Cold Air from Wordpress

I'm often asked about claims from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, and I usually don't prioritize acknowledging them publicly. Privately I have, and because the topic continues to come up, I thought I'll post based on a quick e-mail I produced regarding this OCAA graphic - which is from a more comprehensive document where they reference the sources of most of the figures:

The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has issued a decision today on guidelines for funding the expansion of natural gas delivery.  The ruling is extraordinary in adherence to sound regulatory principles - at least in light of the willful plundering that's been allowed to fall on electricity consumers for years, and which I noted was continuing just two days ago. Contrast the government's spend/contract first, do the math never, electricity experience with: This proceeding is a generic hearing convened by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) to establish a framework within which natural gas service could be expanded to communities in the province of Ontario that are not currently served. ... Despite the benefits of natural gas, there are still areas of the province that are not being served. In most cases, these are rural and/or remote communities where there are challenges to building out natural gas infrastructure (primarily pipelines) in an economic way. Although the costs of building ...

I really don't mean this to sound ugly - but it is about race-based political policy, so I won't waste too much time prettying it up either. Brian Hill has produced another report on the Global News site:  Ontario hydro customers could pay $650 million to connect remote First Nations communities : Despite recent promises from the federal government of more than $185 billion in infrastructure spending over the next decade, Ontario electricity customers could soon be on the hook for up to $650 million toward the cost of connecting 16 remote First Nations communities to the province’s electricity grid. I've written on this transmission line, and want to recap here, hopefully as an addendum to Hill's work, and to demonstrate how stupidly Ontario's novice Minister of Energy, Glenn Thibeault, proceeded with this project. A timeline, for context: [caption id="attachment_4240" align="alignright" width="296"] image from National Post [/caption]...

This is a post written by Bruce Sharp. An earlier version appeared on Linkedin. Well, the (subsidized, one would suppose) L.E.D. light bulb finally went on at Queen’s Park last week concerning electricity costs. Kathleen Wynne says high cost of hydro is concern across province | CBC Did a single by-election loss cause this awakening? In this day of politicians seemingly and completely incapable of climbing down from heavily entrenched positions, this seems to represent at least some progress – admitting there’s a problem.   Upon hearing this news, my mind went to what the government would do to provide relief – the depth, breadth and source of funds. Since 2003, we’ve had a number of dubious band-aid solutions, including a retroactive price freeze, the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit, an end to the Debt Retirement Charge (for residential consumers) and the Ontario Electricity Support Payment. What would be next? We now know it’ll be a removal of the 8% provincial sales tax -- for thos...

  Tom Adams has a very good post following a discussion on Zoomer radio with the current Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. Dr. Dianne Saxe Environmental Commissioner... On Wednesday last week, you and I were guests on the radio show “Fight Back with Libby Znaimer” on the AM radio station CFZM Toronto. A podcast of that interview is available here . You made the following six major points: Climate change means that Ontario has much higher temperatures and longer heat waves. Ontario’s infrastructure was built for the climate that we used to have but unfortunately that is over and won’t come back…If we look at the data, there is a very significant difference that we’re seeing in the last couple of decades from the average temperature of the 20th century, which is what most of our infrastructure was built to. If you look at what is driving Ontario rates up, conservation contributed only 4% of Global Adjustment in 2015. Residential rates in Ontario are average for North Ameri...

If you've never read Gail Tverberg, this would be a good place to start.

I found myself in front of some U.S. Energy Information Administration data today, and, as anybody would, thought that with a little summarizing and some formatting it might make for a pretty enthralling scatter plot. How right I was! I looked up the data after seeing some comments on a recent article by Parker Gallant ( And the winner is : Hydro One! Most expensive residential power rates in North America ). I know I paid about 20 cents/kWh in 2015 (up to ~23 in 2016), so I wanted to check U.S. EIA data to see how that compared - and when I want to check data, I want to check base data. This I found in the form EIA-826 data for Sales and revenue . The data is by utility and state, and it includes revenues, sales and the count for consumer groups - including residential. Forgetting Ontario temporarily, I summarized data by state and created the posted scatter plot to test for a connection between consumption, and pricing. It seems to exist and that seems pertinent beyond a rant - as we...