Steve Erwin
National Post
October 10, 2005

Ontario has no plans to listen to "Neanderthals" who want the province to keep its coal-burning power plants operating, even if that’s what a report being prepared for the government recommends, says Energy Minister Dwight Duncan.

"We are moving to close the coal plants, period, full stop," Duncan said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

More than 80 per cent of the province’s power generation needs to be rebuilt or replaced over the next 20 years. The OPA has been meeting with energy industry stakeholders to determine what sources of new power generation the province should invest in.

Ontario is currently powered 49 per cent by nuclear reactors. Twenty-five per cent is supplied by hydro, 17 per cent by coal, seven per cent by gas and the remainder from wind and other alternative energy sources.

Duncan has said the government will agree to build new nuclear reactors should the OPA recommend it. But he says those lobbying the authority to recommend so-called cleaner coal technology and keeping the plants open are a century behind the times.

"I say to the Neanderthals . . . we’re moving forward responsibly to ensure that we clean up our air," Duncan said.

"We’re in the 21st century. They’re in the 19th century."

Air pollution remains a key concern in Ontario. Fifty smog advisories have been issued for the province this year, including a rare October advisory issued last week.

"I am sick and tired of having smog days in October," he said. "We had a smog day in February. We’ve had smog days in Algonquin Park." He’s also unimpressed with a report by Energy Probe, a national energy and environmental research group, which last week listed two Ontario coal-fired plants as being among the cleanest in North America.

"So we may have among some of the better of the worst forms of energy producers in North America. Who cares?" Duncan said. "We want to get rid of them. It’s the equivalent of taking every vehicle, every car and every light truck off the road in this province."

Duncan’s resistance to coal is a mistake, argues Energy Probe executive director Tom Adams.

Adams wants the province to keep at least two units at its Lambton station, south of Sarnia in southern Ontario, which rank fourth and ninth out of 403 in the report’s list of the cleanest plants on the continent.

Adams argues that closing the units would end up requiring the province to import coal-fired power from the United States, which would "exacerbate adverse environmental and human health impacts to Ontarians." Adams said some of the dirtiest coal-fired generators are in American states neighbouring Ontario: the Picway and Richard Gorsuch stations in Ohio and the AES Greenridge station in New York.

According to Power Workers’ Union president Don Mackinnon, the province can refurbish its coal plants with "the latest and greatest" clean technology for $3.3 billion. Mackinnon says that’s $1.8 billion cheaper than it would cost to replace coal plants with natural gas.

"We’re trying to convince the OPA and the government to rethink this," says Mackinnon, whose union represents some 1,200 coal plant workers in Ontario.

"I’m hoping the OPA will keep the door open on it. But in the end, all they can do is make a recommendation. The minister has the power to issue a directive with regards to the supply mix."

The David Suzuki Foundation has maintained renewable energy, such as wind, biomass, solar and geothermal sources, can replace the power that will be lost by shutting down coal plants.

"Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the direction that the Ontario government is taking," said Dale Marshall, the foundation’s climate change policy analyst.

Marshall said he believes the province has pre-determined it will look to more nuclear power to address future supply concerns.

He said that’s a multibillion-dollar mistake that will raise further environmental debates about the storage of nuclear waste.