Energy Probe

The Deniers, Part III: The hurricane expert who stood up to UN junk science

Posted on December 22, 2006 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
December 22, 2006

You’re a respected scientist, one of the best in your field. So respected, in fact, that when the United Nations decided to study the relationship between hurricanes and global warming for the largest scientific endeavour in its history – its International Panel on Climate Change – it called upon you and your expertise.

You are Christopher Landsea of the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory. You were a contributing author for the UN’s second International Panel on Climate Change in 1995, writing the sections on observed changes in tropical cyclones around the world. Then the IPCC called on you as a contributing author once more, for its “Third Assessment Report” in 2001. And you were invited to participate yet again, when the IPCC called on you to be an author in the “Fourth Assessment Report.” This report would specifically focus on Atlantic hurricanes, your specialty, and be published by the IPCC in 2007.

Then something went horribly wrong. Within days of this last invitation, in October, 2004, you discovered that the IPCC’s Kevin Trenberth – the very person who had invited you – was participating in a press conference. The title of the press conference perplexed you: “Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity.” This was some kind of mistake, you were certain. You had not done any work that substantiated this claim. Nobody had.

As perplexing, none of the participants in that press conference were known for their hurricane expertise. In fact, to your knowledge, none had performed any research at all on hurricane variability, the subject of the press conference. Neither were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability, you knew, showed no reliable upward trend in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes. Not in the Atlantic basin. Not in any other basin.

To add to the utter incomprehensibility of the press conference, the IPCC itself, in both 1995 and 2001, had found no global warming signal in the hurricane record. And until your new work would come out, in 2007, the IPCC would not have a new analysis on which to base a change of findings.

To stop the press conference, or at least stop any misunderstandings that might come out of it, you contacted Dr. Trenberth prior to the media event. You prepared a synopsis for him that brought him up to date on the state of knowledge about hurricane formation. To your amazement, he simply dismissed your concerns. The press conference proceeded.

And what a press conference it was! Hurricanes had been all over the news that summer. Global warming was the obvious culprit – only a fool or an oil-industry lobbyist, the press made clear, could ignore the link between what seemed to be ever increasing hurricane activity and ever increasing global warming. The press conference didn’t disappoint them. The climate change experts at hand all confirmed the news that the public had been primed to hear: Global warming was causing hurricanes. This judgement from the scientists made headlines around the world, just as it was intended to do. What better way to cast global warming as catastrophic than to make hurricanes its poster child?

You wanted to right this outrageous wrong, this mockery that was made of your scientific field. You wrote top IPCC officials, imploring: “Where is the science, the refereed publications, that substantiate these pronouncements? What studies are being alluded to that have shown a connection between observed warming trends on the earth and long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity? As far as I know, there are none.” But no one in the IPCC leadership showed the slightest concern for the science. The IPCC’s overriding preoccupation, it soon sunk in, lay in capitalizing on the publicity opportunity that the hurricane season presented.

You then asked the IPCC leadership for assurances that your work for the IPCC’s 2007 report would be true to science: “[Dr. Trenberth] seems to have already come to the conclusion that global warming has altered hurricane activity and has publicly stated so. This does not reflect the consensus within the hurricane research community. . . . Thus I would like assurance that what will be included in the IPCC report will reflect the best available information and the consensus within the scientific community most expert on the specific topic.”
The assurance didn’t come. What did come was the realization that the IPCC was corrupting science. This you could not be a party to. You then resigned, in an open letter to the scientific community laying out your reasons.

Next year, the IPCC will come out with its “Fourth Assessment Report,” and for the first time in a decade, you will not be writing its section on hurricanes. That task will be left to the successor that Dr. Trenberth chose. As part of his responsibility, he will need to explain why – despite all expectations – the 2006 hurricane year was so unexpectedly light, and at the historical average for the past 150 years.

THE CV OF A DENIER:
Christopher Landsea received his doctoral degree in atmospheric science from Colorado State University. A research meteorologist at the Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorological Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, he was chair of the American Meteorological Society’s committee on tropical meteorology and tropical cyclones and a recipient of the American Meteorological Society’s Banner I. Miller Award for the “best contribution to the science of hurricane and tropical weather forecasting.” He is a frequent contributor to leading journals, including Science, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Journal of Climate, and Nature.

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The Deniers, Part IV: Polar scientists on thin ice

Posted on December 15, 2006 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
December 15, 2006

A great melt is on in Antarctica. Its northern peninsula – a jut of land extending to about 1,200 kilometres from Chile – has seen a drastic increase in temperature, a thinning of ice sheets and, most alarmingly, a collapse of ice shelves. The Larsen A ice shelf, 1,600 square kilometres in size, fell off in 1995. The Wilkins ice shelf, 1,100 square kilometres, fell off in 1998 and the Larsen B, 13,500 square kilometres, dropped off in 2002. Meanwhile, the northern Antarctic Peninsula’s temperatures have soared by six degrees celsius in the last 50 years.

Antarctica represents the greatest threat to the globe from global warming, bar none. If Antarctica’s ice melts, the world’s oceans will rise, flooding low-lying lands where much of the world’s population lives. Not only would their mass migration spawn hardships for the individual families retreating from the rising waters, the world would also be losing fertile deltas that feed tens of millions of people. This chilling scenario understandably sends shudders through concerned citizens around the world, and steels the resolve of those determined to stop the cataclysm of global warming.

But much confounding evidence exists. As one example, at the South Pole, where the U.S. decades ago established a station, temperatures have actually fallen since 1957. Neither is Antarctica’s advance or retreat a new question raised by the spectre of global warming: This is the oldest scientific question of all about the Antarctic ice sheet.

Enter Duncan Wingham, Professor of Climate Physics at University College London and Director of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling. Dr. Wingham has been pursuing this polar puzzle for much of his professional life and, but for an accident in space, he might have had the answer at hand by now.

