Tag Archives: North Gower wind power project

Support for Bill 39 Affordable Energy Act

18 Thursday Apr 2013

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Energy economist Robert Lyman has provided us a copy of his letter to MPP Lisa MacLeod in support of Bill 39 for the Affordable Energy Act, which will be read today. The wind power corporate lobby group has been working hard to oppose this bill, which would see cancellation of the Feed In Tariff subsidy which is bankrupting Ontario and providing huge subsidies to wind power developers, return of local land use planning control for renewable energy projects, and the requirement that wind power projects provide power at competitive prices.

His rationale is worth reading.

Ms Macleod,

I am writing with respect to Huron-Bruce MPP’s proposed Bill 39, the Affordable Energy Act, which I understand will receive second reading in the Ontario legislature today. As you know, the bill would authorize the return to municipalities of local land use planning control for renewable energy projects. It would also require that that proposed wind power projects supply power at a price competitive with other sources of power. I appreciate that is is very difficult to obtain legislative approval for Private Members’ Bills, but I think the committee meeting on this subject is an appropriate time to raise the awareness of the legislature and perhaps the media concerning the major problems associated with the Green Energy Act.
Here are a few points you may wish to bear in mind.
The current FIT subsidy for on-shore wind turbines of 13.5 cents per kWh. One should note the comments and findings in Chapter 3 of the Auditor General of Ontario’s 2011 Annual Report ( My personal comments are in brackets):
– “Many other jurisdictions set lower FIT prices than Ontario and have the mechanisms to limit the total costs arising from FIT programs”.
– “Ontario’s FIT prices were originally designed with the intention of allowing a reasonable rate of return, defined as 11% after-tax return on equity.” (In today’s market, even the riskiest of investments don’t get an 11 % rate of return; the FIT prices, in contrast, are guaranteed for the twenty-year life of the contract. There is no risk at all.)
– “There was minimal documentation to support how FIT prices were calculated to achieve the targeted return on equity, because of the numerous changes in the financial model and assumptions made by the Ontario Power Authority”. (The method of determining the FIT prices was, and remains, obscure.)
– “There has been a lack of independent oversight on the reasonableness of FIT prices. Although the OEB has historically been mandated to oversee and approve electricity prices, it has no role or legislative responsibility to review or approve FIT prices.”
– “”The internal rates of return offered to the developers in Germany and Spain varied depending on market risks and ranged from just 5% to 7% in Germany to between 7% and 10% in Spain. When Ontario’s FIT prices were first developed in spring 2009, they were already higher than those in Germany and Spain, which have both significantly dropped their FOIT prices since then due to lower component costs arising from technological advances”
– (Ontario’s FIT price for onshore wind installations is higher that that in Michigan, Wisconsin, Denmark, Germany, Spain and South Korea. Only in Vermont and Washington are FIT prices higher.)
I would add that, of all the various elements of the Green Energy Act, the withdrawal of authority from municipalities to exercise land use planning control over the construction of renewable energy installations is probably the most egregious. It is an affront to democracy that the governments most closely associated with the affects these installations have lost their ability to protect the public.
Bob Lyman
Nepean
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Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com
Donations welcome at PO Box 3 North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

MPP MacLeod to Minister of Energy Chiarelli: we must have a voice

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

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Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod wrote a letter to Bob Chiarelli, now Ontario’s Minister of Energy, asking for local land use planning powers to be returned to Ontario communities.

“Minister, local municipalities and residents must have a voice regarding Industrial Wind Turbine projects that are planned for their community,” she wrote.

“I ask you to immediately implement a province-wide moratorium and support Bill 2, which would return planning authority back to municipal government control.”

Yes!

The letter is here: LisaMacLeod2BobChiarelli

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Donations welcome at PO Box 3 North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

and, get your STOP WIND SCAM sign! Just $5 to stop the scam!

Medical Officer of Health: NO studies showed NO association

22 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

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We are reminded today of the “health” study–really just a review paper–sponsored by the wind power corporate lobby group CanWEA, which concluded that not only was there any proof of any association between industrial wind turbine noise (the word infrasound was not uttered in those days) and health impacts, in fact, the research team said, there is so little evidence of anything that we recommend no more money be spent on research. At all.

