Ontario walks tightrope on plan to end coal use - Reuters

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Ontario walks tightrope on plan to end coal use
09 Aug 2007 17:10:41 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Jonathan Spicer

TORONTO, Aug 9 (Reuters) - The province of Ontario,
Canada's biggest energy user, aims to close its last
coal-fired power plant in 2014 and become the only
jurisdiction in North America to completely phase out
coal, a strategy that some critics deride as reckless
and others say is overly timid.

The coal plan is the major plank in the climate change
policy of Ontario's Liberal government, which is well
aware of the recent growth in voter concern about
global warming.

But greenhouse gas-emitting coal now supplies about
a fifth of the province's electricity demand and some
critics fear that Ontario will be unable to find enough
replacement power by the time the 2014 deadline rolls
around.

Heading into an October election, the opposition
Progressive Conservative Party warns the plan risks
more mass blackouts during peak summer periods such
as the one that paralyzed Ontario and several U.S.
states in 2003.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N08227013.htm

[Botany]

1. Good on them

[GliderGuider]

2. Guess what they're going to replace them with?

You guessed it.

Toronto -- Environmental groups condemned the McGuinty government’s move to exempt its $83 billion electricity plan from an environmental assessment. The exemption was provided via a regulation adopted by the cabinet on Monday.

“An Environment Minister should stand up for the environment, but Minister Broten is caving in to the nuclear industry and letting it rewrite Ontario’s environmental protection laws. ” said Shawn-Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace Canada.

On Tuesday, the McGuinty government released the government’s energy plan, calling for a $46 billion to be spent trying to rebuild all of Ontario’s ageing nuclear reactors and to build new reactors for the first time since 1973. The plan was decried by environmental groups for failing to fully develop green power alternatives that Ontarians support, such as energy efficiency and renewable energy. Energy Minister Dwight Duncan reiterated his stated interest for a ‘fulsome debate’ on the future of nuclear power despite the fact that the government has avoided any independent or objective debate on the province’s energy future over the past year.