Dr. Wingham is Principal Scientist of the European Space Agency’s CryoSat Satellite Mission, a $130-million project designed to map changes in the depth of ice using ultra-precise instrumentation. Sadly for Dr. Wingham and for science as a whole, CryoSat fell into the Arctic Ocean after its launch in October, 2005, when a rocket launcher malfunctioned. Dr Wingham will now need to wait until 2009 before CryoSat-2, CryoSat’s even more precise successor, can launch and begin relaying the data that should conclusively determine whether Antarctica’s ice sheets are thinning or not. Apart from satellite technology, no known way exists to reliably determine changes in mass over a vast and essentially unexplorable continent covered in ice several kilometres thick.

But CryoSat was not the only satellite available to polar scientists. Dr. Wingham has been collecting satellite data for years, and arriving at startling conclusions. Early last year at a European Union Space Conference in Brussels, for example, Dr. Wingham revealed that data from a European Space Agency satellite showed Antarctic thinning was no more common than thickening, and concluded that the spectacular collapse of the ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula was much more likely to have followed natural current fluctuations than global warming.
“The Antarctic Peninsula is exceptional because it juts out so far north,” Dr. Wingham told the press at the time. As well, scientists have been drawn to the peninsula because it is relatively accessible and its climate is moderate, allowing it to be more easily studied than the harsh interior of the continent. Because many scientists have been preoccupied with what was, in effect, the tip of the iceberg, they missed the mass of evidence that lay beneath the surface.

“One cannot be certain, because packets of heat in the atmosphere do not come conveniently labelled ‘the contribution of anthropogenic warming,'” Dr. Wingham elaborated, but the evidence is not “favourable to the notion we are seeing the results of global warming.”

Last summer, Dr. Wingham and three colleagues published an article in the journal of the Royal Society that casts further doubt on the notion that global warming is adversely affecting Antarctica. By studying satellite data from 1992 to 2003 that surveyed 85% of the East Antarctic ice sheet and 51% of the West Antarctic ice sheet (72% of the ice sheet covering the entire land mass), they discovered that the Antarctic ice sheet is growing at the rate of 5 millimetres per year (plus or minus 1 mm per year). That makes Antarctica a sink, not a source, of ocean water. According to their best estimates, Antarctica will “lower [authors’ italics] global sea levels by 0.08 mm” per year.

If these findings are validated in future by CryoSat-2 and other developments that are able to assess the 28% of Antarctica not yet surveyed, the low-lying areas of the world will have weathered the worst of the global warming predictions: The populations of these areas – in Bangladesh, in the Maldives, and elsewhere – will have found that, if anything, they can look forward to a future with more nutrient-rich seacoast, not less.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation.

The CV OF A DENIER
Duncan Wingham was educated at Leeds and Bath Universities where he gained a B.Sc. and PhD. in Physics. He was appointed to a chair in the Department of Space and Climate Physics in 1996, and to head of the Department of Earth Sciences in October, 2005. Prof. Wingham is a member of the National Environmental Research Council’s Science and Technology Board and Earth Observation Experts Group. He is a director of the NERC Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling and principal scientist of the European Space Agency CryoSat Satellite Mission, the first ESA Earth Sciences satellite selected through open, scientific competition.

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How the IAEA makes nuclear proliferation worse

Posted on December 15, 2006 by energyprbe

Tom Adams
Ottawa Citizen
December 15, 2006

What international player has been sharing nuclear technologies with Iran and North Korea for years, while receiving not punishment but encouragement from the civilized world?

That international player assisted North Korea’s monstrous regime with uranium prospecting, uranium ore processing, and radioisotope production. It helped Iran develop uranium mining. It is right now helping Iran to acquire some frightening technology for its Bushehr reactor, and to upgrade a smaller and more flexible “research” reactor.

The answer is not Dr. Strangelove or Mike Myers’s character Dr. Evil or a cell of former Soviet weaponeers turned entrepreneurs or some shadowy Middle Eastern state. Instead, the agency in question is the same one that is supposed to protect the world from nuclear weapons proliferation: the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

While supposedly protecting us from nuclear proliferation, here is a sample of what the IAEA has been up to. In North Korea, the IAEA initiated 29 “technical co-operation” projects since 1978, of which 15 were completed. Iran is enjoying 14 active projects today along with 52 nuclear projects completed.

Other clients include Syria (15 active projects), Pakistan (top recipient of IAEA aid in 2004), Libya (37 projects, starting in 1976), Afghanistan (during the Soviet era), and Burma (11 active projects).

The IAEA’s mandate – frozen since its origin in the muddled “Atoms for Peace” era of the 1950s when nuclear electricity “too cheap to meter” would mystically erase poverty and the stain of nuclear weapons – is irreconcilably conflicted. It is responsible for spreading nuclear technology far and wide. It describes itself as the “global focal point for nuclear co-operation . . . facilitat(ing) the transfer of such technology and knowledge in a sustainable manner to developing member states.” It is also the agency responsible for verifying compliance with the international treaty designed to hold back nuclear Armageddon: the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The NPT is itself irreconcilably conflicted. It entered into force in 1970. With 187 signatories, it is the most widely subscribed international treaty. The NPT’s three pillars are: prohibition of nuclear weapons proliferation, committing the five “declared” nuclear weapons states to eventual disarmament, and enshrining the “inalienable” rights of signatory countries to “participate in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”

The IAEA has not only scientifically aided many nuclear weapons proliferators, its nuclear weapons control record is nothing short of disastrous.

* The IAEA failed to detect Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program before the 1991 Gulf War and officially denied its existence, although Iraq was a member of the NPT and subject to the IAEA’s most extensive “full-scope safeguards.” Only after the war, unprecedented international inspections and defecting scientists revealed a massive program to develop both fission and fusion bombs. This dereliction matches the IAEA’s support for Iraq’s Osirak reactor, which was revealed as a plutonium factory after Israel bombed it in 1981.

* The Libyan government revealed that country’s extensive nuclear weapons program after the current Iraq war started, a program the IAEA had not detected despite Libya’s membership in the NPT and IAEA inspections. Among the discoveries were Chinese plans for a nuclear explosive, with details right down to the best glue to use on particular parts.

* The IAEA failed to detect, much less curtail, the “nuclear supermarket” run by A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who admitted to selling plans and components to Libya, North Korea and Iran.

