October 13, 2020
Canada’s federal government–deep in debt from policy decisions and now the COVID-19 pandemic–has pointed toward a focus on renewable energy as a way to “build back better” and strengthen the economy.
But will it work?
Wind Concerns Ontario took a look at what government incentives did in Ontario, when the McGuinty government had the same goal in 2009. Their aim was to make up for the devastating losses in the auto industry by fostering a new one: Ontario would become a world leader in green energy and benefit from a chain of economic endeavors from manufacturing wind and solar power components to generating “clean” “green” power.
The vision was to help “fledgling” companies grow and thrive.
What happened?
Not that.
Research on the companies that actually participated in the early days of wind power development in Ontario shows they were hardly “fledglings”. Names like Samsung, Enbridge, Suncor, SunEdison and more indicate, as the Wind Concerns Ontario report shows, companies from around the world flocked to Ontario to take advantage of lucrative, above-market contract rates. And then, many of them left. Today, much of the province’s wind power capacity is held by pension and investment funds who bought into the high yields from the rich contracts.
Jobs? No.
Manufacturing? No.
Prosperity for all? No. Ontario now has a new catch phrase: “energy poverty” as it watched manufacturing businesses hit the road for locations with more advantageous electricity rates.
Read the Wind Concerns Ontario report here Wind Power Development and Ownership Ontario-October-2020
8 Comments
Andre Lauzon
Every normal intelligent person knows the renewable energy proposed by the Liberals is not cheap nor is it “renewable” nor is it reliable nor is “green”…….. but it makes many Liberals very rich.
Glen Skurka
The green energy act ….add up all the wind and solar contracts,take the average you get 0.19.9c/ kwh …. yep .. it`s cheaper than the rates now ….so whats making the rates go up NUCLEAR …..nuclear refurbishment is topping 75 BILLION …. thats whats making rates go up not green energy
Wind Concerns Ontario
Nuclear actually provides power; wind does not.
Sommer
Two aspects of this story that were omitted from this report are the harm to health from the siting of turbines too close to peoples’ homes. If anyone is aware of this egregious situation, one would hope it would be WCO.
This is a huge reason why going forward, we must never repeat such errors and an aspect that could still have major financial ramifications for the wind industry as well as liability issues for politicians and government agents who bungled their mandate to protect the environment from acoustic emissions/pollution trespassing onto the property of residents who did not consent to being harmed.
Here’s another major deception that was used to justify turning rural neighbourhoods into ‘sacrificial zones’ and innocent men, women and children who did not consent to being harmed, into ‘collateral damage.
https://climatediscussionnexus.com/videos/the-rcp-8-5-cheat/
Wind Concerns Ontario
Thank you. If you’ll notice from the title of the report, the focus was strictly on the economic promises made for wind power in Ontario which of course, did not pan out.
This is the first in a series of reports: we can assure you the health impacts will be dealt with. Focus is critical rather than a shotgun approach, if you want people to read and understand.
Richard Mann
For anyone who wants to learn about infrasound and the known documented health harm, please see the following talk:
University of Waterloo
September 12, 2019.
Mariana Alves-Pereira (Lisbon, Portugal).
“Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise: Physics & Cells, History & Health”.
Livestream:
https://livestream.com/itmsstudio/events/8781285
Stan Thayer
A requested addition to the comment posted under Glen.
Many of the so called, green energy, contracts I have been involved with, which included industrial wind turbines, were not released to the public domain, some were purposely only in French, others were prepared and provided only to investors and their counsels.
These types of arrangements were and are, private.
It is a personal point of view to imagine that someone had access to all the contracts.
The cost to protect the reliable nuclear and hydro generating stations from the wildly varying backfeeds of the wind farms has cost in the millions at some distribution stations. Part of the divided cost is shown on our Ontario hydro bill as the IESO grid reliability charge.
Most corporations operating wind farms will show another double digit dividend again this year, whether there was output or no output, due to the contractual prices being allowed and paid for with taxpayer subsidies.
Wind farms may not always produce power but they always produce profit.
Stan Thayer
Journeyman Electrical Power Worker
613 551 1280
Wind Concerns Ontario
Thank you