Tag Archives: wind power projects Ottawa

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

17 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

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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.

Citizen writer owes us all an apology

17 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Wind power

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August 17, 2012

Yesterday, writer Kate Heartfield, who claims to live in the south Ottawa area near to the proposed wind power generation project, published an opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen that she thought was a colossal joke. Doing absolutely no research herself on the whole issue of wind power generation, she took aim at Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre for what she felt was inadequate references for the petition he circulated to constitutents last week.

(The petition states that there is evidence for health effects from wind turbine noise and vibration and that Health Canada is now doing a study; Premier McGuinty of Ontario ought to halt approvals on the North Gower-Richmond project until results of the study are in. For a copy of the petition, please see our documents tab.)

She also claimed that the group of international scientists working on this issue were “amusingly” named the Society for Wind Vigilance  ( a five-minute read would have revealed what an important group of scientists and health care professionals that is), she denigrated well-known and peer-reviewed independent health researcher and former health policy analyst and editor Carmen Krogh as “a retired pharmacist” and finally, claimed that for 20% of the population to have health effects from wind turbine noises was neither here nor there.

If you are a regular reader of these pages and our former blog the North Gower Wind Action Group blog, you’ll know what a puff piece Heartfield’s article was–there is plenty of evidence to show that there are health problems, and that research needs to be done to develop policy for health and safety because, clearly, Ontario’s 550-meter setback based on noise modelling (not reality) is not safe.

Our final comment is, Since when is a health issue the basis for humour? We note that it took just nine complaints about Jeeps in the U.S. to result in a recall of hundreds of thousands of vehicles. Now you have hundreds of noise complaints in Ontario, and yet the government still approves these projects? How many people have to become ill before it is too much? And before people like Kate Heartfield can take seriously the damage that is being done?

We are grateful for the continuing support of MPP Lisa MacLeod and MP Pierre Poilievre. Thanks too to all those who wrote in and congratulations to writers Mike Baggott, Judi Atkinson, Francesco Macri, and Henri Garand, for having been published in the Ottawa Citizen today.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@yahoo.ca