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Author Archives: energyprbe
Harris to impose speedy deregulation of hydro in Ontario
Ontario will forge ahead with deregulation of the hydroelectric market despite the threat of higher rates and problems experienced in Alberta and California, Mike Harris, the Premier, said yesterday.
The competition
Enron Canada Corp.’s spartan office in downtown Toronto exudes a certain calm-before-the-storm atmosphere. These days, there are plenty of unused desks, minimalist decor and a doorbell outside its locked doors in place of a full-time receptionist. Yet the office’s 20 employees are far from idle. They’re diligently preparing the company to take part in the biggest electricity bonanza in Canada’s history.
Reformer-critic dumped from IMO
In another development related to the opening of the new Ontario power market, the Ontario government recently dumped an outspoken, reform-minded critic of the province’s electricity system from the board of directors of the IMO.
Tom Adams, the Executive Director of Energy Probe, an environment and public interest group based in Toronto, was the only one of several IMO board members not reappointed in February by Jim Wilson, the Ontario minister of energy. James Baillie, the IMO chair, had approved Adams’ reappointment.
California is no plug for private power
SAN DIEGO – As Ontarians prepare for the brave new world of the competitive electricity market, they might reflect on the fate of Arthur Edelman.
Edelman is a 75-year-old retired carpenter, a big, plainspoken man. On his right arm is a tattoo, a memento from his wartime service in the U.S. Navy.
Private power plan spells public pain for Albertans
CALGARY – When Alberta first announced it would open up its electricity system to the free market, Harry Irving was thrilled.
Irving’s family-owned Foothills Steel Foundry makes steel castings for the gravel crushing industry. Under the province’s decades-old regulatory system, the Calgary manufacturer paid between $15,000 and $20,000 a month for power. Competition in the electricity industry, he figured, would surely lower his costs.
“I’d be the first one to say deregulation should work,” Irving says.
Rebels emerge as real winners
MEDICINE HAT, Alta. – To the casual observer, this small Prairie city doesn’t seem much like Los Angeles.
The houses are modest, the glitter definitely limited. Downtown at Top Pizza Family Restaurant, the lunch-time crowd is watching curling on television. No one is dressed in all-black.
But in one key way, Medicine Hat is L.A. When everyone else was hopping aboard the electricity privatization bandwagon, this city – like Los Angeles – refused to take part.
We can't afford an open market
Note: The Toronto Star did not run this letter, written by Energy Probe’s Tom Adams, despite receiving it on the same day as the final installment of its Walkom three-part energy series.
Dear Letters Editor:
Energy hot potato in Ottawa
PM faces challenge of charting new strategy for 21st century
In the corridors of power in Ottawa and Washington, the e-word is back.
In an era of pump-price angst, unprecedented home heating bills and an electricity crisis in California, energy has returned as a key political issue in the White House and on Parliament Hill.
Energy hot potato in Ottawa
PM faces challenge of charting new strategy for 21st century
In the corridors of power in Ottawa and Washington, the e-word is back.
In an era of pump-price angst, unprecedented home heating bills and an electricity crisis in California, energy has returned as a key political issue in the White House and on Parliament Hill.
Energy Probe 