Wednesday, January 26, 2011

McGuinty Liberals export cheap electricity while Ontarians forced to pay through the nose

A CTV story, Jan.26, 2011, lets Ontarians know that Dalton McGuinty's Liberals are selling-off EXCESS electricity from Ontario, at rates cheaper than Ontarians are paying for it!!
The incompetence of McGuinty's Liberal scumbags is unbelievable, seen not only in their health-care monopoly, but with George Smitherman's greenie energy fiasco. (It's astounding how we are now facing the repercussions of the stinking piles of Grit policy shit which Smitherman smeared all over Ontario)
So, Ontarians have been forced by the Grits to wash our laundry in the dark in the middle of the night so that this vile, disgusting, global-warming-fear-mongering, over-taxing, lying Liberal government can sell power to the States and Quebec (yah: electricity - to Quebec...) for a song?!
Let's ask Ontario Liberal MPP (and full-time GreenFear global-warming/climate-change fearmonger) Jim Bradley to explain his Liberal energy fiasco, especially in light of the fact that this same smug ole Jimmy was so sanctimoniously AGAINST power exports from Ontario - when he was in opposition. Bradley wanted to LIMIT the generation of power in Ontario, see Jim Bradley looks like he's got something to hide! {Did any of the electricity, which Jim Bradley's Liberals exported from Ontario, originate from coal-generated plants in Ontario?! Why, wasn't it Good Ole Jim Bradley himself who was eagerly reported by the St.Catharines Standard (Jun.21, 2002) smugly railing on about how such electricity exports should be banned??!!}
Christina Blizzard wrote in "Power splurge" ,Toronto Sun, Jan.26, 2011, (also in the St.Catharines Standard):
"Stupid. Reckless. Incompetent.
What word captures the way Dalton McGuinty’s government has blown it when it comes to windmills and green energy?
Having sold us on their new, clean, green energy, and having hiked our bills to the stratosphere, the province is now in a situation where we have so much wind power, we had to pay Quebec and U.S. states more than $1 million to take it off our hands.
You’ve heard of fire sales? This was a wind sale.
New Year’s Day was warm — and windy. Our windfarms were in overdrive. Most of industry was shut down, so energy demands were low.
You can’t store electricity, so you either have to cut back on production — or find somewhere for it to go.
In brave new Ontario, the government pays windfarm operators a whopping 13.5¢ a kilowatt hour (kwh) to generate electricity.
That compares to about 2.5¢ a kwh for electricity from hydro plants such as Niagara and about 5.5¢ for nuclear.
(On top of that, we pay a “Global adjustment of about 3¢ a kwh — and going up — for new wind and solar projects).
The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) must take electricity produced by wind first.
So with an excess, generators such as the Beck Plant in Niagara Falls were forced to spill water. Yes, you heard. We had to throw away the cheapest, greenest electricity in the world from Niagara to make way for the really expensive green wind stuff.
And we still had too much — so we had to pay our neighbours to take the expensive stuff off our hands.
(You can’t turn off a gas plant or a nuclear plant completely, because they’re big and complicated to re-boot.)
Energy Minister Brad Duguid defended the sale.
“We were paid to take power from other jurisdictions on Dec. 30,” Duguid said. “It’s a reciprocal arrangement that has been in place for some time.
“Any jurisdiction that is operating on the open market is subject to this kind of provision, where energy exchanges when your demand dips below your baseload capacity and it is more expensive to start shutting down some of those baseload capacity units, like your nuclear units, than it is to pay somebody to take that surplus power that occurs on rare occasions.”
Fair enough. Only two problems with that. First, industry is still in a funk. We aren’t using as much power — so these days we’re using less power all the time. How often will this occur?
Second, if you have to pay people to take excess juice, why would you keep generating the really expensive stuff, like wind?
Surely you should tell the wind operators to shut down first.
A spokesman for the IESO says that’s what they are looking at.
“One of the things we are working at is the ability to turn off that wind.
“If you’ve got a situation that’s going to last for a couple of hours, does it make sense to turn off a plant that’s going to be off for 72 hours, that you might need within those 72 hours, or does it make sense to turn something off for a couple of hours, and deal with the situation that way?” said Terry Young.
In the immortal words of Kermit the Frog: It isn’t easy being green. It’s not cheap, either."


Maybe someone can ask Good Ole Jim Bradley about why Niagara Falls' green hydro power is being dumped in favour of Smitherman's expensive "green" fiasco. Jim Bradley is a local Niagara Liberal MPP and a McGuinty cabinet member - isn't this a LOCAL ISSUE, which the elusive Jimmy should be explaining himself?!
Where's Jim Bradley's explanation?!
Too bad Doug Herod or some other Bradley-buddy at the St.Catharines Standard can't bother to ask Good Ole Jimmy about his Liberal lies and duplicity.
Now that wouldn't be cricket, y'see; we don't want to make Jimmy look bad, do we?! Good Ole Jimmy means well, y'see; he's doin' his darned-ole-best fer us all, bless him.
(...and don't get me started on McGuinty's Liberals and cricket...)
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