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 $70 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 continues to be the No. 1 industrial source of greenhouse gases in Canada and one of the largest sources 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.
