The Summit brought together scientists and engineers, policy makers and emerging young leaders, all committed to finding the paths required to tackle climate change by reducing our carbon footprint.

In the debates around industrial wind here in the County, those supporting IWT have sometimes tried to frame the debate as though there is no room for debate on the most cost-effective way to combat climate change and that wind energy is the only way to go.  This is a completely false dichotomy. Many of the people concerned about industrial wind are as committed to addressing climate change as the supporters are.

Personally, I have been arguing that large-scale wind energy is premature and a poor investment until there is cost effective mass storage available to offset the intermittent, unpredictable nature of wind.

I was therefore very interest to see that the Equinox Summit report raised several of the same some of the same concerns that many of us have been voicing with their conclusion that “utilities and energy policymakers in these areas (with high intermittent energy penetration – TH) are beginning to face the challenge of intermittency head-on. However, it is also in these areas that intermittency is often resolved by contracting suppliers of natural gas and coal to supplement supply, because these same utilities often need more rapid solutions to increasingly problematic supply variability. Rather than pursue inefficient short-term solutions such as these (known as ‘firming agreements’) or allow renewable energy spilling without penalty, these regions should be encouraged to forge partnerships that utilise the necessary public and private resources to build a sustainable renewable energy infrastructure that includes large-scale storage and demand management. In other words, future development of the capacity for generating electricity from renewable and intermittent sources must go hand-in-hand with the development of adequate storage capacity.”

I encourage you to read the report for yourself  which is available at http://wgsi.org/content/equinox-blueprint-energy-2030

Originally published in my blog on countylive.ca at http://countylive.ca/blog/?p=22807

Ostrander Point:EBR Reference No. 011-5239

Attn Shannon McNeill

I am writing to express my concerns regard the “Ostrander Point Wind Park” proposed by Gilead Power for the south shore of Prince Edward County. The Ministry should refuse to approve this project because the environmental costs are much greater than the limited economic and environmental benefits offered.

Significant Environmental Costs

The environmental costs of locating an industrial wind farm at this inopportune site have been substantiated by many commentators  including Nature Canada/Ontario Nature who observed that “Given Ostrander Point’s significance for birds, we are at a loss to comprehend how an industrial wind farm proposal for this site could have made it to the final stages of approval.  From our perspective this project is a most egregious example of a renewable energy project that is simply located in the wrong place.” (Nature Canada/Ontario Nature Letter to Mike Lord, Vice President, Operations, Gilead Power Corporation, November 17, 2010).

Even at this late stage of the project, new information about the potential environmental costs continues to emerge. In December, for example, well-respected naturalist Ted Cheskey, Nature Canada’s manager of bird conservation programs,  documented how the Ministry of Natural Resources was involved in the development of restoration plan for the Henslow’s sparrow in the late 1990’s specifically at the Ostrander Point Crown Land Block on the South Shore of Prince Edward County. He also shows that Henslow’s Sparrows were present on Ostrander Point in 1999 and 2000 as a direct result of the implementation of this recovery action! (http://naturecanadablog.blogspot.com/2011/12/endangered.html) This is the same Crown Land Block where proposed for the industrial wind farm. Perhaps those responsible for auctioning off industrial wind development rights at Ostrander Point in the mid-2000’s were unaware of this successful initiative by their own Ministry which is glossed over by Gilead Power.

I will not attempt to exhaustively list the other environmental costs which I am certain will be amply documented in other submissions. Instead I will focus the balance of my comments on the meager-to-nonexistent public benefits which will be the outcome of this project if it is allowed to proceed. In particular, I wish to address three points: (1) the government’s industrial wind development program was not supported by any analysis which demonstrated a cost/benefit to Ontario. (2) Ontario already has a surplus of energy generation and the output will only exacerbate an existing problem acknowledged by the Independent Energy System Operator. (3) The health benefits claimed by the government are demonstrably exaggerated.

No demonstrable cost/benefit to Ontario

As the Auditor General of Ontario pointed out on Page 89 of his “2011 Annual Report”, the province’s wind and solar power initiatives were decided and implemented in such haste that “no comprehensive business-case evaluation was done to objectively evaluate the impacts of the billion-dollar commitment. Such an evaluation would typically include assessing the prospective economic and environmental effects of such a massive investment in renewable energy on future electricity prices, direct and indirect job creation or losses, greenhouse gas emissions, and other variables.

