Organized nursing eats the Pablum

The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, according to today’s Toronto Star, is participating in activities to “help dispel the health fears being generated by a small but vocal group of wind critics.” They are working with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), an organization that has an altruistic-sounding name but which in fact has Gideon Forman as its spokesperson, who is clearly aligned with the corporate wind development lobby.

The Star article refers to the Canadian Wind Energy Association-funded “survey” which is supposed to show that a “vast majority” or none out of ten Ontarians support wind energy. Never mind that the survey was of just 1,300 people in a province of 13 million, and that few of those surveyed had much awareness of industrial wind turbines at all. (But still, when asked what the negative aspects of wind turbines were, the number one was “noise”.)

In the story, every nonsensical scare tactic is trotted out such as the notorious “coal is killing people” (even though this notion has been thoroughly debunked…and while it is true that coal could be cleaner, why not use technology to do that, rather than build multi-billion-dollar wind developments that harm people’s health in a new way?), and that industrial scale wind power is “clean and renewable.”

For the nurses’s association to fall in with the corporate wind developers in spite of all the evidence, if not to the contrary at least calling into question the safety of industrial wind turbine developments (we know they have it–the North Gower Wind Action Group has been working with them for months), is absolutely appalling.

And for the Star to have given any credence whatsoever to such an insignificant and deeply flawed, clearly manipulative “survey” (usually the media does not publish the results of online surveys as they are completely unreliable and not verifiable) is also appalling. They did note that the survey never asked people how they would feel about a wind turbine being located “next door” but then went on to repeat every industry-formulated spoonful of Pablum possible.

The wind industry is not about saving anybody’s lives or making the health of Ontarians better: it’s about making money, and nothing else. It’s hardly surprising then that they would use their considerable financial resources to shore up support; what is remarkable though is that this “small but vocal group” must be having some effect for them to keep on reaching into their bag of dirty tricks.

For more news daily, go to http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com

and for North Gower Wind Action Group, http://northgowerwindactiongroup.wordpress.com or email northgowerwindactiongroup@yahoo.ca

More wind power really means more natural gas

The former CEO of the Ontario Power Authority, Jan Carr, has published a paper entitled “A rational framework for electricity policy,” in this month’s edition of The Journal of Policy Engagement. Its dry, academic title belies its true message: the push to developing wind power in Ontario has been done without full consideration of the ramifications and is in fact, a shallow policy (or lack of same) to heal Ontario’s energy problems.

“Wind power,” Dr. Carr writes, “has been given priority and a price premium, while nuclear is arbitrarily capped at its historical capacity and required to compete on the basis of price.”

A little easier to understand than Dr. Carr’s 12-page paper is an analysis appearing in today’s Toronto Star. We reprint it in its entirety here.

Back to Rush to renewables could increase electricity costs

Rush to renewables could increase electricity costs

April 06, 2010 

JOHN SPEARS 

Ex-Ontario Power Authority head Jan Carr, standing on the upper mezzanine of the 100-year-old William Rankin Generating Station, takes issue with the province’s ad hoc approach to choosing generating systems. 

STAR FILE PHOTO

The rush to plug green energy sources into Ontario’s electricity system has produced an ad hoc approach to choosing generating systems “that will unnecessarily increase the cost of electricity,” says the former head of the province’s power planning agency.Jan Carr was chief executive of the Ontario Power Authority from its inception in 2005 until September 2008.

 In an article in this month’s Journal of Policy Engagement, Carr questions whether the province’s push for green technology such as wind turbines will really produce cleaner energy at a cost that makes sense. Instead, he says, Ontario should be assigning a price to carbon emissions.

 Carr says the current system of rewarding “green” technologies with high prices is inconsistent, pointing to the different treatment of wind-powered and nuclear generation.

 Both, Carr argues, are emissions-free. (Nuclear opponents argue there are hidden emissions in mining and refining uranium and that it produces radioactive waste).

 But current policy pays wind producers a higher price than nuclear generators.

 The system further interferes with the normal system of deciding which generators get to supply power to the grid, Carr says.

Normally, generating stations submit bids, indicating the price at which they’re willing to supply power. The agency that operates the electricity system accepts the lowest bids first. As demand increases, it accepts higher and higher-priced bids.

 But the current system may put a priority on feeding high-priced wind power into the system, even when lower-priced nuclear generation is available.

 “The result is a higher cost of electricity with no commensurate benefit such as a reduction in emissions,” Carr says.

 There’s a second impact, he notes. Because wind power varies as the wind gusts and slackens, it has to be supplemented by other types of generation to keep a steady stream of power flowing. Nuclear power can’t fill this role – it can’t be adjusted up and down quickly. The available hydro-electric generation in the province is already factored into the existing system.

“The only remaining realistic option for keeping new electricity supply in moment-by-moment balance with customer requirements is natural-gas-fired generation,” Carr writes.

 In other words, more wind power means more gas-fired generators.

 If the objective of boosting renewable energy supplies is to decrease emissions, Carr says, Ontario must figure out the correct proportions of wind, gas and nuclear generation. That’s a complicated issue in itself; factoring in cost considerations makes it more complicated.

 “These questions cannot be answered when technology and investment decisions result from lobbying efforts by advocacy groups or are guided by public popularity,” he writes.

 In fact, he says electric utilities, regulators and investors face “a bewildering and often contradictory mixture of economic, business and regulatory objectives.”

 Carr says economics has governed the development of the current power system and should continue to do so.

 But that doesn’t mean concern for climate change should be abandoned. Instead, he says, Ontario should work at assigning a price for carbon emissions.  Pricing carbon would take the arbitrary guesswork out of picking technologies, he said.

 It would put the electicity industry – which produces only 20 per cent of Ontario’s carbon emissions – on the same economic footing as the transportation industry, the biggest user of fossil fuels in the province.

 “A switch from fossil fuel to electricity will reduce our carbon footprint and we should be doing all we can to expand its supply and use,” says Carr.  The best way to do that, he argues, is to “put a price on carbon and refrain from policy initiatives that pick winning and losing technologies.”

Health research done? Don’t think so.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association and the American Wind Energy Association announced that they have the conclusions of a study on health effects from the noise/vibration produced by wind turbines and of course, according to The Toronto Star, turbines get a “clean bill of health.” In fact, the report concludes, not only are there no real effects in terms of illness from the constant noise, the reports of illness might be the result of media coverage…”anticipatory”, they claim.

We will refrain from further comment until we’re reviewed the report in its entirety, not just a news release. But it is interesting to see some of the names, for example the Medical Officer of Health in Chatham-Kent, who is a member of this review panel, and who conducted a review of the literature (much of it produced by and/or funded by wind proponents) and already came to the conclusion that there are not health effects from wind turbine noise.

A hand-picked selection of experts?

To get in touch with the North Gower Wind Action Group directly, please email them at chubbsworth@yahoo.com