The Swedish retail giant IKEA installed solar turbines on their roof and are paid 70.3 cents a kWh ($703.00 per MWh) and the City of Markham installed solar panels on the roof of their Civic Centre with the help of a $2.4 million grant from the province and received the same 70.3 cents per kWh.

If you are the town of Bancroft, in the County of Hastings, however, you must borrow the money needed to refresh an old hydro dam on the York River, a Madawaska River tributary.  The hydro dam opened at the turn of the 19^th century and operated until 2003 producing hydroelectric power but shut down because the turbines had reached the end of their useful life.  In 2001 the dam ownership was transferred from the public utility commission to a new town owned corporation, Bancroft Light & Power Corporation (BLPC) as mandated under the Electricity Act, 1998.  BLPC decided to pursue refurbishment of the dam, commenced the process and hired a contractor to execute the work.  The contractor set about refurbishing the dam and installing two 300 kW turbines which could potentially produce enough electricity to power 500 homes. This is more then double the installed combined capacity of the aforementioned solar panels on the roof of IKEA’s retail outlets and the Markham Civic Centre and would operate at a far higher output of rated capacity then the 13/15% of the solar panels.

As things progressed the installation of the turbines and the small adjustments to the dam created a number of delays and the start-up became a series of testing and adjusting the automated systems, etc. In all the dam operated for over 500 hours as those stop and start events occurred.  As the project moved along BLPC applied for a contract with the OPA, anticipating that they would receive 11 cents a kWh, via the RESOP program, for the hydroelectric power they would deliver to the grid.  The RESOP program was cancelled when the Green Energy Act was passed and the feed-in-tariff (FIT) program developed by the OPA promised 13 cents a kWh for hydro so the application was made to gain access to this higher pricing.

Concurrent with the application to the OPA,  BLPC arranged to borrow $2 million from Infrastructure Ontario to pay for the refurbishment of the dam.

Infrastructure Ontario (IO) is “a crown corporation wholly owned by the Province of Ontario and established by the Ontario Infrastructure and Lands Corporation Act, 2011.” So one of the McGuinty governments creations, IO, agreed to lend money to finance a project and they found it to be an acceptable risk while another McGuinty creation, the OPA, was expected to bless the project.  The monies paid by Ontario ratepayers via the FIT contract would be used to retire the loan.  Sounds ideal, and hydroelectricity, (unlike wind or solar generated power) can be ramped up or down to meet demand and isn’t subject to the wind blowing or the sun shining.

Unfortunately for BLPC, whose Board of Directors have been operating the plant (without pay), the OPA decided that because the dam had operated more then 500 hours (prior to the FIT application) it did not qualify under the FIT program and the town has been forced to sell the power generated via the Independent Electricity System Operator’s (IESO) hourly Ontario energy price (HOEP) market. The  HOEP during 2011 averaged 3.15 cents per kWh ($31.50 per MW).  The net result  is revenue generated is insufficient to maintain the facility and service the debt to IO and may impact Bancroft’s municipal taxes as the town guaranteed a separate Community Futures Development Corporation loan.

Leona Dombrowsky, the Liberal incumbent lost her seat in the Ontario Legislature last fall and this may have had some bearing on that. The Liberals should have breached the rules on this one at minimal cost as compared to cancellation costs of the two gas generation plants in Oakville and Mississauga to retain those two seats.

Greece is a basket case today. It could be a powerhouse tomorrow by acting on three now-evident truths. One, Greeks are neither Germans nor French. They don’t belong in the EU, let alone the eurozone. Two, Greeks don’t need never-ending EU bailouts that can only heighten their despair and diminish their pride. They need to acknowledge that the lion’s share of their debt is unrepayable, as do their creditors, and reset the economy after a formal default. Three, socialism and nepotism have bred corruption and brought Greece to ruin. A deregulated free-market Greece that tapped its immense natural resources would return Greece to glory.

