Health, Impact studies, and negligence

An anticipated Health Canada study on Industrial Wind Turbine Noise is noted by anti-victim wind promoter Simon Chapman in a new article in Australia.

Chapman opines there are no problems with industrial wind turbines except for the problems with the whiny sorts that pretend to be bothered by them:

“In this Health Canada study, while proximity to the turbines was statistically significantly associated with annoyance, the relationship was weak. It was better explained by factors such as holding negative views about the visual impact of the turbines (not liking the look of them), being able to the see aircraft warning blinking lights, the perception of vibrations when the turbines were turning and high concern about physical safety. These are all perceptual variables that bothered some…”

but also…

“The prevalence of residents reporting that they were very or extremely annoyed by wind turbine noise increased from 2.1% to 13.7% when sound pressure levels were below 30 dB compared to when the noise was between 40–46 dB.”

as over 40 dB annoyance is much higher, I feel obligated to note a couple of pieces I’ve encountered in the past on the Ontario government ignoring the 40 dB limit:

The MOE and David Libby is an excellent 2013 post – one of many from Wayne at the Wind Farm Realities site. That post references work by John Harrison, as well as a post I assembled for Wind Concerns Ontario:Health, Impact studies, and negligence. The first quote I included in that post is from Belgium’s Superior Health Council:

The noise levels due to the operation of wind turbines and wind farms near people’s homes should comply with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and WHO Europe guidelines for daytime and night-time noise exposure in order to avoid serious annoyance and (self-reported) sleep disturbance. This would lead to sound levels below 45 dB(A) during day-time and 40 dB(A) at night.

I realize there are lot of disagreements on wind issues, but the one on sound levels above 40 dB really shouldn’t be about whether the wind turbines are the problem or the people impacted by Industrial wind are problems.

 

 

Heresy – on an Action Plan allegedly about an environment

Rick Conroy’s latest column could be worse, and still be spectacularly good.

Heresay and Toronto Centre MPP’s Glen Murray’s Climate Action Plan

…none of this is about sympathy for the planet. If it was, we wouldn’t use the legal might of the Ontario government to exterminate endangered turtles and bats that get in the way. We wouldn’t actively work to minimize the importance of their loss. We wouldn’t sanction the swatting of 300,000 of birds out of the sky each year. We wouldn’t industrialize raw and rugged land for useless, intermittent and expensive energy generation. And we wouldn’t work to bankrupt conservancy and nature groups and their donors seeking only to do what governments have failed to do.

If it was about the planet we would care about such things. We would care about nature.

Instead Ontario’s climate change policies are exclusively about appealing to the faithful. They are about exploiting the vulnerable. Those who have been psychologically badgered and beaten over the past decades with the catechism that they are the cause of the end of days—and only through repentance and rejection of self-indulgent lifestyles can they fix the Earth’s weather. Only through sacrifice can they achieve salvation. It is a seductive, effective and proven message.

There is a generation coming of age that knows only this religion. It is all that is taught in Ontario schools. Countering views are held only by deniers, oil companies and other bad people. Blasphemers.

Don’t cheat yourself, read the entire column at the Wellington Times (the best independent paper I know of).

the harmful denial of the subsidy label

On May 12th the leader of Ontario’s official opposition party asked the government:

Why should Ontario’s businesses and families be subsidizing our competition in New York and Michigan?

In response, Ontario’s Minister of Energy, Bob Chiarelli said:

“…Any power we sell to the US, to Quebec, to Manitoba, or power they sell us, is surplus power. It’s opportunity power. It’s pure profit…

…The IESO will confirm that, last year, we made a net profit of $350 million—”

That perspective might be defensible in Mr. Chiarelli’s lobbyist-populated world, but it’s a harmful one for Ontario ratepayers.
The Minister might be communicating that with net revenue on net exports of 16.85 million megawatt-hours (MWh), the province netted $350 million of proceeds.[1]
That calculates out to $20.77/MWh.
“[T]he average price of electricity generation in Ontario… in 2015 was $83/MWh,” according to a December 2015 news release from Chiarelli’s Ministry of Energy.

An Inconvenient Stewardship

““Does the Minister believe it is appropriate for the Government to approve a project that puts out inaccurate and incomplete information?”

lsarc

painting by Oak Ridges Moraine artistHarry Stooshinoff

 

The Oak Ridges Moraine region was a model of how community stewardship of the great aquifer, which was dubbed the “rain barrel” of southern Ontario, could become a driving force for protective environmental legislation such as the ORM Protection and Conservation Act.

Development is carefully controlled to protect water resources in municipalities like City of Kawartha Lakes. So the imposition of greed energy on the communities has been seen as an insult to their established culture of stewardship.

Protecting the Oak Ridges Moraine was an important issue for the Liberals during the election campaign which saw Dalton McGuinty elected Premier in 2003. Dalton McGuinty is now an Independent Director of a renewable energy company:

Key people..

Dalton McGuinty, Independent Director –
Innergex Renewable Energy, Inc.
 

Description Innergex Renewable Energy Inc.

Innergex Renewable Energy, Inc. operates as a Canadian independent renewable power producer…

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Solar driving Ontario electricity pricing

Some messages from my shadow report/estimates of the electricity sector in Ontario over the past 7 days.

The growth in solar capacity combined with the switch in “on-peak” pricing periods to the afternoon combined to make the “On-Peak” pricing periods the lowest valued periods of supply to the IESO market – in stark contrast to the valuation imposed on regulated price plan consumers, whom the Ontario Energy Board decided to have charged $180 per megawatt-hour during these hours.

Perhaps that variance in price makes sense. My estimates of hourly supply costs show solar now often exceeding nuclear:

For clarity, here’s the graph of generated megawatts by hour, which is not as similar to the graph of costs as some might expect.