Appalling in the world of scientific research, to make a statement like that.

Now today, Grey Bruce Medical Officer of Health Hazel Lynn and colleague Dr Ian Arra, released the results of their own review and said, there are NO studies in the world that prove there is NO association at all between turbine noise and health impacts. In other words, the studies that CanWEA loves to trot out saying they are proof of no problems at all, are not valid.

At present, Dr Lynn and Arra said, the associations are weak, but not absent, and more research is needed they concluded.

Meanwhile, the wind power lobby group and corporations go around telling people that anyone complaining about wind turbine noise and health effects needs some kind of therapy, or an injection in their wallet–if either one of these things happens, their health problems will go away.

In the Ontario Farmer recently, farm owner Harvey Wrightman of Adelaide-Metcalfe, quoted Dr Michael Nissenbaum (whose study of turbine noise at Mars Hill indicated health effects as far away as three MILES): “If someone came into a doctor’s office and said they have chest pain and the physician said, ‘It’s all in your head,’ without investigating, that would be malpractice. It’s the same thing if patients are complaining of sleep disturbances and other ill effects, and off the top of your head you claim they’re making it up and it’s about the way the turbines look, especially when there’s a known, plausible mechanism for why people could be affected. There’s nothing magical about the effect that people are sleeping poorly due to the noise. There’s nothing difficult to understand or fantastical.”

“This whole issue has always been about ethics,” Wrightman continues, “and what the application of the practical limits are of harm, i.e., what you can reasonably accept in the way of harm of the rural population….Why are there increasing reports of vertigo and nausea with the latest projects?

“The first step to getting those answers is a moratorium on construction of projects. That would be a real show of understanding and respect for rural Ontario.”

We would add that there is more than ethics at play here, we would suggest that at this point, if the government has the slightest clue what it is doing could be wrong and could be harming people, there will be legal liability. The wind power companies, too. And the people who have leased their land for the turbines without thought for their neighbours and communities.

 

Contact us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

MP demands halt to local wind project, says science lacking in decision

12 Tuesday Feb 2013

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

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Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre rose in the House of Commons yesterday to present a petition to the House on behalf of residents of North Gower and Richmond (communities within the City of Ottawa) where a 20-megawatt wind power project is proposed.

Poilievre’s petition demands a halt to the wind power generation project until the results of the Health Canada study on noise and infrasound has been completed, anticipated for the end of 2014. “Decisions must be science-based,” he told the House.

He noted that Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq announced the revised study design February 10th.

Ottawa Wind Concerns is grateful for the MP’s support on this issue, and for bringing forward a solid foundation for the community’s concerns about this project, which will expose the people living in 450 homes to noise and vibration. In 2010, Rogers TV host Mark Sutcliffe asked then-company representative Bart Geleynse Jr whether the turbines in North Gower-Richmond area project would make noise. “Of course they will,” said Geleynse, “they’re power plants!”

Indeed.

And they don’t belong so close to families.

The wind power development lobby group CanWEA this week put out a news release saying that a survey showed 80% of the residents of Denmark questioned about wind power said they were not bothered by the wind turbines. In fact, 17% of the respondents said they were disturbed, with about 4% saying they were disturbed to a “major extent” and 5% “moderately” disturbed. In other words, almost 10% had their lives disrupted and their health affected by wind turbines.

“North Gower and Richmond are quiet communities that don’t deserve to be turned into a wind power factory,” says Jane Wilson, chair of Ottawa Wind Concerns. “The community doesn’t want this, our MP and MPP supports us and so do many on Council. It’s a completely inappropriate land use.”

Last year, MP Poilievre asked the Library of Parliament to look at the cost to taxpayers of the North Gower-Richmond power project, and discovered the cost in subsidies to ratepayers would be $4.8 million per year (a conservative estimate, we’re told).

