Industrial wind turbines and industrial wind development is not about “saving” the environment.

• Industrial wind turbines are an inharmonious use of the land when sited near people’s homes; large-scale wind turbines used for power generation are NOT an agricultural use of the land.
  
  
• The Green Energy Act has been repealed but portions of it are interwoven through other legislation–this needs to be addressed.
  
  
• If wind power generation projects were forced to conduct a cost-benefit analysis to determine their contribution, including property value loss and other factors, they would not be economically viable. The Auditor-General for Ontario in his 2011 report said that NO cost-benefit analysis or business case study has ever been done for Ontario’s green energy program.
  
  
• There ARE health effects from utility-scale wind turbine noise emissions due to the environmental noise and vibration they produce. Sleep disturbance produces sleep deprivation which in turn can cause headaches, high blood pressure and other symptoms.
  
  
• Utility-scale wind power generation is expensive and unreliable; other means such as conservation and using technology to improve existing power generating facilities and transmission and to reduce demand on the power grid, would help meet Ontario’s power needs better.
  
  
• The European experience with wind power generation is “not as advertised.” Other countries have more stringent setbacks, and have also learned that the job creation was not as forecast, and higher electricity prices for business and consumers actually harms the economy. Several are reversing their subsidies for wind power.

Wind Concerns Ontario is an Associate Member of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture/OFA.