Tag Archives: wind power Ontario

Wind power: out of phase with consumer demand

11 Wednesday Oct 2017

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October 11, 2017

 

BelleRiverAug20

Turbines at the 100-megawatt Samsung Belle River power plant–power when we don’t need it

Friday October 6th, 2017 was a work day just before the Thanksgiving weekend. At 10 AM that morning, Ontario’s electricity ratepayers had much to be thankful for. Power generation from wind amounted to just 27 MWh, but that 27 MWh wasn’t really needed as nuclear, hydro and a little gas were providing all the power we needed.  And, both hydro and gas were capable of producing lots more if Ontario demand required it.

The hourly Ontario energy price (HOEP) during that hour was $13.50/MWh (megawatt hour) so the value of the 27 MWh that wind produced in that hour cost ratepayers about $365.

Two days later, Thanksgiving Sunday was a different story: at 3 AM wind power was working in the night, generating 1,145 MWh with another 2,797 MWh curtailed (wasted, held back, not added to the grid). Ontario’s ratepayers were paying $135/MWh for the grid-accepted wind and $120/MWh for the curtailed wind.

The HOEP was a negative $3/MWh so the grid-delivered wind was costing ratepayers $415.95/MWh or 41.6 cents/kWh! In total, that one hour cost ratepayers $476,274 for unneeded generation. On top of that, because Ontario demand for power was low (most of us were fast asleep so the LED lights were out), Bruce nuclear was steaming off excess generation (we pay for that), OPG was probably spilling water (we also pay for that), and we were exporting 2,802 MWh to Michigan, New York and Quebec and picking up the $3/MWh cost.

So, comparing the two hours suggests we didn’t need wind generation on October 6th during a business day and we didn’t need it on October 8th in the middle of the night!

This is more proof that wind power is produced out of sync with demand.

The time has come to stop all contracting for additional wind generation and to cancel any that are not under construction.

Parker Gallant

Wind Concerns Ontario

Re-posted from http://www.windconcernsontario.ca

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Wind power is 70% useless in Ontario: economics report

23 Friday Jun 2017

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All that despoliation of Ontario communities, agricultural land and the natural environment for … what? Expensive power produced out of phase with demand, says Marc Brouillette

In a stunning commentary published yesterday by the Council for Clean and Reliable Energy, energy policy consultant Marc Brouilette says that Ontario’s wind power program is an expensive adventure that does not achieve any of its goals for the environment or economic prosperity, and is in fact, making things worse.

At a cost of $1.5 billion in 2015, Brouillette says, the fact that wind power generation is completely out of sync with demand in Ontario results in added costs for constrained generation form other sources. Constrained nuclear and hydro cost $300 million that year, and a further $200 million in costs was incurred due to “avoided” natural gas generation.

And, the power isn’t even getting to the people who need it. “[O]nly one-half of total provincial wind output makes it to the Central Region and the GTA where most of Ontario’s electricity demand exists,” Brouillette states.

All things considered, wind costs more than $410 per megawatt hour, which is four times the average cost of electricity in Ontario. This is being charged to Ontario’s electricity customers, at an increasing rate.

Ontario should reconsider its commitment to more wind, Brouillette concludes: “these challenges will increase if Ontario proceeds to double wind capacity to the projected ~6,500 MW.”

Reposted from Wind Concerns Ontario windconcernsontario.ca

The real cost of closing Ontario’s coal power plants (what the government didn’t tell you)

29 Monday Aug 2016

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Part I

Replacing coal in Ontario: what the government really did

There is so much mythology now around Ontario’s coal plants for power generation, it really is time to set the record straight on what really happened, how much it cost, and what was actually achieved. This is the first in a two-part series by Parker Gallant.

Intermittent, undependable wind power installed to replace coal-fired power generation. Seen here: a new turbine in the Algoma Highlands. Photo: Gord Benner
Intermittent, undependable wind power installed to replace coal-fired power generation. Seen here: road construction for a new turbine in the Algoma Highlands. Photo: Gord Benner

Back in 2011, Ontario had coal plant capacity of 4,484 MW but the plants really operated only occasionally, producing 4.1 terawatts (TWh) of power — just 10.5% of their capacity. The 4.1 TWh they generated in 2011 represented 2.7% of total power generation in Ontario of 149.8 TWh.  The cost  per TWh was $33 million or 3.3 cents/kWh, making the ratepayers’ bill for those 4.1 TWh $135 million.

