Wind 'em Up Day: Spin Baby Spin

Friday was dubbed "Global Wind Day"

In Ontario, that meant some rather predictable things - like installations that had been producing output for half a year had ceremonies to officially baptize them as open.  These included the largish Greenwich wind farm Enbridge has been operating near Thunder Bay; and David Suzuki slunk onto Manitoulin Island, with Ontario's current Minister of Energy, to open the 4MW Mother Earth Renewable Energy wind project.   What is also now expected, and disturbing, is the politicization of the bureaucracy compelled to join in with the suspect industry's agenda; all reported, as if news, in the mainstream, media.

The Environmental Registry posted 5 notices on Global Wind Day including 2 renewable energy certificates approving Samsung/Korean Consortium wind projects, with a third awarding the REC for their 'Grand Renewable' solar project.  The sudden flood of activity on the Samsung file followed John Spears' article in the Star pretending a need for urgent action on moving the Samsung projects forward.

Tyler Hamilton's article in the Global Wind Day edition of the Star began:

Climate-change skeptics like to call environmentalists “alarmists” because of their call for urgent action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The skeptics say the science is too uncertain, that there’s no rush to act, and those who argue otherwise are sanctimonious lefties out of touch with reality.
For them it’s drill baby, drill.

I can't speak for 'climate-change' skeptics, but there are people, like me, who have demonstrated the wind turbines pictured with Mr. Hamilton's article do little, if anything, to reduce emissions.  Ontario's emission intensity is a small fraction of the same measurement in Denmark's, and Germany's, electricity systems.  The sanctimonious implication that those who refuse to overlook the severe defects of today's intermittent renewable energy must be climate-change skeptic is a little silly in some cases, and simply one part of an age-old Charlatan's con in most.

The true aim of many who advocate renewables  is ending nuclear energy.  Here is a picture of a scene I observed on International Wind Day, - it is sure to warm the cockles of a wind schemers' heart to a far greater extent than reducing the CO2 content in the atmosphere ever could.  The long-standing head office of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. with a big for sale sign stuck out by the curb.

In Ontario, wind production is up, demand is not, price is annihilated, dumping excess at far below cost as exports can't be constrained, and we are shutting down nuclear units on a regular basis as the use of coal is increasing - utilized for it's 'peaking depth' which intermittent renewables make necessary to be available.

Both coal and natural gas use in generation were up over the first 5 months of the year.

Demand is down, generation from wind is up, generation from solar is up, and emissions are up.

This is not indicative of urgent action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

---

Notes: Environment Registry Postings on Global Wind Day


011-5914 Grand Renewable Wind LP/Grand Renewable Wind GP Inc.

A Renewable Energy Approval (REA) has been issued to Grand Renewable Energy Wind LP to engage in a renewable energy project in respect of a Class 4 wind facility consisting of the construction, installation, operation, use and retiring of a wind facility, with a total name plate capacity of 148.6 megawatts (MW). The wind facility will be connected to Hydro One’s distribution system.
This Class 4 wind facility, known as the Grand Renewable Energy Park, is located in Haldimand County.

011-5719 South Kent Wind LP

A Renewable Energy Approval (REA) has been issued to South Kent Wind LP to engage in a renewable energy project in respect of a Class 4 wind facility consisting of the construction, installation, operation, use and retiring of a wind facility, with a total name plate capacity of 270 megawatts (MW). The wind facility will be connected to Hydro One’s distribution system.
This Class 4 wind facility, known as the South Kent Wind Project, is located generally between Highway 401 to the north and Lake Erie to the south, and from the Town of Tilbury east to the Town of Ridgetown, in the Municipality of Chatham-Kent.

011-5781 Permit for activities with conditions to achieve overall benefit to the species

The proposal to construct and operate a wind facility and solar facility has the potential to adversely affect Bobolink and Eastern Meadowlark and their habitat. The proposed permit conditions would provide benefits that exceed the adverse effects on Bobolink and Eastern Meadowlark.
Bobolink and Eastern Meadowlark are listed on the Species at Risk in Ontario (SARO) List, in Ontario Regulation 230/08 of the ESA, as Threatened.

011-6555 Notification of Northland Permit for an Overall Benefit
This introduces an application by Northland to do what Samsung was approved to do in the approval re: 011-5781 (above)

011-6005 Renewable Energy on Crown Land Policy

A draft Renewable Energy on Crown Land policy has been developed to provide updated direction on how the government will manage Crown land to support Ontario’s renewable energy needs while balancing the social, economic, and ecological interests of the Province...
The first three objectives of the draft policy focus on where (location) and how (process) the Ministry will make Crown land available for renewable energy development. The Ministry will look to government energy plans and programs when deciding where to make Crown land available for renewable energy. New application processes will be established using up front criteria. The draft policy represents a fundamental shift from previous approaches, where the Ministry accepted applications across the province, to a more coordinated and focused approach better aligned with government energy objectives....