Infrastructure minister Monte McNaughton said: "Well-connected energy insiders made fortunes putting up wind farms and solar panels that gouge hydro consumers in order to generate electricity that Ontario doesn’t need. "Today, we are proud to say that the party with taxpayers’ money is over."

Energy Policy Ontario

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act, which the Ford government announced Thursday it would officially cancel, was one of the most monumental government follies of our time. It was a hydra-headed monster of regulations and fiat that bludgeoned Ontario’s rural communities, stripped Ontario’s municipalities of every right to the slightest participation in their own planning, placed a darkling pall over the manufacturing industry, and imposed the highest electricity costs in all North America on some of Ontario’s lowest-income citizens.

Energy Policy Ontario

The growing backlash to Canada’s climate push reflects a number of changes, experts say. Those include widespread anger in Ontario as electricity prices soared in recent years, driven in part by a shift to renewables; worries about the economy amid a brewing trade war; and the rollback of U.S. climate policies under President Donald Trump, which could draw energy investment away from Canada.

Energy Policy Canada Alberta Ontario

The growing backlash to Canada’s climate push reflects a number of changes, experts say. Those include widespread anger in Ontario as electricity prices soared in recent years, driven in part by a shift to renewables; worries about the economy amid a brewing trade war; and the rollback of U.S. climate policies under President Donald Trump, which could draw energy investment away from Canada.

Energy Policy Ontario Alberta Canada

The growing backlash to Canada’s climate push reflects a number of changes, experts say. Those include widespread anger in Ontario as electricity prices soared in recent years, driven in part by a shift to renewables; worries about the economy amid a brewing trade war; and the rollback of U.S. climate policies under President Donald Trump, which could draw energy investment away from Canada.

Energy Policy Ontario Alberta Canada

“Cap-and-trade and carbon tax schemes are no more than government cash grabs that do nothing for the environment while hitting people in the wallet in order to fund big government programs,” Ford said in a statement Tuesday. “I promised that the party with taxpayers’ dollars was over and that this would include scrapping the cap-and-trade, carbon tax slush fund.”

Energy Policy Ontario

Premier Doug Ford has officially revoked cap and trade — and is now starting to wrap up initiatives funded by the doomed program.

Energy Policy Ontario

While there was agreement on stage about the need to de-carbonize the planet’s future sources, Tinker offered a caution to not write off certain sources of energy, including nuclear, in getting there and a reminder that even so-called clean sources of energy come with a cost.

Energy Policy Canada

Doug Ford’s PCs say they’d scrap the Green Energy Act, slap a moratorium on new energy contracts and try to renegotiate existing ones if they can. They’d also restore local decision-making over the projects. Adams say he agrees with the PC plan to scrap the legislation, but said it’s deeply intertwined now with how Ontario’s power system works and the PCs haven’t explained how they’d replace it.

Energy Policy Ontario

Peterborough-Kawartha Progessive Conservative candidate Dave Smith said he doesn't think any more solar or wind farms should be added in Ontario. "We do not need them," he said at an all-candidates' debate in Lakefield on Wednesday evening. "We produce 50% more electricity than we can actually use."

Energy Policy Ontario

We can save Ontario ratepayers billions of dollars by tearing up the green energy contracts that are playing a part in harming our economy, costing us manufacturing jobs and pushing people into poverty.

Energy Policy Ontario

But the environment ministry appears to have abdicated its role as regulator, and relies instead on self-regulation by the multi-billion-dollar wind power industry. What is the reason behind these social, economic and environment costs that so moves the Ontario government to keep pressing ahead with this problematic program? I don’t know. The government is not answering.

Energy Policy Ontario

Representatives of five transmission projects proposed in July in response to the Massachusetts solicitation for 9.45 TWh/year of hydro and Class I renewables (wind, solar or energy storage) tried to explain why their projects should be among those selected in January. Contracts awarded under the MA 83D request for proposals are to be submitted in late April.

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According to ISO New England Inc., a non-profit group focused on transmission systems, between 7,000 and 8,000 MW of generation could be shut down in the next 10 years as state regulators scramble to meet their climate goals. In January, officials confirmed the 2,000-MW Indian Point nuclear facility, located about 77 kilometres north of New York City, would be shut down in 2020.

Energy Policy Canada Quebec New York

According to ISO New England Inc., a non-profit group focused on transmission systems, between 7,000 and 8,000 MW of generation could be shut down in the next 10 years as state regulators scramble to meet their climate goals. In January, officials confirmed the 2,000-MW Indian Point nuclear facility, located about 77 kilometres north of New York City, would be shut down in 2020.

Energy Policy New York Quebec Canada

McCarter found 30,000 of those jobs were in construction, lasting only one to three years, and the government had failed to take into account studies in other jurisdictions showing that for each job created through renewable energy, two to four were lost in other sectors of the economy, because of higher electricity prices.

Energy Policy Ontario

Acchione said the province is wasting the power through a practice called “curtailment.” It means that when the province’s hydro generators produce power consumers don’t need, and it can’t be exported, they have to dump it. ...“The numbers...show that Ontario’s cleanest source of power is literally going down the drain because we’re producing too much of it.”

Energy Policy Ontario

Only in Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario would we still be spending money we don’t have, to build wind farms few people want, to generate electricity we don’t need.

Energy Policy Ontario

He said hydro costs are being driven up by long-term contracts that pay high prices to producers of renewable energy. Many of those contracts were signed with wind energy producers in Southwestern Ontario, home to the province’s largest wind farms and largest number of wind turbines. “I think they should cancel some of these contracts and not just extend them,” said Macartney.

Energy Policy Ontario

Thibeault says the government must move away from setting targets for specific types of energy – such as wind, solar, hydro and nuclear – and should instead focus on implementing a system in which energy producers compete for electricity contracts. "...allocating the precise mix of technology types has largely been arbitrary and led to sub-optimal siting, uncompetitive prices, and heightened community concern.”

Energy Policy Ontario