As most Ontarians know, those coal plants were either closed (Lambton and Nanticoke) or converted to biomass (Atikokan and Thunder Bay). We were continually told closing or converting those coal plants would save Ontario’s health care system $4.4 billion, based on a study completed while Dwight Duncan was Ontario’s Energy Minister.  Duncan’s claim was a fictitious interpretation of the actual study, but it was repeated so often by Liberal ministers and MPPs that they all believed it and presumably felt the public believed it, too.  

Good PR but … the truth?

Whether one believes the Duncan claim, the fact is the coal plants were closed or converted and the ruling Ontario Liberal government made a big deal of it even to the point of obtaining an endorsement from Al Gore as the first jurisdiction in North America to end coal fired power generation.

The government never disclosed how much it cost the ratepayers/taxpayers of the province to close or convert those coal plants, and we certainly haven’t seen any improvement in our healthcare system since it happened, as one would expect from saving billions. So, was the claim of savings a falsehood? And what did closing the plants really cost?

Let’s start with looking at our electricity consumption level in 2011 and compare it to 2015. In 2011 Ontario generated 149.8 TWh and consumed 141.5 TWh.  In 2015 we generated 159.6 TWh, including 5.9 TWh of embedded generation, and we reportedly consumed 137 TWh, not including the 5.9 TWh of embedded generation consumed within the confines of your local distribution company (LDC).

The difference of 8.3 TWh in 2011 and 16.7 TWh in 2015 was exported.

Replacing coal-fired generation 

As noted, coal capacity was 4,484 MW in 2011 and in 2015 was zero — so what did we replace it with?   According to the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) Ontario Energy Report for Q4 2015, since the end of 2011 we have added:

  1. Nuclear supply increased by 1,532 MW (Bruce Power)
  2. 754 MW of hydro
  3. Natural gas generation increased 602 MW
  4. 2,580 more MW capacity of industrial wind turbines (IWT)
  5. Solar up by 2,078 MW
  6. Bio-mass increased by 481 MW (principally conversions of Atikokan and Thunder Bay from coal)
  7. “Other” increased by 10 MW

As well, residential ratepayers conserved 1.184 GWh1. , equivalent to 450 MW of wind turbines operating at 30% of capacity (generating electricity intermittently and out-of-phase with demand).

So altogether, Ontario added 8,037 MW of capacity to cover the loss of 4,484 MW of coal which, in 2011, operated at only 10.5% of capacity.

Ratepayers also reduced consumption by 6,553 GWh with residential ratepayers representing 1,184 GWh of that reduction.

It would appear the variations of long-term energy planning emanating from the Ontario energy portfolio continually overestimated future demand by a wide margin. Their numerous ministerial directives to the Ontario Power Authority (merged with IESO January 1, 2015) with instructions to contract more and more unreliable intermittent wind and solar generation with “first-to- the-grid” rights at high prices produced surplus energy.

This stream of directives and the acquisition of excess capacity resulted in increasing electricity costs for ratepayers due to surplus generation and payment guarantees for displaced generation.

They also added other expensive policies such as conservation initiatives that simply piled on unneeded costs.

Parker Gallant

August 28, 2016

  1. Interestingly, the OEB in a revision to the “average” residential ratepayers monthly consumption reduced it from 800 kWh to 750 kWh, yet suggests conservation achieved (2011 to 2014) was 1,184 gigawatts (GWh).   The total number of residential ratepayers suggests that consumption has declined by 2,739 GWh (4,564,835 residential ratepayers at December 31, 2015 X 50kWh [montly] X 12 = 2,739 GWh) since 2009.

