Tag Archives: wind power Ontario

Parker Gallant on Ontario’s “smart grid”: what’s been achieved?

11 Wednesday Sep 2013

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Reprinted from Wind Concerns Ontario today:

On November 23, 2010, Ontario’s then Minister of Energy, Brad Duguid, issued a directive via an Order In Council to the Ontario Energy Board (OEB), with instructions on the “smart grid”:

“… it is desirable that the Province and the Ontario Energy Board move forward together with a plan to implement the advanced information exchange systems and equipment that together comprise the Smart Grid (“Smart Grid”), as defined in the amendments to the Electricity Act, 1998 made by the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009…”

   The Duguid directive was a direct result of the Dwight Duncan directive of 2004 to the OEB instructing them to arrange the installation of “smart meters” throughout the province. 

   Co-incidentally (noted by Tom Adams), the Duguid directive is dated the same day as the e-mail exchange between Alicia Johnston (formerly a senior political staffer for Energy Minister Brad Duguid, later promoted to the Premier’s Office) and Ben Chin (a senior Ontario Power Authority executive).  That e-mail exchange contained Ms Johnston’s suggestion to engage Tyler Hamilton, a  contributor to Toronto Star, as an “expert” to counter the  Adams and Gallant duo who “are killing me” ; Chin agreed. Shortly after, Hamilton received a contract from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) for a report on the smart grid.

    The fact is, the Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO had already started work on the “smart grid” as noted in the Financial Post article on July 6, 2010 — costs of development were estimated at $1.6 billion.  IESO had awarded a contract to IBM according to a January 15, 2007 press release; the purpose of the contract was defined as:  “the development and operation of Ontario’s Meter Data Management/Repository (MDM/R).”

A culture of conservation

The MDM/R is explained as: “a core part of Ontario’s Smart Metering Initiative to drive a culture of conservation, enabling the billing of Time-of-Use rates and encouraging consumers to shift more of their energy use to off-peak periods.” The initiative would apply to 4.7 million customers of local distribution companies, involving more than “100 million transactions every day.”

   More than six years later, that “Repository” has yet to generate reports on either shifting consumer habits or “imbedded generation.” (Embedded or distributed generation is usually a small scale production of power connected within the distribution network and not having direct access to the transmission network. These generators are typically located close to the electricity consumer.)

   But that hasn’t stopped IESO from awarding IBM yet another five-year contract for $68.5 million for the same “repository” with an option to extend the contract seven to ten years. With an estimated 100 million data feeds daily from “smart meters” one would expect that data to be accessible to determine what production comes from embedded generators such as rooftop or ground-mounted solar, to reinforce the “culture of conservation” and identify shifts in consumer habits. 

  Is this a missed opportunity for a cost/benefit analysis?

  On July 16 of this year, Energy Minister  Bob Chiarelli arranged a press release about conservation and claimed that “Ontario has saved billions of dollars through conservation, and we have a clear opportunity to do more. By investing in conservation before new generation, where cost-effective, we can save ratepayers money and give consumers new technology to track and control energy use.”

  What caught my eye in that press release were the endorsements: they were not from the usual climate change chorus such as Environmental Defence, CAPE,or the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. The last one was  “Sheldon Levy, President, Ryerson University.”  What would possess the President of Ryerson University to jump on this band wagon? 

  A month later, we have the answer:  on August 26, 2013  a news release announced that Ryerson University’s Centre for Urban Energy (CUE) “will build an innovative smart grid laboratory” with support from the province.  The press release doesn’t say how much the province is coughing up but does say “Building a smarter grid is an important part of the Ontario government’s plan to modernize the electricity system in the province and provide clean, reliable and affordable power to consumers.”  One can assume President levy’s endorsement of the July conservation announcement was sought by the Ministry as a condition of support for  the smart grid laboratory.  CUE was launched in 2010 with $7 million in grants from taxpayer-owned Hydro One, Toronto Hydro and the Ontario Power Authority.

  A  Globe and Mail article dated October 17, 2012, called “The tricky business of funding a university” carried the following comments about Ryerson’s CUE:

“Some schools have tiptoed the line successfully. Toronto’s Ryerson University launched its Centre for Urban Energy (CUE) two years ago using $7-million in contributions from three partners – Hydro One, Toronto Hydro and the Ontario Power Authority – and is now hoping to enlist new collaborators such as Siemens and General Electric.”

