Tag Archives: Suncor

10.13.09
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Ethanol subsidies a useless boondoggle

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Ethanol is the gift that keeps on giving – but only to corn-growers and opportunistic automakers. For taxpayers, however, it’s a dream that failed and a rat-hole down which our governments keep pouring our tax money. This useless boondoggle must stop.

Last week, CanWest News Service reported on a government memo that says clearly that Ottawa’s costly effort to promote E85 fuel – industry shorthand for 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent ordinary gasoline – will do no good.

In fact, we believe the whole push for ethanol – produced mainly from corn in Canada – will bring no actual reductions in total greenhouse gas emissions, but will cost taxpayers $2.2 billion in federal subsidies, plus more from provinces, especially Ontario.
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10.03.09
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Suncor rekindles expansion of Sarnia ethanol plant

Suncor Energy Inc (SU.TO) said on Friday it has revived plans for a C$120 million ($111 million) expansion of its Sarnia, Ontario, ethanol plant in another sign the chill in energy investments is easing.

Suncor said the project would double output of the renewable fuel additive to 400 million litres (106 million gallons) a year by late 2010 or early 2011.

The company deferred the project at the start of the year as financial and energy markets skidded. It was initially to have been completed by the end of this year.

Construction will create 350 jobs in the Sarnia-Lambton area of southern Ontario.
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05.14.09
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Wind Turbines Blamed for Adverse Health Effects

A wind turbine sits 457 metres from Barbara Ashbee’s home at the Melancthon/Amaranth wind farm in Ontario.

A wind turbine sits 457 metres from Barbara Ashbee’s home at the Melancthon/Amaranth wind farm in Ontario.

There’s a boom in wind energy occurring worldwide. Keen to meet environmental targets and cut back on fossil fuels, governments in Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan are increasingly looking to wind as a source of power.

In Canada, wind turbines have become part of the landscape in many rural areas, with Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec leading the way in setting ambitious targets for future production of wind power.

From the Maritimes to Alberta, there are about 1,500 turbines powering almost 700,000 homes and businesses, with plans in the works to build another 1,000 to 1,500 in the next year, including in British Columbia where none currently exist.

But as wind farms proliferate, so do complaints about them. While some people experience no negative effects whatsoever, others have even resorted to leaving their homes to get away from the windmills they claim are making them sick.
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05.06.09
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Wind turbines still a health concern for group

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For Sandy MacLeod and a group of 11 neighbours living in the Ripley industrial wind turbine project (within the townships of Huron-Kinloss near the Town of Ripley, in southwestern Ontario), it’s been a very long 18 months. They just want the healthy home environment they had enjoyed for some three to 32 years returned.

“We just want it to be over,” said MacLeod.

The simple request goes out to the companies Acciona and Suncor that own the project and to the provincial Liberal government who approved the operating standards. The group also includes John and Erin MacLeod, Brenda and Glen Wylds, Helen and Ross Forster, Barbara Basser, Melissa Cammaert, Kent Wylds and their daughter Keiara plus David Colling who has been helping the group by testing electrical pollution at their properties.
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