* The IAEA was the last to recognize North Korea’s military use of its civil nuclear power program.

* After nine years of work searching for abandoned dirty-bomb ingredients in Georgia, the IAEA found two potent radiation sources only last June.

Instead of controlling nuclear weapons, the IAEA spends much of its effort whitewashing the impacts of radioactive pollution from nuclear power. The IAEA’s official estimates of Chernobyl’s total expected health toll are constantly revised upward but lag behind the estimates of major independent studies.

As history has proved, one of the most frightening arms-control challenges is containing “dual-use” nuclear technologies – technologies that can be used for both civilian and weapons purposes. But the basic mandate of the IAEA and the fundamental legal framework of the NPT commits them to both promote dual-use, making them proliferators’ tools.

North Korea craftily employed the NPT en route to nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-il’s dad, Kim Il-sung, entered into the NPT in 1985 to secure Soviet nuclear aid. North Korea threatened withdrawal in 1994, but stayed after securing a deal with the Clinton administration to secure Western nuclear and non-nuclear aid.

North Korea finally withdrew in 2003. The UN Security Council’s reaction was muted largely because Pakistan and Syria – key North Korean missile clients – were members at the time. Upon withdrawal, North Korea dishonestly stated it “has no intention of making nuclear weapons” and nuclear activities “will be confined only to power production and other peaceful purposes.”

Nuclear regulatory agencies in Western countries once had mandates enshrining the same promote/control conflict that contaminates the IAEA and NPT today. The Canadian Atomic Energy Control Act of 1946, which created our federal nuclear regulator and research agency, embodied this conflict – the subtitle of that act was “An Act Relating to the Development and Control of Atomic Energy.” The U.S. had a similar mess under its Atomic Energy Commission that Congress moved to clean up with the creation of a safety-dedicated Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1974. Canada waited until May 2000 to create an officially safety-dedicated Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

In a victory of hope over logic, the Nobel Committee granted the IAEA and its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, its Peace prize in 2005.

The world is moving far too slowly in recognizing nuclear technology for the hazard it represents. The fact that there is no agency or treaty single-mindedly dedicated to limiting and eliminating nuclear weapons speaks volumes. The promote/control conflict inherent in the IAEA and NPT has often increased the risk of nuclear weapons. We must scrap the IAEA and the NPT, and bring in dedicated replacements.

Does anybody think we have time to wait?

Tom Adams is executive director of Energy Probe, a national energy think-tank.

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The Deniers, Part I: Statistics needed

Posted on November 28, 2006 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
November 28, 2006

In the global warming debate, there are essentially two broad camps. One believes that the science is settled, that global warming is serious and man-made, and that urgent action must be taken to mitigate or prevent a future calamity. The other believes that the science is far from settled, that precious little is known about global warming or its likely effects, and that prudence dictates more research and caution before intervening massively in the economy.

The “science is settled” camp, much the larger of the two, includes many eminent scientists with impressive credentials. But just who are the global warming skeptics who question the studies from the great majority of climate scientists and what are their motives?

Many in the “science is settled” camp claim that the skeptics are untrustworthy – that they are either cranks or otherwise at the periphery of their profession, or that they are in the pockets of Exxon or other corporate interests. The skeptics are increasingly being called Deniers, a term used by analogy to the Holocaust, to convey the catastrophe that could befall mankind if action is not taken. Increasingly, too, the press is taking up the Denier theme, convincing the public that the global-warming debate is over.

In this, the first of a series, I examine The Deniers, starting with Edward Wegman. Dr. Wegman is a professor at the Center for Computational Statistics at George Mason University, chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, and board member of the American Statistical Association. Few statisticians in the world have CVs to rival his (excerpts appear nearby).

Wegman became involved in the global-warming debate after the energy and commerce committee of the U.S. House of Representatives asked him to assess one of the hottest debates in the global-warming controversy: the statistical validity of work by Michael Mann. You may not have heard of Mann or read Mann’s study but you have often heard its famous conclusion: that the temperature increases that we have been experiencing are “likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years” and that the “1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year” of the millennium. You may have also heard of Mann’s hockey-stick shaped graph, which showed relatively stable temperatures over most of the last millennium (the hockey stick’s long handle), followed by a sharp increase (the hockey stick’s blade) this century.

Mann’s findings were arguably the single most influential study in swaying the public debate, and in 2001 they became the official view of the International Panel for Climate Change, the UN body that is organizing the worldwide effort to combat global warming. But Mann’s work also had its critics, particularly two Canadians, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who published peer-reviewed critiques of their own.

Wegman accepted the energy and commerce committee’s assignment, and agreed to assess the Mann controversy pro bono. He conducted his third-party review by assembling an expert panel of statisticians, who also agreed to work pro bono. Wegman also consulted outside statisticians, including the Board of the American Statistical Association. At its conclusion, the Wegman review entirely vindicated the Canadian critics and repudiated Mann’s work.

“Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported,” Wegman stated, adding that “The paucity of data in the more remote past makes the hottest-in-a-millennium claims essentially unverifiable.” When Wegman corrected Mann’s statistical mistakes, the hockey stick disappeared.

Wegman found that Mann made a basic error that “may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology. We note that there is no evidence that Dr. Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimate studies have had significant interactions with mainstream statisticians.” Instead, this small group of climate scientists were working on their own, largely in isolation, and without the academic scrutiny needed to ferret out false assumptions.

Worse, the problem also applied more generally, to the broader climate-change and meteorological community, which also relied on statistical techniques in their studies. “[I]f statistical methods are being used, then statisticians ought to be funded partners engaged in the research to insure as best we possibly can that the best quality science is being done,” Wegman recommended, noting that “there are a host of fundamental statistical questions that beg answers in understanding climate dynamics.”

In other words, Wegman believes that much of the climate science that has been done should be taken with a grain of salt – although the studies may have been peer reviewed, the reviewers were often unqualified in statistics. Past studies, he believes, should be reassessed by competent statisticians and in future, the climate science world should do better at incorporating statistical know-how.