   It appears that President Levy knows exactly how to “tiptoe the line.” CUE’s intentions to collaborate with GE and Siemens are also interesting.  An announcement by Minister Chiarelli on July 2, 2013  indicates that the $50-million “Smart Grid” fund has already provided grants to GE, Siemens and IBM.

   Just asking: did the grants to GE and Siemens carry a proviso that they collaborate with CUE and did they both seek those grants?  It is not clear why IBM would need a grant as they have been awarded two long-term, multi-million dollar contracts from IESO.  The press release indicates the IBM grant was to create a centre “that will use and analyze smart meter data” which is what they are already supposed to be doing for IESO under the terms of the contract(s)!

Government grants to huge corporations

   So, we hand out grants to multi-billion dollar corporations such as GE, Siemens and IBM and  award them government contracts.  The first two entities are entrenched in the renewable energy business (turbines and blade manufacturing) so, to an extent they are dependent on commitments to more wind power by the Ministry of Energy. And, IBM won two contracts related to the data analysis of 4.7 million smart meters installed throughout the province.

  (I checked the Ontario Lobbyist Registry and could only find GE with registered lobbyists.)

   As noted above, the original estimate to create the smart grid was $1.6 billion, to be paid by Ontario’s ratepayers.  IESO stick-handled the first smart grid rate application through the OEB and ratepayers have paid for it since May 1, 2013.  It is included, but hidden, with the delivery costs charged by your local distribution company (LDC).  It is a charge of .79 cents per month and referred to as a “Smart Metering Entity charge.”  Your LDC will collect this for the next five and a half years.  Doing the math on this rate hike indicates that it will cover $245 million of that $1.6 billion —so be prepared for further “hidden” increases as spending is ramped up. 

   As noted, the MDM/R definition it is really all about conservation and enabling those 72 LDCs to bill on a Time-of-Use basis.  Those “smart meters” and “smart grid” will cost ratepayers $4 billion and will not produce one kilowatt of new power.  I suspect that Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller doesn’t consider the above costs or the costs of the smart meters, when he presents his annual report to the Minister of the Environment.  The Commissioner’s cost/benefit study uses only the annual spending of the Ontario Power Authority (media advertising, free fridge pickup, coupons to purchase CFL bulbs, etc.) which paints the cost of “conservation” as only three cents per kilowatt hour. 

   In addition,  a posting on Scott Luft’s website indicates that time-of use pricing has shifted consumers’ energy use to what used to be “off-peak” periods (noted as an objective of the MDT/R). As a result, those periods have now become “peak” demand periods for ordinary consumers, beginning at 7 PM, rather than mid-day.  Ontario’s ratepayers are now trained to eat our supper and wash our clothes later, not because we want to, but because electricity has become so costly we only use it during the off-peak hours!

   Perhaps the Dalton McGuinty government should have simply doubled the price of electricity when they came to power in 2003 and we would have immediately started to conserve.   Think of the money we could have saved, the countryside we would not have despoiled with industrial wind turbines, the harm to health not caused, the birds and bats not killed, and the property values that would not have fallen!

   Too bad politicians don’t grasp the simple law of supply and demand.

 

Parker Gallant.

September 11, 2013

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent Wind Concerns Ontario policy.

Ontario’s Not a Willing Host communities meet today

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Coalition of ‘Unwilling Host’ Municipalities

Press Advisory August 20, 2013, Ottawa

Representatives of the 62 municipalities that have declared themselves ‘unwilling hosts’ to wind turbines are coming together during the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) meeting currently underway in Ottawa to discuss ways to bring their concerns more forcefully to the government.

According to Kevin Marriott, Mayor of Enniskillen, ‘the government has not addressed the concerns of these communities’.  In the Throne Speech and other statements by the Premier, they talked about wanting to locate projects in willing host communities, but there has been no substance to these announcements in terms of municipal input will be incorporated in the process.  Meanwhile, the government continues to approve wind turbine projects without consideration of municipal concerns according to Marriott.

Some municipal officials represented at AMO have already experienced the impact of wind turbines on their communities.  Complaints start once when they become operational with people being forced from their homes by noise and low frequency noise vibrations.  These municipalities are looking for the MOE to actually start enforcing the noise standards that they have set and to follow up on the health complaints being filed with Medical Officers of Health.

Mayor April Jeffs of Wainfleet wants the government to start applying learning from these early projects and apply increased set-backs from people’s homes to new projects before they are approved.  Wainfleet adopted a 2 kilometer set-back by-law that was challenged in court by the wind developer.

