Wind power not the way to fight greenhouse gases

LETTER: Green Energy Act will have negative impact on quality of life

Editor:

Grey County's mission statement says that we are "a family of distinctive communities which values its heritage, natural beauty, clean, healthy environment and rural lifestyle."

The Green Energy Act (Bill 150) threatens that mission. The prospect of our treasured landscape blighted by 35-storey high industrial wind turbines will result in adverse economic, health and environmental impacts. The inescapable proof lies no further away than Dufferin County to our immediate south, as well as in documented evidence around the world.

The Green Energy Act is draconian and severely flawed. Despite decades of experience and 60,000 wind turbines worldwide, there is no scientific evidence that indicates wind power has any significant impact on the reduction of greenhouse gases. Denmark, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind's unpredictability. Carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone). The head of Denmark's largest energy utility tells us that "wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions." Der Spiegel reports that "Germany's CO2 emissions haven't been reduced by even a single gram." Globally, wind energy contributes less than 1% to the reduction of greenhouse gasses.

Wind power is also expensive -- our hydro bills will increase dramatically. In the U. S., according to the U. S. Energy Information Administration, on a dollar per megawatt basis, the government subsidizes wind at a cost of $23.34 compared to the more reliable energy sources of natural gas at 25 cents, coal at 44 cents, hydro at 67 cents and nuclear at $1.59, leading to what some U. S. commentators call "a huge corporate welfare feeding frenzy." Denmark's electricity costs are the highest in Europe. The Danish Federation of Industries says, "windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense." The Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament calls it "a terribly expensive mistake."

Wind power in Ontario will cost 13.5 cents/Kwh (vs. our current electricity cost of about 6 cents). But this doesn't factor in the cost of new transmission lines or the need for back-up fossil-fuel plants to compensate for wind's unreliability (wind turbines run, on average, at 27% capacity). This will have a devastating effect impact on the economy and on employment within the province. Premier McGuinty's promise of 55,000 energy jobs is a cruel delusion.

Developers say wind turbines have no effect on property values. Common sense suggests otherwise. A three-year study of 600 property sales near the wind turbine developments north of Shelburne shows values declining by 20% to 25%, with one reassessed at 50% of its market value. Some homes can't be sold at any price so developers buy them and bulldoze the homes. Would you buy a home in this area? The government refuses to compensate owners for such losses.

The Green Energy Act removes citizen rights and established legislation that protects our environmental treasures. The Niagara escarpment is one of Grey County's most precious assets and one of the world's biological and geological wonders. Yet Bill 150 vacates current protections and allows this invaluable resource to be degraded by developers without proper oversight. The powers of local planning authorities that exist to protect our interests are suddenly being gutted and transferred to the whims of the Minister of Infrastructure and his unwritten regulations (which we are expected to accept without ever seeing).

The government has refused to conduct full, independent assessments of environmental and health effects of any wind turbine project in Ontario despite scientifically-documented proof of serious health effects from persistent exposure to low-intensity noise or to accept the need for adequate setbacks from neighbouring residences (for example, 1.5 kilometres as recommended by the French Academy of Medicine, pending further research).

The government is bent on rushing this grossly ill-conceived bill through the legislature but opposition parties, aided by citizen push-back, have succeeded in ensuring a limited number of public hearings across the province. It is important that we all have a say on a bill that, without major alteration, will negatively impact our quality of life and that of future generations forever. It is time to start asking some hard questions.

If you treasure the special characteristics of Grey County, as do I, it's time to speak up and hold the government accountable for a plan that, in the face of undisputed scientific, medical and economic evidence, makes no sense.

Michael Trebilcock Professor of Law and Economics
University of Toronto, Faculty of Law