Province to shut down four coal-burning units

The Sudbury Star
September 4, 2009
Jonathan Jenkin
 

Province to shut down four coal-burning units

Ontario will do in part by 2010 what it once promised to do entirely by 2007 -- by shutting down four of the province's coal-burning power and smog producing power units.

"We are as a jurisdiction determined to eliminate coal-fired generation from our energy supply mix," Energy Minister George Smitherman said yesterday at Ontario Power Generation's headquarters, a smudgy haze visible in the 19th-floor view behind him.

Two units at Lambton Generating Station near Sarnia and two more at Nanticoke in Haldimand County will close by October 2010, Smitherman and OPG president Tom MItchell said.

That would leave two units at Lambton, six at Nanticoke, two in Thunder Bay and one in Atikokan, as the only remaining coal-fired plants.

"As an asthmatic and as a former health minister I have come to understand this is not just a matter of the energy supply mix, it's a matter of extraordinary urgency," Smitherman said, noting the closure will come four years ahead of the government's goal for shutting all coal generation in the province.

But that goal of 2014 is a far cry from the Liberal's original campaign promise from 2003, when they said they could close the coal plants by 2007.

"For me, it's way overdue," New Democratic Party environment critic Peter Tabuns said.

"This government should have been moving a lot faster.

"You can look out that window right there and see how much smog people are having to breathe today."

Jack Gibbons, with the Clean Air Alliance, said with the recession and manufacturing crisis driving down electrical demand and supply increasing, Ontario could and should close its remaining coal generation by 2011.

"Ontario now has the ability to achieve virtually a complete coal phase-out today," Gibbons said.

Workers at the affected plants had a different view, though.

"These plants have been providing Ontario with reliable, safe and affordable electricity for decades," Don MacKinnon, Power Worker's Union president, said in a press release.

"We are very concerned closing Ontario's coal stations will negatively impact energy security, reliability and the price of electricity, as well as the price of natural gas for home heating."