The Globe and Mail claims to have seen a leaked confidential seven billion dollar Ontario master plan, for all new homes to use geothermal or electric heating by 2030, and to provide grants to retrofit older buildings.
Ontario to spend $7-billion on sweeping climate change plan
The Ontario government will spend more than $7-billion over four years on a sweeping climate change plan that will affect every aspect of life – from what people drive to how they heat their homes and workplaces – in a bid to slash the province’s carbon footprint.
Ontario will begin phasing out natural gas for heating, provide incentives to retrofit buildings and give rebates to drivers who buy electric vehicles. It will also require that gasoline sold in the province contain less carbon, bring in building code rules requiring all new homes by 2030 to be heated with electricity or geothermal systems, and set a target for 12 per cent of all new vehicle sales to be electric by 2025.
…
- $3.8-billion for new grants, rebates and other subsidies to retrofit buildings, and move them off natural gas and onto geothermal, solar power or other forms of electric heat. Many of these programs will be administered by a new Green Bank, modelled on a similar agency in New York State, to provide financing for solar and geothermal projects.
- New building code rules that will require all homes and small buildings built in 2030 or later to be heated without using fossil fuels, such as natural gas. This will be expanded to all buildings before 2050. Other building code changes will require major renovations to include energy-efficiency measures. All homes will also have to undergo an energy-efficiency audit before they are sold.
- $285-million for electric vehicle incentives. These include a rebate of up to $14,000 for every electric vehicle purchased; up to $1,000 to install home charging; taking the provincial portion of the HST off electric vehicle sales; an extra subsidy program for low– and moderate-income households to get older cars off the road and replace them with electric; and free overnight electricity for charging electric vehicles.
If I lived in Ontario, I would be deeply concerned about this plan.
Electric home heating is fine, until the electricity fails. When my family lived in Britain, our 6Kw coal burner was indispensable, especially when power lines were damaged by blizzards.
Geothermal systems, heat pumps which take advantage of the relatively constant ground temperature, are expensive, and require electric power to operate.
As for electric cars, a petroleum or diesel car can keep the occupants warm and safe for many hours, if the car is trapped in heavy snow. An electric car, with its much lower energy density, and the susceptibility of batteries to cold, not so much.
Uh.. how are they going to generate all that electricity?? Natural Gas?
Nope, wind and solar, they want to eliminate natural gas entirely. 65% of homes, some 80% of all buildings use natural gas.
When you get these massive Arctic highs in the winter drop down into Canada and the US, you get a lot of very, very cold air and no wind at night. So solar and wind is out during the long winter nights. Energy storage is the only way, but heating requires a lot of energy. And the ocean temperature cycles indicate 2030 may just be a pretty cold year.
Electric heat pumps aren’t very efficient below 5 deg C, and especially when you are in the minus territory (C or F) and resistance heating or geothermal is about the only option. I would hope some group of physicists would volunteer their expertise to explain to these people what is involved.
People will go along with about anything until they are hungry and/or cold, then lookout. About all I can say is “Good Luck”.
Solar in Ontario? They better get used to the sight of windmills and dead eagles.
Windmills don’t do well during snow storms.
Even wind in Ontario is pathetic. The median capacity factor (their output half the time) is below 7% in the summer (40% of the time they produce nothing at all).
It’s ok to use rope and trees limbs to solve certain crimes against humanity. 😉
It ought to be a felony to use Electricity for “heating” (verb).
Now I’m not talking about, industrial process situations, where a precise controlled Temperature is required for some process, chemical or otherwise to take place, and electricity is the only rapid response precision control mechanism.
But wasting electricity just to make people a trifle more comfortable, when other forms of energy that MUST pass through the “heat” (noun) form to be useful anyway, seems criminal to me.
PS: If you know of a process that converts stored chemical energies; for example coal natural gas, petroleum, bio-mass, whatever, directly to electricity, or lighting, efficiently, WITHOUT first converting that energy to “heat” (noun); do please enlighten (pun) the rest of us. Same gose for nucular !
G
Just my personal opinion of course.
rbbcock: True that an air to air heat pump doesn’t work that well when it is cold out. But a lot of ground heat pumps are used in frozen Alberta. I have been using a water to water heat pump for 13 years (to supplement my wood heat and to keep the house above freezing when I am away skiing). It works just fine. COP is 3.5 but it is still expensive at 40 below. I am putting in a propane fired loop on my heat storage tank given the low price of propane these days. Won’t help those poor sods in Ontario, but then, by the time these regulations come into place, the current government will likely be long gone.
Richad Wakeup.
Wind power is a big bust in Ontario, just one problem in the winter is icing of the wind turbine blades creating an unbalanced generator which if left to run will shake it self to death, guess what, the operator has to shut down till the temperature goes above freezing or call in a helicopter to spray the blades with deicing fluid or hot water – Yea that’s really cutting down on fossil fuel.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/23/saturday-silliness-wind-turbine-photo-of-the-year/
To fix the “problem” a helicopter is employed (burning aviation fuel) to spray hot water (which is heated in the frigid temperatures using a truck equipped with a 260 kW oil burner) on the blades of the turbine to de-ice them.
Where does the electricity come from the 80% of the time the turbines aren’t producing electricity?
Oh so sorry, silly question…
___ _____ _____
Solar has big problems in winter and fall due to cloudy skies, frosting, icing and snow accumulation rendering the panel to zero output. Plus heavy snow and ice can warp and degrade panels and roof mountings stressing roofs and causing leaks into buildings.
https://eponline.com/articles/2014/03/06/2014-winter-blasts.aspx?admgarea=Features
Richard sorry for the name spelling it is a great and royal name.
highflight56433
May 16, 2016 at 8:50 am
Ahhhh!
Channelling ‘Lades who Lynch’.
+ shedloads – and I didn’t spill my wine – just!
Auto
george e. smith, you are correct that using electric resistance heaters to heat homes is very wasteful way to generate heat. Residential electrical power has a very high available work (negentropy) because all of the waste heat was thrown away somewhere upstream.
If natural gas is simply piped into a home and burned rather than making electricity at a power plant with it, a far higher portion of the energy in that gas can then be made available as heat.
Hmmnnn….
I’ve heard of still cool, cloudy days, but perhaps they don’t get them in Ontario.
And then there is the efficiency of using electricity for heating.
Turn your solar photons or wind molecules into electricity [ efficiency ?], transport it along wires [loss during transport ?] and turn it into heat.
So,….less excess hydroelectric for neighboring US states to buy? Cool!
“65% of homes, some 80% of all buildings use natural gas.”
And your going to add all of the heating requirements of those buildings to the electrical grid in the form of heat pumps and heating coils? Wind and solar simply won’t generate the required capacity and would not be stable enough, especially during extreme weather events. So…the question remains: how is all that extra electricity going to be produced?
Tom Yoke
If natural gas is simply piped into a home and burned rather than making electricity at a power plant with it, a far higher portion of the energy in that gas can then be made available as heat.
The point is not to most efficiently convert natural gas to heat or reduce CO2 emissions, but rather to break the OPEC cartel. The Ontario strategy is a good start but is missing 2 legs of the stool.
1. electricity from nuclear (missing)
2. electricity for heating
3. natural gas to methanol for transportation to cap the price of oil at about $50 per barrel. (missing)
Electricity from wind and solar is nonsense especially in Ontario. Battery electric vehicles are too expensive.
Nuclear is competitive if regulations that do not contribute to safety are removed. Electrical heating is competitive. Methanol is competitive.
This energy strategy does not require government subsidies. Changing government regulations that prevent the adoption of nuclear for electricity and methanol for transportation is the only assistance required from the government.
Eventually nuclear will be able to separate hydrogen from water competitively, the hydrogen can be combined with CO2 from the air to produce methanol, and the waste products from methanol in an ICE or fuel cell are the water and CO2 that you started with.
Nuclear is a non polluting, sustainable, and safe energy source. Nuclear can be used to break the OPEC cartel’s control of oil prices in the transportation sector. For those obsessing about CO2, nuclear will also end CO2 emissions.
I’m wondering just what the hell is low carbon gasoline made of?
I was wondering that myself. If (rooftop) Solar produces the Electricity for the individual houses in the province, and winter is when most heat is needed, and winter brings snow that covers PV panels, and GEO-Thermal is inadequate for individual houses, then the only other source of heat is Wood Burning which of course still adds CO2 as a product of combustion. Last time I checked, Canada isn’t really a Hot Bed of Geothermal activity. Will they be drilling down Miles to try and capture the mantle heat? If so, what kind of pumps can circulate a liquid up against gravity for Miles/Kilometers distance to bring that heat into individual houses.
Does this have the same limitations that traditional Pumped Storage would have in that the Column of water would be too heavy to lift by any pump if it is over about 1500′ or so in elevation?
Or does the height matter if it is going from ground level down to bottom and back to ground level?
Is there sufficient heat down 1500′ to be useful?
Would the energy expended for the Pump exceed the benefit gained from the ground heat?
Bryan A, I agree with everything you said except on Geothermal heating.
I use it in my house and it works marvelously. It is the only electric heating/cooling system that is worth doing if you want electricity only. The only real downside is that it requires a fair degree of ground loops which takes a fair amount of sq meters of land per house. I am sure there are ways to scale it up for neighborhoods but not for 20 storey apartments/condos.
I am in Canada and with my GHP, I consume 50% less power per sq ft than a comparably insulated house with electric baseboard.
what the hell is low carbon gasoline made of?
========================
Sort of like low fat margarine:
Mixing equal parts Dihydrogen Monoxide and regular gasoline will cut the carbon content in half. In most cases this will cut vehicle emissions to near zero.
Low fat margarine and Carbon Free Sugar
@ Ferd, Thanks for the laugh about mixing gas with H20, hard on screens though!
Maybe its like carbonless paper? Still made of cellulose of course. 🙂
Low carbon gasoline is made from unobtainium with fairy dust added to boost the octane rating, in very cold climates an anti-freeze of powered unicorn horn is added but this does add some carbon, so an alternative is being sought.
Oxygen
g
My guess is that gasoline mileage is approximately proportional to carbon content. Reduce the carbon, increase the fuel consumption for no net benefit (and possibly engine damage because the engine really expected something that’s worth burning).
The progressive just keeps on putting Ontario into a mess. They have got to be the worst provincial Government Canada has ever had. From a “have” province for decades they have now got to beg for Albertan petro $$ to keep them afloat. And soon those $$ will be gone with Alberta’s new NDP that is “hell bend” to destroy the Oil, Coal and Gas industries there! It has not take long to push Canada to the edge in the last 7 months. I just can’t believe the lack of thinking of these people!
