Another Doug Ford 180 This Time on Wind Power

[BeaverFever]

Doug Ford shifts direction on wind power in Ontario

6 years after scrapping projects, PC government reopens door to green energy
 

One of Doug Ford's first acts as premier of Ontario, just days after taking office in 2018, was cancelling more than 750 renewable energy projects, including a large wind farm that was already partially built. 

Fast forward to today, and Ford's Progressive Conservative government is poised to oversee the biggest expansion of green energy that the province has seen in nearly a decade. 

Ontario has laid out plans to procure an additional 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2034. By comparison: the capacity of all wind power projects currently installed across the province totals about 4,900 megawatts. 

The move makes for one of the most dramatic policy shifts from a government that has had its fair share of U-turns. 

The expansion is driven by the anticipated rise in demand for electricity in Ontario — as well as the demand from many companies that the electricity supply be as emissions-free as possible — along with falling costs of producing wind and solar energy….

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-wind-power-green-energy-doug-ford-electricity-1.7297217

[BeaverFever]

Just now, BeaverFever said:

Doug Ford shifts direction on wind power in Ontario

6 years after scrapping projects, PC government reopens door to green energy
 

 

One of Doug Ford's first acts as premier of Ontario, just days after taking office in 2018, was cancelling more than 750 renewable energy projects, including a large wind farm that was already partially built. 

Fast forward to today, and Ford's Progressive Conservative government is poised to oversee the biggest expansion of green energy that the province has seen in nearly a decade. 

Ontario has laid out plans to procure an additional 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2034. By comparison: the capacity of all wind power projects currently installed across the province totals about 4,900 megawatts. 

The move makes for one of the most dramatic policy shifts from a government that has had its fair share of U-turns. 

The expansion is driven by the anticipated rise in demand for electricity in Ontario — as well as the demand from many companies that the electricity supply be as emissions-free as possible — along with falling costs of producing wind and solar energy….

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-wind-power-green-energy-doug-ford-electricity-1.7297217

So another ill-informed right wing policy to turn back the clock for no reason except “pwn the libs” comes to light.  Years of progress lost and millions of dollars wasted for nothing.  Now he’s basically admitting Wynne was right on this file all along

[herbie]

Someone must've told him that there aren't any whales in the Great Lakes for windmills to kill.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

So another ill-informed right wing policy to turn back the clock for no reason except “pwn the libs” comes to light.  Years of progress lost and millions of dollars wasted for nothing.  Now he’s basically admitting Wynne was right on this file all along

Yeah - no - thats pretty much full of shit     Everything these days is about powning with you.    I think your word of the day calendar is stuck

The problem back then was with the contracts and the tech.  As it was the industry had to be heavily subsidized and it didn't make any sense. 

Electrical demands have grown, the tech has matured and this will be a different contract alltogether.  And it won't just be wind. 

You seem to think that all 'renewables' and their contracts are exactly the same thing.  They're not.  

But in typical left wing fashion the left was butt hurt when he stopped it and is butthurt now that he's able to proceed. 

Too bad we could hook up a turbine to your butt, with all the 'hot air' you're blowing we could power the country  

We'll have to wait and see the details of the contracts and plans.  He can't be promising to pay them even if they don't produce like the old plan. 

[Boges]

From my understanding of the contracts the Liberals signed was that they featured high FIT program (Feed-In Tariffs). Basically a subsidy to make the electricity. 

As costs for producing green energy have come down, I'm hoping such a FIT will not be required here. 

Edited August 20, 2024 by Boges

[I am Groot]

16 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

So another ill-informed right wing policy to turn back the clock for no reason except “pwn the libs” comes to light.  Years of progress lost and millions of dollars wasted for nothing.  Now he’s basically admitting Wynne was right on this file all along

Well, why wouldn't he? He's been running his government just like Wynne for the last several years, after all.

I"m not sure if he's hoping Trudeau appoints him to the senate eventually, or if he's angling to jump to federal politics and get into the Liberal cabinet.

[BeaverFever]

12 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Yeah - no - thats pretty much full of shit     Everything these days is about powning with you.    I think your word of the day calendar is stuck

The problem back then was with the contracts and the tech.  As it was the industry had to be heavily subsidized and it didn't make any sense. 

Electrical demands have grown, the tech has matured and this will be a different contract alltogether.  And it won't just be wind. 

You seem to think that all 'renewables' and their contracts are exactly the same thing.  They're not.  

But in typical left wing fashion the left was butt hurt when he stopped it and is butthurt now that he's able to proceed. 

Too bad we could hook up a turbine to your butt, with all the 'hot air' you're blowing we could power the country  

We'll have to wait and see the details of the contracts and plans.  He can't be promising to pay them even if they don't produce like the old plan. 

Well that’s some revisionism you got going on there.
 