NEXT: The second in this series will examine the additional costs associated with the various policies applied and how generation additions to Ontario’s energy mix continue to drive up Ontario’s electricity costs

 

[Reposted from Wind Concerns Ontario and Parker Gallant Energy Perspectives]

Citizens, municipalities say thumbs down on IESO wind power contract process

04 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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‘Resounding condemnation’ of wind power bid process: WCO on comments to IESO

The IESO asked for comments on its Large Renewable Procurement process. Looks like nobody is happy, least of all Ontario citizens and the municipalities that would be forced to have the power projects.

Communities have valid reasons for objecting to huge power projects but government is not listening [Photo: Prince Edward County]
Communities have valid reasons for objecting to huge power projects but government is not listening [Photo: Prince Edward County]

London Free Press, June 3, 2016John Miner

The agency setting the ground rules for the next multi-billion-dollar round of wind farm development in Ontario says it can only go so far to meet demands for changes in its program to acquire more electricity.

Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), which picked the winners in the last round, asked residents, wind farm developers, municipalities and First Nations how the controversial program could be improved.

A persistent theme in the 120 pages of responses was a call for municipalities to be given a veto over developments, a power stripped away by the Liberal government — to the anger of many municipalities — when it launched its green energy program.

“Municipal support must be a mandatory requirement. There must be greater consideration given to the impact of the power projects on the community, and on the people who must live near them,” wrote one respondent.

But Adam Butterfield, IESO’s manager of renewable energy procurement, said such a decision would have to be made by the provincial government.

“The feedback we get will be communicated up to the Ministry of Energy for them to consider any related policy changes. We provide our advice, as we always do, on these aspects. But at the end of the day there are some policy ones, such as the veto aspect, that are in the government’s purview,” he said.

In Southwestern Ontario, home to the largest wind farms in the province and the most wind turbines, the Liberal government’s decision to take away local control over where the highrise-sized turbines can be built left many centres joining a movement of so-called “unwilling host” communities for energy projects.

Butterfield said he doesn’t know how the government will respond to the latest feedback.

“To date they have been pretty firm that renewable energy is a provincial issue and so they haven’t been amenable to considering a (local) veto. We will provide the feedback up and see where things go over the course of the summer.”

Jane Wilson, president of Wind Concerns Ontario, a provincial coalition opposed to wind farms, said the survey responses show the process doesn’t respect Ontarians and their wishes for how their communities develop.

“The point is made repeatedly that the process for locating renewable power projects differs from any other sort of development — that there is little openness or transparency, and that municipalities ought to have real ‘say’ in where these power projects go,” Wilson wrote in an email.

“The comments are a resounding condemnation of the procurement process,” she added.

The IESO has been instructed by the government to procure another 600 megawatts of wind energy, with the contracts awarded by 2018.

The generating capacity is being added at a time when the IESO’s own forecasts project Ontario will remain in a surplus power position for at least a decade.

A report last year by Ontario’s auditor general concluded Ontarians paid $37  billion extra for power over the last eight years because of the government’s decisions to ignore its own planning process for new power generation projects.

Along with suggestions for a municipal veto, other respondents to the IESO survey called for more openness by companies about their plans and an end to non-disclosure agreements with property owners.

“Proponents intentionally misled, failed to follow the process (meeting and information distribution), and used other methods to ensure the community was misinformed and had little time to respond,” wrote one. …

Read the full news story here.

___________________________________

Ottawa Wind Concerns Editor’s NOTE: As of today, 73 Ontario municipalities (the majority of communities that would be vulnerable to wind power projects) have passed a resolution stating that municipal support MUST be a mandatory requirement in future wind power bids. That list includes Ottawa.

Want to do something?

Write to the IESO: LRP@IESO.ca and tell them you agree, municipal support MUST be a mandatory requirement. You deserve a say in where power projects go.

Write to the Energy Ministry. By email: http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/en/contact-us/

By post: Ministry of Energy
900 Bay Street, 4th Floor
Hearst Block
Toronto ON M7A 2E1
Canada

And thank your Ottawa councillor for voting in favour of the mandatory support motion.

