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.
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- $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.
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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