New leaflet

People in Ontario use 50% more energy per person than their neighbours in New York State. That’s a big gap that can’t be explained away by a colder climate or other factors – the bottom line is that we are simply much more wasteful in our energy use.

We need to close that gap to save money, make our businesses and industries more competitive, and avoid the multi-billion dollar cost – and risks – of new nuclear and gas plants. It’s time for Ontario to get serious about energy efficiency by making it the first choice for meeting our needs, whether it's a warm house or a cold beer.

Energy efficiency must no longer play second fiddle to expensive and inflexible generation projects like rebuilding aging nuclear reactors or expanding our fleet of gas plants. Places like New York, Vermont and California have proven that efficiency works and that it is the cheapest and most environmentally positive way to meet our energy needs. Ontario needs to get with the program for the health of our environment and our economy.

Premier Wynne needs to hear from you that maximizing efficiency – at an average cost of just 3 cents per kilowatt hour – makes much more sense than investing tens of billions of dollars in costly nuclear and gas projects. You can help get the message out by distributing our great new pamphlet to your friends, family and co-workers and by sending a letter to the Premier today.

It’s critical that we convince the Premier to move in this new direction: Already, Ontario Power Generation has signed contracts with SNC-Lavalin and others totalling $1 billion to rebuild its aging Darlington Nuclear Station. If this white-elephant project proceeds it will cost up to $35 billion and drive our electricity bills through the roof. Tell the Premier we need a new more economically sound approach – today!

You can find out more about how Ontario will benefit by investing in efficiency in our Power of Efficiency website section.

Thank you.

- Angela Bischoff

P.S. Click here now to order multiple copies of our new leaflet: Premier Wynne can lower your energy bills. They're free! And please distribute them to your friends, neighbours and co-workers.

Premier Wynne may be literally sitting on the answer to Ontario’s gas plant problems.

In the Whitney Block building that contains the Premier’s office, there is a steam plant that heats various buildings around Queen’s Park. It is a perfect example of outdated energy infrastructure that could be made much more efficient. By converting this plant to a combined heat and power (CHP) system, Queen’s Park could make much more efficient use of the natural gas being burned there and reduce the need for gas peaker plants to power its air conditioners in summer.

Using CHP systems is just one of 7 ideas we have for how Premier Wynne can remake Ontario’s electricity system as a lean and efficient service machine. These 7 steps are the key to unlocking cost savings, increased productivity and reduced greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario. We hope the Premier will act on each and every one of them.

Seven steps to unlock Ontario’s energy efficiency potential:

1. Get serious about reducing peak electricity demand by aggressively marketing the under-used peaksaver program;
2. Help homeowners improve comfort and efficiency by ordering energy utilities to develop home retrofit programs with low-cost on-bill financing;
3. Pay industrial and commercial customers to save by paying them up to the same amount for a kilowatt hour saved as we pay for power from the Bruce A reactors (7.4 cents per kWh);
4. Import low-cost water power from Quebec;
5. Stop wasting natural gas by developing CHP systems in factories, hospitals, universities, and commercial buildings;
6. Phase out the Pickering A & B Nuclear Stations, which are among the most expensive to run reactors in North America; and
7. Make the Darlington Rebuild Project prove its worth by levelling the playing field with other sources of supply or efficiency. If it can't win a fair fight, it's out.

Please tell the Premier you support our Seven Point Plan for reducing Ontario’s electricity system costs and keeping your power bills in check. Send her a message here. Thank you...

January 22, 2013

Good money after bad

It’s bad enough that the Liberal Government is determined to spend billions of dollars rebuilding a nuclear plant we don’t really need, but now it is layering on expensive consultants as a “cost control” measure.

The government will spend upwards of $650,000 to pay an ex-Ontario Hydro employee to tell it if the project is running behind schedule and over budget, as has every nuclear project in Ontario’s history. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) itself will spend an undisclosed amount on a similar consultant to keep track of the project for a company with thousands of employees who are apparently too busy to do this.

Frankly, we don’t know whether to laugh or cry. A corporation whose CEO is paid more than $1 million a year will hire a consultant to tell the government’s consultant if its project is on track.

