More growers turn to coal – Use of Coal is Expanding in the Province of Ontario

Editor: Can it get any more ridiculous?

Ontario is hell bent to close our coal plants and replace them with intermittent wind farms and solar parks – backed up by expensive gas plants.

If you asked someone to design the worst electrical system they could, it would likely be the one described above. The very things you would want to avoid if possible. Expensive and unreliable.

How do you promote an expensive, unreliable electrical system?

Are you stupid? Own a business?

Ontario is the place for you!

Shouldn’t the growers be using renewables like wind and solar? Not if you want your tomatoes.(wind and solar create carbon credits. We need reliable cost effective energy)

Dump the green lobbyists today – Call in the engineers and lets get a system that is cost effective and reliable. I have said this too many times but I will say it once more.

I had a long talk with the senior policy adviser for the Ministry of Energy and he agreed that the best system for Ontario was to put the scrubbers on the coal plants and build a nuke. 10 billion. Cost effective and as clean as we will get.

The green lobbyists plan-60+ billion (that’s a lot of your taxes wasted) for a system that is more expensive, unreliable and in the end not likely any cleaner than the one the policy adviser would build.

“This is about politics” I was told by the adviser. Well folks – heat your home or greenhouse with politics.

Read the story and if you are not outraged by this govt. – you probably work for them or one of the lobbyists.

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More growers turn to coal

TORONTO STAR PHOTO ILLUSTRATION

Tyler Hamilton

Energy Reporter

“Coal is expanding in the province, despite a policy to phase out coal,” says Roger Samson, executive director of REAP-Canada, an independent group that encourages sustainable farming practices. “The Ontario government has no plan on how to mitigate this.”

How much coal, potentially, are we talking about? The energy demands of a typical greenhouse are enormous. Shalin Khosla, a greenhouse specialist with the agriculture ministry, says anywhere between 35 per cent to 50 per cent of the costs of operating a modern vegetable greenhouse goes toward energy consumption. The figure is closer to 20 per cent for flower growers.

It’s estimated that greenhouses in Ontario cover 2,823 acres, and that the average greenhouse requires 9,500 gigajoules of energy per acre every year. This works out to 26.8 million gigajoules annually.

Convert that energy into electricity potential and it works out to 7.44 terawatt-hours a year – more than three times the 2004 electricity output of the Lakeview coal-fired generating station in Mississauga (which has since been closed down and demolished).

That’s equivalent to more than one million tonnes of coal being burned annually.

It’s a mathematical exercise that raises a serious public policy question: What’s preventing the entire greenhouse industry from moving to coal, and in doing so, undermining the spirit of the McGuinty government’s coal phase-out strategy?

Not much, it appears. Unlike power plants and other major industrial facilities, greenhouses can burn whatever fuel they want without much scrutiny.

Keith Stewart, an energy expert with WWF-Canada and author of a book on Ontario’s electricity system, calls the situation “perverse” and a reflection of inconsistent government policy.

“Outdated energy policy is giving us coal-fired tomatoes,” he says.

full story at the Toronto Star

Tyler Hamilton can’t seem to write a story without including Keith Stewart in it. Tyler, go find some engineers. Stewart has a Phd in political science and environment. He is not a energy expert nor is the WWF.

I haven’t read his book but I have read enough “green” policy papers to pretty much know what it says. Green politics does not make an energy expert.

Stewart is a lobbyist for the green movement. Gerald Butts the ex-principal Secretary for McGuinty is now with the WWF. Robert Hornung of CanWEA and the Pembina Institute along with his friend David Suzuki are all involved in pressuring the govt. to adopt their policies and in the process are doing great harm to this Province and Canada.

None of these people are employed by the govt. nor are they elected and I don’t believe any of them are engineers.

They are promoters of a massive fraud that goes by the name of “Man Made Global Warming”.

So butt the fuck out of our electrical system.

If you don’t like Canada – go join your mentor Maurice Strong in China. They use lots of coal there. Go bother the Chinese

If any of you mentioned above would like to enter into an open debate, or have a comment-I’m available.

Germany Plans Boom in Coal-Fired Power Plants

Premier, Dalton McGuinty powers a press conference with wind energy

Ted Cowan, Ontario Federation of Agriculture – Warns Farmers to be Careful When Dealing with the Wind Industry

Ted Cowan, a researcher with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture Farm Policy Research Group.

Ted Cowan cautioned farmers and landowners on lease agreements, providing an updated list of 30 recommendations from the OFA.

