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Author Archives: energyprbe
Ont. hydro companies to be on tighter leash after CEO's resignation: premier
Ontario’s hydro companies will be kept on a tighter leash now that the province is on the hook for $3 million in severance for the chief executive of transmission giant Hydro One, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Monday.
The province will be keeping a close eye on the Hydro One board to ensure executive salaries and expenses are kept under control in the wake of a scathing report by Ontario’s auditor general, McGuinty said.
Nukes, oil mix
Natural Resources minister says Alberta oilsands will soon be nuclear-powered
Nuclear power in the oilpatch is just a matter of time, according to Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.
Speaking to Sun Media from Victoria yesterday, Lunn said he’s very keen to see a new partnership between Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and a private Alberta company to build a Candu-reactor to power oilsands extraction.
Ont. calls for east-west power grid
If the federal government is serious about reducing greenhouse gases, it should put money into an east-west electricity grid that will reduce reliance on coal-fired power in Ontario and spur economic development in other provinces, Energy Minister Dwight Duncan said Tuesday.
Grit eco-boast rejected as hot air
Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan is boasting about lowering coal-plant emissions even as he refuses to install more of the pollution control devices that contributed to the cleaner air, one energy expert says.
Duncan announced yesterday that greenhouse-gas emissions from Ontario’s coal-fired generation stations have dropped by 29 per cent since his Liberal government took office in 2003, bringing emissions below 1990 levels.
$1.5 billion for scrubbers, OPG say
It could take $1.5 billion and four years to install anti-pollution equipment on all of Ontario’s coal-fired electricity stations but it wouldn’t make economic sense if the plants are closed by 2014 as planned, Ontario Power Generation CEO Jim Hankinson said today.
The giant utility already has scrubbers on two of four coal-burning units at its Lambton station and on two of eight units at the huge Nanticoke generating station – considered one of the worst sources of air pollution in North America.
Cleaner coal could cost millions
The payback for installing costly pollution-eating scrubbers at Ontario’s coal-fired electricity plants is "not very good" given their limited life span, the head of Ontario Power Generation says.
It would take "three or four years" to get scrubbers running and cost between $500 million and $1.5 billion at a time when the plants are expected to close within seven years, chief executive Jim Hankinson said.
Coal power likely to be an issue in election
The ongoing debate over the future of coal-fired power plants in Ontario is finally coming into focus, with the potential that voters will be offered some real choices on the issue in the coming provincial election.
In the 2003 election campaign, the Liberals promised to close the plants, which supply about 20 per cent of our electricity, by 2007.
"Our coal-burning plants are the worst polluters in Ontario," said the Liberals in their platform. "They create smog and threaten our health."
Ontario needs an energy plan
After being in power almost four years, Premier Dalton McGuinty and his Liberals should have a real plan in place to deal with Ontario’s energy needs and, in particular, the province’s coal-fired electricity plants.
Energy Probe warns of hikes
It’s happening in Toronto and Energy Probe says it will eventually happen here and in the rest of Ontario.
"There is a long-term trend among gas and electricity consumers to conserve. That’s the good news," said Tom Adams of Energy Probe. The bad news is some utilities must charge more to recover revenues lost because they are selling less. Toronto’s hydro company wants to increase its distribution rates by 6.3 per cent on May 1, to cover a $10.4-million loss because of energy conservation programs. Continue reading
Conservation reduces power demand: Study
Six of Ontario’s largest electric utilities say conservation programs saved enough power last year to take nearly 34,000 homes off the grid.
The utilities – Toronto Hydro, Hydro Ottawa, Horizon Utilities, Veridian Connections, PowerStream and Enersource Hydro Mississauga – represent 1.7 million customers in southern and eastern Ontario.
Energy Probe 