NoMeansNo_FB

Ontario’s green energy fiasco about to get worse: Globe Editorial

01 Sunday May 2016

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Globe and Mail EDITORIAL, April 29, 2016

Late last year, Ontario’s Auditor-General put out a report detailing the extent of the provincial government’s mismanagement of the electricity system. According to Bonnie Lysyk, thanks to a misguided government policy of artificially pumping up the cost of producing power in the province, Ontarians had overpaid for electricity to the tune of $37-billion between 2006 and 2014, and will continue to be overcharged by another $133-billion by 2032.

The scale of the waste is so large as to be almost incomprehensible, which may explain why Ms. Lysyk’s report was a one-day news wonder when it landed last December. Once the count gets into the hundreds of billions, the mind goes numb. If the province announced construction of the Burning Money Biomass Plant, fuelled by bales of five and 10-dollar bills, it probably wouldn’t be capable of destroying $170-billion.

The size of the disaster in the province’s electricity system is hard to get your head around. But voters, consumers, businesses and especially the Liberal government should be rereading Ms. Lysyk’s report. Because a document leaked to The Globe and Mail this week suggests that the Liberals, who a decade ago broke the electricity system through a fatal combination of good intentions and a willful disregard of both expertise and experience, may be preparing to repeat the exercise with their next greenhouse gas reduction plan.

The thing is, Ontario needs a greenhouse gas reduction strategy. So does every province, and so does the federal government. To meet our international commitments, and to bend the curve on global warming, those carbon-reduction goals have to be ambitious. Ontario’s proposed Climate Change Mitigation and Low Carbon Economy Act aims to reduce the province’s 1990 emissions by 15 per cent by 2020, 37 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050. The province is committing itself to substantial carbon reduction in the next decade, and a near-zero carbon economy in a generation.

Those are not impossible ideals. They’re doable – using the right tools. Dramatically reducing carbon emissions is not a crazy idea, but the way Ontario is proposing to get to a low-carbon economy almost certainly is.

Ontario went about it all wrong

A decade ago, the government of Ontario started driving up electricity costs with a simple objective in mind: It wanted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the production of electricity. This was the right objective. But the way it went about it was all wrong. Instead of encouraging the electricity sector to be as efficient as possible, the government essentially ordered it to become costly, inefficient and irrational. Some of this was motivated by fantasies of industrial policy – look, Ma, we’re subsidizing the Green Jobs Of the Future! – and some of it was driven by an insistence on ignoring basic economic advice, much of it coming from the government’s own experts.

The result is that the cost of generating electricity in Ontario has exploded, even as power costs plummeted elsewhere. Between 2004 and 2014, power generation costs in Ontario increased by 74 per cent, according to the auditor. This benefits no one. The higher prices don’t come from carbon taxes; they come from higher electricity production costs. And that imposes a heavy cost on the economy.

However, because prices were rising, Ontarians started using less energy. Power use dropped by 7 per cent between 2006 and 2014. But at the same time, thanks to subsidies to encourage greater power production from green sources, the province’s generation capacity grew by 19 per cent. As a result, the province is now a major exporter of electricity – sold at prices far below the cost of production. The more power the province exports, the more taxpayers and ratepayers lose.

Ontario could have chosen a different route. Instead of politicians completely remaking the electricity sector on a whim, introducing inefficiencies by deciding what power technologies to back and how much to subsidize them, Ontario could have done the opposite. It could have set a carbon-reduction goal, imposed carbon taxes on carbon-generating fuels – and left it to producers and consumers to figure out how to most efficiently respond by reducing their own costs and emissions. It should have taxed dirty power and let the market figure out the cheapest way to get to lower emissions levels.

More enthusiasm than knowledge

Nearly a decade later, this week’s leaked document on its upcoming greenhouse-gas strategy suggests Kathleen Wynne’s government has not learned from her predecessor Dalton McGuinty’s mistakes. Glen Murray, a minister with more enthusiasm than knowledge, is in charge of the environmental file; last time around, George Smitherman was the designated enthusiast.

