CBC News
November 10, 2005
| The McGuinty government is jeopardizing the province’s energy security by refusing to study new, clean coal technologies, says the executive director of Energy Probe. |
Tom Adams says former energy minister Dwight Duncan got it wrong when he claimed there was no such thing as clean coal technology, and is calling on the province to halt plans to close what Adams calls some of the cleanest coal-burning plants in North America. He adds the government’s idea to depend on renewable energy and nuclear power won’t give Ontario the power it needs during periods of peak demand.
"That’s a characteristic that neither the nuclear plants nor the renewable energy stations are able to deliver," said Adams. "If we’re going to get rid of the coal we’re going to have to build natural gas fired stations, and there the cost of power is about three times the cost of power from our best coal stations."
Adams says after backing away from any closure plans, the government should then begin retrofitting Ontario’s coal plants with the latest generation of scrubbers and other environmental technology now being used in other jurisdictions. He says the cleanest coal-burning plant in the world, in Copenhagen, Denmark, has an over-all emission profile that’s better than the gas-fired stations now being built in Ontario.
The Lakeview generating station in Mississauga is among the coal-fired locations being closed by the government.
Energy Probe 