They want to ditch the CANDU fleet too
Funny, no part of the faux plan bothered to tell me what the expected payoff was to be. Does this woman who’s expertise is linguistics and education see a world that’s 0.0001 degrees cooler in 2100 after crippling her economy and causing the deaths of countless people (per the reasons stated in this piece) or 0.0002 degrees?
This woman has zero expertise – nada, zilch, none, And like Mr. O, she’s a puppet.
..It’s female ??
The pessimist in me believes that it is the countless deaths that are the goal.
I think she self-identifies as a politician. What could possibly be worse?
The government wants to make Canada colder!! Traitors!
It’s no accident that this idiocy was leaked to the Globe and Mail. This is the most corrupt and incompetent provincial government in the country and it is divided into those who are licking the bottom of the Kool Aid jug and those who have the sense to be embarrassed by their association with this clown show. Either those in favour of this policy monstrosity leaked it to sound out the reaction or the faction opposed leaked it to generate opposition and stop it in its tracks. My money is on the former as its chief proponent, Environment Minister Glen Murray (our idiot of the month), is quick to point out that none of this is “written in stone”. This government is on life support and trying to reach for support from the Green Party and NDP in the next election, otherwise known by the Liberals as Armeggedon
Just wait until solar activity weakens to the point that Earth’s temperatures really start to drop. Anyone who buys into this nonsense will freeze. And this term ‘carbon footprint’ really annoys me.
I live in Ontario and I am deeply concerned. Our Premier is insane, truly insane. The costs will be far too much for people to suffer. For example, there are row housing units across the province built in the 1960s that use baseboard heating, all the rave in those days. Those poor people pay some $1500 PER MONTH to heat their homes. They cant even sell them and get out. No one wants them. The good news is we have a provincial election in two years, and the liberals will be tossed out. Their approval rating is below 25% at the moment, and only going to get worse. Manitoba threw out their socialist government just recently for a conservative government.
..Yes, they will be slaughtered in the next election but the damage done to us in those two remaining years will be “Unprecedented” ! I wish Ontario had impeachment or some such thing !!
The Ontario Conservative party must stand up now and promise to fight it, and to ultimately dismantle and eliminate this ideologically driven behavior modification program. Whatever the cost.
Ontario already is the most indebted sub-national territorial entity in the world:
http://www.debtclock.ca/provincial-debtclocks/ontario/ontario-s-debt/
Nevertheless, the provincial government always finds money for climate change and other symbolic social justice stunts. Appalling.
Once the imminent global financial crisis hits and the fed can no longer print enough money to keep the bond market artificially suppressed, interest rates will spike world wide and our poor liberal cousins from Ontario won’t be able to afford the interest payments on the massive debt that they have run up. Once the FSA (Free Shit Army) looses all of their welfare benefits, they will riot and Toronto will burn. I wonder how much CO2 will be generated then?
Richard is not wrong about the cost. I presently heat with electric, and live in Southern Ontario. This winter, a mild one by comparison, saw a 28% decrease in my electric usage for the peak winter two month billing period over last year, but rate increases this past year saw my bill within a few dollars of last winter’s brutal cold bill. Geothermal? Maybe she’s planning to frack/crack the mantle under Toronto. The Liberal party in Canada, fed or prov, is utterly insane. Intellectually stunted adolescents. Apparently the voters too.
Paul Coppin, are you saying that your bill can be as high as $1500/month ($3000 for two month billing period)?
I live in Quebec. Last year, I replaced my 65% efficient natural gas furnace with a 95.6% efficient unit. My heating bill dropped by $650 over the heating season. Even allowing for the milder winter, I saved about $450. The furnace cost $5,000, and I was due for a replacement after 15 years in any case. Although I’m not an eco-nut, I do believe in using our precious fossil fuels carefully.
“””””…..
Trebla
May 16, 2016 at 7:49 am
I live in Quebec. Last year, I replaced my 65% efficient natural gas furnace with a 95.6% efficient unit. ……”””””
Well Trebla, the way I figure it, your natural gas flame, must not be putting out more than about 4.4% auxiliary lighting to your Chalet. Well even if it does, that too is gonna be “heat” (noun) PDQ anyway.
That is an impressive result you are getting. While it is not clear, just how they are calculating the conversion efficiency, at least we can presume, that they use the same efficiency recipe, for your new unit, as the old one.
The poor efficiency performance of badly designed chemical energy “heaters” is presumably a result of the “heat” not being delivered to a useful space, but leaking to the rest of the universe.
I’m impressed, that someone has figured out how to do that properly. You should tell us who makes your new high efficiency unit.
G
No, Richard’s example is for a different style of house. My two month bill this year is $750 in peak winter (same as last year, even though my usage for the same period is down 28% over last year). That’s up from about $475-500 not more than 3 years ago. This winter my bills were about $1300 for 4 months. I don ‘t have the early spring/late winter bill yet, but based on the cold spring I’m expecting about $650, if I’m lucky. That’s 2 grand +/- for 6 months worth of heat.
Quebec has cheap hydro electric power. Paying for renewable energy is not yet a problem for Quebec electric rate payers.
Paul Coppin, I only ask because you stated “Richard is not wrong about the cost” seemingly corroborating his assertion that a number of people living in row houses across Ontario are paying $0.80/square ft/month heating with baseboards. Yet your monthly bills, assuming the average house size of 2000 sq ft, would only amount to $0.18/square ft/month. That’s less than a quarter the cost.
It is no better here in Nova Scotia. The inmates have completly taken over the asylum. i have tried the simplest math on believers, basic percentages to show the futility of any action we take, whatever your opinion on AGW, yet the windmills go up, coal (we have lots) is regulated out of use and power rates skyrocket. Our entire GHG production is something like an hour of annual world production, and they don’t care or can’t grasp it.
Ontario here as well. These insane freaks want to further cripple our economy, electrical rates have already doubled from the original green plan, closure of 8 coal plants and FIT. How are they going to heat anything on a -30C windless night? Based on last years emissions, China will emit more CO2 between now and 2020 than all of Canada has since confederation. As our manufacturing bleeds due to high power costs, China will just add more as they take over everything we did.
Scary thing is, the architect of the original green plan is Gerald Butts, now senior advisor to PM Trudeau. Not safe to move anywhere in Canada. Butts was also a former radical commie Sierra Club leader.
Greg commented: “… These insane freaks want to further cripple our economy,..”
Yes, that’s the goal of the UN. The people carrying it out are either useful idiots who believe they are saving the world or UN supporters of a one world governance.
Also, heating with electricity is about the most inefficient and costly method available. That’s why electric baseboard heaters are rare, while natural gas heating is commonplace.
Butts is the puppetmaster and has his hand up Trudeau’s butt (figuratively speaking)?
@dbstealey
“…electricity is about the most inefficient and costly method ”
Heat pumps work well (air-source = good; ground-source = better).
Our electrons come from large dams on the Columbia River in Washington State. Issues regarding the dams are beyond the scope of this post.
We have wood stove back-up, and our own wood.
Piped natural gas is not available.
We could get propane. Closest neighbor has a big tank in her front yard that gets filled once a month via a big truck. If our electricity was as expensive as some other places, propane would be my alternative choice. A colder location than ours (or if climate cools) would be best served by a hybrid heat-pump/propane system.
@ Robert of Ottawa, will that be not regulated out by these insane people!, Oh another thing I read some where that if you build a pit the right size and installed the generator inside of it the noise level would go down drastically ( does any one know about this? I have always wanted to buy one but until recently they were really noisy.)
The Co-chair of the Trudeau campaign was Dan/Daniel Gagnier who was Board Chair of IISD/International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Butts played a role but not like the “big-fish” named above. Look up what else Dan Gagnier has been involved in regarding energy issues in Canada.
Gagnier resigned as co-chair a short time prior to the 2015 election.
Sustainable Development Technology Canada/SDTC
Board of Directors includes:
Daniel Gagnier, webpage has short biography.
https://www.sdtc.ca/en/daniel-gagnier
This same government is trying to get a “made in Ontario” pension plan up and running. My parents would be on the poster, I’m sure: some savings, no company pension, relying on federal “social security” (here in Canada called the Canada Pension Plan).
However, they applied to the government program to have their electricity bill lowered (they use fuel oil and wood).
They were turned down.
Seems that they are too “rich” (see above: qualifying for Ontario pension).
Sure, I’ll trust these watermelons with my power when I’m my parent’s age. Sure thing…
I’m buying a diesel generator.
You, I mean the people voted for this result, so……
Surely high quality insulation of homes will be the first objective of this plan, as without it all energy-however generated- is needlessly and expensively wasted.
tonyb
I think it is important to note that these plans seem to have the support of about 80% of the people here.
Climate Change and Electrical Generation Mathematics are taught in the public schools. The mathematics supports the use of wind and solar.
One survey from 2013 — I have seen later.
http://www.environicsinstitute.org/uploads/news/focus%20canada%202013%20-%20public%20opinion%20on%20climate%20change%20-%20english.pdf
I happen to agree with Richard and further believe that the school curriculum does not always provide valid information.
Most of the government people (I would say more than 97%) have little or no training in the physical and electrical sciences and little if any education in advanced statistics. Typical education of our senior ministers is “High School” (George Smitherman — Energy Minister who negotiated the Samsung deal and the Green Energy Act), Our then Premier and the Minister of the environment had a pass degree in Biology, subsequent minsters had two year college degrees in business, BA’s in Music and the like. Enegineers and Power Engineers have had little if any input. Climate Activists and Social Workers far outnumber the technical people who have contributed to the climate plans.
It’s all available in Hansard and the public documents and the biographies. Once I pointed out that the proponents of these plans had little or no relevant education or training — the bios were modified to remove qualifications.
Just sayin’
Cheers!
Richard, I think you need to check your sources on that figure. The average heating bill for a 2000 square foot home with baseboards in Ontario is closer to $350 per month and only during the coldest months. A row housing unit would be closer to 1200 square feet.
Two possible explanations come to mind for your inflated figure. Many people will quote their electricity bill as the monthly cost, when in fact, it represents two months of billing, so $750/month rather than $1500.
The second explanation is that these homes are very poorly insulated, causing an abnormally high energy bills. That’s not necessarily the fault of baseboard heating, a poorly insulated home will cost more no matter how it’s heated. Either way, $1500/month to heat a 1200 square foot home seems unlikely.
http://forums.redflagdeals.com/baseboard-heating-only-whats-your-cost-hydro-1368171/
Would you like people to post their Ontario electric bills here?
Michael S; no, it’s not unlikely, very few houses are of the 2010 or later vintage with the latest in insulation and windows. You say it’s not the “not necessarily the fault of baseboard heating,” but you miss that it is the faulty of 17 cent per kilowatt wind/solar expensive electricity charges (and increasing). This is driving people into energy poverty !!