Ontario Has An Energy Generation Surplus

This project promises little or no economic benefit for the citizens and ratepayers of the province which would justify the threat posed to endangered species, because the additional energy from the Ostrander Point project is not needed (despite the retirement of our coal-fired plants by 2014). This was demonstrated conclusively when the then Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Brad Duguid cancelled the planned 900 megawatt Oakville gas turbine generating plant October 2010. In announcing the cancellation, the Minister acknowledged that the plant was no longer needed because energy demand in the province was proving to be less than expected. Some of this, he explained, was due to the economic recession, but much of it he attributed to conservation efforts and the long-term trend to move from a manufacturing to a service- and knowledge-based economy.

In concrete terms, the Oakville gas turbine plant cancelled by the Minister because it was not needed to meet the province’s energy needs was equivalent to the output from 1,620 industrial wind turbines. How is it possible to now argue that the province faces such a critical energy shortage that we have no choice but to put wind turbines in the Ostrander Point Provincial Wildlife Area, thereby threatening multiple endangered species?

In fact, Ontario’s current electricity generation surplus is so large that it forms the top threat to the reliability of the grid highlighted in recent reports published by the Independent Energy System Operator (IESO).

In the Ontario Reliability Outlook published in December 2009, the ISEO stated “Ontario is now experiencing significant levels of oversupply and low demand. Surplus Baseload Generation (SBG) occurs when demand is exceeded by the energy output from generators that can’t readily adjust their output, whether it is for technical or contractual reasons.  ….. For the most part, excess generation is handled through exports. This spring, however, Ontario started to experience SBG on a weekly basis, resulting in nuclear unit reductions on 54 days, nuclear  shutdowns on five days and water spillage at  hydro facilities on 33 days.

The ISEO reiterated this concern in the most recent “18-Month Outlook Update: An Assessment of the Reliability and Operability of the Ontario Electricity System from December 2011 to May 2013” stating that “continued additions of wind and solar generation will see a combined total of more than 4,300MW in Ontario by May 2013. Current volumes of variable generation combined with lower off‐peak demand for electricity and the return of two additional nuclear units mean that surplus baseload generation (SBG) is and will remain an ongoing concern for the IESO. To address this concern over the past year, a nuclear unit was taken off line on three separate occasions with nuclear maneuvers required five per cent of the time.”

Wind energy is non-dispatchable (non-controllable) and peaks at times (nights and winters) when electrical demand at a minimum. Both these traits exacerbate Ontario’s surplus baseload problem and, as a result, the province is being forced to sell unwanted wind output to neighboring jurisdictions when there is a surplus, sometimes even paying to give it away. Even worse, as the ISEO points out, the province is now regularly shutting down our nuclear plants or spilling water from our hydro dams.

In fact, the unpredictable surpluses arising from newly installed intermittent renewables is so great that accord to the most recent 18-Month Outlook Update cited above, the ISEO is pursuing the ability to dispatch wind energy by paying wind producers not to produce when the power is surplus to requirements.

Health Benefit from Industrial Wind Has Been Grossly Over-Stated

In attempting to justify the rapid implementation of industrial wind, Ontario’s previous and current provincial government have repeatedly stated that “coal costs the healthcare system $4 billion per year”. This claim is patently untrue.

In 2005, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment commissioned DSS Management Consultants Inc. (DSS) and RWDI AIR Inc. to carry out a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of electricity generation alternatives to replace the electricity production and generation capacity supplied by Ontario’s coal-fired generation (CFG) stations. Their report is available on-line at http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/docs/en/coal_cost_benefit_analysis_april2005.pdf

The report compared the cost/benefit of four scenarios: continuing with the then-existing coal-fired plants; replace all coal-fired plants with natural gas generators;  replace all coal fired generation with a mix of nuclear and gas generation; and continue with existing coal-fired generation but fitted with the most stringent pollution controls available. (Wind energy was not included in the scope of this cost/benefit analysis).