In fact, subsidies to the wind power developers run $500,000 per turbine per year. Worse, Ontario doesn’t need any more power, and the intermittent nature of power produced by wind turbines is having a destabilizing effect on the grid, say Ontario’s electrical engineers, in their 2011 report.

The video of Pierre Poilievre’s statement in the House is here: http://www.pierremp.ca/petition-calls-for-a-moratorium-on-local-wind-project/

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

 

Globe and Mail: wind power in Ontario is “green nightmare”

03 Sunday Feb 2013

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And here it is: wind power generation is not “green” … it won’t replace fossil fuel power generation it doesn’t save lives, and it doesn’t even really work very well. That, and it is actually harmful to the environment, as the power projects displace the natural environment, and harm birds and other wildlife.

Here in the weekend edition of The Globe and Mail, is Margaret Wente’s column on the McGuinty government’s legacy in Ontario. Let’s hope North Gower-Richmond-Ottawa isn’t a victim of the legacy too.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/mcguintys-legacy-is-a-green-nightmare/article8131320/

This week marks the preliminary hearing in the appeal against the wind power project approved for Ostrander Point, on the south tip of Prince Edward County, which is recognized as a “globally significant” Important Bird Area by the Ontario government and Nature Canada, and where rare plants and endangered wildlife exist. (Hearing is in Picton at the Town Hall, Friday February 8th, starting at 11 a.m.)

Mark your datebook for Thursday night, CBC’s Doc Zone is carrying the made-in-Ontario doc film “Wind Rush.” Catch a preview here: http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/wind-rush.html?subpage=windmill

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

A word about our photo

24 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

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The rather elegant photo of Ottawa in our header needs an explanation: if there were a wind turbine in it, of the scale being proposed for south Ottawa, it is so tall you wouldn’t be able to see the nacelle or hub of it …. that is exactly how big these machines are. And of course, what they look like isn’t the issue, it’s the noise and the vibration they produce.

But, we need people to understand the scale of these power generating machines. Now, imagine TEN of these machines in the background of our photo…or 20 or 40 or 60 or—as in the Enbridge project near Kincardine, 120, or as in what Samsung is doing in Haldimand-Norfolk and Chatham-Kent, FIVE HUNDRED turbines…and you get an idea of what we mean when we say wind power projects are industrializing the small communities of Ontario.

It is expropriation with compensation. It is sacrificing the quality of life in our communities, reducing property values and harming health…all for an ideology for which there is no evidence of benefits.

We repeat a comment from then sales rep for Prowind, headquartered in Germany, who is behind the project in Richmond-North Gower and South Dundas. When asked by Mark Sutcliffe whether the wind turbines make noise (Talk Ottawa, April 2010) he said, “Of course they do! They’re power plants!”

What we need is a safe reliable power source that does not sacrifice anyone’s health or quality of life.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca and please consider donating toward our legal and other costs. We accept PayPal or cheques at PO Box 3 North Gower On  K0A 2T0 Ottawa Wind Concerns is a corporate member of Wind Concerns Ontario http://www.windconcernsontario.ca

What kind of person…?

13 Thursday Sep 2012

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We’re not sure who “Andy Braid” of Kars is, nor do we get why Mr Braid seems to have letters published with regularity in The Manotick Messenger (3 weeks in a row, by our count) but at least our response to his recent letter about the wind power project was published, yesterday.

Here is the letter.

Mr Braid claims that MP Pierre Poilievre hasn’t got his facts straight in asking for a moratorium on the proposed wind power project for our community. It is Mr. Braid who is in error.

Ontario uses coal power for less than three percent of its electricity needs, and could shut them off altogether for seven months of the year when they are not needed for spikes in demand due to hot weather. The truth is, Ontario’s pollution comes from cars and trucks, and from industry south of the border.

Most worrying, however, is his objection to Health Canada spending time studying the noise problem. What kind of person does not want more information on a public health issue, and is in fact willing to sacrifice the health of his neighbours in North Gower, Richmond and Manotick?

Wind power has not been proven to reduce greenhouse gases anywhere in the world.