Yes, Barbara, I would like people to post their $1500 monthly hydro bills for their 1200 square foot homes.
No, Sun Spot, it is very unlikely that people living in 1200 square foot row houses are paying $1500 per month to heat them with baseboards. If you can provide a source to confirm the statement that, “there are row housing units across the province built in the 1960s that use baseboard heating… people pay some $1500 PER MONTH to heat their homes”, I will gladly acknowledge this to be the case.
Where do they plan on getting all that electricity? Fossil fuel? It’s more efficient to heat directly with that NG than convert it. How many windmills will it take? Does anybody involved in this idea know how to read or use a calculator?
More than can physically be built in that time frame. There is no way they can build heating units that fast. Geothermal, which I have, is expensive to install, and takes a lot of time to install, and no one in the suburbs has enough land to put one in. Their plan also includes forcing everyone to live within walking or biking distance to work. No more suburbs. This plan is clearly the UN’s Agenda 2030. It’s a pipe dream that will never happen. They’re going to be booted out of government in two years.
Booted out in two years? By whom? The Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown, believes in global warming, and believes it is a threat to civilization! Even if he defeated the Liberals (not based on any conservative principals) he has promised to continue the insanity. There is no hope for this province.
Hang in there, I’m on the Energy Policy Advisory Committee for the PC. Brown had no right to make that pronouncement. He doesnt make policy, the party members do.
Richard, the only chance the PC’s have of being elected is if Brown promises to undo ALL of the liberals garbage that has been forced upon Ontario !
I’ll keep my ears open Richard. I feel pretty desperate these days.
Richard, then we should talk.
Genuine question: If you put in wholesale geothermal in a city the size of Toronto, wouldn’t you end up creating permafrost? How much heat can you take out of the ground without freezing it entirely?
Ground source heat pumps and real geothermal, e.g. California’s Geysers field, are not even in the same league.
..Someone, anyone !! Save us from this liberal insanity …FFS…We are still waiting for Spring in Southern Ontario !
If longer term forecasts are correct, the continuing cooling of the weather will save you. Even arts graduates will come to understand the problem of cold and no power.
Has nothing more to do with democracy or freedom:
I want to buy the cheapest energy on the market. Don’t want to subsidice other peoples domestic heating nor other peoples electric cars.
You don’t want your tax dollars helping people get $15k rebates on Teslas?
Would anyone like to to try escaping a disaster such as Fort McMurray in an EV?
Michael Jankowski on May 16, 2016 at 9:47 am
You don’t want your tax dollars helping people get $15k rebates on Teslas?
You know Michael, people subsidizing people is win/win – //sarc of
5 years after: battery capacity 50% down you’ve won experience.
@ Johann, 6.18 am, “I want to buy the cheapest energy”,
NO truer words were ever spoken!
“If I lived in Ontario, I would be deeply concerned about this plan.”
Matters not if it’s in Ontario or the USA or Australia, ect…
All common sense humans should take heed.
It’s all a deceptive plan, surely to include those massive bird chomping, LFN emitting, people property rights crushing, wind turbines or solar panels.
Looks to me like a “sustainability” plan.
I live in Virginia, which has a relatively moderate winter climate. My heat pump with electric heat works well although I’d prefer gas heat. When I lived in Michigan, my gas heat was indispensable for winter heating. Maybe the climate in Ontario is more like Virginia.
???
Have you looked at a world map lately, Don’t much think Ontario shifted on the continent lately.
Surely you were being sarcastic? right?
EJ, Mea culpa. I thought anyone would realize I was being sarcastic. Yes, I can read a map and Yes, I was being sarcastic.
EJ
Try this – there is looking at a map and then there is interpreting it!
http://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/101347-proving-the-media-is-as-smart-as-they-think/
My apologies Bob, sometimes you just never know.
I live in Ontario, they can take my natural gas furnace over my dead body. To use electricity for heat would triple/quadruple my bills and rates are still going up. Went to look at a house a year ago, used baseboards installed in the 60’s, would not touch it. The first thing the new owners did (real-estate agent told us), they retrofitted to gas for 25 thousand (furnace, ducting, etc.). That’s how justifiable it is.
Glad I did not vote for these Liberals but as long as the ‘free’ money keeps flowing everyone jumps on board. It’s hard to win elections spouting financial responsibility.
This is a great website to see Ontario’s power price/source, etc. clicking on the various tabs you can see Ontario sources (click 7-day tab) most of its power from Nuclear and Hydro. If you did deeper, for most of the times in the year, there is enough power from just these two sources but there is a preference to use wind and solar when it is available. They throttle the hydro even though they don’t need to, nuclear is base load. You can also see the price spike when the sun rises (click on price tab).
http://www.ieso.ca/pages/power-data/default.aspx#supply
In Ontario renewable energy has first priority to be used if available. This guarantees the renewable energy owners an income stream. Otherwise projects would not be developed.
I live in Ontario and I can tell you that electricity is a very expensive way to heat a home here. My house was built in 1972 and was electric heat. Like most houses in the neighbourhood, mine was long ago converted to forced air gas heating. The Liberal government has closed all of the coal power plants in the province and has only replaced them with wind turbines. Electricity prices keep rising. How they would expect to be able to generate enough power for millions of new homes is beyond me, but why should they care? They are saving the world.
They are saving the world with my money and jobs
Got it in one, Robert.
But the plan will work well.
The Ontario Government will borrow the money to start with and when the lights go out everyone will leave Ontario and go and live in Florida or somewhere like that, (New Cajuns?) taking their businesses with them, so there will be no need for much electricity anyway.
Thus the governmental plan will be hailed as a success.
It will bankrupt the province of course but since it will be deserted there won’t be anyone to pay back the borrowed money anyway and the debt will be written off.
Kate must be jailed, no other solution.
‘Saving the World,’ is a certifiable syndrome.
Electric heating is one of the main causes of heating poverty. It is vastly expensive.
The death toll of seniors in the UK in winter is a prime example
I wish I could say that those deaths were an unintended consequence. But after listening the same clowns go on and on about how over crowded the earth is, I can’t be sure.
Not to worry. GHG use and population growth in SE Asia to balance it out!
The key to ending poverty, diseases, starvation, violence is affordable, reliable energy. Progressives would just as soon line up the over populated everybody they consider “excess”, “unproductive”, and “unnecessary”, shoot them in the head and process them into Soylent Green. But that’s too obvious for these closet eugenicists. They’ll use the consequences of green energy to achieve their utopia.
George Will
“Authoritarianism, always latent in progressivism, is becoming explicit. Progressivism’s determination to regulate thought by regulating speech is apparent in the campaign by 16 states’ attorneys general and those of the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, none Republican, to criminalize skepticism about the supposedly “settled” conclusions of climate science.
Four core tenets of progressivism are: First, history has a destination. Second, progressives uniquely discern it. (Barack Obama frequently declares things to be on or opposed to “the right side of history.”) Third, politics should be democratic but peripheral to governance, which is the responsibility of experts scientifically administering the regulatory state. Fourth, enlightened progressives should enforce limits on speech (witness IRS suppression of conservative advocacy groups) in order to prevent thinking unhelpful to history’s progressive unfolding.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-settled-science-consensus-du-jour/2016/04/22/46acd802-07de-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html
Beware this is a new left-tard idea…”electrification of your economy” where everything and I mean everything is electric powered and the electricity must come from renewable resources (no gas, coal, oil, or nuclear). I saw a slide presentation that “proved” Canada could do this (produce 10 petajoules of energy with no fossil fuels) but the presenter neglected to do the arithmetic that showed you’d need to blanket an area the size of Ontario (1.5 Texas’s) with wind and solar farms to do this.
In Ontario’s case we are currently producing more power than we can consume but because it is non-predictable excess wind power we lose money exporting it. The governments response to this electricity savings is to raise the price to cover fixed costs. Their “logic” is if they can increase the demand by forcing electric cars and electric furnaces onto the population, then this will justify increasing the supply of inefficient wind and solar — all around dumb-assery.
How many people will die when a massive ice storm shuts down the windmills and covers the solar panels with 2 inches of ice?
Several thousand excess deaths in a single month in UK didn’t even cause a question in Parliament, and only one or two muted newspaper stories. So I would say that the politicians will not be concerned at deaths from their policies. It certainly has not stopped the UK ‘government’ from raising taxes on ‘carbon’.
all around chicanery.
At current availability rates you would need 160,000 1.5 MW wind generators to supply Ontario’s power needs. That works out to one wind turbine for every two square miles of the land area of Ontario. The Nanicoke coal fired plant was 40 MW all by itself and when they closed it a few years ago the US steel plant that was beside it closed down. No one is saying it but I work at Arcelor Mittel – Dofasco and we had an agreement with Ontario Hydro for a preferred power rate. I suspect so did US Steel and when the coal plant closed the power deal evaporated. Without cheap power they couldn’t make a profit so they left. Power costs at my work are about $800,000 per year and that stupid woman(?) has plans to double the cost so I don’t think my employer will be around much longer either.
ANNOUNCEMENT
ANNOUNCEMENT
The gravy train is leaving the station. Everyone interested in investing in renewable energy companies that will harvest the windfall of Government subsidies, please board at this time.
I’d rather invest in a wood stove company. Anyone know of a publicly traded wood stove manufacturer?
..Wood stoves are illegal in Ontario now!
seriously marcus ? wood stoves are really illegal in ontario ?
They’re not called wood stoves anymore, they’re referred to as Biomass conversion units.
FFS, I can just imagine how much this fiasco will add to our already World Class debt ?
http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/with-twice-the-debt-of-california-ontario-is-now-the-worlds-most-indebted-sub-sovereign-borrower
And America thought they had problems…sheesh
I live in Ontario, and our Premier can stick her electric heat plan up her bony little butt where the sun will never shine. Our home is already equipped with electric heat, but, we use 2 natural gas units for heat. This woman has already jammed electricity prices up, so high, that many seniors on fixed income are living in electricity poverty. She has also made Ontario the most indebted sub sovereign state in the world and has surpassed the debt levels of Greece. She’s installed so many useless wind turbines that Ontario now pays other jurisdictions to take our excess electricity. My grandchildren will be paying for the debt she has inflicted on this once economically viable province. The next election can’t come soon enough for most Ontarians so we can rid ourselves of the worst Premier in the history of the province and begin the long recovery to fiscal sanity.
