Tag Archives: Green Energy Act

03.11.10
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Despite bubbles, governments keep pumping air into alternative energy

While investment analysts are telling their clients to get out of solar power firms and warning about the continuing risks in wind and bioenergy schemes, Ottawa and the provinces are on a mad populist stampede to throw billions of dollars at the green energy monster. The politicians don’t seem to be keeping up with the trends. “Don’t try to catch a falling knife,” warned J.P. Morgan this week in a report that told investors the market continues to fall out of the solar panel module market. It downgraded a bunch of solar companies that have already been in a tailspin since the fist signs of a solar crash back in 2008.

Other alternative energy sectors are hitting walls. Jurisdictions with wind power regimes face continuing issues related to the fact that the wind often doesn’t blow much, turning investments in wind farms into cash-draining albatrosses. In Ontario, the 1,100 megawatts of built wind turbine capacity are often running a few megawatts at a time, and even on the best of days have trouble producing 150 megawatts.
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03.06.10
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Wind power is unreliable, expensive and doesn’t result in lower C02 emmissions. Why is Ontario still rushing ahead with it?

Erie Shores Wind Farm


In October 2007, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) — the government’s own agency, tasked with planning Ontario’s power system and now entering into long-term contracts with renewable energy producers — published its Integrated Power System Plan, where it analyzed a “high wind power” scenario for the province, and concluded: “Since wind generation has an effective capacity of 20% compared to 73% for hydroelectric generation, additional generation capacity with better load-following characteristics would need to be installed.

“This needed capacity will likely have to be obtained by installing additional gas-fired generation. Thus, in addition to incurring further capital costs for the gas generation installation, higher gas usage would be expected to make up for the reduced amount of renewable energy from wind compared to that from hydroelectric generation or this alternative. Therefore, this alternative would result in higher greenhouse gas emissions.” The OPA concluded: “Wind and solar power will never be more than a niche supplier of power in Ontario.”

For an hour-by-hour comparison of generator output and capability, visit the IESO website. Scroll down to wind total. In particular for Elgin county, follow the meagre output from the Erie Shores Wind Farm near Port Burwell.

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02.26.10
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Will Canada’s wind turbines invade lakes?

A proposal to put 700 wind turbines along the shores of Lakes St. Clair and Erie, each about as tall as a 40-story building, is provoking controversy in Canada and the U.S.

The turbines, planted on the lake bottom and arranged in grids jutting more than 3 miles out into the lakes, easily would be seen from the marinas and mansions of the Grosse Pointes, as well as from Rockwood, Gibraltar and Grosse Ile.

Some residents on both sides of the border are worried about how the windmills would affect shoreline property values, fishing, boating and bird migration. The turbines would be on major migratory pathways for birds at several major wildlife refuges, including Point Pelee, Ontario, and the Detroit International Wildlife Refuge.
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02.14.10
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Wind farms – heading towards a tax-funded disaster of monumental proportions

Industrial wind technology is old technology. Windmills probably reached the peak of any industrial efficiency many decades ago when they ground the grains from harvested crops to increase the supply of flour. To pretend they can produce any viable alternate source of energy in the 21st century is something the wind energy lobby has never even attempted to substantiate.

What is not in doubt is, regardless of the billions governments are planning to spend on wind power and the thousands, if not millions of wind turbines it will mean, wind energy can only exist totally dependent on all the current energy sources — fossil fuels, bio fuels, nuclear fuels — being there to produce the overwhelming percentage, probably in excess of 90%, of the energy the world still demands.

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02.09.10
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Millions Have Been Invested in Wind Farms, but That Hasn’t Brought Jobs

Erie Shores Wind Farm


Posted by Ian:
Following Ontario’s $7 billion deal with Samsung, will the province really benefit from the creation of green energy jobs? Not according to a study looking at the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which found early $2 billion has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But the study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines.

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01.23.10
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The fish are approaching from all directions

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There’s a lot riding on Thursday’s announcement of a $7 billion deal between the province and South Korean conglomerate Samsung.

While it is an affirmation of Dalton McGuinty’s Green Energy Act, it is much, much more for St. Thomas which is poised, hopefully, to benefit from the economic spinoffs.

With acres of vacant industrial space along South Edgeware Road and a vast pool of skilled labour, it is easy to see why Mayor Cliff Barwick is confident we can direct some of that massive investment in wind farm and solar energy technology into the city.

“We have space, we have skilled workers, we are a manufacturing city with an awful lot of skills,” Barwick noted after the announcement.

“It is like fishing,” he continued. “I cannot say we have one snagged, but it looks good.”
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12.14.09
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Here’s how a similar mindset to Dalton’s Green Energy Act is playing out in the north of England


Posted by Ian:

Does this not sound very much like Dalton McGuinty’s Green Energy Act which severely limits local municipal and resident opposition to wind farms. And where is the requested study on the effects of wind turbine noise? Here’s what is unfolding on the Yorkshire Dales, one of the most scenic environments in the north of England …

Government officials suppressed a damning report on the noise caused by wind turbines in order to push ahead with the building of hundreds of on-line windfarms in England, a report in the Sunday Times alleged yesterday (December 13).

This will come to a shock to residents of the western Yorkshire Dales, where a planning enquiry is to be held in the New Year into plans by a German company to erect five giant wind turbines the size of Big Ben just outside the Yorkshire Dales National Park near Gargrave.

The turbines could be seen across 40 miles of the most beautiful countryside in the north of England, not just from the national park but also from the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire and Pendle Hill, site of the infamous witch trials and a tourist magnet.

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10.31.09
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Samsung’s turbine deal with Ontario in jeopardy

The Ontario government’s multi-billion-dollar wind turbine deal with South Korean industrial giant Samsung Group is in jeopardy after a power play in Premier Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet, the Toronto Star has learned.

Sources say rival ministers opposed to Deputy Premier George Smitherman’s pet scheme, which they fear will mean “billions” of dollars in subsidies to Samsung, have convinced McGuinty to stall the landmark deal first reported in the Star on Sept. 27.
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10.19.09
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Ontario farmer to tilt at wind turbines in court

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TORONTO — A farmer on a small island in Prince Edward County, Ont., who said he fears the constant swooshing of wind turbines will harm his family’s health launched a legal challenge Monday against Ontario’s wind power plans.

Ian Hanna said his application for judicial review, being called the first of its kind, is his latest appeal to the government after petitions failed to stop plans for five turbines about 900 metres away from his property on Big Island in the Bay of Quinte.

The community of about 100 homes will be overwhelmed by the turbines, he charged.

“My parents taught us when we were growing up that we should stand up for what we thought is good and right and whether that’s for my family or for my neighbours, I intend to do that,” he said.
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