Let’s get back to hydroelectric sanity
Re Cost of ending green energy programs, August 15 Letter writer Nathan Sollman should realize that the money about which he is concerned has already been spent on green energy — some $40 billion over the past decade. This amounts to almost $11 million a day. I suppose that Mr. Sollman would prefer that this continue for the next four years and beyond while the negative impact on hydro rates causes industry to flee Ontario, taking jobs with them, and those less well off to choose between food and keeping their lights on.
We can see that a bad choice was made with the Ontario Green Energy Act favouring wind and solar over the only source of green energy that is simultaneously sustainable, renewable, clean, non-emitting and dispatchable.
That source is hydroelectricity. Had more been invested in hydroelectricity, we would not have needed any of the gas turbine plants or the billion-plus scandal over their locations.
When the electricity system was nationalized in 1906, the slogan was “power at cost.”
Until the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station first came online in 1971, Ontario relied exclusively on hydroelectricity and had low electricity rates.
Ontario Power Generation can produce hydroelectricity for less than 2.4 cents per kilowatthour. Had we stuck with hydroelectricity, we would have a 100 per cent green electricity system, we would have very low electricity rates, and there would be no global adjustment (now the single largest line item on most hydro bills, even greater than the electricity consumed).
We were sold a bill of goods by people who should have known better. The cost of cancelling the outrageously priced green energy that has been forced on us can be made up in less than 10 days of the money presently being squandered on it.
Let’s get back to hydroelectric sanity and have a100 per cent green electricity system! John Banka, Toronto