Which of the 3 other provincial liberal parties do you suppose will stop this nonsense? Certainly not the Progressive Conservatives. They have promised to continue this insanity.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/ontario-pcs-face-big-changes-under-patrick-brown-an-enigmatic-tory-leader-who-supports-carbon-tax
Ontario was by a long way the wealthiest jurisdiction in Canada when I was a kid. Now it’s a sad clown on skid row. Move to Saskatchewan before the West cuts off the aid.
Don’t worry everybody, by 2030 Ontario’s climate will be like Florida’s and everyone will look back at the misguided kind of fretting on this thread and give a wan, sad smile. We’ll wonder why more wasn’t done to implement mandatory air conditioning, because 4 months of humid, bug-begotten hell is bad enough, but 8 months is simply unbearable! And alligator prevention – where was the government program for that?, or so we’ll think, in those sad, very warm days ahead. The -25 C days I experienced in SW Ontario will be gone forever by, say, 2020. I know this because the media always tell me it. Or words to that effect, anyhoo.
Just think–we in the US can elect Hilary or Bernie and have that sort of thing here! 🙂
All the better to make sure the maximum number of citizens die when the wind doesn’t blow and snow covers the solar panels in the middle of winter.
Isn’t goal? The maximum number of dead people.
Sorry…
Isn’t that the goal?
Ontario is becoming the new California. Nutcases from wall to wall. I hope this government gets booted, along with Notley and all other climate idiots. What an utter waste of resources!
Considering ALL of Ontario is under ice when normal temps return they should be for all the global warming they can muster (not that anything can help forstall the inevitable)
Forestall*
Ontario to spend $7-billion on sweeping climate change plan
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario-to-spend-7-billion-in-sweeping-climate-change-plan/article30029081/?click=sf_globefb
This province already runs a 20 billion deficit, with a 300 billion debt, worse than California on a GDP basis. The province already has had credit rating downgrades (higher interest rates). Their interest payments is already 10 billion a year. The liberals are going to bankrupt this province.
As always, it’s worth listening to Steve McIntyre:
“If change over the next 50 years is more likely to be of the same order as change over the past 50 years, as opposed to the accelerated changes contemplated in the climate models, that is surely relevant to the development of policies that are commensurate with and appropriate to the actual problem. Unfortunately, it also seems to me that much of the climate science community has, in the name of doing “something”, promoted feel-good but pointless or resource-dissipating self-indulgences such as windmills.
In Ontario, unwise subsidization of wind resulted for example in purchase of 3 TWH of power from wind cronies at a cost of $450 million in 2015-4Q alone, which was sold to neighboring jurisdictions for $5 million. We not only lost $400 million in one quarter, but over charged hard pressed industry in Ontario while subsidizing competing industry in Michigan, New York and Ohio.
A more toxic policy is hard for me to contemplate. And yet our politicians want to expand this program.”
I live in Ontario, for half the year now. When this insanity started, we decided to live in the Bahamas for the winter 6 months of the year. But this spring (if you want to call it that) is freezing. It snowed yesterday. Both April and May are down 4 C according to Hydro One temperatures. Each spring, people in Ontario make the same “spring is cancelled” jokes. Every spring and summer is colder than the one before. I don’t think I can live here at all any more.
Been a cold April here in the UK. Makes me wonder how the wondeful GISS manufacturer “TheWarmistAprilEva”!
they just plain flat out lie now. you will rarely find any significant anomalies displayed on a global map near any meaningful population centre. the excess atmospheric heat apparently prefers the siberian wastelands and antarctica to hide out in. very convenient .
same goes for sst .
This reminds me of Clark AB, PI, about 1960. They were upgrading base housing and the electrical system. They ordered diesel generators, washers and dryers. You guessed it, the washers and dryers arrived and were installed first. Result: rolling blackouts.
It seems to me greenie politicians — especially those in cold climates like Ontario — have little or no common sense or knowledge when it comes to electrical supply and demand.
Another fine idea where the King’s horse will founder in the quicksand of reality.
Unfortunately it seems like some more, and probably serious, failures are needed before the adults wrest back control of energy policy and planning from the grasp of the eCO2 zealots. Germany is already quietly backing away and building coal-fired power stations again. The UK is approaching crunch-time soon in the next few years.
Neither of these countries have winters even remotely as severe as Ontario. I wish Ontarians well.
If these goofballs were really rational folks, they would realize that electric cars are the future, just as son as the batteries get perhaps 33 to 50% cheaper. They are gaining virtually nothing by huge subsidies for a vehicle which is not going to help any carbon anything unless the grid reduces its carbon. And from all this the grid looks to be needing a big upgrade. How? How are they going to cost out this grid upgrade? These people are just plain studpid, aside from being idealogues of the first magnitude.
If you said hybrids are the future, like the Prius, I would agree with you. That way the battery cost/performance issue is less. The current sales of Toyota’s cars tells the tale.
ECB Hybrids and battery powered cars are a total waste of time and energy to produce. If they were not a waste the government wouldn’t have to subsidize them. Batteries are very dangerous even with their low energy density. If the energy density were to become closer to fossil fuel levels their danger would increase almost exponentially. Check out some YouTube videos and see what happens when LiPo’s are exposed to improper charging or an impact and decide if you want to be sitting on a bomb while driving your car. The people buying these hybrids have been drinking the “Kool Aid”. If they actually ran the numbers they would realize that they never make back the extra $20,000 or $30,000 it costs to buy the hybrid over the internal combustion powered model even if the hybrid survives 300,000 miles because the batteries will need to be changed several times to make that milage.
….and 100% more energy dense, and we have a totally nuclear hydro generating profile.
Don’t hold your breath, even if it does reduce your personal missions….
Only a doubling? That’s very generous – I’d say 100 x more energy dense
Ontario was well on the way to this before it was greenjacked and windfarms popped up everywhere
“They are gaining virtually nothing by huge subsidies for a vehicle which is not going to help any carbon anything unless the grid reduces its carbon.”
Whenever the government has to pay you to buy something, you know its going to suck.
You can build a house that doesn’t need a heater. It loses so little energy that the energy used in the appliances and the energy given off by the occupants is sufficient. It will cost more but, given the stupid house prices in Toronto, that won’t actually be much of a factor. What’s an extra 50k when your house costs a million bucks!
Just try it. If its hermetically sealed the occupants will suffocate. The requirement for ventilation becomes the dominant heat loss of nearly all housing to (eg UK) insulation standards.
You can fit ‘heat recovery’ ventilation, at considerable expense, but then you find that your triple glazed argin filled windows are dominating the heat loss. So eliminate the windows and illuminate with LEDS..oh dear, that’s even more energy..
May I suggest that you abstain from reading green EcoBollox and take a course in basic engineering?
My regular computer is down for a while and I’m using a crap Chromebook so I’m not going to bother digging up any links.
IIRC, it was done by the Canadian NRC back in the 1970s. I did not say you would enjoy living in such a house. The other example I would cite is the typical (60 years ago) ice house. It was usually built with hay bales. It would keep ice frozen all summer with no refrigeration. As for basic engineering courses; I’ve taught a few. 🙂
CommieBob, I can’t wait to live in a windowless house that is insulated with hay bales and heated by appliance heat, occupant warmth, and light bulbs. Oh wait. It will have LED bulbs,… and I won’t be there during working hours. Maybe if I burn the hay in the fireplace….
Commiebob – Sure, we had an ice house on the farm, buried in a bank and covered with sawdust from our one lung diesel powered saw mill. And yes, it kept things frozen all summer but would I want to go back to cutting ice every winter and hauling fresh sawdust to cover the roof and the ice inside? Not a chance. Your comment about low energy housing is also something I would not choose to live in. Leave it for the Morlocks. There is a happy median though and indeed, I do have argon filled windows and one foot thick walls on my house.
Hay bale construction is becoming more common but has its own issues. One of my nieces just finished building one in the mountains south of Tuscon, Arizona.
No offense Leo, but UK building standards are laughable compared to Canadian building codes for energy efficiency. With slightly more advanced features we have passive solar homes in the West where temps hit -40 that need no heat beyond that provided by the sun (8 hrs./day in Dec.) and lighting. R-60 insulation, high-e air to air heat exchangers, etc. It’s a style not everyone wants to live in and it’s expensive but it can be done. There isn’t much we don’t know about building warm, efficient houses. Ontario’s b.s. proposals are just piling on from a political position.
You would be insane to build a house without a heating system in Ontario and would be unable to sell it!
In Ontario, let’s see what would one need, maybe 24″ walls, R150 ceiling, no windows and air intrusion sealing so tight that an air exchange unit (not that uncommon anymore) would be needed.
That would just about do it.
24″ walls would be R-120 for styrofoam. For ease of arithmetic, let’s take a structure 30’x30’x10′ insulated on all sides with R-100. The surface area is 3000 sq. ft. Outside temperature is -30 deg. F. Inside temperature is 70 deg. F. The difference is 100 deg. F.
Heat flow per hour is:
That translates to about a kW. An adult seated human puts out about a hundred watts. So a couple of people and a reasonable appliance and lighting load would nearly do it. ie. extra heat would be required for only a couple of days per year. (Ignoring windows, doors and air change.)
You’re getting carried away. Some passive solar and thermal mass with R60 or so, air tight with air to air h/e and CO staging and you’re most of the way there. Problem is you kinda need some technical knowledge to manage it. The average homeowner is at the righty-tighty, lefty-loosey level.
24″ walls and double windows, double doors.
Double windows and doors are very effective, when I open my front door there is a weak vacuum I have to pull against to open it, if not for the vents around the apartment, the vacuum would be much stronger when opening the outer door.
I am from Ireland but moved to Finland. The way homes are built in Ireland, a downturn in temperatures would kill 10s of thousands every winter, they are a joke, they are freezing in Ireland’s weak winters of +degrees let alone -30.
What is ‘CO staging’?
I lived in an apartment with electric heat. Trust me, it’s cheap … for the contractor to install: all baseboard wired in heaters; nothing cheaper for the developer. Needless to say (but, I guess I’m saying it anyway), the intention was for the renters to pay the bill; each apartment unit was metered. My single bedroom apartment; insulated below and to either side by similar apartments; with an electric stove (of course) which I never used; and no dish washer, clothes washer or dryer; with myself alone living there worked out to about $125.00 a month in electric bills. That was in the 1980s and 90s. In my current 2 bedroom duplex I pay about $65.00 a month for electric during winter. Home heat, hot water, and the stove is natural gas and for the whole year I pay about $450.00 total.
Never again will I submit myself to an all electric home. You will pry that gas line out of my cold dead hands.
I just moved from a two bed apt. cond at the beach with electric powered in floor h/w heat. Bills ran about $2500 year. Now in an older two bed house with a 40 year old gas beast. Combined power/ gas bills ran under $200 month in a very mild winter. One big difference- I use night setback on gas as recovery is excellent with gas/forced air. Doing that with electric means shivering for half a day as it tries to catch at -30 outside. Politicians don’t understand things like that. The rest of us understand this as a thing called “reality”.