We have a far better solution and we’re not going to charge the government a single dollar: If you must proceed with the Darlington ReBuild Project despite all rational arguments to the contrary, at least do so only with a fixed price, all-in contract for repairs from an independent private sector company (e.g., SNC-Lavalin, General Electric). Having a bunch of consultants circling the project is not going to do anything to keep costs under control. Only a fixed price contract with a private sector corporation can ensure that the inevitable cost overruns are not passed on to Ontario’s consumers and taxpayers.

We need Opposition Leader Tim Hudak and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath to demand that the government come to its senses, drop the consultants and proceed with a no loopholes, fixed price contract. Ontario electricity ratepayers, still paying down the $20 billion debt run up on previous nuclear fiascos, deserve nothing less.

Please send a letter to the opposition leaders now!

Thank you for making the time - it's important that citizens speak up.

Angela Bischoff
Outreach Director
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
160 John Street, Suite 300, Toronto, Ont. M5V 2E5
Phone 416-260-2080 ext. 1
angela@cleanairalliance.org
Clean Air Alliance
Ontario’s Green Future
No Nukes News

Facebook – Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Twitter – @NoNukeBailouts

With the government’s announcement that all coal burning will cease at the Nanticoke and Lambton plants by the end of 2013, the dirty coal era is ending in Ontario.  This represents a huge environmental and health victory for all Ontarians and we congratulate the Liberal Government for this major accomplishment.  We’d also like to thank the Progressive Conservative, New Democratic and Green parties for continuing to support the coal phase out through a number of elections while holding the government’s feet to the fire on getting it done.

When the Ontario Clean Air Alliance brought forward the idea of phasing out coal use in 1997, it was seen as a bold – and quite possibly crazy – idea.  But we persevered and gained important allies, like the Ontario Medical Association and the late Dr. Sheela Basrur, who endorsed our call to end coal use. 

There have been highs and lows since then. The announcement in 2001 that the Lakeview coal plant would be closed and its spectacular demolition in 2006 were definite highs.  The commitment by then Opposition Leader Dalton McGuinty in 2002 to phase out all coal use by 2007 was another big moment.  And the promise that same year by the government of Ernie Eaves to phase out coal by 2015 was the icing on the cake.

There have been delays, and we all would have liked to arrive at this point sooner, but Ontario has now cut coal use to a tiny fraction of it what it was when we got started – from 25% down to less than 3% of our electricity supply.  And now the government has taken our advice to finish the phase out as soon as possible, essentially wrapping it up a year ahead of schedule (For the record, two units at Thunder Bay will remain online, but we expect they will see little if any use between now and the final phase out deadline of 2014).

We’d like to thank all of you for making this enormous victory possible.  It was your letters, emails, phone calls and doorstep chats with election candidates that convinced every major political party in Ontario to endorse phasing out coal.  Without such a strong public outcry to address the province’s No. 1 industrial source of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, we would not be where we are today.  You did it and you should be proud of what you have accomplished – the No. 1 greenhouse gas reduction action in North America.

Thank you from all of us at the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. 

What Toronto really needs

• It will mean pumping more power into the city from distant nuclear generating stations instead of getting smart about power use and local generation;
• It will leave downtown residents still vulnerable to blackouts if one or two links in Hydro-One’s high-voltage transmission system fail;
• It could require the building of a third high-voltage transmission line through Scarborough and East Toronto to supply sufficient power with sufficient reliability;
• It does nothing to reduce climate damaging emissions driven by Toronto’s growing condo forest.           

• Insist that these condos become part of district energy systems (including deep lake water cooling – about to be expanded by Enwave);
• Install combined heat and power / geothermal heating and cooling systems which would ensure security of supply even during black-outs;
• Every building should incorporate solar energy generation, perfect for meeting the power demands of air conditioning on hot sunny summer days.  (There are also solar thermal air conditioning options that can be used.)  
• Finally, we must much more aggressively reward energy efficient building practices and peak demand reduction.  The technologies for both of these are simple and straightforward – we’re just not using them widely enough!  

p.s. Sending your message will only take you 2 minutes – please do so now!