Use of energy is interactive

Re: Energy plan includes big hydro hikes, Dec. 3. The big hikes in electricity prices are completely unnecessary. They are the result of the Ontario government’s almost total focus on electrical generation and distribution facilities at the expense of dealing with the much larger forms of energy, such as for heating and transportation.

Moreover, it is those other forms of energy that are responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario, so the government’s neglect of those issues is leading to both an environmental and economic decline of the province.

Our use of these different forms of energy is interactive. For example, you can store summer heat for use in the winter, and you can in the same process store electricity on a scale that would enable Ontario’s peak power demands to be met via stored energy instead of relying on generation. That would both eliminate the GHG produced by our furnaces and reduce the electricity demand, resulting in lower costs for both. The process is explained in the November issue of http://sustainabilityjournal.ca.

RON TOLMIE, Kanata, Editor, Sustainability-Journal.ca