How would deregulation and free markets liberate Greece? Take tourism, a notoriously underperforming industry despite unrivalled attractions such as the Parthenon and some 3,000 islands in the Mediterranean, only 140 of which are populated. Because of a plethora of byzantine rules — resorts could only be built adjacent to major hotels, new golf courses were effectively banned, cruises couldn’t start or end at a Greek port without Greek sailors aboard — Greece has attracted just 3% of Europe’s tourist industry — far less than, say, either Ukraine or Austria. If Greece upped its game to become a travel destination merely as popular as its Mediterranean neighbour, Turkey, the Greek GDP would rise by more than 10%. If Greece became as popular as Spain, the Greek GDP would soar by 37%. Both of these Mediterranean neighbours have far less coastline than Greece and its islands.

Other Greek economic sectors have also suffered from stifling rules. Because no new trucking licences were issued for over 40 years, the cost of transporting goods within the country became a standing joke. It cost less to import a tomato from the Netherlands than to buy one from a Greek farm, less to rent party goods from Italy than from a neighbouring Greek town. The inefficiency associated with the trucking industry thus hobbled the rest of the economy as well. And trucking is only one of some 70 industries that have stagnated under monopolistic rules.

Although Greece’s economic ills have forced it to begin making modest free-market reforms, and although most Greeks favour deregulation in principle, Greeks are not yet ready to abandon the socialistic devil they know, despite a GDP that has already fallen 13% and some believe could fall another 25% to 30%. Neither are many Greeks prepared to abandon the EU or the euro, for fear of the economic unknown. Greeks had another fear, too, in leaving the EU — that the world would then see Greece as a backward Balkan state, rather than progressive as are Northern European countries. This fear, that it would lose status if it lost EU membership, has faded under the withering scorn and humiliation Greece has borne as a result of its EU association.

But Greeks have never been fearful for long, and Greek timidity can become Greek temerity as the country musters the courage to develop what should be one of its very biggest industries — offshore oil and gas. Why courage? Because Turkey, its bitter rival and former conqueror, has since the 1980s threatened Greece with war should it dare develop the Greek Mediterranean. As a result, Greece spends more per capita on the military than any other European country. Even so, Greece with its 400,000-strong armed forces is no match for its better equipped million-man Turkish rival. At a conference earlier this week, former Greek prime minister Kostas Simitis argued that Greece should stay in the EU to guarantee its safety and ward off what many see as an inevitable war, warning that Turkey would win a war in “two to three hours.”

That estimate, perhaps realistic when Simitis was in power a decade ago, may soon be outdated. Greece’s emerging partner and ally in developing Mediterranean oil and gas resources is Israel, which is also helping to develop the massive gas finds off Cyprus, an island nation closely allied with Greece. Israeli jets now patrol the waters between Turkey and Greece and Israel may be establishing an air base on Cyprus to counter Turkey’s increasing military threats in the Mediterranean. With Israel as an ally, Greece may not need the EU’s presumed protection, which in any case may have been illusory. As a Wikileaks cable from the U.S. embassy in Turkey revealed, Turkey in 2003 had plotted to invade Greece — so much for EU immunity.

The Greeks have never been a subservient people. As subjects of the Turkish Ottomans, they repeatedly rebelled against all odds despite brutal repercussions they knew would follow failure, finally becoming in 1832 the first of the Ottomans’ subject nations to win independence. Their rallying cry then — “Freedom or death” — still resonates in Greece. Many Greeks today want freedom from the neo-Turkish domination and freedom from the EU domination.

Should a war with Turkey ensue, and Greeks rise to the challenge to throw off their oppressors, a new chapter in the story of Greece would be written, one in which economic as well as political freedom could well reign.

Lawrence Solomon is the executive director of Energy Probe and the author of The Deniers.

This article first appeared in the Financial Post.

Delaying reasonable and required capital improvements could increase the utility’s liabilities and costs for future ratepayers, energy consultant Tom Adams told the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board on Tuesday. (BRIAN MEDEL / Yarmouth Bureau).

By Brett Bundale, Chronicle Herald 

Hard economic times shouldn’t sway the provincial regulator as it reviews Nova Scotia Power’s capital spending plan, a veteran energy consultant says.

“It’s not wise practice for utilities to be subject to capricious pressures that prevent them from making needed investments in an orderly fashion,” said Tom Adams, former executive director of Energy Probe.