The moral bankruptcy of Greenies is plain as day. Their plans cause, and will cause nothing but misery. Bernie Sanders is probably looking at these plans and licking his chops. Hillary too, only perhaps in a more watered-down version.
When will the “carbon” idiocy end?
That’s the point for the true believers. For the likes of politicos, it’s an opportunity to grab more power and preen before each other at the champagne socialist dinner parties
Not pointed out is that electric heating costs 2 – 3x as much as natural gas. Folks in Canada will have to either stay warm and starve, or freeze and eat.
..If anyone dies during an Ontario winter storm because of lack of heat ( energy poverty) , then the entire Ontario liberal government should be charged with accessory to murder ! They cannot claim that they did not see it coming, it is just too obvious!
They cut back on snow removal… people died. They cut back heath care… people are dying and suffering needlessly every day. They throw the money saved down the drain… every day. Why would they care if we freeze? Do people remember at election time… no! Many are greedy to take the handouts and THINK they are doing better… they are just doing less worse than the rest of us.
Like so many other locations around the world Ontario needs to fight and destroy the left.
It’s War. You’re under attack. Not with troops, tanks, bombs, killing and invasion.
But with equally maniacal, activist bureaucrats, politicians, assaulting policies and costly upheaval.
You have to fight, ferociously, or suffer.
That’s the cold hard fact.
Take your pick.
Talking about an assaulting force’s atrocious behavior and objecting never stopped any war-like attack in history.
People have to move their arms, legs, pens, lips and resources in any way they are capable. An ignite others at the same time.
It’s very inconvenient and disturbing to have to fight an enemy whose very purpose for existing is to serve you.
But you better fight or see your livability served up to be sacrificed by your attackers. .
That isn’t radical rhetoric. It’s recognizing war by radicals.
..That is why Trump is so popular…the silent majority in America has had enough of this liberal p.c. BS !
Canadian Liberal government orders residents to get rid of their old wood-burning stoves or pay thousands of dollars in fines
http://www.naturalnews.com/052752_wood-burning_stoves_Agenda_21_Canadian_government.html
Actually, it looks like it is the City of Montreal rather than the federal government. In any event, Uncle Sam beat them to it.
Ontario sells power to Quebec and New York at a subsidised price, at the same time as charging a “clean power” premium to Ontario residents. The Auditor General calculated Ontario residents paid C$37 billion over the market price:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontarians-paid-37-billion-above-market-price-for-electricity-over-eight-years-ag/article27560753/
Sadly, most of this was already known before the last (two) provincial elections and the Liberal government was re-elected. The litany of dodgy deals and cover-ups is stunning – matched only by the way the press (and apparently the electorate) have ignored the issue. A C$1 billion charge for cancelling two gas-fired power stations (and win a crucial seat for re-election) was reported as costing less than C$100 million and when the (then) Premier left office, he brought in an outside contractor who wiped computer records to remove evidence of the mis-reporting:
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2015/12/17/two-mcguinty-aides-charged-in-gas-plants-computer-probe.html
In a nice twist, the tax-payers covered the C$10,000 cost of the outside contractor!
The current Premier was Energy Minister at the time of the original gas-plant fiasco and yet was re-elected after the investigation was well under-way.
Quite what you have to do to be voted out in Ontario I really don’t know.
..Promise unaffordable freebies to the 48% of the population that doesn’t work and that’s how you get elected in Ontario !
live in Maine, we needed 440v in (basically 2 sep 100A 220v services) for electric heat with (for all intents and purposes) 1 220v 100A leg just for heat.
want to watch a meter spin?
look at it when -15F outside
IMHO it’s obvious the enhanced greenhouse effect (AGW) has been oversold.
Here in Ontario too many influential people have committed to a position they can’t back out of without admitting being wrong. Our elites are convinced we are doing what’s right in demonstrating a commitment to fight climate change. And so it continues.
There has been significant financial damage. They have wasted double digit $billions on a very questionable concept. Shutting down coal, refurbishing old nukes, building new nukes, subsidizing and building huge wind and solar parks and “giving” away excess wind generated power…for what? Do they actually think we have changed the clouds and we’ve got to change them back?…madness.
It’s very weird, even though the evidence supporting man-made climate theory is entirely questionable nobody of influence is saying anything to counter the alarmist narrative. I guess it’s no surprise, in Canada, if you are not on board the “climate of doom” ship of fools you are politically irrelevant.
>>IMHO it’s obvious the enhanced greenhouse effect.
Indeed. A UK Low-Standards airline was so right-on-green, they believed the hype about no more snow (in 2010). So they only bought 3-days worth of ground deicing fluid. There result was the entire airline was grounded for three days, when everyone else was flying.
There is no accounting for stupid. And I think we see more of that in this Ontario proposal.
R
Ontario Liberals are dumb like foxes. They have the NDP on their left and the Green Party sucking up all the oxygen in the environmentalist end of the spectrum. They know they’re toast in the next election except for one possible, very cynical ploy. They abandon all pretext of good governance and go hard rudder to the loopy, environmentalist left. They calculate they have a chance to scoop up votes out in whoo-hoo land. If it’s not enough to win it may be enough to secure second place and a base to fight future elections from. It is the way politicians think strategically. Entirely calculated. No integrity whatsoever. Servants of the people my *as!
I’m in Ontario. The Environment Minister here is a guy originally from Manitoba and along with the Minister of Energy seems to be doing everything he can to destroy Ontario’s economy. Both are crazy. Here our hydroelectricity generation from Niagara Falls is often turned off in favour of wind and solar generation. There’s an excess of electricity that is often dumped into neighbouring Provinces and US States at considerable cost to Ontario.
If the Ontario Conservative party leader eventually sees the light of day and adopts a sensible “climate change” policy, I’d guess the Liberal government will be thrown out in the next election in 2018 and this plan will die.
$35 billion loss and counting.
It gets worse. Ceres Organization says they need $1 trillion per year to save the two-degree world:
http://www.eenews.net/tv/videos/2129/transcript
Clean Energy:
Ceres’ Lubber discusses challenges to exponentially scaling investments to meet Paris goals
OnPoint
Aired: Thursday, May 12, 2016
Video_asset_5581_medium
As businesses of all sizes become more focused on clean energy investments, what challenges exist to scaling these investments to meet the goals established in the Paris Agreement? During today’s OnPoint, Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, discusses the public- and private-sector efforts needed to achieve international targets on emissions reduction.
[. . .]
Mindy Lubber: So it is a hard task but it is feasible. We need to get to about a trillion dollars a year. Now, that’s a big number, and a lot of zeroes, but a trillion dollars a year by 2030, to be meeting our clean energy goals and to get to where we need to be. Now, one way to think about it is today $350 billion is going into clean energy around the world, not just the United States. So we need to triple that. That’s not impossible. Over the last five years we’ve tripled it, we’ve grown. We have $350 billion going into renewables, $350 billion — I think we could get to $500 billion by 2020, and that we could get to a trillion by 2030.
It will never be enough. They will always need more as none of their schemes to save the world from man-made global warming will actually have an effect.
The UK currently has the most aggressive carbon cutting plan in the world. The main result is 25,000 extra deaths per year from the cold due to fuel poverty. In the UK, fuel poverty is defined by the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act as: “a person is to be regarded as living “in fuel poverty” if he is a member of a household living on a lower income in a home which cannot be kept warm at reasonable cost”. As many as 40,000 can die during a brutal cold snap.
Canada seeks to top this record.
Same old song.
Fearful tiny people, they foster so much fear and self loathing in their hearts that they must control everyone else.
Their cheerleaders project their illness upon all who question their madness..
There is mental illness rampant in these climate wars.
Amongst the fearful these psychosis run wild.
Ordinary citizens are under attack, all over.
The frightened ones see you as they see themselves, they hate and fear you.
Belief in CAGW is a blessing, the afflicted self identify and project their madness everywhere.
The blessing is,they leave you with no doubt as to their unfitness for positions of authority.
Yet madness,in the form of hysteria, is contagious.
Look no further than the urban voters of Canada.
This line (from the G&M’s article) is very interesting …
“All homes will also have to undergo an energy-efficiency audit before they are sold. …”
Please note that it isn’t just new homes that will have to undergo this madness, but ALL homes! There you go, existing homeowners will have to retrofit their homes to the liking of eco-nutters, before they are placed on the market.
Yeah but no! Just means that the potential buyer can ask to see the energy audit. It might even be on the disclosure. Like a used car report. Not the worst idea in all this by a long shot.
That’s odd. When I purchased three used cars in Texas, I never saw, nor requested an “energy audit” of my Camry, Sienna or Avalon. The “energy audit” eco-zealots croon about should be an average of the kilowatt hours used per year. When I had my HVAC system replaced, I had to be very firm with the AC contractor that I wanted a one and a half ton unit, I’ll come back to this in a second. They installed a two-stage unit that runs at 70% capacity unless there is a high demand for cooling. I have overriden the default to make the unit run as long as possible to stay in stage 1, so I get close to the sizing of a 1.5 ton unit. Now, how did I know I only needed a 1.5 ton unit? Because I hired another contractor to perform a Manual J inspection.
Looking at the details indicates that they are advocating the use of air heat pumps because they are so efficient. I have to wonder if they realize that those become more or less useless below freezing and the solution is to add resistance heating elements too. That makes them much less efficient.
Also requiring electric for heating makes the winter peak that much greater and the problem that solar is not every efficient in Ontario in the winter that much worse.
Two problems with air-heat pumps. One they are not all that efficient below freezing and depending on the temp delta they may have to be large BTU/tonnage units in the winter. Two, they are mechanical devices that tend to run mostly all year, especially in more “neutral” climates (unlike an air conditioner combined with a much simpler gas furnace which splits the mechanical workload). Most are designed to provide some heat transfer even when grossly inefficient and using electric resistance backup heat. Because of this they don’t last as long and replacement is expensive. I doubled the life of mine (relative to neighbors) by adding a low temperature cutout; but even so, I will never have another one.
As per a commentary above it appears that in a previous brain fart the g of O built a stupid amount of wind power. Anybody surprised? They spent 2 billion dollars to NOT build two gas fired power plants. Then they had to sell $400 million worth of wind power for 1% of cost! Not a typo! Now, through a stroke of genius, they’ve figured out that by forcing people to spend money to switch to higher cost fuel; they can use up the idiot excess they never should have built in the first place. It’s unbelievable! The original mistake was bad enough. Now the citizens of Ontario have to pay more, -forever-, to bury the goof! Stupidest voters on the planet.