Jane Wilson

Ottawa Wind Concerns

Mr Braid’s comments, it might also be noted, come right out of the wind power developers’ lobby group playbook. They don’t want Health Canada to study the turbine noise and infrasound. If the study is done right–and many are commenting on the current proposed study design (it has flaws) to improve it–it will show that there are questions about setbacks and nighttime noise.

Ontario could end up with 2-km setbacks (minimum in the view of the World Health organization and the Society for Wind Vigilance) and perhaps also having the turbines turned off at night, as they are now doing in some areas of France. That means less profit in the form of taxpayer subsidy for the big companies.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca and donate to PO Box 3, North Gower ON   K0A 2T0

MPPs call for halt to wind power development in North Gower-Richmond

03 Monday Sep 2012

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From the latest online version of the EMC Manotick-Winchester, an account of a news conference held by Conservative MPPs Lisa MacLeod, Vic Fedeli, Randy Pettapiece and Bob Bailey.

The story is here http://www.emcmanotick.ca/20120830/news/Conservative+MPPs+decry+wind+power+in+North+Gower

and here:

Conservative MPPs decry wind power in North Gower

Posted Aug 30, 2012 By Emma Jackson

EMC news – A group of Progressive Conservative MPPs joined Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod in North Gower on Aug. 21 to oppose the Ontario government’s commitment to wind power in Ontario.

A small group of North Gower residents have been fighting a Prowind proposal to build 10 industrial wind turbines just outside the village boundaries, and PC energy critic Vic Fedeli and MPPs Bob Bailey and Randy Pettapiece took time from the Association of Municipalities Ontario conference in Ottawa to show their solidarity.

Fedeli did most of the talking at the brief event at the Rideau Township Archives on North Gower’s main street. He said the McGuinty government’s plan to bring green energy into the province is failing.

“The government’s dream of bringing green energy was forced on Ontario by overpaying for FIT (the feed-in tariff program) and guaranteeing to buy the power whenever it’s made, which is usually at night,” he told a small gathering of residents. “And they stripped municipalities of their decision-making power.”

He said the PC party would like to reverse those three elements of the Green Energy Act, so that residents can have more power to decide what energy projects are built in their communities.

“When you want green energy in your community, (municipalities can ask) is it in a willing host community, do we need the power and is it at a price we can afford,” Fedeli said.

The party is also asking to put all proposed wind projects in the province on hold until a federal study on the health effects of wind turbines is completed.

Gary Thomas, owner of Thomas Tree Farm on McCordick Road, said his house and farm will be within one kilometre of “four or five” turbines planned for the area. He said he’s done some basic calculations and thinks that from about December to February he will experience shadows from the turbines in the afternoons.

“It would drive you crazy. I couldn’t live there, and we’ve been here for 32 years,” said his wife Ruth Thomas.

Thomas said he’s concerned that it will ruin his old-fashioned Christmas tree cutting events. “With the turbines across the road, I don’t know how old-fashioned it will be,” he said.

Passing on the family farm will become difficult as well, because his son’s family will likely refuse to come because of health concerns.

Thomas said he wishes he could be more supportive of such an initiative.

“If they were of any benefit, it would be a different story,” he said. The Conservatives have long lambasted the McGuinty government for their commitment to wind power, claiming that turbines are inefficient and less green than traditional sources of power such as hydro.

Fedeli said he wants the government to focus on retrofitting existing dams and hydro plants to harness water energy, which he said would be more environmentally-friendly and more cost-effective.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

Donations gratefully received: PO Box 3, North Gower ON   K0A 2T0

MP Poilievre commissions Library of Parliament research: what wind power costs YOU

17 Friday Aug 2012

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A news release from Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre today, see below. This pertains to the 20-MW proposed project in North Gower. Savings of the “cost premium” amounts to $3-4.8 million per year–this is in line with the $500,000 per turbine, estimated as a subsidy for turbines by Wind Concerns Ontario.

Now remember, Mr McGuinty wants to have 10,700 MW of wind power running in Ontario. You do the math.

