stated that because the Ottawa-area is a low wind power resource, financial encouragement would be needed to attract wind power developers. That means subsidies; that means higher electricity bills.

In a Commentary for the Council for Clean & Reliable Energy on energy costs, author Marc Brouillette stated that “Renewables-based DER systems in Ontario could cost 60-percent to 230-percent more than an alternative nuclear-based DES option. These higher costs have the potential to increase ratepayer bills by 10 percent to 20 percent.”

In its 2016 annual report, the Ontario Association of Food Banks wrote about energy poverty and connected poverty to Ontario’s electricity bills:

“Since 2006, hydro rates have increased at a rate of 3.5 times inflation for peak hours, and at a rate of 8 times inflation for off-peak hours. Households across Ontario are finding it hard to keep up with these expenses, as exemplified by the $172.5 million in outstanding hydro bills, or the 60,000  homes that were disconnected last year for failing to pay. In rural Ontario, the effects of the rising cost of hydro can be felt even more acutely. According to a recent report, rural Ontarians can expect current hydro bills to increase by 11.5 per cent by 2017, on top of their current hydro costs, which are already higher than those in cities or larger urban areas.”

 

…

In short, wind power generation cannot withstand any cost-benefit or impact analysis (which is why the developer proponents never want them done). If Ottawa wants to take action against climate change and to benefit all aspects of the environment, fostering wind turbines throughout our countryside is not the right choice.

OTTAWA WIND CONCERNS

ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

 

Wynne government ad would have been banned last year: Auditor General

25 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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…but the Ontario Liberal government changed the rules so ad promoting its “green” agenda is now allowed.

Farmers Forum, August 2016

By Tom Collins

TORONTO– The Ontario government is once again calling on television scientist David Suzuki to help get its message out, but the province’s auditor general says the latest ad would have been banned under old rules that were changed last year by the Liberal government.

Suzuki spoke to an auditorium of school kids about climate change where Suzuki warned that the earth is in trouble, not enough adults are doing anything, and the results could be irreversible if nothing is done immediately. Suzuki then told the kids they would have to live with the consequences. The talk was for an ad to support the Liberal climate change action plan.

Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk slammed the ad saying in early June that the commercial doesn’t provide any useful information.

“Instead, it appears to be designed to create apprehension about the effect of climate change so viewers will be more likely to support Ontario’s climate change action plan,” she said in a statement. She said the ad reflects support for the Liberal government.

Taxpayers paid for it.

The much-loved and much-hated Suzuki doesn’t get the same respect from the scientific community. Greenpeace co-founder and scientist Patrick Moore told Brian Lilley of theRebel.media that Suzuki “is not the geneticist who’s using genetics because he’s against all the genetic sciences that we have developed to improve our food and medicine.” Moore, who left Greenpeace when that group abandoned science for ideology, added, “That to me is indicative of someone who has gone astray in their mind somewhere.”

“He id a really good job of popularizing science in his early years but he became political and ideological,” said Moore. “He just does not engage with anybody on a meaningful level who wants to debate with him or discuss with him… they’re feeding him all this propaganda, and that’s what he talks about.”

Suzuki also did a commercial for the Liberals in 2011, supporting then premier Dalton McGuinty for re-election.

The article is on page A21 of the August edition of Farmers Forum, see farmersforum.com

 

Group files court documents for Judicial Review of wind farm approval

01 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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South Shore Prince Edward County: how did a power plant get approved for this? [Photo Point 2 Point Foundation]

South Shore Prince Edward County: how did a power plant get approved for this? [Photo Point 2 Point Foundation]

Canada Newswire

Community Group Files Request for Judicial Review of Wind Farm Approval Process

<!– newsBody:PICTON, ON, Nov. 30, 2015 /CNW/ – CCSAGE Naturally Green (CCSAGE-NG) filed notice in Divisional Court at Ottawa today for a Judicial Review of the Renewable Energy Approval process for the White Pines wind power project in Prince Edward County.

The power project was approved by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change in 2015. Part of that approval included a permit issued by the Minister of Natural Resources and Forests to “kill, harm and harass” endangered or threatened wildlife species.

CCSAGE cited institutional bias, lack of evidence-based studies, disallowance of municipal input, and denial of natural justice in its court filing, which is supported by 1,500 pages of evidence showing that the government’s approval process violated the constitutional rights of citizens and communities as well as international treaties and agreements.

Ontario’s Green Energy Act permits appeals of wind power approvals only on grounds of serious harm to humans, or serious and irreversible harm to animal and/or plant life and to the natural environment, but not on other grounds such as a biased approval process, violation of constitutional rights, harm to local economies, harm to heritage features, diminution of property values, or violation of international treaties and agreements.

