At four p.m. on Tuesday, with temperatures pushing toward 30 degrees, Ontario electricity generators were collectively cranking out 20, 514 megawatts. To that, the province’s wind farms were contributing a laughable 0.3 percent. That works out to around 5 percent of their capability at that time (see the IESO’s output tables). Nice to know they’re there when […]

Readers should note that I have reversed my position on whether nuclear energy projects should be eligible under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM was established by the United Nations under the Kyoto Treaty, and allows greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction projects in developing countries to earn emission reduction credits that industrialized countries can buy […]

The Obama administration last week quietly acquired a potential climate policy super-tool. The EPA announced its “endangerment finding” that a certain mix of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from new motor vehicles “threatens public health and welfare.” This gives the executive branch the ability to regulate GHGs directly, without waiting for congress to develop legislation. Suddenly, the […]

It could be down to the wire in the ongoing battle between Ontario and the federal government over emission reduction credits. Specifically, wires—yet to be built—capable of wheeling 2,200 megawatts of nuclear and wind power from the Bruce peninsula to the southern Ontario market

In their zeal to out-Kyoto the Harper Conservative government, the premiers of Ontario and Quebec on Monday trotted out an emission cap-and-trade scheme they claim will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Not surprisingly for a political announcement on environment policy, it is long on politically correct platitudes and short on the critical specifics. Not to […]

American Electric Power (AEP), one of the biggest power generators in the U.S., recently settled a lawsuit that alleged it violated clean air laws. AEP agreed to pay over $6 billion to install pollution control devices at 16 of its coal-fired plants. Five of the plants are in Ohio, a regulated state, which means the […]

As I predicted last week, green activists decided to take legal action against the federal government on climate change. Ontario is in the middle of an election campaign, and the issues of energy, especially electricity, keep popping up. The incumbent Liberals are taking some heat for failing to keep their 2003 promise to close the […]

I mentioned on May 24 that climate change and nuclear weapons proliferation are the two biggest dangers facing humanity. The Kyoto Treaty addresses climate change, but several of the biggest emitting countries, including the U.S., have refused to sign it. This, together with the fact that some of Kyoto’s strongest adherents cannot establish economy-friendly mechanisms […]

Readers of this blog may have noticed my disdain for the mainstream environmental movement’s take on electricity investment in Canada. I think the greens are a bunch of Luddite misanthropists (see article). They either don’t understand basic things about modern electricity systems, or they do understand them and advocate policies that are harmful nevertheless. Either […]

Does anyone remember May 2005, when Paul Martin promised $538 million to Dalton McGuinty to help defray the costs of closing Ontario’s coal plants? And that the Harper Conservatives told McGuinty they would honour Martin’s promise? Nobody ever mentions it. I wonder if anybody does remember.
When the Ontario Liberal government introduced, in June, the regulation […]