NS Power appeared before the provincial Utility and Review Board for the second day Tuesday seeking approval for $330 million in capital spending this year on 388 projects.

Small business advocate Nelson Blackburn said the volatile economy should be taken into consideration by the regulator as it reviews the utility’s capital program for 2012.“We are in difficult economic times, and (NS Power’s) projects should be prioritized such that there would be little or no effect on ratepayers,” he said in a statement filed with the regulator.

But Adams said delaying reasonable and required capital improvements could increase the utility’s liabilities and costs for future ratepayers.

“The risk of putting off needed capital work could build up an invisible iceberg of liabilities leaving future ratepayers to pick up the tab,” he said. “I don’t buy the argument that if consumers are struggling right now it’s an inappropriate time to make investments.”

NS Power president and chief executive officer Rob Bennett said the economy is part of the equation when the Emera Inc. subsidiary makes decisions to invest in a new project.

He said this is reflected in NS Power’s investment in renewable energy projects, which contribute to the Nova Scotia economy “instead of sending our dollars outside Nova Scotia and Canada to procure fossil fuels.”

But Bennett echoed Adams, noting that “delaying or avoiding things sometimes can create a bigger problem in the future.”

“There is a concept called intergenerational transfers,” Bennett said.

“It’s part of the regulatory and rate making philosophy and we try to put projects in service to serve the customers that are paying for them.”

Yet Adams said each the utility’s proposed capital investments should be carefully scrutinized to avoid a “gold plated” system.

“There is an incentive for private utilities that earn attractive rates of return to pack on the pounds and gold-plate their system,” he said. “So you have to always be alert. There has to be push back and independent rigorous scrutiny is the way to go.”

It’s an issue consumer advocate Bill Mahody raised during the two days of hearings.

He said ratepayers need assurances that NS Power is making decisions with consumers in mind, rather than attempting to build the rate base to maximize returns.

Indeed, reconciling the interests of ratepayers with shareholders was a recurring issue during the hearings.

Board commissioner Kulvinder Dhillon questioned the opening statement of Mark Savory, vice-president technical and construction services for NS Power.

He pointed to the utility’s three key questions used to justify a project, which include why do the project, why do the project now and why do the project in this way.

Dhillon questioned if NS Power considers the effect on customers and whether that was part of the consideration.

Bennett said the value for customers is always a priority when decisions are made to improve the system.

“We’re trying to make strategic investments on behalf of customers. To us, it’s intuitive that we start out with the question is there a way to do this more cheaply for customers and these other three questions just ride on top of that presumption that we’re doing it at the lowest cost possible.”

For the original article, see here.

By Robert Tracinski

Why do most people today, scientists included, believe that small doses of radiation are harmful to human health when no proof for this theory exists, and when mountains of evidence show the opposite — that small amounts of radiation actually promote health? After years of sleuthing into historical records, a scientist at the University of Massachusetts has found a smoking gun, involving a scientific scam in 1946 at the very highest echelons — the Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm.

In an august Nobel hall one year after the end of the Second World War, the scientific world was knowingly misled by Hermann J. Muller, winner that year of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. This is the verdict from a forensic review entitled Muller’s Nobel Prize Lecture: When Ideology Prevailed Over Science, just published by the Society of Toxicology in the Oxford University Press’s Toxicological Sciences. Had Muller spoken the truth and revealed the existence of contradictory research in the world’s most prominent scientific gathering, we might today have an entirely different view of radiation and its effects, preventing immense human suffering and the loss of countless lives.

Prior to the Second World War, the world of medicine saw radiation as a life-giving therapy as well as a diagnostic tool: Ordinary X-ray machines were widely used to zap more than two dozen different types of infections, gangrene among them, miraculously eliminating the need to amputate limbs. But science didn’t understand how exactly radiation worked its wonders, leading to conjecture that radiation, a known killer at very high doses, might do harm as well as good. One theory that arose held that radiation also killed at low doses, only in smaller proportions. This theory — that there is no safe dose for radiation — became the focus of a hot dispute, with one medical camp accepting it, the other rejecting it, and both investigating it.