One place to start is with the American Meteorological Society, which has a committee on probability and statistics. “I believe it is amazing for a committee whose focus is on statistics and probability that of the nine members only two are also members of the American Statistical Association, the premier statistical association in the United States, and one of those is a recent PhD with an assistant-professor appointment in a medical school.” As an example of the statistical barrenness of the climate-change world, Wegman cited the American Meteorological Association’s 2006 Conference on Probability and Statistics in the Atmospheric Sciences, where only eight presenters out of 62 were members of the American Statistical Association.

While Wegman’s advice – to use trained statisticians in studies reliant on statistics – may seem too obvious to need stating, the “science is settled” camp resists it. Mann’s hockey-stick graph may be wrong, many experts now acknowledge, but they assert that he nevertheless came to the right conclusion.

To which Wegman, and doubtless others who want more rigorous science, shake their heads in disbelief. As Wegman summed it up to the energy and commerce committee in later testimony: “I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway. Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.” With bad science, only true believers can assert that they nevertheless obtained the right answer.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute and author of The Deniers.

CV OF A DENIER

Edward Wegman received his Ph.D. degree in mathematical statistics from the University of Iowa. In 1978, he went to the Office of Naval Research, where he headed the Mathematical Sciences Division with responsibility Navy-wide for basic research programs. He coined the phrase computational statistics, and developed a high-profile research area around this concept, which focused on techniques and methodologies that could not be achieved without the capabilities of modern computing resources and led to a revolution in contemporary statistical graphics. Dr. Wegman was the original program director of the basic research program in Ultra High Speed Computing at the Strategic Defense Initiative’s Innovative Science and Technology Office. He has served as editor or associate editor of numerous prestigious journals and has published more than 160 papers and eight books.

Background Sources:

Ad Hoc Committee Report on the ‘Hockey Stick’ Global Climate Reconstruction

Response of Dr. Edward Wegman to Questions Posed by the Honorable Mr. Bart Stupak in Connection with Testimony to
the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

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Review of Wind Power Results in Ontario: May to October 2006

Posted on November 16, 2006 by energyprbe

Tom Adams

November 16, 2006

Summary:

The purpose of this study is to review the performance of wind power in Ontario, with particular attention to the period since the beginning of wind farm operations greater than 20 MW in the spring of 2006. This study comments on the GE Wind Power Integration Study released October 24, 2006 and hereafter referred to as the GE Study. Energy Probe’s study also provides recommendations arising from the observations of the performance results.

Selected Extracts

Summary

Wind power is a major new and rapidly expanding technology for supplying electricity in Ontario. This study reviews and analyzes the actual performance of wind power in Ontario with a view to accommodating as much wind generation as practical while protecting the consumer interests of affordability and reliability. The study presents results from a synchronized database of actual wind production and consumer demand. Recognizing that the production experience to date covers a relatively short period of seven months, this study makes the following observations:

• Capacity factor so far is 22.3% (not including results from a wind farm apparently experiencing start-up problems);
• Periods of very low or no production were particularly common during high-demand periods;
• High but highly variable wind production during low demand periods was common; and
• The hourly production pattern in most months demonstrated a declining average output during the 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. period – a period when consumer power usage consistently increases.

The study finds that two previous forecasts of wind power’s contribution to reliable Ontario generation capacity during the summer significantly over-estimated the value of wind power relative to the experience during 2006. Energy Probe is concerned that a clean and promising generating technology is being burdened with unrealistic forecasts of reliable production at times of high electricity demand that are not consistent with the actual production experience. In aid of understanding the overall value of electricity with wind power’s characteristics, Energy Probe’s study recommends a location-specific consideration of wind power’s productivity integrated with an analysis of the associated transmission and backup power implications of wind power development. Such analysis is necessary to estimate the overall future consumer and environmental implications of expanding reliance on wind generation.

Energy Probe’s study concludes that developing solutions for wind power’s variability should include:

• Analysis of impacts on non-wind generation requirements during high and low wind production events;
• Consideration of electricity storage options;
• Consideration of load management options to increase and decrease power usage on short notice;
• Research on wind output forecasting;
• Local and inter-regional transmission impact assessment;
• Monitoring of ancillary service cost impacts; and
• Locational targeting of wind development.

Introduction

Wind power is an environmentally attractive form of renewable energy from an overall toxicity and fuel use perspective. If wind power can be supplied to consumers at reasonable prices, it is a technology with vast potential. Ontario should seek to connect as much wind generation as practical while protecting the consumer interests of affordability and reliability. In achieving this, it must be recognized that the intermittent nature of wind power presents special technical and economic challenges that must be overcome if wind power is to be effectively incorporated into our electricity supply. In addition, connecting wind power to the grid may require transmission upgrades that must also be included in evaluating cost-effectiveness and reliability.

European grid operations officials are currently investigating what role, if any, wind power may have played in contributing to the massive blackout that struck approximately 10 million customers on Sunday, November 5, 2006 across a wide area of Europe.

Wind generated electricity is characterized by short-term output unpredictability and variability to a much greater extent than any other major power generation technology. Integrating any power source onto power grids serving customers demanding high standards of reliability presents technical and economic challenges, but in the case of wind power these challenges are particularly difficult and warrant special consideration.

According to the Ontario Power Authority’s (OPA) Supply Mix Advice and Recommendations, currently let or planned contracts will create 1,390 MW of on-line wind capacity by 2010. Of this, 1,261 MW was contracted under the Ontario government’s power contracting requests for proposals (RFPs). One such RFP concluded in 2004 and another in 2005.

Major wind power developments beyond those currently contracted are anticipated. At the direction of the Ontario government, the OPA is planning to have a total of 5,000 MW of wind power in service by 2020. The David Suzuki Foundation has recommended 8,000 MW by 2012. A study prepared by Helimax, a wind industry consulting firm, for the OPA identified 13,431 MW of wind-generation potential within 20 kilometres of the existing electricity grid in Ontario south of the 50th parallel.