Municipalities are looking for the government to return real local planning authority for wind turbines to local municipalities.  These powers were taken away by the Green Energy Act. Municipalities are better placed that a Queen’s Park civil servants to identify local issues that need to be addressed in reviewing wind turbine projects.  They also have processes in place to review and approve other complex or controversial projects building projects that take place in their municipalities.

The municipal representatives at AMO will be meeting Tuesday August 20 at 4:30 pm. in the Governor-General 1 on the 4th floor of the Westin Hotel in Ottawa.

For further details contact, Kevin Marriott at 519-383-9170 or April Jeffs at 905-658-7890.

Green Energy Act “bigger debacle” than gas plant scandal

27 Thursday Jun 2013

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Here from today’s Financial Post, a comment from Parker Gallant, on the cost of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act. He estimates $1,100 per household per year, but that’s not including property value loss for areas living near wind power projects…Ontario is in deep, deep trouble, and it’s not over yet.

The Ontario Power Authority is currently tripping through Ontario asking communities what will make them happier about the planning process for large-scale power projects.

Here is Parker Gallant: http://www.freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/06/parker-gallant-ontario-green-energy-act.html

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com (join our confidential email list for updates) and please donate toward our legal and other costs PO Box 3 North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

Ontario Government’s green power policy: an “abject failure”

25 Tuesday Jun 2013

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Here today from the Waterloo Region Record, a comment on the McGuinty government’s “green energy” program which was meant to bring jobs and prosperity to Ontario, while cleaning up our air (never mind that the air pollution in Southern Ontario is from cars and trucks).

The author rightly points out that the government continues to put a brave face on its policy, even as it disintegrates daily. What the author of this comment doesn’t know, is that the Ontario government continues to approve giant wind power projects weekly. In fact, this month has seen a record number of project approvals, including one at West Lincoln, which had passed a resolution at Council declaring itself not to be a “willing host” to wind power on this scale.

Here is the comment. Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com and donations are most welcome for legal and other costs at PO Box 3, North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

http://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/3854511-a-white-flag-for-green-energy/

A white flag for green energy

Waterloo Region Record

The Ontario Liberals are striving mightily to portray their disastrous green energy program as a rousing success. Do not believe them. It is an abject failure that inflated electricity costs, alienated rural communities and never lived up to its billing as the engine not just of more jobs but an entirely new manufacturing sector.

This is the context in which to understand last week’s announcement that the province had downsized a multi-billion dollar deal it signed with Samsung Group in 2010 to produce electricity from wind and solar projects.

Instead of giving the South Korean corporate giant $9.7 billion for 2,500 megawatts of electricity, Ontario will spend $6 billion for 1,369 megawatts. We pay less. We also get less. Samsung is cutting its investment in new green energy plants and components in Ontario from the $7 billion it originally pledged to $5 billion.

Although the government once boasted that Samsung would create 16,000 new manufacturing jobs, the number of new workers being talked about last week was just 900. That’s a flimsy foundation for an economic renaissance.

Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli defended the latest Samsung agreement as a way “to bend the cost curve (down) for ratepayers.” But even he can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The best that can be said of his accomplishment is that the government’s ill-conceived and poorly delivered green energy crusade will leave ratepayers battered but not comatose.

Go back a few years and remember then-premier Dalton McGuinty’s grand and hubristic vision of turning this province into a green utopia. Making everyone pay far more for wind and solar energy than other sources of electricity was the key to his plan. Sure it would hurt consumers — but it would be worth it.

Not only would the McGuinty brain trust produce more energy for Ontario, it would do so in an environmentally friendly way. To top it all off, in the wake of the devastating recession of 2008-09 in which thousands of the province’s factory jobs were lost, the Liberals were going to create a thriving green energy industry that would sell to a global market.

It turns out McGuinty was a modern-day Don Quixote tilting at wind turbines. He was off on just about every premise. The World Trade Organization recently struck down the made-in-Ontario provision in McGuinty’s program.

The Liberals overestimated Ontario’s energy needs. The recession drove down demand for electricity and the province wound up with a surplus of it. We don’t need all the electricity Samsung was originally contracted to deliver.

The job boom never materialized either. As it happens, China can make solar panels far cheaper than Ontario. No wonder one of Canada’s most touted solar power firms, Arise Technology Corporation of Cambridge, went bankrupt last year while solar energy equipment maker Silken SA closed its Windsor operation.

And the bloated cost of this energy scheme will hurt for years to come. In 2011, Auditor General Jim McCarter estimated Ontario’s green energy policies were adding $220 million a year to the province’s already soaring hydro bills which were now among the most expensive in North America. No wonder the government scaled back its rates for green energy.