Muller was in the ascendant “no safe dose” camp that claimed that there is no threshold below which radiation stops being harmful. As he told the distinguished attendees in Stockholm in accepting his Nobel Prize, the evidence now leaves “no escape from the conclusion that there is no threshold dose” of radiation. It was a convincing performance in the world’s most prestigious scientific gathering, except Muller himself knew that statement to be unsupportable. The historical evidence, as uncovered by Edward Calabrese, the author of the forensic review, leaves no escape from the conclusion that Muller was engaged in duplicity.

Five weeks before Muller delivered his Nobel acceptance speech, he had received a manuscript from Prof. Curt Stern, a prominent radiation geneticist who had headed a project for the Manhattan Project that had also employed Muller as a consultant. The manuscript confirmed an earlier study that demonstrated a safe dose. Muller responded to Stern in a private letter, saying he had no dispute with the study but felt that its findings were so significant to the debate that the new study needed to be replicated as soon as possible, a major undertaking that would take a year.

Muller then went to Stockholm to accept his Nobel Prize as if the manuscript had never existed. Another several weeks and Muller again wrote Stern, to again impress on him the importance of replicating the manuscript’s findings. As Calabrese’s expose reveals, Muller not only convinced the Nobel Prize assemblage that the science was settled on the danger of low levels of radiation, he also succeeded in marginalizing the Stern manuscript, effectively thwarting important lines of inquiry. Score one giant victory for scientific deception, one giant loss for truth in science.

What harm was done by Muller’s false assertion in Stockholm? Although the scientific world has recently rediscovered the benefits of low levels of radiation in a growing discipline called radiation hormesis — universities now offer courses in hormesis and scientific journals publish an increasing number of hormesis studies — Muller’s role in derailing research over many decades is undeniable. The costs have been incalculable. As good as antibiotics have been, for example, they continue to underperform the pre-Second World War success rate of X-ray therapy in preventing amputations and deaths from gangrene. Studies also show that routine exposure to low levels of radiation act as a tonic, dramatically preventing numerous diseases, including major killers such as heart disease and cancer.

Muller is now dead and buried, along with perhaps thousands, perhaps millions who met an untimely death in part because of him.

To read the expose of Hermann Muller, click here.

Lawrence Solomon is the executive director of Energy Probe and the author of The Deniers.

This article first appeared in the Financial Post.

When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets China’s President Hu Jintao in Beijing next week, it will be a meeting between a growing, newly confident power and one that is unsure of itself and its place in the world. Harper heads the confident power. Hu stands atop a vast chaos, a seething, heaving economy of plunderers that keeps the plundered at bay through an army of spies and thugs, of thieves that pirate the West’s designs and innovations, and of military adventurers who threaten to seize property and resources from nearly all its neighbours.

In aid of its territorial claims against its neighbours, China’s military – the world’s largest after the U.S.— has been growing rapidly and, most believe, surreptitiously — some estimates, such as from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, have had China underreporting military spending by a factor of five. Under this onslaught, Vietnam fears for its Spratly Islands, Japan for the Senkaku Islands, Taiwan for itself.

As remarkably, China’s official accounts show it to spend even more keeping its citizens in check — it calls this “social stability maintenance” — than on its military. Spending on social stability, which includes police, jails, and an elaborate domestic surveillance system that tracks citizens, has been increasing at a blistering rate – almost 14% in the current year. As with military spending, many believe the Chinese government is understating these expenses, too, to hide the shame of needing to crack down on a populace that holds it in contempt, that increasingly mocks its ham-handed stupidity, and that increasingly confronts it.

The number of protests against injustices has been steadily climbing. In 1993, according to the Chinese Police Academy, China experienced 8,700 “mass incidents.” By 2006, that figure had soared to more than 90,000 and in 2010, according to an estimate from Tsinghua University, it doubled to 180,000. The great majority of the protests are not political but economic, typically by communities protesting against the confiscation of their land by developers in league with corrupt government officials.