Production Results

……A variable source of electricity whose variability correlates well with the variability of electrical demand would contribute disproportionately to reliability, and could displace more than its share of alternative generation capacity. Conversely, a variable source of electricity whose variability correlates poorly with the variability of electrical demand would not contribute significantly to reliability, or displace much alternative generation capacity. The correlation results presented for load and wind analyze the relationship between:

• The ratio of actual hourly wind output to average monthly wind output and
• The ratio of actual hourly load to average monthly load.

…..Prior to the development of wind power in Ontario, coal generation and to a much lesser extent oil and gas generation has been used extensively to meet ramping requirements. Other available methods, such as hydroelectric operational flexibility, have been fully deployed. The tendency of wind generators to decline in the morning while load is rising has increased ramping requirements on fossil generation. While Ontario’s new wind generation has reduced fossil fuel generation when wind output is available, the wind production pattern whereby output falls during the early morning has offset this benefit somewhat by lowering the fuel efficiency of the flexible fossil generators used for ramping, increasing air emissions per unit of production, and perhaps increasing maintenance costs.

Comments on the GE Wind Integration Study

The GE Study was sponsored by the IESO, the OPA, and the Canadian Wind Energy Association and is being used as input for the development of the OPA’s Integrated Power System Plan for Ontario.

GE Energy is the fourth largest supplier of wind generation equipment in the world.

The GE Study used no actual production results but is based on forecasted output although several months of actual results were available when the GE study was released.

The average annual production anticipated in the GE Study is 27.9%, above the top of the range Energy Probe anticipates for the year April 2006 through March 2007. The earlier Helimax study for the OPA forecast higher annual production of 29.3%.

Among its findings, the GE Study claims that with a high penetration of 10,000 MW of wind power, wind can be reliably counted on in summer for a firm supply of 1700 MW during summer peak hours.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance has relied upon the GE Study forecast for summer reliability in its study “Phasing out coal: 2006 progress report” issued November 9, 2006.

The GE Study is inconsistent with the results of similar studies from other electricity systems .

A 2004 study was conducted to examine the grid and reliability impacts of wind power in Germany. 8 Germany’s overall power demand was 3.4 times that of Ontario’s in 2003. Germany is also much better interconnected with neighbouring markets, with 23 major interconnections as compared with 24 major and minor interconnections between Ontario and its five interconnected neighbours. Germany’s larger size and stronger interconnections are both factors that would tend to mitigate wind power impacts. The 2004 German study was able to utilize extensive actual production data. When adding a small amount of wind power to the grid, the study found that 1000 MW of wind power capacity added to the grid increased peak power firm generation capacity by only 80 MW (8% of the wind capacity). Adding 48,000 MW of wind power, forecast for 2020, the requirement for backup power is only reduced by 2000 MW (4% of the wind capacity). The German study found that the proposed tripling of wind capacity in Germany by 2020 is, in and of itself, driving a need for quintupling generation reserve requirements.

In Ontario, the IESO assumes that 10% of the installed capacity should be considered as firm capacity for meeting peak demands. A Pembina Institute study has commented on this assumption, “Given that the capacity factor for modern land-based wind turbines is accepted to range from 25%–40%, and that wind generating capacity in Ontario will be relatively geographically distributed, this may be an excessively conservative assumption.”

Both the GE Study conclusion and the IESO’s forecast about firm summer peak reliability are inconsistent with Ontario’s actual experience. [empahsis added]

During July and August 2006, the actual average frequency of hours when there was little or no wind output in Ontario – output less than 2% – was 18.6%. These very low production hours were about as likely to occur during the daily peak period as any other time during the day. Ontario’s experience in 2006 shows that the conclusion of the GE Study that wind can reliably supply power in summer equal to 17% of its rated capacity significantly over-estimated the actual results. The actual results for the summer of 2006 also suggest that the IESO should review its forecast that even 10% of the installed wind capacity should be considered as firm capacity for meeting peak demands. During the summer of 2006, wind power provided no firm generation capacity during the peak months. [emphasis added]

It is likely that diversifying the geographic distribution of wind production sites, as assumed in the GE Study, will lessen somewhat the problem of unreliable production during peak times and also the problem of average production variability, but only if transmission constraints can be alleviated. Transmission constraints were not considered in the GE Study. In making its assessment, the GE Study examined wind production prospects for many regions, including regions of the province around the western end of Lake Superior, an area likely to have different wind patterns than in eastern Ontario. This diversity would normally be beneficial. However, Ontario west of Marathon on the northern shore of Lake Superior has a congested interconnection with regions east of the nearby town of Wawa – the region of the province where by far the largest fraction of load exists. Even when possible, moving power from north western Ontario to southern Ontario increases line losses relative to the average line loss fraction.

The Ontario three wind farms in service since the spring of 2006 are all located in the southwestern region of the province. The experience so far shows a high correlation in output between the three wind farms studied.

…….The actual results from the summer of 2006 raise significant concerns about the assertions of the GE Study regarding dependable capacity during the peak of consumer demand. [empahsis added]

….The GE Study forecasts that with 10,000 MW of capacity installed, the variability of wind output in total MW will be less than the variability of load and that therefore wind variability can be fairly readily accommodated on the grid. This conclusion ignores the fact that near term load variability is usually predictable within a range of plus or minus less than 1%, whereas, as demonstrated from the German experience, wind power is highly unpredictable.

……One issue identified in the GE Study that deserves additional study is the impact of high but highly variable wind production during periods of low demand. The concern in this case is that during low demand periods, the generators dispatched are typically those with low production flexibility – nuclear, cogeneration, and hydroelectric generators operating under maximum flow constraints. The production experience in Ontario so far is that episodes of high wind production during periods of low demand have occurred in most months. In addition, episodes of low wind production have occurred during periods of high demand every month. As the installed capacity of wind power in Ontario grows, major swings in wind power output during periods of low demand may impose additional stresses on the power system. This problem could become much more acute when all coal-fired power is removed from the Ontario grid unless the coal fleet is replaced by a sufficient fleet of generators with production flexibility and reliability characteristics comparable to the existing coal generators.