With McGuinty now gone and Kathleen Wynne in the premier’s office, the government is running away from the green energy program as fast as it can. The Samsung agreement has been overhauled. In future, priority will be given to wind turbine projects where there is community support.

For months, Ontarians have been justifiably outraged by the same government’s cavalier cancellation of two gas-fired electricity plants, arguably for political reasons and at a cost to the public of at least $585 million. The green energy program is as big a fiasco — and will cost more in the long-run.

 

Better ways to spend $40 billion in Ontario

20 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

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

For immediate release   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—30—

Contacts:          Garth Manning email gmanning@xplornet.com

Jim McPherson email ccsage@kos.net

Jane Wilson email  wco.president@gmail.com

Toronto Star’s Walkom: matters just keep getting worse

06 Thursday Jun 2013

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

In yesterday’s Toronto Star, veteran commentator Thomas Walkom passed judgment on the Wynne government’s recent fixes to the Green Energy and Green Economy Act: “Its efforts may be too little. They are definitely late.”

Walkom noted that distasteful projects get the heave-ho in Toronto, but the huge wind power projects are located in rural Ontario and the government has been “unbending” and refused to “accept persistent claims from local residents that wind farms put their health at risk….in virtually all cases, the Liberals sided with the big, private generating companies seeking to establish these profitable wind farms.”

The announcement of changes last week by Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli, Walkom said, is no big change at all: “in a CBC radio interview following his announcement, Chiarelli made it clear:Queen’s Park still reserves the right to authorize more large-scale, private wind farms, even if local residents and councils are opposed.

“Ironically,” he adds, “the government continues to defend its green energy policy at a time when, in one important regard, it is no longer relevant…” and he goes on to say that coal is shut down and the WTO decision on Ontario’s 60-% content rule will affect the government’s plans for a manufacturing boost in Ontario.

“[F]for a government trying to present itself and its wind turbine allies as sensitive to the needs of ordinary people, matters just keep getting worse.”

See the whole article here: http://www.freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/06/wind-turbine-reforms-fail-to-quell.html

 

Terence Corcoran: Millions of taxpayer dollars vapourized

02 Thursday May 2013

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

With just 20 minutes to go until the Kathleen Wynne government presents its budget, we thought it was good timing to post this opinion from Financial Post editor Terence Corcoran this morning, on the Liberal government’s electricity policy–particularly its Green Energy program–and what the (disastrous) result has been for Ontario.

If you like this, be sure to read related pieces by Parker Gallant and Ross McKitrick.

Terence Corcoran: Ontario Liberals’ last power trip

Republish Reprint

Terence Corcoran | 13/05/01 7:23 PM ET
More from Terence Corcoran | @terencecorcoran

Kathleem Wynne’s current trick is to distance herself from the past ten years of mismanagement, policy bungles, grotesque waste, pro-union pandering, tax-gouging, big spending green dirigisme.

Canadian PressKathleem Wynne’s current trick is to distance herself from the past ten years of mismanagement, policy bungles, grotesque waste, pro-union pandering, tax-gouging, big spending green dirigisme.

Thursday’s Ontario budget  should be the last gasp of the McGuinty Liberals in a province that needs a premier who can say more about provincial affairs than “I didn’t have access to those financial parameters.”

The Ontario Liberal budget Thursday could be the last gasp of a decade-long governance disaster. It certainly should be. The current premier, Kathleen Wynne, was first elected as part of Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal sweep of the 2003 election.  Ms. Wynne’s current trick is to distance herself from the past ten years of mismanagement, policy bungles, grotesque  waste, pro-union pandering, tax-gouging, big spending green dirigisme.

As Ms. Wynne put it during questioning the other day over the rocketing cost of the Liberal government’s cancellation of two electricity- generating plants,  “I didn’t have access to those financial parameters.” She wasn’t told. Didn’t ask.  The cost of the power plant deals is now up to $600-million, money that served no purpose, vapourized for political reasons.

When it comes to the financial parameters of 10 years of bungled McGuinty statism that spans electricity, medical spending, green belts and transit,  Ms. Wynne has a lot of dodging to do. She apparently wasn’t there for the billion-dollar air ambulance crack up, the billion-dollar e-health meltdown. Nobody told her that all the spending — up 60% over the McGuinty years — would lead to a fiscal mess, even though she voted on the budgets that delivered the deficits that now loom for years to come.  She never saw the financial parameters of the Green Energy Act and the cost of wind and solar to taxpayers and ratepayers.  Kathleen Wynne missed it all.