CCSAGE NG Chair Anne Dumbrille said that because the existing appeal process is biased in favour of the wind power developers, the group’s only choice was court: “The Environmental Review Tribunal is a government-appointed panel that follows government rules with the result that it allows destruction of environmentally sensitive areas.  Our only recourse is to Canada’s courts, where rules of justice prevail,” she said.

CCSAGE NG was aided by research done by five students from the Osgoode Hall Law School at York University.

CCSAGE NG is a federally incorporated not-for-profit corporation working to ensure that “Green Energy” initiatives of governments and industry are safe and appropriate for the citizens, wildlife and the natural and heritage environments of Prince Edward County.

SOURCE Wind Concerns Ontario

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Ontario needs to learn from Europe’s green energy debacle, says policy advisor

16 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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Financial Post, April 14

Ontario will follow the EU at its peril — power rates will soar while industries depart

As the Ontario government announces new unilateral climate policies, Canadian policymakers would be well advised to heed the lessons of Europe’s self-defeating green energy debacle.

The European Union has long been committed to unilateral efforts to tackle climate change. For the last 20 years, Europe has felt a duty to set an example through radical climate policy-making at home. Political leaders were convinced that the development of a low-carbon economy based on renewables would give Europe a competitive advantage.

European governments have advanced the most expensive forms of energy generation at the expense of the least expensive kinds. No other major emitter has followed the EU’s aggressive climate policy and targets. As a result, electricity prices in Europe are now more than double those in North America and Europe’s remaining and struggling manufacturers are rapidly losing ground to international competition. European companies and investors are pouring money into the U.S., where energy prices have fallen to less than half those in the EU, thanks to the shale gas revolution.

Although EU policy has managed to reduce CO2 emissions domestically, this was only achieved by shifting energy-intensive industries to overseas locations without stringent emission limits, where energy and labour is cheap and which are now growing much faster than the EU.

Most products consumed in the EU today are imported from countries without binding CO2 targets. While the EU’s domestic CO2 emissions have fallen, if you factor in CO2 emissions embedded in goods imported into EU, the figure remains substantially higher.

Of all the unintended consequences of EU climate policy perhaps the most bizarre is the detrimental effect of wind and solar schemes on the price of electricity generated by natural gas. Many gas power plants can no longer operate enough hours. They incur big costs as they have to be switched on and off to back-up renewables.

Most products consumed in the EU today are imported from countries without binding CO2 targets

This week, Germany’s energy industry association warned that more than half of all power plants in planning are about to fold: Even the most efficient gas-fired power plants can no longer be operated profitably.

Every 10 new units worth of wind power installation has to be backed up with some eight units worth of fossil fuel generation. This is because fossil fuel plants have to power up suddenly to meet the deficiencies of intermittent renewables. In short, renewables do not provide an escape route from fossil fuel use without which they are unsustainable.

Read more here: http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/eus-green-energy-debacle-shows-the-futility-of-climate-change-policies

Global “warmists”: how far do they want us to go?

29 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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In Canada we hear about global warming and climate change but the rhetoric seldom goes to the extremes seen in other areas. Economist Robert Lyman, who advised the federal government on issues pertaining to energy, transportation and the environment for 37 years, reviews the situation in this paper.

An excerpt:

In April 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. body well known for its faulty projections of global temperatures rising, issued yet another report claiming that the science of climate change is “settled” and irrefutable. It also issued a report on the mitigation measures that countries should take. The IPCC’s goal, as approved by governments in 2010, is to avoid a rise in global temperature to no more than two degrees Celsius by the end of the century. To achieve this, they estimate that greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere must be kept below 450 parts per million (ppm) and the world must stay within a carbon “budget” of about 1000 billion tons of CO2 to 2010.

The IPCC report followed, but was closely related to, the 2013 report of Carbon Tracker, a U.K.-based organization allied with a number of “ethical” investment funds. Carbon Tracker’s report, entitled Unburnable Carbon 2013, compared the carbon budget to the amount of carbon present in the world already proven reserves of coal, oil and natural gas. Its conclusion was that those current reserves totaled almost 3000 billion tons, three times the allegedly available budget.

The recommendations coming out of these two organizations today don’t even make it to the back pages of the financial sections of the newspapers, but they are making their insidious ways through the governments of western countries as they prepare for the next Climate Change “Meeting of the Parties” in 2015. We ignore this at our risk.

Read the full paper here: WHERE THE CLIMATE WARMISTS WANT TO TAKE US NEXT