Chip Martin
The London Free Press
April 14, 2005
Two new power plants fired by natural gas will be built near Sarnia in a $1-billion investment that will improve Southwestern Ontario air quality, as a dirtier, coal-produced power plant is closed. The Ontario government yesterday announced 20-year deals to build replacements for Ontario Power Generation’s aging Lambton generating station near Courtright.
"(It’s) great news for the lungs of London and of Southwestern Ontario," said Jack Gibbons, chairperson of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. "The Lambton coal-fired power plant is now the No. 2 source of air pollution within Ontario," he said.
Gibbons noted the Ontario Medical Association has attributed 80 deaths a year in the London region to pollution.
"You’re definitely going to benefit," Gibbons said.
The two new projects are expected to create about 1,200 constructions jobs, but closing the Lambton station will cost about 400 well-paid jobs.
The new juice brought on stream will be enough to power more than 650,000 homes and nearly replace the 2,000 megawatts produced by the Lambton plant, said Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan.
In Toronto, Duncan said the deals are part of the Liberal government’s plan to shut Ontario’s coal-fired power plants by the end of 2007.
"We are on target to meet our objective," Duncan said, adding more announcements about coal-fired plants in Northern Ontario and another near Toronto are imminent.
Duncan said once the coal-fired plants are gone, the environmental impact will be "the equivalent of taking every passenger car and light truck off the road in Ontario."
Other reactions:
"I can see somewhat higher electricity prices for consumers," he predicted. He wasn’t as certain as Gibbons the London region would see appreciably cleaner air, since so much of the region’s pollution blows in from the U.S.
The Sarnia area is already home to Ontario’s first major privately-owned power plant, built by Alberta-based TransAlta and opened in 2003.
The new plants will be built in St. Clair Township south of Sarnia. The largest will be a 1,050-megawatt plant, Greenfield Energy Centre, a partnership between Calpine Corp. of San Jose, Ca., and Mitsui and Co. Ltd., of Japan.
The smaller is St. Clair Power, a 570-megawatt partnership between Invenergy of Chicago and Stark Investments, based in Milwaukee. Construction is expected to start late this year.
As he announced the Sarnia-area projects, Duncan also unveiled deals to co-generate 90 megawatts of power at the Toronto Airports Authority and with Loblaw Properties to reduce and shift power demand in 80 grocery stores to save another 10 megawatts.
Duncan said the new plants to be built across Ontario will increase its reliance on natural gas to 13 per cent of its power supply, up from eight per cent. That should also reduce bad-air alerts when kids with asthma and the elderly are told to stay indoors.
"Hopefully we will stop seeing smog days in Algonquin Park," Duncan said.
Gibbons said the move away from coal will help Ontario meet its environmental targets under the Kyoto protocol.
"We’ll have clean hands and we can ask the Americans (who have not signed the Kyoto treaty) to reduce their pollution," he said.
At Queen’s Park, New Democratic Party Leader Howard Hampton blasted the deals as an "Americanization" of Ontario’s power system.
Besides TransAlta, Canadian companies including TransCanada and Atco already have power projects in Ontario, but they’ve been wary of investing more in the province after the former Conservative government flip-flopped on its energy policies.
THE NEW PLANTS
Greenfield Energy Centre
St. Clair Power
Energy Probe 