As Parker Gallant and others have documented over the years in this Ontario’s Power Trip series, the $600-million cost of the gas plant cancellations is also mere kilowatts of waste compared with the megawattage imbedded in the green energy extravaganza, a staggering explosion of misguided investment that now threatens to raise Ontario electricity rates to the highest in North America. At the same time, as Mr. Gallant outlines elsewhere on this page, the green energy program is eviscerating Ontario Power Generation, the government-owned electric producer whose value is being eroded by billions of dollars.

Not only has Ms. Wynne missed the parameters of McGuintyism, she now seems poised to do the unthinkable, which is to say she appears set to do it all again.

Indications that Ms. Wynne is another McGuinty have emerged in the usual pre-budget leaks and scuttlebutt.  Her new finance minister, Charles Sousa, has announced the government will cave into NDP demands for a 15% reduction in auto insurance rates. It’s a page right out of the populist playbook run by McGuinty, who promised to cut auto insurance rates by 10%, and did sort of for a brief period.  The idea that the government will be able to issue a directive to insurance companies to cut rates by 15% is ludicrous.  Some reform of the heavily regulated sector is likely useful, but the government is said—by the Toronto Star—to be planning an across- the-board cut in insurance company profits.

The McGuinty Liberals raised corporate taxes, negotiated union-friendly contracts with civil servants, gave unions more power, brought in transit policies that promoted urban sprawl, imposed ethanol mandates. Ms Wynne promises more of the same.

On transit, she appears to be willing to engage in a round of tax increases,and bring in new taxes, to fund pubic transit expansion in the Toronto area. Another area that is destined to receive the same old dodgy policy moves is health care. A $300-million funding of home care related services is a pre-budget announcement that suggests cuts are coming in other areas that will need to be offset by Ontarians who will have resort to home care as the alternative.

But the biggest issue facing the province, aside from the dominant crisis surrounding spending and deficits over the next four years, remains electricity policy.  At some point the Premier of Ontario—whether it is Ms. Wynne or her successor following an election—will have to face the fact that the province’s economy is at some risk of being priced out of the world market.  Ontario power consumers are also being forced to pay high power rates for electricity that should be available at much lower prices.

With this Thursday’s budget, the stage may well be set for a new government with a new leader who has more to say about the state of the province’s fiscal and policy situation than “I didn’t have access to those financial parameters.”

Court decision: you can sue a wind power developer!

23 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

A decision came down from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice last evening, which at first seems like a defeat for communities and people who suddenly find themselves predated upon by huge, subsidy-seeking wind power developers. The decision read that the plaintiffs in a legal action based on lost property values would not be able to proceed with their action.

Right now.

But if the project is approved by the Ontario government, that would be another story.

Also in the decision were remarks that the Court accepted evidence on property value loss–in the area of 22-50%– and also evidence from Dr Robert McMurtry on the potential for health effects.

This is a very significant event and marks a sea change for people and communities wishing to have some say in what goes on around them. As you know, local land use planning powers were removed for renewable energy projects by the Green Energy Act. What’s worse, as municipalities seek ways to get some form of control back, wind power developers are responding with punitive lawsuits (Thunder Bay, Wainfleet, Bluewater).

The news release on the court decision is here. As soon as we find a link to the full decision, we’ll get that for you too.

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1151369/ontario-court-allows-lawsuits-against-wind-company-and-landowners-just-a-matter-of-time

Donations welcome to cover legal fees (yes, we have one on retainer and yes, we’re thinking ahead) and other expenses: PO Box 3, North Gower On  K0A 2T0

 

Don’t look for ‘justice’ in wind turbine debate

09 Tuesday Apr 2013

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This commentary, written by a journalism prof, is an excellent summary of the issues around the wind power scandal in Ontario … and a question as to why the Ontario media in the main, doesn’t “get it.”

Check out the original here, and feel free to comment at The Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/04/09/dont_look_for_justice_in_ontarios_debate_on_wind_turbines.html

Don’t look for justice in Ontario’s ‘debate’ on wind turbines

It’s wealthy corporate behemoths supported by the government against vulnerable people with limited financial resources.
Don’t look for justice in Ontario’s ‘debate’ on wind turbines

David Cooper / TORONTO STAR

Anti-wind-turbine groups converged on the convention centre in downtown Toronto last week to protest wind farms, a story largely ignored by the mainstream media. (April 3, 2013)

By: Anne McNeilly Published on Tue Apr 09 2013

When there’s social injustice, you don’t expect large corporations, the provincial government and a union like the CAW to be climbing into bed together to ignore the problem. But slap a motherhood label on the issue, such as the so-called “Green Energy” Act, and all of a sudden it’s OK to ignore the very real hardships, both health and financial, happening to people in non-Liberal ridings.

