Cold Air from Wordpress

from Parker Gallant: In the past six months, reports from the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, the C.D. Howe Institute, the Association of Major Power Consumers of Ontario, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce have all called for “competitive” electricity prices. A few of the members of some of those associations already benefit from absorption of some costs by residential and small business ratepayers, but still complain their electricity bills are too high and not competitive with competing jurisdictions in Canada and the U.S.! Ontario is cursed with probably the most complex electricity system in the world even though 80% of our electricity is generated by nuclear and hydro.  Both of those generation sources produce power at an average of about 6-7 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), yet Ontario’s delivered electricity prices are among the highest in North America.   Why? ... continue reading at Wind Concerns Ontario for 22 existing rea...

I just left a comment on an article at the Globe and Mail  with the topic of importing power to Ontario from Labrador- which I'll post below. Yesterday the National Post broke a story about Ontario looking to import electricity from Labrador . There are lots of ugly aspects to the tale, and some interesting ones - but it'd require a lot of time to examine a "promise of cheaper, cleaner power [that] is, in effect, nothing more than a distraction, a promise that will never be fulfilled" - as  Terence Corcoran aptly describes it. My comment in the Globe criticized the Minister of Energy's nonsense spin on saving money by not utilizing the natural gas fueled power plants contracted since the election of the Liberal party in 2003. If you believe Mr. Ciarelli is an honest man, it's not that he doesn't understand the system inherited, but that he doesn't know the system his government created. Thus:

"Greens" target every license renewal of every nuclear plant - here's the overview on the situation for California's last nuclear power plant

A good article for those who haven't been exposed to wind generation requiring redundant, firm, capacity. I think this makes valuation quite simple: the value of wind generation is the cost of the fuel it displaces - without a real price on the emissions created by utilizing the fuel, that's a very simple calculation. In Ontario, maybe 3 cents/kWh when it's anything (often it causes hydro to be spilled, nuclear units curtailed or is exported for nothing). When Mr. Wilson concludes "The benefits that result from the carbon dioxide emissions saved by wind farms are obvious" he is displaying a talent for perceiving the obvious that eludes me. The value of carbon reduction by building this always redundant supply compared to cleaning up existing plant and/or building newer more efficient plant are not obvious. Generally wind penetration is intended to displace high capital cost baseload plant (usually nuclear and hydro) while requiring twinning with dispatchable units...

A good, important, column from Brady Yauch on a Hydro One sale being a side issue to OEB regulator strength

Good tips on identifying junk papers.

The IESO, operator of Ontario's electricity system, recently launched the first major contracting initiative for new industrial wind turbine (IWT) capacity in years, and the municipality of Chatham-Kent was quick to show support for projects within its borders. There are all sorts of messy issues involved in the Large Renewable Procurement (LRP)  beyond those of concentrating IWT's in one area, but they are relevant issues only if one is concerned about value; there's no evidence that the IESO is, but this post will review the value proposition of the projects proposed in Chatham-Kent. The proposed projects, as described by renews in  Thumbs-up for 200MW North Kent : The Municipality of Chatham-Kent has agreed to support the construction and operation of the two-phase North Kent proposal. The 40 to 50-turbine 100MW first phase will fulfill Samsung’s deal to build 1169MW of wind projects under the Korean company’s Green Energy Investment Agreement [ GEIA ] with the province,...