Recommendations for Understanding and Managing Wind Integration

Historically, Ontario’s hydroelectric generating stations were able to provide fast ramping production flexibility. This capability has been used extensively to support the production inflexibility problems presented by nuclear power stations. Two trends continue to diminish the output flexibility of Ontario’s hydroelectric capacity. Hydroelectric generation has lost market share since the 1950s, thereby reducing its flexibility relative to overall swings in demand and supply. In addition, over time tighter environmental constraints have eroded the production flexibility of Ontario’s hydroelectric generators. One example illustrating this trend toward new constraints on the output relates to the Madawaska River. The Madawaska River generating cascade was designed to provide extensive ramping capability. However, following serious harm to pickerel spawning in the tailrace of the Mountain Chute dam, the largest storage dam on the system, during the spring of 1995 new, much more stringent regulatory constraints on the forebay levels and flow requirements were introduced. The trend toward tougher environmental constraints on hydro-electric operations appears likely to continue. For reasons of cost control and environmental impact mitigation, any future hydroelectric development in Ontario is likely to be run-of-river generation. In-province hydroelectric production flexibility is therefore likely to provide only limited assistance for shaping the output of wind power.

Additional electricity storage capability might be justified. Compressed air and pumped storage are both technologies in widespread use around the world. The most efficient pumped storage developments use greater natural geographic height differences than can be found in Ontario. Chemical storage of electricity for grid power applications, such as using flow batteries or hydrolysis of water, has not been proven commercially viable in widespread applications yet.

Because wind power swings in output are often large and unpredictable with current technology, manual or market-based demand control measures are of limited usefulness for wind impact mitigation. Automatic load flexibility might be a future solution to wind power variability. For example, electric water heaters that had automatic thermostatic controls might be used to absorb extra power for brief periods and cut demand at other periods. However, the “smart metering” plan currently being implemented in Ontario does not anticipate this type of requirement.

Meteorological research to advance the capability to forecast wind speed accurately is underway in many jurisdictions. Notwithstanding the limited results so far, as seen from the German example, as a high priority the IESO should undertake similar forecasting research reflecting local conditions. The IESO should seek to participate wherever possible with leading forecasting efforts in other jurisdictions. Ontario-based meteorological research should be conducted independently.

While studying other wind power jurisdictions can be useful, unique local circumstances need to be considered. For example, climatic and load conditions are different in Germany, Quebec, or Alberta than in Ontario. For example in Germany, local meteorological conditions combined with the availability of government-subsidized loan guarantees, reliance on a non-competitive standard offer payment structure, and government market share commitments for wind power appears to have created a geographically concentrated and low productivity wind fleet. Understanding and managing wind power in Ontario needs to be analyzed on a local level.

The transmission system impacts of wind development need to be examined in detail through independent studies. The GE Study did not address transmission considerations.

Expanded transmission capability within Ontario and between Ontario and interconnected regions will be required to manage wind power. However, since many of Ontario’s neighbouring jurisdictions are also developing wind power, the benefits of interconnection will be less than would occur if only Ontario was developing wind power. For example, Quebec is in the process of developing 4,000 MW of wind power. New York, with whom Ontario has its strongest electrical interconnections, is also experiencing rapid wind power development. This development is concentrated in regions near the Ontario border that, even in advance of wind power development, tend to be transmission constrained in delivering power south. During high wind power output periods in low Ontario load periods, Quebec and New York may be experiencing the same phenomena. Ontario should undertake joint wind integration research with neighbouring jurisdictions. One objective should be to identify the extent of correlation of high and low wind output between regions. Another objective should be to examine regional transmission system impacts. Inter-regional wind power integration research should be conducted independently

As identified by E.On Netz in its 2005 study, if other load shaping options are not sufficiently developed, flexible output standby generation with capacity approaching the capacity of the installed wind generators will be required. Back-up power requirements and impacts should be assessed. Since low-efficiency fossil generation is usually required for performing this function, some of the environmental advantage of wind power will have to be sacrificed if grid reliability is to be maintained. If natural gas generators are going to be used to backstop wind power, natural gas supply issues related to pipeline and storage capabilities and associate rules in gas markets will have to be considered. Any impacts whereby hydroelectric generation is spilled or hydroelectric facilities are required
to operate inefficiently in order to accommodate wind should be identified so they can be minimized.

Power grids require various reliability-related technical performance requirements, mostly provided by specially equipped generators or specialized transmission equipment. These include operating reserves, automatic generating control, black start, and reactive power among others. Collectively, these services are known as ancillary services. Ontario’s IESO is responsible for managing ancillary services and employs market-based and non-market based process for obtaining needed services. The IESO and the Market Surveillance Panel should routinely monitor the ancillary service costs to identify and quantify any impact wind power is having on increasing consumer costs in this area. The costs impacts of wind power should be estimated by comparing actual ancillary service costs with what those costs would have been without wind power, taking into account the offers to sell and bids to buy received by the IESO.

The Ontario government’s current procurement strategies for wind power are indiscriminate with respect to location. However, the overall cost and environmental impacts of wind power development in some regions of the province will be very different depending on local conditions of load and alternative generation. For example, north western Ontario has a strongly winter peaking demand for electricity – a factor that favours wind – but low overall generation costs and negative load growth, both factors that would suggest that wind investments would be better directed toward eastern Ontario. It is also possible that Southern Manitoba or nearby states in the U.S have more favourable wind regimes relative to the needs of north western Ontario as compared with the service local wind generators can provide.