$7 billion will do nothing for the non-problem they purport to combat. All that means is that they will be back for more. If they are allowed to. In the interim, the people of Ontario will spend $7 billion – to raise their energy costs by more than double and have poorer service.
But it’s good for the electricity providers although they will complain about all the adjustments they have to go through – to raise their rates. Different government with different details, but Illinois is forcing the closing of nuclear plants by subsidizing wind and raising costs for the disfavored to generate while restricting their revenues. Net result is the same: More expensive to consumers, more costs to taxpayers, less reliable, more government, no benefit. But the environmentalists, control freaks, blind allegiance to indoctrination and fear types and socialists (attn: Department of Redundancy Department) will be happy – On second thought, no not really.
Mad dog Commies chasing their own wind powered tails.
I like your turn of phrase!
Aren’t geothermal and fracking the same thing? They both involve drilling deep into the earth and injecting water and chemicals. I’m outraged that Ontario’s “green” government would allow this. (sarc)
Ah great! At the same time as the government is deliberately jacking up hydro prices and blowing billions on solar subsidy farms & swindlemills.
So the government is going to give people $1000 for a $25,000 job…and demand that they do it
There’s big money in this…..
They won’t give you ANY money. Governments never do. It comes from taxpayers.
They recently introduced a new subsidy for electricity for poor households… they just add it as a new line item to everyone else’s bill. That’s revenue neutrality in Ontario.
This will also just drive one side into the other
“Subsidy for electricity for poor households”. Have you looked at how poor you have to be to be eligible for the subsidy? And what the max value of it is? People at that level of poverty don’t have hydro bills to subsidize…they couldn’t afford it at any price.
As a part of the plan, Premier Wynne will give the taxpayers a detailed justification for her plans – precisely what impact the new policies will have on global temperatures measured in degrees. / sarc
You have to wonder if they understand what they are saying. Gasoline with less carbon? The only carbon-reducing trick would be to add more heavily subsidised ethanol, which, if you look at the whole farming/distilling process involved in making the ethanol, may not result in lower CO2 emissions on a life-cycle basis.
Isn’t low carbon gasoline the same thing as low energy gasoline? So let’s make our gasoline less efficient by adding ethanol. Then we’ll need to burn more to get the same effect?
Adding ethanol to gasoline increases the carbon content. It does not make it low carbon. It is the equivalent of adding a molecule of water (H2O) in place of a molecule of hydrogen (H2).
The amount of heat of combustion you lose by adding ethanol, is just about the heat of combustion of one molecule of H2.
That is why you get poorer gas mileage with ethanol.
Exact same problem occurs if you use an ether instead of an alcohol. Such as MTBE or ETBE that we used to get in our “oxygenated” gasoline.
G
Until we stand up and fight they will just go down the Ven Zoo La La Land trail.
When it all fails the Commies will still blame citizens and dream up more taxes and rules to bind our lives to their corrupt lies even more.
We are insane for not taking a stand before they got this far on the ruin path.
I’m no scientist, but if we can’t produce enough electric via solar and windmills for the amount we already use how will we produce it for a an even higher electric demand?
“Geothermal systems, heat pumps which take advantage of the relatively constant ground temperature, are expensive, and require electric power to operate.”
I disagree. Heat pumps are not expensive to run.
I live in Sweden and have a heat pump in my house. Sure, there is a higher installation cost depending on where you want to extract the energy from, air, just below surface or from a drilled hole (150-200m).
My system has a heatpump that generates 5kw heat and any heating power needed above that is made pure electricity. It is usally only during very cold winterdays that is needed. My heat pump has been running on pure electricity due to high energy need about 2-3% of the time according to the log.
To get 5kw heat out of my drilled hole it consumes about 1,5-1,8kw electricity and that is what I pay for.
My system had a pay of time off 7 years based on the oil price in 2003.
So for the first 7 years the cost was about the same as using oil to heat the house. After that the cost of heating my home is roughly 35% compared to if I would use oil.
There is no difference getting a power outage with oil heating or heat pump, both systems will die if they do not have any electricty available.
So basically 65% of the energy I use today is free of charge,
No one disagrees with heat pump basics, if you can justify the payback period vs. outlay cost like you did, good for you (oil is more expensive than gas for heating here). You are missing the point, the government will take MY money and give it to someone else to install a heat pump. That is where the problem lies. What about all the people who paid out of pocket, like you, and now are giving them away. Maybe the Government should help everyone buy Tesla’s too. I am all for energy efficiency, the building codes are decades old and need updating but don’t ask me to help pay for someone’s new furnace that needed to be replaced anyway.
I have relatives in Sweden, say hello from Canada.
Thast how taxes works, take money from someone to be able to give them to someone else. It doesn’t matter if it is improving energy efficency, paying for child care or building new railway. There will allways be things that we have to pay for that we personally have no need for.
For example in Sweden we can currently, since a few years, get reduced cost when renovating our houses. It is paid with taxes. Someone else “pays” for a part of the work cost. No difference really.
The purpose is to make more people hire someone to do the work since it is cheaper and thus creating more jobs.
Thats taxes at work, take from everyone and then aim at specific areas. Sometimes the tax money come back to you, sometimes they don’t. You still have to pay your share for everything even though you do not have need for everything.
The ofcourse you can argue weather the tax money should used to speed up the process making houses more energy efficient.
In my case when installing my heat pump no subsidies where needed since it had a good pay off time due to a big drop in energy costs.
But if the case would be switching from one energy form to another with the same energy cost, not many would do it without subsidies unless they had no other choice.
Where in Sweden do your relatives live? I actually have a cousing who is living in Canada near Toronto. =)
Jerker Andersson commented: “….Thats taxes at work, take from everyone and then aim at specific areas….”
That’s how taxes in a Socialist government work. In a Democratic government tax revenue is supposed to benefit all. Tax revenue for special interests are supported through voting…..in theory anyway.
That’s the problem with “payback period”. Say J A above saves 1000 a year (I’m guessing as he doesn’t say) in electric costs against the maintenance upkeep and life of the unit (mechanical device). If the unit life is only 14 years, then he could be in a loop where the savings have to be applied to maintenance and the next unit replacement (and downtime). Simpler oil or gas units have less mechanics and typically last longer/have less maintenance/costs.
BFL
May 16, 2016 at 1:47 pm
It had 7 year payback time which means I can redo the complete installation every 7th year and it would cost just as much as running on oil, not including the cost that a oilbruner also must be changed eventually.
Oil price is about the same as electricity per kWh currently but I only pay for 35% of the energy with a heat pump, 65% is for free.
Converted to CAD I pay 0,06 CAD/kWh of heat currently. Electricity costs about 0.19 CAD/kWh.
For me it was just a matter of getting as much kWh of heat for the money invested.
Only by cutting my own wood and burning it would give me a lower price but the workload to save a little more would be huge.
My pump has been running for 13 years so far.
When it breaks down I do not have to pay the full price again because I do not have to pay for drilling a 150m deep hole, removing the old oil burner, cleaning and removing the oil tank.
Just replacing the heatpump which is about 50% of the cost. Payoff time for a new heatpump when replacing the existing one would be 3-4 years compared to burning oil or using electricity.
But this thread was about subsidies also. In Sweden there is no need for subsidies to change to heat pumps specifically because you save alot of money doing so compared to oil/electricity,
I understand taxes pay for a needed road bridge that I will never use as example. But there are other road bridges that I do use. Or taxes that pay for needy disabled people to get therapy that I will never use (yet). Or planting trees to beautify the city.
In this case they are MAKING a NEED (opposed to solving an existing problem) in the name of saving CO2. As I don’t believe CO2 is dangerous, the money is not being well spent IMO. They are making a ‘fake’ economy. And don’t fool yourself, Ontario’s dept is $300 billion dollars. That is about $60,000 per working man/woman (non-government). They are not “using tax dollars”, they are using credit that my children will have to pay off (maybe never). How much CO2 will they save? Will it make a difference?
If something is worth doing, you don’t need incentives as was in your case with geothermal. It does matters on your belief system. 7 billion would fix a lot of other actual issues.
Family is in Lerum, near Gothenberg. Good day.
Jerker – Agree with you – see my comment above on my own heat pump that I installed with underfloor heating 13 years ago. However, as propane prices are so low these days, I am adding a propane fueled loop to heat my storage tank so I can used whichever source is cheaper, though most of the time I use wood cut off my land as my primary heat source.
“There is no difference getting a power outage with oil heating or heat pump, both systems will die if they do not have any electricty available.”
The difference is that I can run my gas furnace, lights and etc., from an axillary generator. I could not heat my home with the electricity from the generator.
In the next house I build probably in 5 years or so, I will probably put in a geothermal system. For backup, I would put in a gas fired unit so that the systems can be ran if necessary off a backup generator.
Luckily I don’t live in Ontario because then I would have to help fund subsidies for everyone else to get new geothermal furnaces.
The problem with governments like Ontario’s socialists is that they are very stupid when it comes to economics. Consult experts on what would be an achievable energy efficiency goal that is also economic. Then change the building code for new builds to increase the energy efficiency standards and let consumers figure out how to meet it. For new furnaces that are installed, increase the efficiency standard for those as well.
Most gas furnaces today are high efficiency models that are better than 95% efficiency AFUE. Mine is 97%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_fuel_utilization_efficiency
For an air to air heat pump you only get that kind of COP at ambient temps over +5C, where you hardly need heat unless you live in a cardboard box! Ground source extends the range but has much higher initial costs, such that only ridiculously low interest rates justify it in most cases, and then only if you believe in fairy tales on repair and maintenance. If your heating oil is heavily taxed it might make your economics work but don’t foist that baloney on the rest of us. I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.
Some one call Rush’s show today and get Mark Stein to do his take on this on air, should be a riot.
There is a really good principle of local government that deserves to be enshrined in law: local govt should concern itself only with local issues, so yes to local air pollution, no to attempts to change the global climate. Since Ontario is to clean air what Delhi is to smog then its an open and shut case.
you only say that cuz you can’t see hamilton
and you can’t see hamilton cuz the brown cloud obscures it.
The coldest country is worried about a slight increase in global avg temps. Talk about selling ice to Eskimos. Sheesh, one really does get the government they deserve. When did practical Canadians become so stupid? GK
It’s embarrassing!
When they became culturally obsessed by ‘process’ rather than ‘results’.
This is only about Ontario not the rest of Canada. The Liberal Ontario provincial government is responsible for environment and energy policy in the province and have been making very damaging policies and decisions. Ontari government elections are dominated by the area in and around Toronto where the population has blindly gone along with anything that looks and sounds greenish. Could possibly change in the next 2018 election if some of there draconian policies go ahead.
