[All] Jan 7th deadline to have say on Ontario's Energy

[Louisette Lanteigne]

 Important Info re: Ontario's Energy


- A 20-year energy plan called Building Our Clean Energy
Future has been rolled out, and public comments are accepted until January 7 – this Friday. 

Decisions are being taken this year which will determine Ontario’s
energy path for years to come – and it could even include a gas-fired power
plant here in our Region.  Even more concerning is the Liberals’ determination to spend tens of billions of dollars
refurbishing the nuclear reactors at Bruce and Darlington
and building two more new reactors at Darlington.  The long-term Plan envisions that in 2030 Ontario
will supply 55% of its electricity needs from nuclear power



Review
the gov’t’s proposal here, and then submit your comments by clicking on the “Submit Comment” button on the right. Deadline for comments is Jan 7, 2011. 
All comments will be considered as part of the decision-making process by the
Ministry of Energy.

http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-External/displaynoticecontent.do?noticeId=MTExNDIz&statusId=MTY3MTY0&language=en
Ontario Clean Air Alliance gave it's views on the report. Here is their breakdown of the issues:


Coal phase-out

The good news: The Government of Ontario is speeding up the coal phase-out.

-          2 of Nanticoke’s
6 remaining coal boilers will be shut down in 2011.

-          The Atikokan coal
plant will be converted to biomass by 2013.

-          The Thunder
  Bay coal plant will be converted to run on natural gas
and potentially also biomass.

-          The Government
will make a decision in 2012 on the conversion of some or all of the remaining
coal units at Nanticoke and Lambton
to natural gas.  

These are important steps in the right
direction given that Ontario has
more than enough generation available to end coal use now.  

Nuclear

-          The Government
plans to move forward with re-building the aging Darlington
and Bruce Nuclear Stations and building two new nuclear reactors at Darlington.

-          According to the
Government, its nuclear plan will cost $33 billion.  However, every
nuclear project in Ontario’s
history has gone massively over budget – on average by 2.5 times. 
Therefore the real cost of McGuinty’s nuclear plan will almost certainly be $83
billion or more.  That means the total cost of McGuinty’s 20 year
electricity plan will be $137 billion or more.

-          According to
McGuinty’s plan, in 2030 Ontario
will obtain 55% of its electricity from costly nuclear power.

Conservation

Ontario’s demand for
electricity has fallen by 7% since 2006, yet our electricity consumption per
person is still 35% higher than New York
 State’s.  But instead of
ramping up conservation efforts to cut waste and improve efficiency, the
McGuinty plan calls for a massive supply
increase – Ontario’s total electricity generation capacity in 2030 (40,900 MW)
will be 63% greater than our peak demand in 2010.  Apparently, the Premier
has little faith in his government’s ability to truly create “a culture of
conservation.”


Green
Energy

According to the McGuinty
Plan, wind, solar and bio-energy will provide Ontario with 15% of its electricity supply
in 2030, up from up from 3% today.


New Peaker Plant for Kitchener-Waterloo

The McGuinty Plan calls for the construction of a large new, inefficient
gas-fired peaker plant in Kitchener-Waterloo despite the fact that the region’s
electricity needs can be met at a much lower cost with an integrated
combination of energy efficiency, demand response and combined heat and
power.  Will it be Oakville
all over again?


Combined Heat and Power

The McGuinty Plan directs the Ontario Power Authority to establish a
combined heat and power (CHP) standard offer program for projects of 20 MW or
less.   However, new CHP procurement is capped at approximately 500
MW despite the fact that its cost per kWh is less than one-third that of new
nuclear and Ontario’s total CHP
potential is greater than 11,000 MW.  Why are we artificially capping
cleaner, safer power sources?

[more on CHP plants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration
- many more on Google]


Our Conclusion ( Ontario Clean Air Alliance)


The McGuinty Government’s plan will double residential hydro bills
over the next 20 years to pay for high-cost new nuclear power.  This
doesn’t make sense.  Ontario’s
electricity needs can be met at a much lower
cost with an integrated combination of energy conservation and efficiency,
water power imports from Quebec,
and small-scale, high-efficiency combined heat and power plants.
Thanks folks!
Louisette
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20110103/75bb1c50/attachment.html>