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The Deniers, Part II: Warming is real – and has benefits

Posted on November 1, 2006 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
November 1, 2006

One month ago, the world heard that global warming could lead to a global catastrophe “on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century.” This assessment, from Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, made banner headlines and led prominent leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair to urge immediate action to stem global warming. It also led some prominent environmentalists to denounce Sir Nicholas for what they deemed an outrageous study bereft of credibility. None of the environmentalists issued a stronger denunciation, or has better environmental credentials, than Richard S.J. Tol. Tol is a Denier, to use the terminology of the “science-is-settled” camp in the increasingly polarized global warming debate. Like many other Deniers, Tol doesn’t think the evidence is in on global warming and its effects, he doesn’t think there’s reason to rush to action, and he doesn’t think that crash programs to curb global warming are called for. Also like many other Deniers, he doesn’t fit the stereotype that those who use the epithet imagine. Anything but. Tol is no fringe outsider to the scientific debate. He is at the centre of the academic investigation of global warming, a central figure in the scientific establishment that has been developing the models and the knowledge to understand the global warming phenomenon. At the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, considered by most the authoritative body in the field, Tol is involved as an author in all three of its Working Groups. He is also an author and editor of the United Nations Handbook on Methods for Climate Change Impact Assessment and Adaptation Strategies. He is also a mover and shaker in the prestigious European Climate Forum. He takes global warming seriously and has dedicated his professional life to making a contribution for the better in climate policy and related fields. Because of his immense reputation, the Stern report itself relied on Tol’s work in coming to its conclusions. But Sir Nicholas twisted Tol’s work out of shape to arrive at unsupportable conclusions. As one example, Sir Nicholas plucked a figure ($29 per ton of carbon dioxide) from a range that Tol prepared describing the possible costs of CO2 emissions, without divulging that in the very same study Tol concluded that the actual costs “are likely to be substantially smaller” than $14 per ton of CO2. Likewise, in an assessment of the potential consequences of rising sea levels, Sir Nicholas quoted a study co-authored by Tol that referred to the “millions at risk,” ignoring that the same study then suggested greatly reduced consequences for those millions due to the ability of humans to adapt to change. Throughout his report, in fact, Sir Nicholas not only assumed worst possible cases, he also assumed that humans are passive creatures, devoid of ingenuity, who would be helpless victims to changes in the world around them. Such assumptions underpinned Sir Nicholas’s claim that “the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever,” and led Tol to view Sir Nicholas’s conclusions as “preposterous.” Tol’s conclusion: “The Stern review can therefore be dismissed as alarmist and incompetent.” Tol and Sir Nicholas are worlds apart, and not just because of Sir Nicholas’s recklessness with the facts. Where Sir Nicholas paints an altogether bleak picture, Tol’s is far more nuanced: Global warming creates benefits as well as harms, he explains, and in the short term, the benefits are especially pronounced. More important, Tol is a student of human innovation and adaptation. As a native of the Netherlands, he is intimately familiar with dikes and other low-cost adaptive technologies, and the ability of humans in meeting challenges in their environment. To assume that humans in the future would not use their ingenuity and resourcefulness in sensible ways defies the history of mankind and ultimately serves no one. Yes, global warming is real, he believes, and yes, measures to mitigate it should be taken. But unlike the advocates who believe that the science is settled, and the global warning debate is over, Tol thinks that much research needs to be done before we know how best to respond. “There is no risk of damage [from global warming] that would force us to act injudiciously,” he explains. “We’ve got enough time to look for the economically most effective options, rather than dash into ‘actionism,’ which then becomes very expensive.” THE CV OF A DENIER: Richard Tol received his PhD in Economics from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He is Michael Otto Professor of Sustainability and Global Change at Hamburg University, director of the Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Science, principal researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije Universiteit, and Adjunct Professor at the Center for Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a board member of the Centre for Marine and Climate Research, the International Max Planck Research Schools of Earth Systems Modelling and Maritime Affairs, and the European Forum on Integrated Environmental Assessment. He is an editor of Energy Economics, an associate editor of Environmental and Resource Economics, and a member of the editorial board of Environmental Science and Policy and Integrated Assessment.

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More wind power viable: study

Posted on October 25, 2006 by energyprbe

Tyler Hamilton
Toronto Star
October 25, 2006

A study released yesterday by Ontario’s electricity authorities says wind power could represent nearly 20 per cent of the province’s power-generation capacity with little compromise to system reliability.

Critics say the numbers are suspiciously high.

Ontario has four major wind farms in service now with a potential of producing 396 megawatts of emission-free electricity. About 1,300 megawatts are to be operating by 2010.

The problem with wind energy is that another source of power generation, or “operating reserve,” is required to pick up the slack when the wind isn’t blowing. Add too much wind to the mix and the whole system can become unstable.

The study, conducted by GE Energy, concluded that Ontario’s electricity system could handle up to 5,000 megawatts of wind capacity with “negligible” need for additional operating reserves. Beyond that, a more substantial investment in reserve power is required.

It also found that the average capacity value of the wind resource in Ontario during the summer is about 17 per cent, meaning the province can expect to get 170 megawatts of electricity from wind turbines that could, under optimal conditions, generate 1,000 megawatts.

Don Tench, director of planning and assessments for the Independent Electricity System Operator, which balances demand and supply on Ontario’s grid, said the study will help guide the province as it puts together its 20-year system plan.

“We’ve still got some work to do to integrate 5,000 megawatts,” said Tench. “But I’m much more confident that something like this would be feasible.”

The system operator, along with the Ontario Power Authority and the Canadian Wind Energy Association, jointly commissioned the study. Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, said he’s concerned that a wind-turbine manufacturer such as GE Energy was hired to do the work.

“The authorship of this suggests we should read it with caution,” said Adams, adding that his own analysis indicates the GE report is overly optimistic.

Tench said the study isn’t the final word on the issue. The system operator, for example, announced the creation of a working group yesterday that will explore ways of integrating wind power into Ontario’s grid.

The wind market, meanwhile, is booming in Canada.

The industry employed the equivalent of 1,200 full-time workers last year, up 65 per cent compared to 2004, and contributed $736 million to Canada’s GDP, says the wind association.

Revenue doubled in 2005 to $548 million.

Alberta has capped wind development at about 10 per cent of its system capacity because of inadequate transmission and concerns over grid stability.

Tench said Ontario will have to invest heavily in transmission to tap its vast wind resources up north.

