The Holland Marsh, one of the most unique and fertile pieces of natural marshland in Ontario, is about to get a new neighbor, in the form of an industrial park featuring a 393-megawatt natural gas–fired power generating station. What does the official green lobby, which says it is against fossil fuels and in favour of preserving natural wetlands, have to say about this? Well, actually they support the gas plant.
I must be clear though that not all environmentalists have colluded in this sell-out. The Green Party of Ontario, to its great credit, opposes the gasification of the Holland Marsh. The GPO has posted an online petition against the generating plant; you can fill it out by clicking here.
Now, I don’t support the Green Party. I think their anti-nuclear position is wrongheaded and based on pseudo-science and pseudo-statistics. I wish some day they would wake up and realize that supporting wind and solar generation really means supporting natural gas (see article). But at least they’re consistent when it comes to a position. They’re not a bunch of hypocrites and sellouts.
The mainstream green lobby, on the other hand, is a de facto wing of the natural gas lobby. This crowd is playing a double game: opposing Alberta oil sands development from one side of their mouth, supporting the gas takeover in Ontario from the other.
Mother Nature, whom they say they’re protecting, doesn’t know the difference between greenhouse gas emissions from the Alberta oil sands and emissions from Ontario gas-fired power plants. As far as Mother Nature is concerned, carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide.
We need to stop listening to the mainstream green lobby. The Holland Marsh, Ontario’s best farmland, will see a decrease in its output of prime Ontario produce because of this sellout. Those in favour of localized diets and who think Ontario farmers should get our support, should oppose the gas plant.
The plant’s proponents argue that Ontario needs the power. They’re right. But an hour’s drive to the southeast, to Claringtoon, will bring you to a much better location for a power plant. The Darlington nuclear site can accommodate 3,000–4,000 megwatts of new capacity. It is already connected to the grid. The local community supports it.
Most important, new reactors at Darlington would produce electricity with no carbon emissions.
Mother Nature deserves better representation than what she gets from the mainstream greens.
It is incredibly ironic, isn’t it? The government claims we have to cover thousands and thousands of acres of beautiful, productive farmland with wind turbines and solar panels in order to produce perhaps 2-3% of our supply. Next they claim that it must be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, when we are really just replacing 4 coals plants with 12 -14 natural gas generating stations, and there will be no significant emissions reduction. The Premier signs a 20 year sole source contract with a foreign company to build wind turbines in Ontario, only problem is that the company does not yet make wind turbines and is under investigation internationally for bribery. A FIT contract for 300MW of offshore wind (Wolfe Island) was just awarded to a company, when by their own admission, the government has no guidelines in place for offshore wind.
One beacon of hope appeared in an article by Eric Lam in the National Post in which he states that the C. D. Howe Institute claims that McGuinty’s green energy fees may be unconstitutional. An interesting read: http://www.financialpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=2938485
Lynne,
Yes, it is an interesting article. The fee is actually a subsidy for natural gas–fired power generation, to cover generator costs when the price of gas goes back up.
Notice how outfits like Bullfrog—a beneficiary of the high feed-in tariff for unreliable electricity that requires massive backup from the fossil sources they claim to oppose— are preparing the public with advertisements that suggest it’s virtuous to pay more for electricity.
Expensive electricity is great if you can afford to pay extra money to assuage some vague sense of guilt. Not so great if you are a senior citizen or low-income single mom living on a fixed income, on the 15th floor of a high rise, and utterly dependent on electricity.