Now that’s an exciting lede. But a couple of interesting things have happened lately. First up is the fact that the Settlers Landing Wind Park project has been curtailed by an appeal to the Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal that went aga…
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BigCityLib Strikes Back: Wind Energy In Ontario: The State Of Play
The controversy around Ontario’s Green Energy Act has faded since the OLP won their majority. Konrad Yakabuski can whine as much (and as inaccurately) as he wants, but Ontario anti-wind activists are basically left to pound sand for the next couple of years, losing in court and before the Ontario ERT
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Tim Hudak’s Energy Policy, Such As It Is
Tom Adams, who occasionally achieves sanity when writing about energy issues, gets about half-way there in his piece yesterday, in particular when he touches on the pumped-storage project up in Marmora: [PCPO MPP Todd ] Smith has …hounded the Minister of Energy over why he has “delayed in arriving at
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Tom Adams In Sun: Mostly Sane
There are bits of it I don’t agree with. For instance, any fair reading of Ontario history would show that the province’s dalliance with gas power predates the Green Energy Act, and wasn’t a conspiracy to cover-up (or “backstop”) the poor performance of its wind farms. But most of it
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Birds And Turbines, Part Bazillion
A new study, “Canadian Estimate of Bird Mortality Due to Collisions and Direct Habitat Loss Associated with Wind Turbine Developments” came out earlier this month. Its conclusion should be entirely unsurprising: on average a Canadian turbine will kill about 8.2 birds per year, or about 23,200 in total. That’s a largish
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: On The Gasplant Thing
Ouch. Dumbest thing the OLP ever did, was cancel those plants. Cost a fortune, as everyone can plainly see, and really gave the anti-Green Energy Act opponents their only half-decent argument: money is obviously not a problem, and you were willing to listen to NIMBYs down in the GTA, so
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Ontario Anti-Wind Forces Claimed Turbines Caused Health Problems, Refused To Provide Medical Records
Stumbled across this is an article entitled “Wind turbine syndrome: farm hosts tell very different story“: In a 2012 Ontario legal case, complainants were asked to provide their medical records going back a decade before the local wind farm commenced operation. This would have provided relevant information about any pre-existing
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Hot Air on Wind Power
From The Star: [PPPO MPP Vic] Fedeli blamed wind power as a major culprit in driving up costs. Wind power is sometimes plentiful when demand is low, producing a gush of power when it’s least needed. That has occasionally forced the province to give away surplus power, or even pay some
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Elections Ontario VS. WCO
From Parker Gallant; the last couple of sentences (which I have bolded) are the coolest bit: A letter dated August 8, 2013, which Wind Concerns Ontario (WCO) received from Elections Ontario, finally exonerated us from allegedly spending money in support of a political party during the provincial general election in
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Saved By The Shell! Ostrander Point Wind Project Cancelled Due To Presence Of Endangered Turtle!!!!
The Ostander Point Wind Project has been revoked because: … the roads systems and construction [necessary for the project] would cause serious and irreversible harm to the Blanding’s Turtle and that the proposed mitigation plans were insufficient to protect the endangered species. The full ruling is below. Its worth a
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Ontario must defy unreasonable WTO ruling against Green Energy Act
By: Council of Canadians | Press Release: TORONTO, May 6, 2013 – The Council of Canadians is extremely disappointed by reports that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has upheld a previous ruling that local content quotas in Ontario’s Green Energy Act violate global trade rules. The grassroots social justice organization is encouraging the
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Love Letters To Dalton McGuinty
These two pieces overlap a bit, but together they are probably the best account’s I’ve read of Ontario’s long journey away from coal under Dalton McGuinty, something he doesn’t get much credit for up here in Canada. An excerpt from the first: A decade ago, Ontario’s coal-fired power plants were
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Kathleen Wynne Reaffirms Support For Green Energy Act
Wind turbines for the willing could be part of Ontario’s new premier’s approach to green energy. Premier Kathleen Wynne told reporters Thursday her government would not step back from green energy. But she said the voices of towns and residents must be heard as new projects go forward.“I have made
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: The Beginning Of Something?
OPP in Haldimand County believe the vandals struck the Summerhaven Wind farm project overnight Friday, painting a disassembled tower, setting a fire and causing about $60,000 damage. As the article notes, the turbine is near where MOE workers removed an active but currently unused bald eagles several weeks back to
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Pupatello And Wynne Support Offshore Wind
Offshore wind should be a slam-dunk. After all its offshore, wayout of sight of any protesting NIMBYs. So it is good to know that the two front runners in the OLP leadership race have come out in support of the concept. From a North American Wind Power presser: The good
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: OLP Candidates On Wind Tubines
Didn’t like this bit:Kathleen Wynne is uneasy about the quality of information fuelling the renewable energy debate. “Where is the evidence and science in making these decisions?” asks Wynne. “I’m not sure there are conclusive arguments on either side of these issues—whether it’s health issues or environmental issues. I want
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs That Tim Hudak Would Kill
Green Ones, too: Niagara Region Wind Corporation is on a recruitment drive as it gears up for one of the largest wind turbine projects in Canada. It estimates it and its suppliers will require about 770 workers until the construction phase is complete by 2014. After that, it’s expected to
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: How Much Will It Cost Tim Hudak To Unwind The Green Energy Act?
You thought cancelling that gas plant was expensive? Here’s PCPO MPP Monte McNaughton, representing Lambton-Kent-Middlesex: …we realize that when we make the commitment, we’re not going to build them, if they’re not built. So scrap the 50,000 projects that are in the queue. We realize that there is going to be
Continue readingImpolitical: Dear Health Canada – part II
From a long time friend of the blog who has written to Health Canada in the wake of news of their study on wind turbines, this letter below. He advises he has “absolutely no financial or corporate involvement in any wind project. My interest social, economic and environmental.” These are
Continue readingImpolitical: Dear Health Canada
News yesterday that Health Canada has decided to do some research: “Health Canada to probe possible health effects of wind turbines.” This study is going to be very carefully watched. Early indications from its rollout are not good on the impartiality front, what with Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre immediately using
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