Ontarians should be worried. …

Read the full story here

Ontario “worst electricity market in the world”

19 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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While Ottawa’s Bob Chiarelli, Ontario Minister of Energy, insists that paying high and selling low is a good economic strategy (meanwhile inflicting dramatic increases in bills to consumers), economic analysts don’t seem to agree. Here from Forbes. com is a view of Ontario’s handling of the electricity sector.

Ontario’s high electricity prices are bad for business

Jude Clemente, Forbes/Energy, March 30, 2016

“Ontario is probably the worst electricity market in the world,” Pierre-Olivier Pineau, University of Montreal

Ontario’s auditor general just reported that the province paid an extra $37 billion for electricity from 2006-2014, likely the most ludicrous energy story that I’ve ever read (here). Ontario has gone from having some of the most affordable electricity in North America to having some of the most expensive. From 2013-2015 alone, industrial electricity rates increased 16%.

  • The Green Energy Act (GEA) “is costing Ontario over $5 billion annually but yields negligible environmental benefits,“and the plan has been 10 times more costly per year than an alternative coal retrofit plan examined in 2005.
  • The GEA prioritizes wind, even though wind power generation is almost perfectly out-of-sync with consumption in Ontario, resulting in the dumping of surplus wind energy into outside markets. “Electricity exports cost Ontario taxpayers $200 million in June.”
  • In 2003, the provincial government decided to phase-out coal-fired generation by 2007 (later extended to 2014), perhaps the most cost effective source of power.
  • This necessitated investment in new sources of electricity. For example, more expensive wind has provided less than 4% of Ontario’s power but accounts for 20% of the cost of electricity. In January, Ontario Power Generation unveiled plans for a $13 billion refurbishment of four nuclear reactors, which could crush ratepayers to recover the total costs.

Read the full article at Forbes.com here.

St Isidore residents fear Wynne government will approve second wind farm

24 Thursday Mar 2016

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Smaller project gets the nod in unwilling host communities 2016, while larger power project simply has to resubmit

No community support for greed in Nation Twp [Photo: Ontario Farmer]

No community support for greed in Nation Twp [Photo: Ontario Farmer]

Province okays more wind farms

Ontario Farmer, March 22, 2016 (excerpted)

By Ian Cumming

Sixteen new green energy projects across Ontario, five of them wind turbines and 11 solar farms, were approved by the provincial government on March 10th.

The largest project at 100,000 MW [Editor’s note: this is incorrect–the project is 100 megawatts or 100,000 kilowatts], with the next largest project at 54,000 MW [Editor: 54 MW] was approved for windmills in North Stormont in Eastern Ontario.

That will mean 35 to 50 windmills, depending on their size, says North Stormont mayor Dennis Fife.

They are slated to be hilt about one kilometer west of Finch and head north, just west of Berwick and Chrysler [Crysler], said Fife. For those visiting last fall’s plowing match in North Stormont, the southern end of the project will be about where the event was held.

“We don’t know the farmers who signed the leases,” said Fife.

Being picked was a surprise since the Premier and area MPPs had publicly assured them that no such project would be “forced” on areas such as his, that had declared at council that they were “unwilling hosts,” said Fife.

…

Wind Concerns Ontario noted in a press release that four of the five windmill projects approved for this round were slated for municipalities that had declared themselves “unwilling hosts.”

WCO also predicted that the windmills just approved under this round will cost consumers $1.3 billion over the next 20 years.

..In nearby St Bernardine, windmills were approved for the 32,000 MW [Correction:32 MW] Gauthier Project in this round, but the adjoining proposal in the same county of over 100,000 MW [Correction:100 MW] in St. Isidore was not approved.

However, a day after the announcement Steve Dick, who had helped lead the massive protest against both projects in his county, was not celebrating.

“We’re a pretty disheartened group right now,” he said. “They pretty much steam-rolled over the township.”

Since the Gauthier project was approved, the wiring infrastructure they neded to install will be dovetailing, as planned, with the soon-to-be-approved St. Isidore project, he predicted.

[Editor’s note: Sorry, this article is not available online. We object to the use of the term ‘windmill’s–these machines are industrial- or utility-scale wind turbines that are used to generate power.]

