Making electricity less costly

Coal fired electricity may look less costly than some alternatives -- until you look at the price we pay for the enormous air pollution generated by these plants. The Ontario Medical Association has calculated that air pollution costs Ontario more than $10 billion a year in health care costs, lost work time and decreased productivity. Similarly, the climate impact of these plants is enormous - the Nanticoke plant is the largest coal plant in North America. As former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern warned in his groundbreaking report on the economics of global warming, any further delay in addressing climate change could have economic impacts that will be larger than those of the two World Wars combined. The flip side is that embracing efficiency and reducing emissions, we can slash these costs while increasing our economic productivity, which can help Ontario close the productivity gap with some of our closest competitors.

Coal generation is no longer even profitable for Ontario Power Generation (OPG). In 2009, OPG received a $412 million subsidy from Ontario’s electricity consumers to compensate it for the operating losses of its Nanticoke and Lambton coal-fired power plants.

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