Make work program for construction contractors. And just wait until all the faux contractors start to defraud the gullible.
Oooo!! Great plan! The more changes in form energy makes, and the longer the distance electricity is transmitted, the more efficient its usage. No, wait. That’s not right.
Maybe this works better: Using smart meter technology, electrically heated homes can be controlled from a central location. Excess energy use (defined by the State) can be prevented by simply rationing the power people get. And, of course, electric cars can be controlled and altered from a distance, as Tesla has proven.
Is that too paranoid? Really?
Okay. How about this: when electricity and home heat fails, when electric cars run out of juice and strand people without heat in the bitter winter cold, those deaths can then be attributed to global warming. After all, if it weren’t for global warming, the people who died of cold exposure from failed electricity would’ve had natural gas for heat, or gasoline for fuel, and they’d still be alive.
Do they have any idea?
Firstly, losing 50% of the energy by creating electricity, before sending that energy to the household user, is a tad wasteful. Why not burn the energy in the household, and get 90% efficiency instead? You could invent a “domestic boiler” to burn the fuel. Its not rocket science.
Secondly, you will need to significantly increase the number of power stations. The UK the energy split in 2011 was:- Electricity 21%. Transport 32%. Heating 37%.
Even if some efficiencies could be made, like car charging only at night when electrical demand is low, it is still clear that the number of power station would have to be doubled or tripled to cope with the extra demand.
And how much would that cost? And what fuel would all these power stations use? Because if they end up using fossil fuels, then why not use those fossil fuels directly for heating and transport, where they can be used much more efficiently?
UK 2011 energy consumption by sector:
http://www.carbondescent.org.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Jonas-1.bmp
Sorry, try this image:
UK 2011 energy consumption by sector:
http://www.carbondescent.org.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Jonas-1.jpg
This is ON where only a small amount of electricity production still comes from fossil fuels. We are mostly nuclear and hydro. <10% from each of gas(falling) and wind (growing fast). samll abount from salarand biogas. 0 from coal. We have siginficant capacity to the point rates are going up because we arent using enough
Phasing out natural gas? The cleanest and most abundant natural, that is: natural, the clue is in the name, energy source?
These people must be mad.
Hey! They spent 2B to NOT build two gas plants! Everything they do now makes more sense than that.
A different and more accurate headline would be “Ontario decides poor will not be allow to heat their homes by 2030”.
It’s a perfect Green recipe for depopulation. Who will remain to keep the elite in the style they’re accustomed to? Will the US build a wall to keep you lot out?
Who is going to build these houses? Lord knows that you won’t be able to sell them for anywhere near as much as a house with forced air gas heating. I can see a sudden drop in the numbers of house builders since we are dealing with a free market (for now). The only way this plan can happen is if the government forces builders to build and forces buyers to buy.
There is not even one good idea in this plan for Canada. Wind turbines ice up and also require electric heating while idle to keep them workable in case the wind does pick up. And the turbine blades ice up big time, losing lots of efficiency, and requiring de-icing, if available. Otherwise, they have to wait until the ice falls off.
Solar that far north is just plain stupid. Not only does it need to be kept clean but ice and snow will be a constant problem, let alone the low angle of solar input during a large part of the year.
I do wonder how they can have less carbon in gasoline. Do they plan to add a lot of alcohol? Above 11% or so, gasohol eats engines, destroying them. If the goal is to destroy wealth, this is exactly how to do it. I bet they also outlaw fireplaces and wood-burning stoves.
Recently moved to WA and was unpleasantly surprised to discover that the original home of cheap electricity now has the same electricity prices as CA. This is thanks to CA, driven by escalating renewables mandates, bidding up the price of WA hydro-power.
Comparing the prices per btu of thermal energy, electricity is now three times as expensive as natural gas in WA (and heading higher still, while fracking advances send gas lower), so I am busily trying to switch everything I can to gas. These Canadians sure must think they are rich, or else they are just planning on freezing. Pretty sure the latter is actually the green plan for humanity.
But Alex, look on the bright side. You probably got enough from your little Palo Alto house to buy a mansion in WA! ☺
Yeah that’s the dirty little secret. PG&E in order to make the AB32 quota buy hydro power from out of state. PG&E are pretty good with hydro but not THAT good! So they cheat.
… and this is where they lose the body politic, when they show how stupid they are, how much sacrifice and suffering they demand.
But still they were smart enough to say that the changes won’t occur until other politicians are in office, to be pilloried by the pitchfork carrying mob.
I must have missed it somewhere, but what is this supposed to accomplish? What is the supposedly temperature effect if one believes in that?
I think back to Archie Bunker, dingbat!
OMG How stupid does the Liberal Gov’t think people are? It is currently costing me in Toronto about $1,300 to Heat with Natural Gas in a home built 22 years ago. If we change to High Efficiency, the cost should drop below $1,000. If we go all electric, it will cost over $3,000 given the cost of Ontario Hydro and the increases already set to come. In addition to this, Ontario does not have sufficient Generation Facilities so they will have to build either Nuclear or Natural Gas. There is no economic valid reason to do this and the Green issue is destroyed by the necessity for additional Generation Facilities.
There seems to be a huge difference in cost/kWh for electricity and Gas in Canada.
What is the total price per kWh for electricity and Gas?
In Sweden we currently pay around 0,18CAD/kWh. (1,18 SEK) but it varies up and down around that price.
Oil price is almost exactly the same if you consider an oil burner with 80% efficiency, not all are brand new.
So going from oil to electricity would not make your wallet thicker here. It would require an energy form with lower price/kWh or equipment that can extract energy that you do not have to pay for in order to lower your energy costs. Natural Gas is not common as an energy source in Sweden.
Electricity varies across Canada. About .10 kW in U.S. dollars where I live. Nat gas is less than half the cost of electricity as there is a surplus of nat gas landlocked in N.A. Heating oil is comparable to electricity. In Ontario, electricity prices are rising due to some very poor past maneuvers which appear to be continuing.
I live in Ontario and my house is all natural gas and my bill is about 900.00 dollars a year with a eighteen thousand foot house in rural ontario. I have only lights and a refrigerator and freeger electric and two people in the house and make sure lighting is only on when necessary with r 50 insulation, new wndows iand doors, and a new 98 ef furnace my electric bill is now over 140.00 a month and I only use average of 16 kwh per day and of that average of 10 kwh off peak hours
How about 1800 sq. ft.?
I have a friend that put a geothermal system into his new house in BC about five years ago, $25,000. This system has a multitude of pipes, a well and an equipment room in the house with enough piping, wiring, valves, solenoids to make a power engineer fall in love. The thing is all this equipment requires maintenance, seems to me lots of maintenance=costly running expense. My gas furnace is fifteen years old, all I do is change filters and dust it off once a year.
You get the prize. I’m a journeyman AC/heating tech with tons of design experience and I can buy wholesale and I wouldn’t put in a heat pump. Even High-E furnaces are doubtful benefit over a mid- efficient. More government coercion.
I just replaced my ancient low efficiency furnace with a two stage high efficiency furnace. The house is a lot more comfortable. That’s worth something.
My theory is that the furnace spends most of its time firing on low. The heat is thus much more even.
Our premier appears to be incompetent.
She is on an eco-religious crusade. She is indifferent to the welfare of the citizens. She knows the path to the New green Jerusalem and she’s dragging you all there whether you understand or don’t want to whatever! By the way, the future is Socialist and rainbow coloured.
I guess she isn’t so “premier” then. Maybe second rate.
I am sure ontario suffers power outages in winter like I do here in maine.
I can fire up the portable generator and run house (well, oil fired hot air furnace,fridge, washing machine, propane heated dryer and oven) and drive on.
would hate to flip the breaker for electric heat when on portable gen..
There are a number of issues, and, in no particular order:
“Mr. Murray also aggravated colleagues with an Economic Club speech last month, in which he chastised auto companies for not doing enough to fight climate change and mused about closing down the province’s nuclear power plants.”
Base load power generation comes from where? Not combined cycle gas turbines as they are forbidden under this policy. Not nuclear. There is no base load power generation in the proposal.
The present windmill farms are in the rural areas, mostly located near the Eastern shore of Lake Huron. The electrical grid needs to be expanded to these farms.
My present Hydro One bill charges $450 CAD per year just for connectivity to the grid. One’s electricity is on top of that: $0.21 CAD/ KWhr.
The proposal is for $ 7 Billion CAD in subsidies over 4 years. After 4 years, no more subsidies and the added electric and infrastructure costs will fall to the rate payers.
The present automobile factory in Oakville (near Toronto) making the Ford Edge would move down South with the full implementation of electric rates 5 times what they pay now. BTW Ford has just invested in their new EcoBoost engine and it is unlikely Ford would build another “world engine” in the very near future as this Ontario administration is suggesting. Emissions and fuel economy improvements are not just a tweak away. Maybe the Canadian branch of the United Auto Workers envision a cleaner environment when their jobs slip through their fingers for ecological reasons.
Speaking of cars, electric cars will be subsidized to the tune of $14,000 CAD per vehicle. There is no subsidy planned for the battery replacement costs in @ 3 to 5 years of $5,000 to $6,000/ new set. And for those people who are driving their electric vehicle out of town, having to recharge the batteries every two hours or so, gives one a chance to get out and stretch you legs for 2 to 4 hours; a very healthful feature. And in winter, with the extra electricity draw, when the heater is going and the lights are on and the windshield wipers are going, and…all of a sudden, you’re out of juice; then you become a pedestrian; another very healthful feature.
Well recalling the years I spent in Canada, Canadian citizens have always been totally reliant on electricity during the winter months as the gas central heating furnaces, as I recall, were typically controlled by electricity. Therefore no electricity, no furnace operation leads to freezing ones gonads and the water until spring.
But in the case of Ontario, why not build gas electricity generating plants. Will move the emissions from the home to wherever – just like electric cars will do. Great scheme! Not quite sure of the logic though.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Its only about 10% of electicity generation left from gas in ON. zero from coal. Irrrespective of cost, its clearly cleaner to move to electric heat
Perhaps, but now it is ludicrously expensive in Ontario especially if you are outside the cities on Hydro1. Nobody in their right mind except Ontario Environment Minister Glen Murray and Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli would even consider switching to electric home heating, but these guys seem to have no right mind at all.
285 Million for EVs
Up to $14,000 subsidy per vehicle
There are 11,438,574 registered vehicles in Ontario ( http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/trade14b-eng.htm )
That looks like about $25 per vehicle not even 1% of 14,000. Of course not every vehicle would be EV subsidized, but you get the point.
On the other hand, there are tons of business opportunities here for the people that want to suck the taxpayers dry.