What’s more surprising about the wind-turbine debacle, though, is the relatively low media profile that Ontario residents who are being negatively affected by the monster machines are receiving. News outlets and publications usually lap up stories of social injustice. The problems associated with lead paint, urea-formaldehyde foam insulation, asbestos and cigarettes are all famous for the media attention they received that led to change.

But it was difficult even to find news stories last week about the wind turbine protest at the energy conference in downtown Toronto. People from across the province pooled their resources to hire buses to come to the city to try to draw attention to their plight. If there was a broadcast or a print story, I didn’t hear or see it.

And despite public outrage and protests, the Canadian Auto Workers’ union last week started operating a monster wind turbine, built with government subsidies, in its Port Elgin convention centre parking lot that violates the 550-metre Ontario setback regulations. Residents, particularly children, are already experiencing the sleepless nights, anxiety and migraines being experienced by others around the province. Who cares? Certainly not CAW president Ken Lewenza, who has secured a seat on the province’s wind gravy train. When I recently suggested to a colleague who works on a documentary radio show in Toronto that the problems with turbines were worth a story, she responded: “I think they (wind turbines) are beautiful.” And that was that.

On one “side” of the wind-turbine debate are wealthy corporate behemoths supported by a government that removed the democratic rights of its citizens, without debate, to launch a misguided and ill-advised initiative that’s going to cost taxpayers’ into the billions. On the other “side,” you have vulnerable Ontario residents with limited financial resources who have had their democratic rights trampled and monster industrial monsters rammed down their throats.

Many are sick, although they are having trouble getting urban residents and to believe it, and many now own property where the value has been cut by as much as half. To ignore a situation where one “side” holds all the financial and political power while the other side struggles to make their voices heard, but not from lack of shouting and protesting, is a grave injustice.

So why are those who have found themselves living next to these industrial “farm” factories not getting more attention? Is it because of the greater good? If only that were true. Anyone who has done even five minutes of research knows that turbines are never going to solve the province’s or the world’s energy problems, despite the propaganda being spun by the wind companies and the province with its “Green Energy” Act, a brilliant piece of propaganda.

The fact is, is that the energy produced by turbines can’t be stored and they produce a fraction, (an estimated 20 per cent or less) of what they are capable of at times of the year when their energy is most needed, winter and summer. The auditor general outlined last year how the province “leapt before it looked” into this billion-dollar boondoggle that’s already costing taxpayers plenty.

A roundup of peer-reviewed health research, which is difficult to link to due to academic pay walls, from a variety of medical and science researchers can be found in the August 2011, 31(4) issue of the Bulletin of Science, Technology and SocietyAugust 2011, 31(4) issue of the Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, and is easily available at any public or university library. In addition, the medical officer of health in Grey Bruce, Dr. Hazel Lynn, submitted a report to the Ministry Health in February that found that there is, indeed, a link between health and wind turbines. Hard data on how property values have been cut by as much as half can be found in a report done by Lansink property and appraisals here: http://mlwindaction.org/2012/10/04/new-ontario-wind-turbine-property-value-analysis-ben-lansink-aaci-p-app-mrcs)http://mlwindaction.org/2012/10/04/new-ontario-wind-turbine-property-value-analysis-ben-lansink-aaci-p-app-mrcs)

Curiously, or maybe not, is that when energy issues arise in Liberal ridings — a planned natural gas plant, for example, in Oakville, or offshore Toronto turbines that would have obstructed “the view” of Scarborough Liberals — the projects are quickly quashed. So far, Premier Kathleen Wynne, nicknamed McWynnty by those in turbine-infested locales, has had little to say beyond acknowledging, sort of, that there’s maybe a problem and that municipalities should be more involved in the siting process for wind turbines. Well, yes.

Let’s be clear. People forced to live beside wind turbines are emphatically not anti “green” energy — what they are opposed to are industrial machines that are ruining their lives, while the government, and the media, turn a blind eye to the problem.

Anne McNeilly is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at Ryerson University who likes to vacation in Bruce County, at a place that is more than 550 metres from the nearest turbine.

 

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

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

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!