1) The exponentially growing demand for electricity especially clean electricity has been widely known and foreseen for well over a decade.  It’s not something that was just realized yesterday, which is why all those renewable contracts were created in Ontario and around the world  Infrastructure takes years to build yo you don’t just build it to meet today’s demand but demand years in the future 

2) The technology has not changed so much in six years that hundreds of millions of dollars  had to be spent to scrap projects already signed and then desperately restart them a few years later with the completion goal ten years further on

3) To the extent that tech has evolved and prices have improved, it’s because renewable projects like the ones short-sighted Ford cancelled continued to thrive and grow exponentially in the rest of the world, even in the fossil fuel industry’s puppet states like Texas and Alberta and the Arabian Peninsula. The world was moving forward and Ontario along with it, until Doug  came and started moving backwards, touting legacy energy sources that are increasingly becoming less relevant year over year.   Now he’s desperately trying to catch up. 
 

4) While it remains to be seen what subsidies Ford will offer, his recent willingness to generously subsidize EV facilities and his frantic rush to double renewable output in 10 years suggest there will be more subsidies to come. 
 

5) The canceled contracts in 2018 included a variety of renewable energy types, including wind, solar, and bioenergy. While wind and solar were the most prominent, the cancellations affected a broad spectrum of renewable energy initiatives in Ontario.

6) Ford didn’t just cancel some “expensive” renewable energy projects in 2018, he paused the province’s renewable development entirely and built gas plants instead. The percentage of Ontario energy from non-emitting sources dropped by 5% as a result. Of note, Doug’s current plan also includes “recontracting” of existing renewable providers, something he could have explored 6 years ago   I will remind you Ford once said he would tear down every windmill in the province if he could and he also ordered the removal of EV chargers from GO Stations. 
 

Ford was an anti-renewable ideologue who is only now coming to accept what “the left” has been saying for decades. Conservative new epiphanies are often just decades-old liberal ideas that have finally found their way to society’s most thick-skulled members: abortion, same sex marriage, climate change, renewable energy, cannabis, Iraq invasion, just some examples of where conservatives were the last to get on board. Oh yeah when the Supreme Court ruled you couldn’t beat your kids with an object like stick or a belt I seem to remember them getting mad about that too. But I digress.  

26 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

I"m not sure if he's hoping Trudeau appoints him to the senate eventually, or if he's angling to jump to federal politics and get into the Liberal cabinet.

That would be stunning development and I think extremely unlikely

[CdnFox]

12 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Well that’s some revisionism you got going on there.

Uh huh.  Ok, lets look at what you've managed to come up with this time.... 

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1) The exponentially growing demand...

Blah blah blah nobody gives a shit, Not relevant. Next. 

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2) The technology has not changed so much in six years 

It has actually. It's matured quite a bit.  And where it didn't mature it got cheaper.  Swing and a miss again

And it still is, and considering this is supposed to span a fair number of years:  Tech advancement could unlock 80 percent more wind energy

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3) To the extent that tech has evolved and prices have improved, it’s because renewable projects like the ones short-sighted Ford cancelled continued to thrive 

Nope  it's because they didn't and improvements were needed and made.  Wind was fast turning into a disaster for ontario. The industry learned from such disasters. 
 

Quote

4) While it remains to be seen what subsidies Ford will offer, his recent willingness to generously subsidize EV facilities and his frantic rush to double renewable output in 10 years suggest there will be more subsidies to come. 

That one produced jobs and taxable industry.  We'll see if this does.

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5) The canceled contracts in 2018 included a variety of renewable energy types,

Blah blah nobody cares.

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6) Ford didn’t just cancel some “expensive” renewable energy projects in 2018,

Yeah he did.

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Ford was an anti-renewable ideologue who is only now coming to accept what “the left” has been saying for decades.

nope. That's the whole point. He's not for or against it, if it makes sense and it's cost affordable then by all means. If it isn't then trash it. It wasn't, he trashed it. Now it might be and he's for it.

 

I get it. You want ford to be a terrible person. But the reality is the same reality that most other business people or consumers or governments look at when they're not being excessively political. If it makes sense cost wise then do it. If it doesn't then it doesn't

[ExFlyer]

Yeah well, somersetting needs to be done.

Proposal is to build millions of new homes and all need electricity.

EV's coming on line more and more every year and more electricity will be needed.

Pickering will be shut down, reducing electrical output by over 2000 KW and will be down for up to 11 years so something has to be done.

All government, corporate and even personal goals, projects and principals have to change with the times and consequences.

I am not surprised nor upset. We need the juice and you cannot pluck it off fruit trees or vineyards.

The problem is over 150 Ontario communities have decreed not wind power in their municipalities so, where to put it.

Cannot build hydro facilities which they should have started 30 years ago but Quebec has veto over that.

Yup, Ontario is in a bind.

[cannuck]

On 8/19/2024 at 9:00 PM, CdnFox said:

The problem back then was with the contracts and the tech.  As it was the industry had to be heavily subsidized and it didn't make any sense. 

Electrical demands have grown, the tech has matured and this will be a different contract alltogether.  And it won't just be wind.  

We'll have to wait and see the details of the contracts and plans.  He can't be promising to pay them even if they don't produce like the old plan. 

Yes, demands have grown (adding a couple million mouths to feed will do that) but on the wind side, the tech has NOT in ANY way "matured".  Direct subsidies have been somewhat displaced by the totally artificial BS of trading carbon credits.   Until someone deals with the HUGE issue of the mountain of non-reusable, non-recyclable waste blades spewing out of these ultra high maintenance, ultra high cost POSs no sane, intelligent being could condone their existance.