“I’ve seen over 30 leases, and there are problems with every one,” said Cowan, who outlined key considerations necessary to protect the rights of the farmers contemplating a wind power lease agreement.

“Don’t sign a lease until you have considered the choices and determined what is best for your farm operation for the next 20 years,” he said.

Cowan said some wind power companies are not giving a fair share of their profits, typically around 2 per cent, noting that the OFA recommendations call for a rent of 3 per cent for the first eight years, then going up to 8 or 10 per cent. The OFA also suggests that farmers contact their power distribution company to acquire their own right to connect.

Farmers were also cautioned on assessment and tax implications.

“It’s your farm – it’s your taxes,” said Cowan, noting that the landowner was ultimately responsible for taxes on their property. In addition, Cowan said there was no guarantee that the provincially imposed caps on assessments and taxes would remain in the future.

“I don’t know, taxes could be 50 times of what they are right now,” he said.

Outside of lease and legal considerations, there was detailed mention of more serious problems encountered by farmers with nearby wind power installations at the first meeting.

Cowan said a farmer had lost some cattle due to problems from stray voltage encountered right after a wind power development was commissioned, an incident that came to the attention of the OFA at the end of last year. Cowan declined to state the location of the incident, except to say it was in Ontario.

“If you put your hand on his barn wall you will have 83 volts going through your body,” said Cowan, who noted that voltage has a greater effect on cattle because of their large body size, causing changes in the animals watering and feeding habits.

“Yes, it could be a problem here,” said Cowan, speaking of Essex County’s numerous municipal drains and notorious wet soils, which can act as conductors of stray voltage.

To make the matter worse, Cowan said the farmer had not been getting help from the power companies or his municipality.

“Typically, it was who can run away from the responsibility the fastest,” he said.

The Essex Free Press

Ethanol: The Great Big Green Fraud

America’s Biofuel Gladiators

Turning food into biofuel pits the car owners of the world against the two billion poor who struggle to get enough to eat says Lester Brown of the World Policy Institute.

Who do you think is going to win?

“This will be seen as one of the great tragedies in history,” says Brown.

See previously published articles on biofuels/energy:
Ethanol: The Great Big Green Fraud – Government subsidies amount to $15 billion in 2007

Greenest Ethanol Still Unproven – Cellulosic ethanol is long way off and may not be a solution

Biofuels and Carbon Credits Behind Global Deforestation

ENERGY REVOLUTION NEEDED NOW – Efficiency improvement is fastest, cheapest and easiest

Worldwide rush for wind power could result in massive debt

Posted November 30, 2007

As told in a recent ad, a Johnsburg farmer who will host wind turbines now has many regrets.

He regrets having been the “lure” to draw in other unsuspecting landowners. He regrets that he has allowed fields to be subdivided, road base to be spread on land once picked bare of rocks, costly tiling to be cut up. He regrets that he’s no longer the person who controls his own land and is now told where to go by security guards. He regrets the divide he has created between friends, between neighbors and between family members.

He regrets not having looked into all the ramifications first. That farmer is now locked in to a binding contract. But there are many landowners who have not yet suffered this fate.

Calumet County Citizens for Responsible Energy asks that landowners considering a contract first step back and study the issues. As with any financial transaction, don’t put a lot of trust in those who stand to gain financially.

Look for Web sites and information from those experiencing the effects of this worldwide “gold” rush for wind power. People across world are rebelling. They’re finding that they’ve lost control of their land and their lives. And they’re in danger of financial hardship if these companies dissolve.

Our irresponsible government representatives are forcing this “windfall” for wind investors on us. Their knee-jerk reaction to the global climate change alarms will cause billions of dollars to be wasted, lives to be ruined, and environments degraded for what is, in actuality, a very inefficient energy source.

With a declining tax base and state and U.S. legislators driving us further into massive debt, taxpayer subsidies for wind will be impossible to maintain.

And with the subsidies gone, what will you be left hosting?

Don Bangert,

Chilton

postcrescent.com

Landowners be Aware

Signing it all away for crumbs from the table

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From Kirbymtn blogspot

“A copy of a boilerplate easement agreement between a windfarm developer and a landowner has crossed my desk. Those who have already seen such contracts have remarked on the irony of landowners defending their right to do what they want with their own land against the considerations of their neighbors but signing away that very right to the wind company.”

“The contract is for 2 years, and then 20 years once a turbine is installed, with the developer retaining the option to extend it another 30 years after that. Of course, the developer can terminate the deal at any time. The owner can’t.”

for more information click link
http://www.savewesternny.org/landowners.html

Although this information is from NY State it is still important

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