For each of these options, the consultants estimated the annualized  “health damages” of continuing coal-fired generation at 2005 levels at $3.02 billion (Table 6-7). These health damages were not the “hard dollar” costs expended by our healthcare system. They were arrived at mainly by multiplying the estimated 668 premature deaths per year arising from 2004 levels of coal generation time the “statistical value of a life” estimate at $4+ million. The “statistical value of a life” (SVL) is not intended to estimate actual healthcare cost and cannot be compared to “hard dollar” costs to operate our healthcare system.

Ontario spent a total of $11.3 billion on its hospitals in 2004. The claim by government spokespersons that “coal costs $4 billion in healthcare costs” is patently ridiculous unless over 1/3 of hospitalizations were due to coal generation in 2004.

In fact, the actual “hard dollar costs for hospital visits and other treatments due to the 2004 level of coal fired generation were estimated by the consultants at 1/200th (0.5%)  of the hypothetical damages (Table 6-6), on the order of $20 million per year, NOT $3 billion per year. It is to be noted that these costs were for 2004. Coal fired generation in Ontario has fallen by more than 3/4th in the intervening years since this costs was estimated. (“Finishing The Coal Phase Out”, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, March 2010).

Thus, using published sources, it can be demonstrated that the actual current cost of coal to the healthcare system is approximately $5 million per year, not the billions of dollars which continue to be cited by government spokespersons as the business case for industrial wind.

Summary

In summary, this is a project with significant, demonstrable costs to the environment (in the form of threats to endangered species and habitat) where there is no commensurate benefit to the public. The project should not be allowed to proceed further.

This was originally published in my blog on countylive.ca at http://countylive.ca/blog/?p=22577

I am running because I strongly support the program of the Green Party of Ontario. I joined the GPO four years ago motivated by deep concern about global warming and the environment. It was clear to me that major change was needed to avoid an environmental disaster and, as a business person, I was impressed with the Green Party’s sense of fiscal responsibility and market-driven approach to change.  Although some people may be concerned that the GPO is a “single issue” party, my horizons have been broadened as a result of my association with the Greens, especially in my understanding of the importance of healthy communities and local decision-making.

I am also running because the current government, in its arrogance, has undermined the public’s trust on a whole series of issues including the environment, while creating a more and more centralized model of governance in the province. These alarming developments have convinced me that it’s important to get involved and not just watch from the sidelines.

Finally, I am running because I because I feel confident that I have something to offer. I have more than thirty years of experience in business, ranging from start-ups to my most recent position as vice-president in a multi-billion dollar global company. Since my early retirement last year, I also have the time and energy to devote to mounting a professional, year-long campaign for MPP.

The nomination meeting for the Prince Edward Hastings riding will be held on Wednesday, September 29th, 7-9 PM, at Books & Company, 289 Main Street, Picton, ON. You MUST join the Green Party of Ontario on or before September 15th to be eligible to vote at the meeting. You can join the GPO with a credit card online at https://secure.gpo.ca/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=3

If you live in the Prince Edward Hastings riding, please consider joining and coming to the nomination meeting to support me.

If you live outside Prince Edward Hasting but would like to learn more about the GPO go to http://www.gpo.ca/

The reason, according to Energy and Infrastructure Minister Brad Duguid, is that “when the work is done on the ground mount solar, the rate of return is exorbitant.”The reasons cited by the government are, in fact, completely false. Ground mounts are more expensive than roof mounts, and the rate of return for ground mounts is attractive but not exorbitant.

Let me offer my own experience as a proof point. In the last two weeks, I got estimates from a professional solar installer for two alternative systems we were considering, one a ground mount and the other a roof mount.

The compound rate of return for the ground mount is 12% per year, while the roof mount is 13% per year. In other words, the Energy and Infrastructure Minister has it backwards!

So why is the Government going to such lengths to back-pedal on this program? My personal reading of events is that this is entirely political. The centralizing and arrogant approach  which the Liberals have used to implement the Green Energy Act has angered a lot of people, including people who should be natural supports of the Act. The Liberals are worried that their arrogance has handed the Tories an issue for next year’s provincial election, so they are creating phony arguments to enable them to reduce spending and visibility in the area.

After some idle time waiting for suppliers to catch up, our MicroFIT solar project is now entering the final construction stages. Photo shows the racking being installed in June.

Welded steel racking was recommended by the installer, 123 Clean Energy, because of the high winds in the area.