Dim bulb in Ontario’s Highest Office

The Star has printed an editorial by their Premier.
Some rebutting is in order.

Mr. McGuinty was in the legislature prior to 2003. He is fully aware he is mostly making things up in his editorial. Between 2003 and 2005, Pickering 1, Pickering 4, Bruce 3 and Bruce 4 all came online – about 2600MW of nuclear production that had nothing to do with him. The generators were a stop gap plan alright – because the plan was already in motion and only required a stopgap temporarily.


Dalton also writes that "we had become net importers of electricity — relying on even more dirty coal from the United States." This year Ontario will import about 6.5 TWh of electricity, which is down from 2003 by about 4TWh, but with about 20TWh more supply from the 4 nuclear reactors noted previously. The draft supply mix directive suggests our system continues relying on imports; "The Plan shall consider … the availability of imports from other … to meet Ontario's reliability and operability requirements throughout the duration of the Plan." I've previously noted why this will increasingly be the case due to an increasingly foolish supply mix.

Dalton opines that the previous government had no 'long-term plan to rebuild', which just speaks to his pride in his ignorance, as the previous government's plan not only came out of an all-party committee, it is what has kept the lights on as McGuinty pulled useless initiatives out of his arse. Premier Dad actually created a bureaucracy to plan the system - the Ontario Power Authority - and then ignored the Integrated Power System Plan in favour of a little green etching some high school grad scribbled on a napkin. The 2003 Eves' government plan, that Dalton now wishes didn't' exist, not only included eliminating the use of coal generation by 2015, it planned on installing SOx and NOx reduction technologies in the interim. A curious person could see the USA has reduced these smog creating emissions by half in the past decade. McGuinty ran in 2003 on a phase out by 2007 – and OPG's 2003 reporting shows a write-off of $500 million due to the depreciation of their assets to reflect a 2007 closing. In our reality, all he did was prevent scrubbers from 2003 to 2014.

When McGuinty speaks of dirty coal, it is a coal he has actively sought to keep dirty. When he speaks of $3 billion, he is mindlessly repeating a number coming from sources he wouldn't mention, in the unlikely event he has any idea where it comes from at all (Physicians against Math and Testing Models is the probable source).

The 7 million cars figure is silly too, but it still completely misses the point. We burn coal, and natural gas, to produce electricity when it is demanded. Neither nuclear, solar, or wind compete with these technologies, and none can fill the role in the system. 1200MW of wind is relied on for absolutely nothing by the system operator. Why would more be any different?

Mr. McGuinty writes that prices went up 3.6% a year for "families and small businesses", for the past 20 years. I can't find stats back that far, but personally I now pay about 17 cents/kWh of metered consumption, and in 2004 it was about half of that. For him to be telling the truth the price would have needed to remain at 8.5 cents/kWh from 1991-2003. Perhaps he mistyped 3.6 accidently, as those numbers are close to the "1" on the keyboard, and the average annual household increase during Dalton's administration is 11%.

Or maybe he simply lied.

Or maybe we are supposed to ignore small businesses, and residences, have had their delivery rates hiked 200% during his term, while their consumption has declined dramatically. Should we consider only the one line on the invoice with the mythological $/kWh?

Mr. McGuinty notes how his energy policies have benefited the economy.

The Ontario economy is the worst performing in the country under his leadership.