 

Wasted hydro power adds millions to electricity bills

07 Monday Mar 2016

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Wind gets first-to-the-grid (which we pay for) meaning spilled or wasted hydro (which we also pay for). [Photo: OPG]

Wind gets first-to-the-grid (which we pay for) meaning spilled or wasted hydro (which we also pay for). [Photo: OPG]

OPG spills hydro and $150 million goes “down the drain” 

OPG released their 2015 annual report  Friday March 4, 2016; it confirms that 3.2 terawatts (TWh) of water that could have been used for power was spilled last year. (This is similar to the spilled amount in 2014 year.)

How much is 3.2 TWh? Enough to supply about 350,000 average Ontario households with electricity for a full year … but it didn’t!

Here is what OPG’s annual report had to say:

“Baseload generation supply surplus to Ontario demand continued to be prevalent in 2015. The surplus to the Ontario market is managed by the IESO, mainly through generation reductions at hydroelectric and nuclear stations and grid connected renewable resources. Reducing hydroelectric production, which often results in spilling of water, is the first measure that the IESO uses to manage surplus baseload generation (SBG) conditions. During each of 2015 and 2014, OPG lost 3.2 TWh of hydroelectric generation due to SBG conditions.” 

The principal reason we have surplus baseload is due to wind and solar being granted “first to the grid” rights. And, because wind and solar are intermittent (and unreliable) OPG is forced to spill clean renewable hydro power.

While spilling hydro in itself is disturbing in Ontario, especially considering our hydro-electric history, the fact we are now obliged to pay for the spilled hydro at the same time we are paying wind developers 13.5 cents a kilowatt hour (kWh) and solar generators as much as 80 cents a kWh simply adds more costs to our monthly hydro bills.

OPG received $47 million per TWh (4.7 cents/kWh) for the spilled hydro. That means electricity ratepayers’ pockets were picked for over $150 million, or about $31.00 per ratepayer.   Our reward for absorbing that cost was zero.

This month, Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli, will likely announce that Ontario will add even more intermittent, unreliable wind and solar generation. Your pockets are not safe yet.

© Parker Gallant

March 7, 2016

Reposted from Wind Concerns Ontario. See the post at Wind Concerns Ontario here.

Data on wind power in 2015 shows new contracts not needed

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

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A report from energy analyst Scott Luft, released today, shows that curtailment of wind power in Ontario reached record levels in 2015. If the government proceeds with its plans to contract for 300 more megawatts of wind power under the Large Renewable Procurement (LRP) plan for 2015, and another 200 megawatts in 2016, this disastrous trend will continue.

Curtailment of industrial wind turbine production in Ontario soars in 2015

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Cold Air

A 2015 year-end review of my hourly estimates indicate the curtailment of output from industrial wind turbines (IWTs) soared in 2015. I show total curtailment exceeding 1 million megawatt-hours, which I assume Ontario ratepayers paid ~$127 million for regardless.

I show the potential supply curtailed rising to 10% from 6%.

WindCurtailmentByRegion

 

The increase in curtailment in the Bruce region is galling as an examination of output from one IWT location there revealed that during the peak electricity demand of summer it was often a net consumer of grid power rather than a contributor to supply.

Note in the above graphic that only the Northwest breaks a trend that sees higher curtailment equate to lower market valuation of the output of the zone’s IWTs, with a doubling of curtailment in the Bruce region matched by a halving of market value of production.

The increase in curtailment in 2015 is particularly relevant because the Large Renewable Procurement which the IESO (operator of the system) intends to proceed with in 2016 used about 6% as the level of curtailment it anticipated.

If more IWTs are added, they’ll be increasingly wrong.

In 2015 potential output from IWT’s could have increased by about 2,500 gigawatt-hours (GWh), while I estimate curtailment increased by about 575 GWh – which indicates 22% of new supply ended in curtailment of wind.

There are other reasons curtailment would change, particularly in 2016. Up until January 1, 2016 flexible nuclear at Bruce Power was dispatched previous to IWTs, but the rules have now been rationalized.

We may look back at 1 million MWh of wind curtailment as the good ol’ days. …

Read more HERE.