To defuse this powder keg, the government sometimes attacks, sometimes appeases, sometimes both. In one high profile protest last September, thousands of villagers in the southern community of Wukan demonstrated against the seizure of their farmland, leading to attacks by riot police, a counterattack by villagers, and a government siege of the village designed to starve the village into submission. After withering foreign coverage (but almost none in China’s official media), the government finally caved, agreeing to fire the corrupt officials and suspend the land seizures pending an investigation. The village of Wukan this week even conducted fair and free local elections, thought to be a first in today’s China.

But the appeasement of Wukan is very much the exception. China is today more repressive than at any time since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. Critics are being increasingly detained, beaten, or jailed for crimes such as “inciting subversion of state power” after writing essays on constitutional democracy.

“Disappearances” of dissidents are not only on the rise in China, the government’s draft criminal code is effectively legalizing them, raising fears that disappearances will become a common feature in the China of tomorrow. Chinese government caseworkers, in an odd mix of bureaucracy and brutality, advise their dissident “clients” on the liberties they may exercise (such as speaking to the press or writing an article), when they may exercise their liberties, and the merits of leaving their homes for extended periods of time, for either an exile in the countryside or outside China altogether.

What does Harper want with this government, about which he cannot have any illusions — he is, after all, the only Canadian prime minister in memory who has shown spine in his dealings with China. Harper travels not as a supplicant, as did former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his Team Canada of businessmen, but from a position of power, the leader of a country whose resources China, among others, covets. The itinerary for the Harper trip mostly reads like a goodwill foray — signing of “co-operation agreements,” a visit to the panda zoo, sealskin attire to promote Newfoundland jobs and other made-for-photo-op occasions. Harper hopes the Chinese will formally agree not to plunder Canadians who invest in China but he must know that China signs such agreements easily, and then fails to enforce them.

The takeaways from Harper’s trip to China — apart from the pandas that will soon visit Canada — have little to do with China proper. By promoting seal products, Harper will show Newfoundlanders he is standing up for their culture. By being respectful to China, Harper will please the large and chauvinistic Chinese-Canadian community. Mostly, however, Harper is going to China to impress upon the U.S. the danger of taking Canada for granted.

The Keystone pipeline, which President Obama has refused to permit in deference to his environmental funders, will be one of the major election issues in the U.S. presidential campaign. The prospect that Canada will ship its oil thousands of kilometres west across an ocean to China, instead of directly south to its ally and friend, offends Democrats and Republicans alike, particularly when doing so also costs U.S. jobs and makes the U.S. more reliant on unfriendly oil suppliers. The more the Obama Administration can be pressured, the better the chance of an early acceptance of Keystone, the more the Americans will understand where their interests lie. Harper wants this pipeline and he’s willing to go to China to help secure it.

Lawrence Solomon is the executive director of Energy Probe and the author of The Deniers.

This article first appeared in the Financial Post.

In the six (6) years leading to December 31, 2010 the Provincial Treasury received almost $7 billion dollars from OPG, Hydro One and the 80 or so local distribution companies (LDC).  The $7 billion is additional to the debt retirement charge (DRC) and the HST.

The push to provide guaranteed subsidies to wind and solar developers however is putting that  contribution at risk as is the reduction in corporate tax rates.

The $7 billion the provincial treasury received came from four different sources which are declining.  As an example “payments in lieu” of taxes (PIL) from LDCs’ contributed almost $1.3 billion in the last 6 years but are in decline as corporate tax rates were reduced.  In 2007 contributions from LDCs were $249 million but by December 31, 2010 they dropped to $106 million while profits were up by $69 million.

Another $2 billion was paid by OPG for “water rental”.  OPG pay a fuel cost when they use water to generate hydroelectric power and those have been in excess of $300 million for each of the last 6 years.  OPG would pay the treasury more if they were not forced to spill water when the Independent Electric System Operator tell them to do so.  This happens when wind is producing power that isn’t needed because demand is low and particularly evident during the Spring freshet and at night when demand for power is low. More wind generation fed into the grid will drive down the OPG payments for fuel.  Water fuel payment declines will also show up in the eventual cost of production from Big Becky and the Mattagami expansion whose capital costs are in excess of $4 billion.

