Tom Adams
Globe and Mail, Letters Editor
May 23, 2000

re. "Environmentalists victorious in fate of coal-burning plants" May 18, 2000

The Ontario government’s moratorium on the sale of coal-fired power stations unnecessarily increases the cost of cleaning Ontario’s air.

The Harris government’s coal-fired power station sale moratorium appears to be based on the theory that emissions from government-owned stations do less harm than emissions from privately owned stations. It may be no coincidence that the sale moratorium strengthens the monopoly of the government’s power generation company.

Rather than government fiat directing how power should be generated, government should instead establish overall pollutant emission limits and let polluters manage their own emissions down to the limit. To minimize costs, polluters should be able to buy or sell emission permits. This system has slashed sulphur dioxide emissions from large power stations in the U.S. by 38% since the program began in 1995 and has cut the cost of compliance with the tougher rules by about 5 times relative to a command and control approach. Seeing the success of the U.S. "cap and trade" program, in 1999 the Ontario government’s electricity restructuring advisory group, the Market Design Committee, recommended its adoption here. Ignoring this advice, the government announced its emission policy in January which effectively allows the coal plants to operate without pollution limits. Under this policy, actual emissions can be reduced on paper through the purchase of "emission reduction credits" created by other parties foregoing planned future emissions–a process likely to result in credits for phantom reductions.

We can have cleaner power cheaper and more reliably through government imposed emission limits combined with market mechanisms to meet those limits than if we rely on arbitrary moratoriums, phantom reduction credits, and government control over power plant investment and operations.

Tom Adams
Executive Director, Energy Probe

(Ph: 964-9223 ext. 239)

Editors Note: U.S. SO2 emissions in 1994 from regulated power stations was 8.5 million tons and in 1998 (the most recent EPA data) the emissions were 5.3 million tons. Click here for information on the U.S. acid rain program.