Pierre Poilievre, M.P., Nepean-Carleton

News Release

Contact: Austin Jean

T: 613.990.4301 | F: 613.990.4333 | E: poilip1@parl.gc.ca

August 17, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Marlborough Moratorium Makes Cents

North Gower, ON — Nepean-Carleton MP, Pierre Poilievre, released information from the Library of Parliament confirming that a moratorium on the Marlborough Wind Turbine Project could result in an annual savings of up to $4.8 million on Ontarians’ energy bills. Due to its unreliability and set-up costs, wind-generated power in Ontario is far more expensive than alternatives like conservation efforts or refurbished nuclear plants. Poilievre has been calling for a moratorium, while Health Canada (a federal department) conducts a study into the safety of wind turbine noise.

The Marlborough project proposed for the outskirts of North Gower is expected to produce approximately 60 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity annually, at a cost of 13.5 cents/kWh, a price the Ontario government has guaranteed for 20 years.  In comparison, the Ontario Power Authority purchases electricity generated from coal, natural gas and nuclear plants at a cost of 6 to 9 cents/kWh.  A moratorium on this industrial wind turbine project would allow the Power Authority to purchase the same electricity at roughly half the price from these cheaper energy sources while Health Canada conducts its study.

“The planned industrial turbines near North Gower should be put on hold until the results of Health Canada’s federal study are published,” said Poilievre. “Not only would this ensure the safety of these residents, but it would save money for the power system and its consumers.”

In 2011, wind-generated energy accounted for an average of 2.7% of the total power grid in Ontario, costing taxpayers $519.5 million. The same amount of energy from natural gas generation plants would have cost $96.2 million less.

For further information, please contact:

Austin Jean
Office Manager

Pierre Poilievre, M.P. Nepean-Carleton
T: 613.990.4301 | F: 613.990.4333 | E: poilip1@parl.gc.ca

See the note from the Library of Parliament, HERE

Library of Parliament research[1]

Please see the petition under Important Documents. If you are copying it, it MUST have both pages on a single piece of paper to be legal.

MP Pierre Poilievre releases petition vs North Gower wind project

14 Tuesday Aug 2012

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Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilivre has prepared a petition for everyone concerned about the health impacts from the proposed North Gower wind project. The signed petitions, which asks that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty not approve the project until the results of a Health Canada study are released and evaluated, will be taken to the House of Commons.

Here is an excerpt from the news release from Mr Poilievre’s office.

Poilievre launches petition to stop local wind turbine project

Nepean, ON

—Pierre Poilievre, Member of Parliament for Nepean-Carleton, announced that he has started a petition calling on Premier Dalton McGuinty to put the safety of North Gower residents first. The petition asks for a halt to the construction of industrial wind turbines in the community until the Federal Health Canada study can determine whether or not they are safe. This follows his open letter to Premier McGuinty and his public call for a moratorium several weeks ago.

“Since my public call for a moratorium on the wind turbine project proposed for North Gower, many of my constituents have been contacting me to voice their support,” said Poilievre. “The Premier and his Ministers of Health and Environment have both agreed to consider my request and I think that a petition will show them just how much support that a moratorium would have from the general population.”

Last week, the petition was mailed to thousands of households in the village of North Gower and the surrounding areas. Poilievre is also inviting anyone wishing to sign the petition to drop by his constituency office at 250B Greenbank Road, located just north of West Hunt Club Rd.

The Marlborough Wind Farm, initiated in 2008 by Prowind Canada, proposes 10 IWTs in close proximity to the village of North Gower and Poilievre believes that the majority of the villagers will be supportive of this call for a moratorium. There is too much information that is unclear when it comes to the potential health effects caused by noise pollution from industrial wind turbines.

In several locations across Ontario, noise from turbines has caused residents who live close to them to report serious health problems, including sleeping disorders, anxiety drugs and vertigo. Even Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer has admitted that the government does not have enough data on turbine noise and its health consequences.

….

We support this 100 % and ask that everyone sign the petition, and have their friends, neighbours and other concerned individuals sign it. The petitions may be sent to the MP postage-free.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca

Get the petition HERE: Wind Farm – petition