Yet another source of revenue for the province are dividend payments from Hydro One; contributing in excess of $1.7 billion to the provincial treasury in the last 6 years.  Dividends paid in 2006 by Hydro One were $350 million but $55 million in 2010.  Hydro One must build new transmission facilities to hook up renewables to the grid constraining their ability to pay dividends as noted in a prior article.

OPG and Hydro One collectively paid about $1.5 billion in PIL to the provincial treasury over 6 years. 2006 PIL payments were $436 million by them but by 2010 were negative $4 million. Future payments are in jeopardy unless the Ontario Energy Board approves large rate increases that allow both to maintain their profit margins but PIL payments will be less due to lower  tax rates.

In 2006 the contribution to the provincial treasury was $1.2 billion from the four sources identified above and by 2010 contributions had fallen to $475 million.  The renewables push will result in further erosion to these revenue sources despite the cost of electricity climbing to much higher levels.

The Liberal plan appears to be; kill the golden goose and serve the Pâté de Foie Gras to the wind and solar developers!

Nick Procaylo/Postmedia News

Americans should be able to influence Canada’s environmental debates. They should not be able to do so under the radar.

But they do, and not just in the case of the proposed Northern Gateway oil pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the West Coast — today’s hot environmental topic. Unbeknownst to most Canadians, over the past two decades Canada’s fabulously influential environmental movement increasingly has had U.S. paymasters. As elsewhere, he who pays the piper calls the tunes.

It wasn’t always so, and foreign money wasn’t always a problem. Canada’s environmental groups in the 1970s and 1980s were a diverse lot advocating all-over-the map solutions to the many environmental problems they tackled. The Canadian groups would write up funding proposals for their ideas, shop them around to potential funders on both sides of the border, sometimes finding takers among them, sometimes not. It was largely a hit-and-miss operation, and especially hard to obtain funding from the U.S. foundations, which tended to favour U.S. environmental groups. In this marketplace of ideas few funding proposals found much favour, and most environmental groups on both sides of the border struggled to survive.

Then the funders — typically the well-heeled U.S. foundations, most of them offshoots of corporate fortunes — got down to business.

“We have the money, we have the sophistication, we have the organization,” they said to themselves. “In contrast, these well meaning environmentalists, though they may have the public’s ear, are unsophisticated, disorganized and inefficient.”

The funders compared notes with each other over cocktails and at confabs, commissioned high-priced consultants to conduct expert studies into how best to manage grants to the environmental sector, had the consultants present their findings to the funders’ executives at colloquia called for that purpose, and decided to take charge.

The funders started by trying to professionalize the environmental groups — capacity-building, they call it — by offering them management courses and access to managerial expertise. Then the funders decided to eliminate what they saw as wasteful competition among the environmental groups.

“Why should so many different groups have competing strategies to accomplish the goal of renewable energy?” they wondered. “Wouldn’t it be more sensible to decide on the optimum strategy, and then all pull together for the shared goal?”

Co-operation, not competition, became the watchword. At future joint meeting of funders and agreeable environmental groups, common strategies would be set, and differing roles carved out for the agreeable groups. Environmental groups that weren’t agreeable found themselves without funding.

Then the funders decided that they, themselves, were being inefficient, by scattering their funding among the endless environmental causes that came in to them, whether wildlife protection, water quality, air quality, overpopulation, overfishing, or protecting the rainforest, or myriad local niche issues. Wouldn’t it be more sensible for the funders as a group to focus their efforts on the most pressing problems facing society, have an enormous push to solve them, and then move on to the next most pressing problems?

It would be, many of them decided.

With that decision, the environmental funders took the steering wheel away from the environmentalists. No longer would environmentalists set the agenda, with the funders acting as enablers. Now the funders became the agenda setters and the environmental groups became, in effect, their contractees. For U.S. issues, the funders work through U.S. environmental groups, to capitalize on their credibility with the public. For issues that involve foreign countries, the funders will also enlist local environmental groups in the foreign countries, to put a home-grown face on their campaigns.

