With the introduction of the…

With the introduction of the Green Energy Act by the previous government there seems to be a major component missing.

Ontario has a long history of using renewable energy. Indeed that is why we use the term "hydro" instead of "electricity". The wonderful aspect about "hydroelectricity", is that there is typically a dam that can store the water until the electricity is required. Thus the electrical production can match the usage requirements.

With the Green Energy Act, "intermittent renewable energy" was encouraged. Thus the term renewable energy was redefined to mean wind and solar (meaning intermittent renewable energy) in the Green Energy Act. I strongly encourage this government to use correct terminology and introduce the term "intermittent renewable energy" for wind and solar, to give clarity to the conversation.

Further, when looking at the future electricity requirements of Ontario, the ability of any source of energy to match the load on the grid in real time must be considered. If the potential source of energy cannot provide the energy at the time it is required, then it should not be considered. This seems fundamental, but must be explicit in the regulations that are going to be adopted.

Finally, if we review the common knowledge of the health effect of cigarette smoking on people, this knowledge evolved from a very rudimentary knowledge where it was assumed there was no health effect, to the current understanding where cigarette smoking causes cancer and shortens lives. It seems to me that we are on the very initial stages of this learning curve for potential health effects of industrial scale wind turbines on people and other wildlife. And just as the cigarette lobby pushed hard against drawing correlations between smoking and health, we currently have a well funded wind lobby that is pushing equally hard against drawing correlations between people's health and the introduction of industrial wind turbines.

Until we know more, and in particular infrasonics is not well understood, caution would seem prudent.