Economic Impacts of Green…

Economic Impacts of Green Energy for Ontario
To attract industries to locate in Ontario with potentially the lowest hydro rates in North America, I would recommend that long term solar and wind energy generation should be eliminated entirely and instead maximize our Hydro Power potential which is cheap, ‘green’ and renewable. In the meantime, we should maintain and even increase if possible, nuclear power and make up any shortfall with natural gas, all of which should satisfy any limits to carbon emissions. Here is why:
The political push to increase and even subsidize Green Energy is solely for the purpose of reducing the proportion of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels in Greenhouse Gases, that the UN IPCC claims contributes significantly to ‘catastrophic’ global warming, from about 4% at present (96% is from ‘natural’ emissions!) to a target of about 2% CO2 in the ‘near’ future. Mandated decreases in the use of fossil fuels will mostly be in power generation resulting in higher expenditures if alternatives such as wind and solar power are contemplated.
A few years ago Ontario’s ‘IPCC-Friendly’ government has subsidized a $ 5-bill, 250 MW, wind and solar power generation complex by guaranteeing graduated charges to the private off-shore design-build contractor of 14→11 cents/kwh (kilowatt-hour) for wind and 44→30 cents for solar power. An environmentally ‘clean coal’ or Natural Gas (NG) generator could produce power at an all-in ‘cost’ (not ‘charges’ which are already inflated to subsidize green energy) of about 5-10 cents/kwh. Wind & Solar Green Energy would be at least double that; at 10-20. cents/kwh.
To put this into an economic perspective, Ontario produces about 20 billion kw-hrs/year of electricity from fossil fuels. If all of this (the ultimate goal) is converted to “green energy” at a premium of at least 5 cents/kwh the extra ‘wasted’ cost could be about $1bill/y! Even more important is that this exorbitant cost of energy diminishes attractiveness for investments to locate in Ontario.
The ultimate economics will forever be limited by the fact that wind and sun is only available about 30% of the time. It means that for the same production of energy per year, the capacity of the solar and wind plants will have to be 3x higher than a fossil plant with the associated higher capital depreciation cost per kwh generated (at least 2x). There is also no history of long term maintenance and replacement costs for solar and wind power, and no expectations of efficiency improvements, as solar panels for example, are already operating near maximum efficiencies in converting ‘available’ solar energy to electrical energy.
Equally ‘Green’ Hydro Power, which we use already and have more potential to increase, has the least operating cost of any form of power generation at less than 1 cent/kwh once the capital cost is paid off! If Ontario is committed to comply with IPCC mandated limits to carbon emissions in the long term, the best option by far would be to maximize hydro power which already supplies 20% or our energy, is ‘green’ and economically even less costly than natural gas. We also still generate over 50% of our power from nuclear fuel that is ‘green’ at least as far as emissions are concerned and also low cost. I would therefore recommend that long term solar and wind energy generation should be eliminated entirely as Ontario has plenty of potential for increasing hydro and nuclear power and make up any shortfall with natural gas all of which should satisfy any limits to carbon emissions and put our industries back on the road and cut present household energy bill at least in half, and all without subsidies!
Thank you for considering my input to this important issue.