This organizational model has been fabulously successful. The first concerted effort to change Canada’s domestic policies in the 1990s and 2000s involved Canada’s forestry industry. The Boreal forest and much of Canada’s land mass is now subject to a legion of Made-in-the-U.S. certifications and other restrictions. But no issue holds a candle to the #1 priority for the U.S. funders: global warming.

“Our investigation produced a chilling conclusion: If we don’t act boldly in the next decade to prevent carbon lock-in, we could lose the fight against global warming,” explains Design to Win, a major report commissioned by six funders, including the $7-billion William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (the Hewlett of the Hewlett-Packard Corp.), the $6-billion David and Lucile Packard Foundation (the Packard of the Hewlett-Packard corporation), the $1.6-billion Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (heiress to the American Tobacco Co. fortune), and the $900-million Joyce Foundation (lumber).

This 2007 report, which involved “more than 150 of the world’s leading experts on energy and climate change,” helped them develop “an exhaustive list of possible interventions and used existing mitigation models to quantify each strategy’s expected cost and emissions reduction.”

It decided what policy changes were needed to get the most bang for their buck, and that funding from U.S. philanthropic organizations would need to quadruple, to $800-million annually, to accomplish their goals. It also decided to create funding bodies in foreign countries to “oversee highly leveraged, strategic interventions,” all this in aid of influencing voters and changing policy at all levels of government.

The upshot of these and other interventions by Big Philanthropy is the greatest environmental advocacy effort in history, of which the controversies involving Northern Gateway pipeline, the Keystone XL Pipleline, and the Tar Sands form a small part. The concern for Canadians, apart from the environment, is the integrity of our democratic decision making. When Americans tell us what is good for us, we rightly take the source of the advice into consideration. We should do no less when the advice comes from Canadians in the pay of Americans.

Lawrence Solomon is the executive director of Energy Probe and the author of The Deniers.

This article first appeared in the Financial Post.

On January 5, 2012 the OEB rejected a TH rate increase request.   The OEB told TH they “declined to hear Toronto Hydro’s Cost of Service application, filed in August 2011”.

TH was seeking approval for rate increases on delivery costs to get Toronto ratepayers to cough up $2.2 billion, over the next three years, to be used for “infrastructure renewal” (fixed asset replacement).  To put that in context, the increase they sought is more than the depreciated fixed assets reported in their December 31, 2010 annual report.  Their annual report (based on depreciation taken for 2010 of $169 million) indicates their fixed assets, as of that date, will be fully amortized in about 15 years.

The refusal by the OEB to entertain the increase  highlighted some anomalies by comparing TH to other local distribution companies (LDC) with more than 30,000 customers, noting; TH’s productivity was lower, planned capital expenditures exceeded previously approved amounts and TH ignored rules applicable to LDC rate increase applications.

TH wasted no time trying to traumatize Toronto ratepayers indicating they would soon face an apocalypse. Their press release dated the same date as the OEB’s rebuke, contained statements like, “far reaching ramifications that will impact not only customer service, safety and reliability, but employees within the utility and other industries and suppliers.”, “the asset replacement cycle has been changed to approximately 97 years from the previously OEB-approved 30 years.”, “an increase in power outages, slower call centre response times,” and  “as well as the likelihood of major workforce downsizing.”

Capital spending of TH for the past two years (2010 & 2011) was $800 million which would allow their entire depreciated asset base (assuming no price change) to be replaced in about 6 years ($2.2 billion divided by $400 million) not 97 years as the press release suggested.  Reviewing the OEB’s Yearbook of Electricity Distributors for 2010 (the last year posted) shows TH spent $601. in capital additions per customer (700,000) versus the average of $377. per customer for all of the 80 or so LDCs in the province.  Based on the information available for 2011 from TH, spending on capital additions for 2011 was about $535. per customer.

On the productivity side the OEB certainly was right in noting that TH lagged the other LDCs as the OEB Yearbook for 2010 pegged the operations, management & administration (OMA) costs of TH as leading all other LDCs with the exception of Hydro One.  No doubt labour costs played a major role as TH is consistently picked as one of Canada’s Top 100 employers.  Think of an employee perk and TH probably already supply it.  The costs for being chosen a top rated employer shows up in the productivity statistics which in the case of TH has OMA costs per customer, 77%  higher then a Kitchener-Wilmot customer or 82% higher then a Horizon Utilities ratepayer.