Turbines a concern in South Dundas; oil pipeline? Not so much.

14 Monday Dec 2015

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TransCanada Corp.’s 4,600-kilometre crude oil pipeline proposal aims to connect Hardisty, Alta. to a brand new export terminal in Saint John, N.B., connecting the oilsands to eastern refineries, and crossing hundreds of rural areas such as South Dundas along the route.

The Financial Post, December 14, 2015

BRINSTON, ONT. • Jason Cardinal fiddles with his baseball cap, leans back on the wall and mockingly counts his gripes with the latest energy project imposed on his eastern Ontario township.

“It’s an eyesore, it disturbs their cows, kills their birds and makes whistling sounds, blah, blah, blah,” he deadpans.

Cardinal lives near Brinston, a tiny agricultural community in the municipality of South Dundas roughly 70 kilometres south of Ottawa, where TransCanada Corp. last week hosted an open house for its proposed Energy East crude oil pipeline.

Cardinal and his friends Lloya Sprague and Mike Vanallen are more vocal about the wind turbines installed in the South Dundas municipality than the Energy East proposal. The 30-megawatt South Branch Wind Farm installed by Madrid-based EDP Renewables Canada Ltd., connected to utility distributor Hydro One, is part of Ontario government’s Green Energy Act plan to raise the contribution of renewable sources in the province’s energy mix.

The three firefighters serving the community were at the open house not representing the South Dundas fire department, but “were interested as a person” in the Energy East project, says Sprague.

But it’s not the $12 billion proposal to reverse the existing natural gas pipeline and convert it to take bitumen from Western Canada to East Coast that has Cardinal uneasy.

TransCanada Corp.’s 4,600-kilometre crude oil pipeline proposal aims to connect Hardisty, Alta. to a brand new export terminal in Saint John, N.B., connecting the oilsands to eastern refineries, and crossing hundreds of rural areas such as South Dundas along the route.

FP1212_Brinston_C_JR

The 1.1 million barrels per day project was submitted to the National Energy Board last year, but the Calgary-based company will file an amendment to the application before the end of the year after scrapping plans for a marine terminal in Quebec.

The plan involves repurposing an existing 3,000-kilometre natural gas pipeline that runs from Alberta to Ontario with the Iroquois pump station 12.4 kilometres from Brinston marking the end of that line. As such, most landowners along the line are already familiar with the concept of a fossil fuel conduit running through their backyards.

TransCanada has been holding these open houses across Canada since 2013, as part of it community engagement agenda, but not each event has gone as quietly as Brinston. TransCanada spokesman Tim Duboyce says there have been protests at some of the 116 open houses the company has hosted, while general protests have not been uncommon. In May, hundreds of people marched through Red Head, N.B. to protest the project that ends near that community. Montreal, Kenora and Thunder Bay have also seen protests against the pipeline over the past year.

Related

But it’s hard to find any opposition on this night in Brinston.

Famous for Caldwell towels and Mcintosh apples in nearby Dundela, South Dundas is primarily a town focused on growing soyabean, corn and dairy farming, where residents are more likely to be rattled by solar farms and wind turbines.

South Dundas mayor Evonne Delegrade says she has heard “nothing” on Energy East from her 33 communities that make up the township of roughly 11,000 people. Indeed, the 24 or people who showed up last Monday evening, many with children in tow, were there mostly out of curiosity about, not in opposition to, the pipeline project.

In contrast, Delegrade got an earful from the community last year when 10 wind turbines were installed after approval from the provincial government.

“For the wind turbines, we are not a supporting municipality in that the majority of council did not agree with the Green Energy Act,” Delegrade said, noting that an expansion of the project was voted down by her council.

Once it’s done [with construction], you will never hear about it again

While the Ontario Ministry of Energy is supportive of wind projects, “that’s not happening, to my knowledge, with this (Energy East) project,” Mayor Delegarde says.

Ontarians are paying a price for the Ministry of Energy’s push for wind turbines and solar farm projects, she says. “And this (Energy East) isn’t going to nickel and dime or add any taxes to our residents.”

