Wind turbines is not as efficient as lobbyists would like the public to believe

Editor:

The article in the Thursday, Oct. 27 edition of The Daily Observer, 'Energy solution blowing in the wind,' is an example of alternative energy propaganda funded by wind farm companies and promoted by environmental lobby groups.

Mr. Berton has nothing but praise for Spain and its supposedly 13 per cent production figure, but what he doesn't tell you is that although the wind is free, the means to produce power from it is twice as expensive as conventional power plants. Furthermore, Spain is now realizing how inefficient wind power is.

England is on the brink of a blackout in about seven years because of its commitment to wind power. The British have spent billions of pounds installing 2,000 wind turbines that barely produce one per cent of the power needed.

They signed on to Kyoto and are legally obligated to produce 32 per cent of their power from alternative energy sources by 2010. Let's do the math: If 2,000 wind turbines barely produce one per cent of need, then 32 times 2,000 means it would take 64,000 turbines to meet the target. Each turbine needs about four acres, four times 64,000 amounts to 256,000 acres and England would be hard-pressed to find room for 10,000 turbines. Prime Minister Brown and his group of
environmental dreamers are in fantasy land.

They are proposing to close their coal and oil-fired power plants and eight of their nine nuclear plants are so old that they will be forced to shut down, amounting to approximately 65 per cent of their power production.

The government is now reluctantly proposing to build a new generation of nuclear power plants, but it has waited too long and will not have them in place before the county runs out of power. Britain sold its world class nuclear construction company, Westinghouse, to the Japanese for a fire sale price.

Germany has installed more than 3,000 wind turbines and are in the process of building 40 more clean coal-fired plants, because they now realize how inefficient and expensive wind power is.

In Ontario, Mr. McGuinty and his group of socialist comrades are travelling down the same road, and if not stopped, WE will be looking at power shortfalls in 10 years. I suggest rather than wasting our tax dollars on wind power, we should be refurbishing or building new nuclear power plants and also clean coal power plants.

The notion that wind power can replace conventional and nuclear power production is ridiculous and just a means for extracting our tax dollars from naive political leaders by the use of alarmism.

The sad reality is there is a lot of money behind wind power promoted by environmental lobby groups, and I would love to follow that paper trail to see who is getting it.

Mack Thrasher,

Laurentian Valley

The reality of wind turbines is not as efficient as lobbyists would like the public to believe - The Daily Observer - Ontario, CA.

North Durham: Drain or gain to Region?

At least that's what some Region officials are saying about the development woes faced by north Durham municipalities.

And although growth is stunted in the upper reaches of Durham, that doesn't mean those municipalities are a financial drain on the Region as a whole, they said.

Uxbridge and Brock in particular currently face development woes due to sewage capacity on top of Greenbelt, Oak Ridges Moraine and Lake Simcoe Protection Act legislation. In a nutshell, Uxbridge is growing inwards, not outwards, beyond its current urban boundaries.

But Regional Chairman Roger Anderson was careful not to pin blame on the north for any fiscal challenges faced by Durham.

"A lack of residential development across the board in Durham will have an impact on the Region across the board," said the chairman.

And while there are noticeably less commercial and industrial operations in north Durham, the three upper municipalities have made gains in those sectors in recent years, with Region initiatives to further improve that situation, Mr. Anderson pointed out.

"Broadband is a big help to land business in the north," he said.

The biggest challenge, he said, is Greenbelt legislation he called "really restrictive.

"Unless the (Province) makes it more flexible, some across the GTA are going to find themselves in a predicament," said Mr. Anderson.

He added the Region will take an active part in the discussion when the Greenbelt rules are reviewed in 2014.

Uxbridge Mayor Bob Shepherd said while development is stunted, building alone is not the final answer to handle future costs.

"Growth is a short-term solution ... growth does not pay for growth," said Mayor Shepherd.

He said legislation such as the Oak Ridges Moraine Act "has created a whole new class of municipalities that cannot be supported under the old model ... we've got to find a new (solution)."

Mayor Shepherd said Uxbridge is getting a fair shake in Region services from the tax dollars it sends to Durham, and he hears no complaints from south mayors about their northern neighbours not pulling their weight financially. "We get more back from the Region than you think," said the mayor, pointing out policing, transit, water, major roads, garbage collection and social welfare are all upper-tier responsibilities.

But he noted Durham Transit, which Uxbridge, Scugog and Brock pay a share of, could have been put on hold for the north as the service is limited compared to the south.

"I would have voted to exclude the three north municipalities in the first term," said Mayor Shepherd.

Mr. Anderson pointed out a lack of growth could actually have advantages.

"A lot of people like small municipalities with a rural feel," said the chairman. Also, "there's enough land in Uxbridge for some big companies to come in ... I don't think the (company) president would mind living on a 100-acre lot with a nice house."

newsdurhamregion.com | North Durham: Drain or gain to Region?.

Premier's green energy plan is faulty

This is in regard to the 'Green Energy Bandwagon' and the media's comments that go something like, "It's not as if wind power is controversial."

Wrong, wrong, wrong. More than 4,000 (some say as high as 7,000) of these massive, noisy, 250-foot high industrial behemoths are being erected in the backyards of people living in developed communities throughout south central Ontario, for no practical reason whatsoever.

A cost-recovery-benefit calculation of Dalton's Green Energy brain cramp shows his part-time industrial wind power plan is only beneficial to, and lucrative for wind turbine promoters and builders. They receive 14 to 19 cents for every kilowatt per hour they deliver to the grid - five times the current Ontario Power Generation purchase cost. Solar promoters receive 80 cents per kw/h, over 20 times OPG's current purchase cost. They also receive "incentive subsidies" covering new construction.