RiHo08 May 16, 2016 at 2:24 pm wrote:
“Mr. [Glen] Murray also aggravated colleagues with an Economic Club speech last month, in which he chastised auto companies for not doing enough to fight climate change and mused about closing down the province’s nuclear power plants.”
No idiot like an innumerate, scientifically and technologically, ignorant politician.
Bruce Nuclear Power [BNP] Station, the largest in the world, on the shores of Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada generates 45,000 MWh of energy in a year. This is about 30% of Ontario’s total energy requirements. BNP only occupies two large building by the shoreline.
Surrounding BNP, as far as the eye can see and past the horizon, is the Underwood 110 wind turbine facility which produces about only 380 MWh of energy in a year. A drop in the Great Lakes with regards to Ontario’s energy requirements. At any given time, about 1 in 10 wind turbines are down for wear and tear maintenance.
The energy density of wind is too low for it to become cost effective. This is one of the key reasons that our industrial age ancestors stopped using wind power as soon are higher energy density alternative became available.
Four BNP’s could provide all the energy Ontario would require for the forseeable future with additional energy for export.
Ignatz Ratzkywatzky
I drive by BMP about 2 dozen times a year and have watched the evolution of wind turbines. The windmills are not all turning on a windy day. Some have caught fire and stood in silent reminder of things that can and do go wrong. The electrical grid has almost doubled, taking base load and wind turbine generated electricity to Southern Ontario, or, when there is just too much, sent South to the US electrical grid at discounted rates, or free, or paying the US to take it. Starting at Sarnia and heading North on Route 21, there has been an exponential grow of wind turbine farms now all the way up Route 6 into the Bruce Peninsula and the various Provincial Parks along the way.
All these wind turbines are quite attractive I might say, blinking lights, illuminating dark skies where ordinances against street and business night sky lighting (dark sky) give a pass to wind turbines. Really not much light pollution at all, they’re just winking. There is nothing like standing on Lake Huron’s shore on a summer’s evening watching another vivid “Canadian Sunset” set to the music of “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh” of the turbine blades. And lets not forget the jobs these turbines bring to the local area, the riggers, and mechanics, electricians, all…imported from State’s side. Here today, gone tomorrow. So much like… sort of transient poetic justice. And if you look just right through the cedar bush, standing tall, gleaming white on a 350 foot pedestal, white migratory fowl bird mincers at work. The crows that pick at the carcasses, gather in great wheels in the sky, descend to the fields and feast. No fighting as there is plenty for all. But of course, all of this is out of sight for the Toronto-ites who eschew gas turbine electricity, prefer it located in Sarnia. All of the unsightliness of wind turbines and their aftermath are also, almost willfully, out of sight and out of mind.
Remind me of the virtue of these environmentally conscious, nay, fastidious Ontario-ites who voted for this government?
I have not had the pleasure of spending a winter in Canada, but my brother lived in Ottawa for quite some time. He told my about a particular snow storm, some 20 years ago (?) when all the power lines were brought down. Those with electric heating froze. Those with electric control systems on their gas heater froze. Those with manually controlled gas heating managed to stay warm.
Another well thought out initiative by ‘those who know better’. Except this time they will be killing people.
Most natural gas furnaces in Ontario operate with air ducts and floor vents powered through by an electric fan in the furnace housing. Older properties typically in central areas of cities may have water-circulation radiators either an electric pump or sometimes gravity fed in multi-floor buildings. I’m not aware of any “manually controlled gas furnace’ systems. During the freezing ice-storm a few years ago when some many areas lost electric power for days or weeks due to overhead power cables, some practical people were able to operate their heating systems and circulation with their own generator. Others like me with a woodstove and plentiful wood supply were not affected at all.
At least the Ontario energy woes are coming out for an international discussion.
If what the Ontario premier has proposed for Ontario goes through, then this same thing can be put-over elsewhere.
When a cold snap arrives the surge demand will be insane.
These bureaucrats have signed their own demise. Once sufficiently cold, and the power impoverished poor start to perish in their droves and infant mortality rockets, people have a curious way of taking matters into their own shivering hands.
The politicians and civil servants behind that should have their homes and cars fully converted now (and home subject to monthly inspection to ensure no later `cheating’) and have to live with it for the next ten years.
The survivors can then make their recommendations.
Electric is a HORRIBLE alternative for heating in Ontario. Our rates are sky high. This stinks. And those sky high rates are killing the Automotive industry in Ontario. What about heating factories? Most use natural gas (like mine does). Will industry be forced to use electric?
If high electric rates don’t kill the Ontario auto industry, then “sustainability” will.
Autoguy commented: ” What about heating factories? Most use natural gas (like mine does). Will industry be forced to use electric? ”
Yes. The intent is shut down industry. Witness the UK and Germany. In the UK there are no longer any aluminum smelters due to the high cost of electricity. Steel is close behind. Germany announced it will soon no longer be industrially competitive due to energy cost. If you read ….not even between the lines… the UN proposed mandates the purpose of AGW is to change the world’s economic model by destroying Capitalism in ‘Western’ countries and converting the world to Socialism. They are very open about it.
Liberal parties in Canada, whether federal or provincial, have historically been corrupt.
To understand why they initiate these incredibly foolish and costly programs, simply assume they and their friends will benefit financially from these huge spending boondoggles. They waste a trillion, but they skim a hundred million…
Look up the huge financial scandals under the federal Chretien Liberals. Young Justin may not even realize what is going on around him – he is so inexperienced and naive.
__________
Liberal Theme Song
You put your left had in, you pull your left hand out.
You skim a hundred million and you shake it all about.
You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around
That’s what it’s all about.
Don’t worry, it aint gonna happen. The cost of electricity will be so high by then that people will not be able to afford to heat their homes as well as eat or clothe themselves or their kids. Its part of the master plan to depopulate Ontario to return it to the pristine state it was in before humans arrived
Out of all this foolish crap, I read also:
“It will also require that gasoline sold in the province contain less carbon”
Are they going to change also the laws of physics and chemistry by law? All those environmentalist lawyers must have confused scientifical laws, with state laws… Or they will force oil companies to add some no-carbon additive: either something useless, then increasing fuel consumptions; or hydrogen, then decreasing fuel safety. And anyway with the need to modify engines. But for sure they think that engineering is kind of art half-way between children games and sorcery…
No one will ever conclude the Ontario government is sharp on energy or protecting the public interest . When the first class action suit is launched against the Ontario government because of fuel poverty deaths no elected official will be seen anywhere near this betrayal of the people of Ontario . Idiots !
Ontario wake up . Businesses are cowards .. they only go where they are welcome .
How’s that multi million dollar failed co generation debacle going ? Stupid government arrogance and ignorance cost tax payers big . All to try and buy some votes .
Ontario what happened to you ?
This is what happened to Ontario: Electricity production in Ontario has always been a political football but it was always in the hands of a senior management dominated by electrical engineers and power systems operations specialists. Maurice Strong (remember him, the founding Wally of the global warming movement?) became CEO of Ontario Hydro (the provincially owned Crown Corporation) in 1994 that had provided, up until that time, the cheapest retail and industrial electricity rates in North America. That’s when everything fell off the shelf. Here we are 22 years later with the most expensive electricity rates in North America. In that time, the industry in Ontario has been co-opted away from power systems engineers and operators to legions of self serving consultants, lawyers, rent seekers, subsidy miners and, of course, politicians. The latest chattering rabble in charge of electricity policy in the province have not the slightest clue as to what it takes to run the provincial electricity grid, but, they sure know how to make a buck for themselves and their politically connected friends, particularly the relatively short list of wind and solar providers in the province. It is, by far, the greatest self inflicted economic tragedy ever to be imposed on the citizens of the province. The next election cannot come soon enough (2018).
So, bottomline — seems like snowbird winter lodging prices are going to go up…
Ross McKitrick has some comments about Ontario’s Climate Change Action Plan
Climate crazy Ontari-ari-ario’s no place to grow, but to get the hell out of
Glen Murray’s policies would do more economic harm than the averted climate change
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/ross-mckitrick-climate-crazy-ontari-ari-arios-no-place-to-grow-but-to-get-the-hell-out-of
It will be interesting to see how much love Ontario’s citizens have for green energy, in a few years.
Ontario’s debt will balloon to $350 billion in five years, financial accountability officer warns
http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/ontarios-debt-will-balloon-to-350-billion-in-five-years-financial-accountability-officer-warns
Scientifically illiterate.bureaucrats. Electric heating is energy inefficient. Burn natural gas for heating, you get 100% of its energy as heat. Burn natural gas for electricity, you get 60% of its energy as electricity. So you need 67% more fuel in electric heating. Solar thermal plant is worse. Thermal efficiency is less than 60%. Solar PV is worst. Efficiency is only 20%. You might as well just install solar water heater in your home.
” bring in building code rules requiring all new homes by 2030 to be heated with electricity or geothermal systems”
“New building code rules that will require all homes and small buildings built in 2030 or later to be heated without using fossil fuels, such as natural gas.”
“The plan lists geothermal systems, air heat pumps and rooftop solar panels as technologies that will be eligible for rebates. ”
How does a natural gas heat pump classify here? As a preferred geothermal system, or as a forbidden heating that uses a fossil fuel?
http://www.marcogaz.org/index.php/workshops/gas-heat-pumps-ws
Also what about district heating, especially cogeneration of heat + electricity – is it going to be a forbidden evil because it uses fossil fuels? Or perhaps indirect use of fossil fuels doesn’t count, they are only evil if one burns them directly at home?
An excellent commentary, from Rex Murphy, about Ontario’s climate change plans.
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Leap Manifesto comes to Ontario with Wynne’s new climate change plan
Remember the Leap Manifesto? That was the wild-eyed ultra-greenist, anti-capitalist dogma-sheet that Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein dragged out to the New Democratic Party convention recently. It received a blistering reception from the only NDP premier in Canada, Rachel Notley, and was excoriated by labour leaders in Alberta – where its fanatic zealousness threatened the peace and point of the convention itself.
It is the finest specimen of the Greenist philosophy yet put to hard drive or paper. Kill oil. Kill all fossil fuels. No pipelines. No refineries. Cripple the economy. Deny the poorer nations. If not in your backyard, it should go in no backyard. No doubt it was meant to be radical. But only if radical now means a cascade of unexamined and baseless assertions, a manifest distaste for reality, a raw pulse of dogmatic certitude, and a set of prescriptions that would obliterate a modern economy, push hundreds of thousands out of work, and bring the industrial age back to the days of horse cart and covered wagons for transportation.
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/rex-murphy-leap-comes-to-ontario-with-wynnes-new-climate-change-plan