Indeed, the province has come under sharp criticism for its zeal in pursuing expensive renewable energy projects. In a report this month, the provincial auditor general estimated that the Liberal Government’s decision to ignore its own planning process would cost electricity customers as much as $9.2 billion more for new wind and solar projects.

The wind turbines looming large over the community is part of its problem, says Sprague, noting that in contrast Energy East would be “out of sight, out of mind.”

“Once it’s done [with construction], you will never hear about it again,” says Vanallen.

Dave Chan for National Post

[Dave Chan for National Post] A model of a pipeline construction on display in Brinston, Ont., one of the communities across Canada where TransCanada held information sessions on the Energy East pipeline for local residents.

The latest round of “safety and emergency response days” has taken TransCanada to Prairie cities and towns in Ontario and Quebec. More are planned in Quebec before the end of the year where TransCanada may find a more frosty reception. Unlike much of Ontario, Quebec towns will see new pipes being laid and farmers largely unaccustomed to dealing with pipeline companies. In November, Premier Philippe Couillard sounded an early alarm by noting that the scrapping off the Quebec marine terminal would “complicate” the project’s approval by the province.

To be sure, the criticism is not as vitriolic as it often was during TransCanada’s own Keystone XL pipeline and Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline campaigns.

Indeed, last year, the Northwestern Ontario Municipalities Association (NOMA), comprising districts of Kenora, Rainy River and Thunder Bay that make up two-third of the province’s land mass, voted in support of the conversion of natural gas pipelines for the Energy East project.

Dave Chan for National Post

[Dave Chan for National Post]South Dundas mayor Evonne Delegarde.

“The majority of the community is fine with the conversion as long as the safeguards are put in place,” says David Canfield, mayor of Kenora and president of NOMA.

“But if they were trying to pull a wool over our eyes, as the saying goes, with Energy East, I will be the first one to come down on them,” Canfield adds. “So far they have been very open to our concerns.”

Fearing a repeat of a crude-laden train exploding as happened at Lac Megantic, Que., the municipality association’s largely symbolic vote was driven by a desire to rid the communities of 32,000 petroleum laden rail cars that regularly roll through the towns each year.

“Those tracks don’t bypass the communities — in most cases they go straight through,” said Iain Angus, a member of the Thunder Bay Council and member of NOMA council.

NOMA is also seeking assurances from TransCanada that the communities’ drinking water and hunting and recreational facilities will be protected.

“If things happen that we didn’t like, we would modify our position,” Angus said in a phone interview.

While the umbrella association is in agreement, the city of Thunder Bay, the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario, is divided on the project, with mayor Keith Hobbs “totally opposed” to the pipeline. Another council member was not convinced that the pipeline would reduce crude-by-rail traffic.

“At this juncture, [I’m] totally opposed to this pipeline,” Hobbs said in September, according to a CBC report. “Lake Superior, to me, is more important than any jobs. I want jobs in this city, but water comes first. Water is life.”

Dave Chan for National Post

[Dave Chan for National Post] Local residents of South Dundas look at a map of the region with TransCanada staff at an information session on the Energy East pipeline.

In September, the city council agreed to delay a vote on the pipeline after Angus — who supports Energy East — put forward a motion to defer it.

“The pipeline is 70 kilometres north of the city,” Angus says dryly. “It’s well outside of our municipal boundaries.”

Separately, a volunteer organization headed by Angus has launched an Energy East task force, seeking National Energy Board funding to do its own consultation with First Nations and the general public.

Awareness of the pipeline will likely rise among communities once the the review process gathers momentum, but for now visitors to Matilda Hall in Brinston are merely intrigued passers-by.

One man from Morrisburg, with a worn-out cap taming his long, graying hair, brought his three young daughters to the event. After spending about 20 minutes in the hall, he stepped out of the centre and lit a cigarette that he had rifled from a small ziploc bag.

A TransCanada employee started explaining the company’s spill response, and the man punctuated his response with a slightly bored “Is that right?” line. Did he get all his concerns addressed, he is asked. He sucks on his cigarette: “Yeah, I wasn’t concerned, just curious.”

yhussain@nationalpost.com
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