Industrial wind turbines and their infrastructure costs are extremely high while at the same time, totally inefficient. Each turbine costs over $5 million. Their huge concrete bases, new access roadways, new transmission lines, cabling etc., and equipment costs to clean the dirty electricity they produce are another $2 million each. All this, yet they will only generate power, on average, two part days a week, due to a lack of wind.

Why jack our electricity bills by billions of dollars for a measly 15 to 20 per cent power yield? Why destroy miles of beautiful Ontario countryside, and depreciate thousands of private properties for something that is not reliable, not cost-effective, or needed? It is reported that OPG is purposely bypassing low-cost hydro dam generators in order to create a false "need".

Dalton's government is being taken to court by citizens groups over his inadequate set-back rule of only 550 metres, the shortest set-back distance in the western world. Elsewhere the minimum set-back is 1,500 to 2,000 metres from a dwelling. Dalton's projected wind turbine build costs to periodically produce just 6,000 megawatts of unreliable, intermittent power is almost double the cost of one small nuclear power plant, which is capable of delivering clean electricity all day, every day of the year, something wind turbines can never do.

Citizens groups also oppose Dalton's Dynamos because, for some unknown reason, his plan targets smaller communities, not cities where electricity demand and waste is the highest. To add to this abuse, industrial turbine noise equates to living near Hwy. 401, causing property values to sink. As well, conservation efforts, habitat protection efforts, the Oak Ridges Moraine protection policies and a host of other issues have all been tossed under the bus.

We need to urge Premier McGuinty to re-visit his flawed wind plan, and prioritize building at least 800 of his industrial turbines (20 per cent) along the GTA's lakeshore, in Toronto/Hamilton parks, public spaces and malls, on the islands, along hydro transmission lines, rail corridors, and at the Pickering Nuclear and Lakeview Generation sites.

We need to generate power where the demand originates, and minimize the destruction of south central Ontario's unique, world-class countryside.
Al Matthews is a Grafton resident.

By Al Matthews

Link: northumberlandnews.com / indynews.ca | Premier's green energy plan is faulty.

Greenbelt expansion

A ratepayers’ group is looking for local landowners and politicians to weigh in on expanding the Greenbelt.

The Mono Mulmur Citizens’ Coalition (MC2) is hosting a meeting Saturday, Nov. 14 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Mono Community Centre, to discuss the impacts of expanding the province’s Greenbelt to include most of Mulmur, Mono and Simcoe County.

“When the province put in the original Greenbelt in 2005, they dictated that there will be a Greenbelt and everyone will align their Official Plans to it,” explained MC2 representative Harvey Kolodny. “They’ve put out criteria for expanding the Greenbelt. One of the purposes of this meeting is to explain the criteria.”

The meeting is also aimed at finding “what the position of people in the local municipalities is about it” and to educate MC2 members, he added.

Somewhere between 40 and 60 per cent of Mono is already in the Greenbelt, which includes the Niagara Escarpment and the Oak Ridges Moraine areas, and 25 to 30 per cent of Mulmur. The Greenbelt Alliance has proposed expanding the protected areas in these communities to include all of Mulmur, about 90 per cent of Mono and all of Simcoe County.

Provincial officials, municipal staffers and politicians have all been invited to foster a discussion about “what’s good about this and what’s bad about it,” said Kolodny.

“This (discussion) is going to go on for years and years, so we want to get it on the table.”

The Orangeville Banner: Providing Local Community News for Orangeville, Ontario 24/7

York region - Sheppard's Bush trails to be reworked

Aurora
November 03, 2009 02:56 PM


Sean Pearce
It has taken a few years to get it right, but Sheppard’s Bush Conservation Area now has a management plan.

Over the course of the next five years a number of new initiatives will be undertaken at Sheppard’s Bush as dictated by the freshly adopted plan. Some redundant and non-sanctioned trails on the 65-acre property will be closed and also filled in with trees to enhance the natural beauty and cut down on the amount of maintenance required.

A series of upgrades are planned for the Sheppard House and other on-site structures over the course of the five years that will improve efficiencies and enhance programming options.

Aurora town staff, the Aurora Lions Club, Save the Oak Ridges Moraine Coalition, the Windfall Ecology Centre, the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority and the Ontario Heritage Trust all had a hand in creating the new management plan. The latter two groups had already vetted the document and Aurora council’s endorsement of it last week paves the way to put it into action.

“As a community, we are extremely fortunate to have access to Sheppard’s Bush, a vital environmental, recreational, social and economic feature,” management plan steering committee chairperson Councillor Evelina MacEachern said.

“The elimination of some of those redundant trails will help to enhance the natural environment and then there will be tree planting there instead. Some of those trails in there just aren’t necessary anymore.”

Some trails were built to help with the collection of maple sap, which hasn’t occurred for years, she added.

The upgrades and retrofits at the Sheppard House, which is occupied by the Windfall and the STORM groups, are meant to improve the building’s energy efficiency while respecting its historical importance, Ms MacEachern said.

The late Reginald Sheppard who donated the entire property to the province of Ontario back in 1971.

The new plan effectively serves as a redevelopment of the first management plan, drafted in 1979. Overall, the cost to the town as a result of the new plan will be minimal. The town annually provides $7,000 worth of services in-kind at the site, as staff picks up garbage, lays down wood chips and performs other work. Work mandated by the new plan will cost an additional $3,500 per year, on average, over the course of the five-year agreement.

When one adds up the benefits, it’s a very small price to pay, Ms MacEachern said.

“The value of what we get in our community from the Sheppard’s Bush is priceless,” she said. “You couldn’t buy it.”

York region - Sheppard.s Bush trails to be reworked.

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