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Canada’s nuclear role

Posted on October 11, 2006 by energyprbe

(Oct. 11, 2006) A response to Doug Saunders’ article for the Globe and Mail

Re: Test puts nuclear salesman in harsh light
(Original article appears below)

When considering the role played by Pakistani nuclear official Abdul Qadeer Khan in assisting North Korea’s nuclear-energy and weapons program, Canadians should examine the assistance we have provided in this evil chain of events. Continue reading →

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Canada’s nuclear role

Posted on October 11, 2006 by energyprbe

Tom Adams
Globe and Mail
October 11, 2006

A response to Doug Saunders’ article for the Globe and Mail

Re: Test puts nuclear salesman in harsh light
(Original article appears below)

Canada supplied Pakistan’s first reactor. Approximately 50 Pakistani nuclear trainees have been schooled at facilities of the federal nuclear promoter AECL, the Pickering reactors in Ontario, and the Point Lepreau reactor in New Brunswick. Trainees include key Khan associate Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a pioneer of Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program and a vocal admirer and material supporter of the Taliban who was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 on charges related to nuclear trafficking.

Restricted U.S. nuclear technologies were procured in Canada in 1980 by Pakistani nuclear officials and re-exported. Pakistan continues today as a long-standing participant in the Candu Owners Group, a nuclear-technology-sharing alliance the Canadian government initiated.

Canada’s policies on nuclear-technology exports usually rely on the assurances of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), both of which reflect the conflicted mandates of encouraging but controlling nuclear technology, although Canada has a long history of technology consultation with countries that have not signed the NPT, including India and Pakistan.

Pakistan and North Korea exploited the encourage/control conflict embedded in international controls to gain access to nuclear technology. Iran is following this approach. China is getting nuclear aid from Canada today under the same rules.

Until a safer approach to nuclear technology is developed, Canada should cut off all nuclear-technology exports and nuclear training of foreign officials, at least for countries that do not have stable democracies.

Tom Adams, Executive Director, Energy Probe

Test puts nuclear salesman in harsh light

by Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail, October 10, 2006

In the 1990s, as hundreds of thousands of North Koreans were dying of starvation while their regime withdrew further from the world, a chubby, jolly man made a series of flights on Pakistani military jets from Islamabad to Pyongyang.

The flights carried huge sums of money out of impoverished North Korea and delivered centrifuges, nuclear raw materials and instructions on making atomic bombs. The man who later confessed to enriching himself in the exchanges, and to selling nuclear secrets to Iran and Libya as well, was Abdul Qadeer Khan – a national hero in Pakistan, responsible for giving his own country a nuclear weapon.

The end product of Mr. Khan’s “nuclear supermarket” was delivered to the world Monday in North Korea’s first atomic explosion.

In detonating the bomb, Pyongyang almost certainly used technology it acquired from Pakistan. It has placed a harsh spotlight on Mr. Khan, who lives a comfortable life in Islamabad after being pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2004. He is confined to one of his several palatial homes, officially under house arrest but with full access to his vast fortune.

And it has shone an equally harsh light on the relationship between Pakistan and the United States, since Mr. Khan’s illicit sales to rogue states took place during a period when Washington was tolerating Islamabad’s nuclear ambitions. The United States has never sought punishment or sanctions against Mr. Khan or Pakistan for arming North Korea, even though the Central Intelligence Agency had reportedly been watching his activities since the 1970s – a period in which he built a vast business empire based on his nuclear sales to authoritarian states.

Pakistan has refused to allow Mr. Khan to be questioned. Asked Tuesday whether Washington has been interrogating Mr. Khan in the wake of the North Korean blast, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: “I don’t know who’s talked to him lately. But he’s out of business, and that’s a good thing for nonproliferation efforts around the world.”

Mr. McCormack explained that Pakistan is not being blamed for nuclear proliferation in countries that were once described as the “axis of evil” because General Musharraf’s regime has co-operated with the U.S. war against terrorism.

“In terms of Pakistan, you have a country that has made the strategic decision to ally itself with those who are promoting freedom and democracy around the world,” the spokesman said. “. . . In the North Korea regime, you don’t have that. You have a regime that is actually going in the other direction.”

Pakistani officials also denied any connection between the North Korean blast and Mr. Khan’s black-market sales to the communist regime.

But Mr. Khan’s nuclear bazaar took place within the highest reaches of the Pakistani state; his company, Khan Research Laboratories, seemed to conduct sales for years with the knowledge and assent of the government in Islamabad.

Gen. Musharraf acknowledges in his newly published memoir, In the Line of Fire, that Mr. Khan’s activities aroused his suspicions in 1999.

“I received a report suggesting that some North Korean nuclear experts, under the guise of missile engineers, had arrived at Khan Research Laboratories and were being given secret briefings on centrifuges,” he writes. “It was becoming clearer by now that A. Q. [Khan] was not ‘part of the problem,’ but the problem itself.”

The nature of that problem was known to the United States and Pakistan in the 1970s, when Mr. Khan, a young metallurgist born in Bhopal, India, was hired by a uranium-enrichment laboratory in the Netherlands. A Dutch court later found that he had passed top-secret documents to Pakistani spies on several occasions, and Dutch officials have said that both the CIA and the Dutch government were aware of his theft of secrets as early as 1975. In 1976, he abruptly quit, taking blueprints for a uranium centrifuge with him. He was immediately named the head of Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program.

His private company was deeply enmeshed with the state’s nuclear program. While its initial purpose was to procure nuclear-weapons components from other countries, it simultaneously became a tool for Mr. Khan’s personal enrichment, and the nuclear technology moved in both directions.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Khan reportedly made a deal to buy North Korea’s medium-range ballistic missiles, which Pakistan needed to carry the atomic bombs it was on the verge of developing. In exchange, Pakistan provided nuclear-weapons expertise. He also reportedly received payments for these deals.

The CIA monitored him throughout this time. But the United States declined to act, according to Khan biographer Gordon Corera, because Pakistan was considered a vital ally in the Cold War, and because nuclear proliferation was considered a reasonable price to pay for strong alliances.

It was only after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that U.S. officials asked Gen. Musharraf to put a stop to Mr. Khan’s sales. Even then – and even now – no further sanction was considered necessary.

This year, Mr. Khan began receiving treatment for prostate cancer at a private cancer hospital owned by Imran Khan, the cricket star turned politician. The former athlete said he provided the expensive treatment free of charge, explaining: “Whatever allegations Qadeer Khan is facing, he is our hero.”

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