TH is not caught up in the “Sunshine Act” so finding salary information is not easy, however  the OEB filing required them to show total compensation information. Total compensation for 2010 was $210 million for a staff base of 1657.  That means the average annual compensation per employee was $126,683.  This report also indicates that about 47% of total compensation is capitalized.

The foregoing indicates that 47% ($99 million) of the compensation paid is allocated to “the asset replacement cycle” (fixed assets) but in reality is salaries, incentive pay and benefits.  That allocation to fixed assets helps to hide the overly generous compensation levels by capitalzing those expenses, and ensures that TH shows a profit. While some compensation should perhaps be capitalized there is no way to know if this percentage is reasonable and in keeping with industry practices.

The OEB have shown with this decision, that they will stand up for ratepayers.

By Alyshah Hasham, published by the Toronto Star

A controversial idea being tossed around in Saint John, N.B., might be a solution to the transit funding woes of Toronto.

Supported by mayor Ivan Court, the Saint John city council is discussing charging motorists from low-tax suburbs and out-of-towners higher parking fees downtown than city residents.

Altaf Chaudhari has commuted from Mississauga to Toronto for 10 years. He understands why a two-tier system might be fair, but doesn't relish the idea of more costs to his commute.

The argument for the two-tier parking system is that the city infrastructure is being worn down by commuters who don’t contribute to its upkeep.

The idea — which is still in its infancy — came out of a scramble to generate revenue for the city budget, a situation Toronto is only too familiar with. But what would happen if such an idea were brought up here?

First off, any two-tier parking plan can’t discriminate between residents of Toronto, from downtown to the inner suburbs, said Ward 24 Councillor David Shiner, also vice-chair of the public works and infrastructure committee.

But charging the “free-riders” coming in from Mississauga, Brampton and Markham … that’s an idea he’s thought over and likes.

It would get people off the roads and onto public transit, freeing up the dreaded commute, an 81-minute round-trip on average, according to Statistics Canada.

Altaf Chaudhari is one of these free-riders. In a city parking lot before heading out on his hour-long drive home to Mississauga, he said he understands why Toronto residents would want him to pay for the infrastructure he uses. He has been commuting to downtown Toronto for 10 years.

“But the parking fee increase would have to be reasonable,” he said, suggesting perhaps an extra 50 cents an hour.

Ward 18 Councillor Ana Bailão, who sits on the board of the Toronto Parking Authority, agrees there is potential in the idea, which she thinks could be lucrative in the face of underfunding for transit and other infrastructure.

Her concern is that charging out-of-town motorists extra could drive jobs into the arms of the suburban regions.

“We have to be careful of how we are doing in terms of competitiveness … but I think it’s important that as a city we start having these conversations,” she said.

Ward 19 Councillor Mike Layton says he does support the parking initiative which he sees as “an attempt to curb consumption, so use your car less, take public transit more, which is an interesting and novel approach.”

The councillor, who sits on the public works and infrastructure committee, says he doesn’t think parking fee increases would stop people from coming downtown for work or play.

“I don’t think [the parking initiative] would deter people. It’s the other things that we put our resources towards that make it such a great place and make it so vibrant.”

Implementation is the sticking point for Shiner: “How would you determine the origin of vehicle for parking purposes?”

He would modify the two-tier parking plan to charge out-of-town drivers with a toll like that on Highway 407, except on the major commuter arteries into the city such as the Don Valley Parkway or the 401. Toronto drivers could get a transponder for free.

Ideas like those are still “out-of-the-box” for the city at the moment though, said Shiner. In the past, he says, the discussions have centred more on downtown-versus-suburbs, and that won’t fly in city council.

An ideal system would still be one that affects all drivers, said Lawrence Solomon, executive director of Energy Probe and the Urban Renaissance Institute and proponent of toll roads. The extra revenue a “user-pay” toll generates could be used to lower Toronto taxes — so city residents still benefit and the free-riders pay.