Power situation dire

[bishop]

Wow never thought i would hear "EMF" being used in the proper context on an escort board.

Most Large companies actually pay significantly more for power than residential consumers. They actually pay the Market rate for power, but they get an extra rebate which lowers the price the pay slightly.

Umm I am all game for more hyrdo but all the best rivers are already milked for power. I know that a Sir Adam Beck 3 is in the works at niagra falls, but other than that there will most likely be no additional hydro plants to be built in Ontario.

Maybe I am crazy but perhaps we should all pay the fair market rate for electricty and maybe just maybe when the electricity bills are high enough then people will conserve power and pull Ontario out of this mess.

 

[goodtime]

read the facts.. Canada produces enough electricity from wind to power approx 100000 homes. It does not sound "uneconomical" or inefficient. It sounds like an environmentally friendly way to generate power... except for the hundreds of birds that are killed every year!! ...

Ontario is not in the wind alley. While Nova Scotia, Sask and Alb are. We're better with generating from Nuclear & Falls. Same for Hydro Quebec.

dj1470, in 2nd and 3rd world country, blackouts are common event, one contributor to more babies.

Bump up Biz rates and smart meters for homes would encourage conservation.

 

[james t kirk]

So what does this leave us with?

James Bay.

Ontario scrapped its plans in the 70s and Hydro Quebec pushed ahead with theirs.

Supposedly, we canned James Bay in favour of Nukes and the Environmental impacts.

Time to grow some balls and push ahead with this.

Hydro Quebec's James Bay project generates, or will generate 13 times as much power as Niagara Falls.

 

[Keebler Elf]

What are YOU doing to conserve energry Keeb?

I take transit or walk.

I've reduced my AC.

I turn out lights when I'm not in the room.

I turn off my computer when I'm not actively using it, or my monitor when I'm stepping away for a few minutes.

I buy energy conservative products.

I don't shop at any store that leaves its doors open with the AC on.

I don't water my lawn in the middle of the day.

I use high consumption appliances at non-peak hours.

Satisfied?

p.s. I forgot one. I don't whine like a little bitch and blame other people for the problems that I have a responsibility to contribute to fixing in society.

 

[Keebler Elf]

I'm not blaming them for not conserving electricity I am however blaming 'them' for systematic underinvestment in a key piece of national infrastructure.

Conserving natural resources should be a year round activity and not just limited to the summer (forced upon us by the above mismanagement).

Power generation underwent a period of chronic underinvestment for one simple reason: the public demanded lower taxes. And the public elected the political party that would deliver on that promise: the Conservatives. Now the public is bitching b/c there's not enough power. Well, DUH!, you can't suck and blow at the same time. Either you want less taxes or you're willing to accept more to pay for the HUGE capital expenditures necessary to finance new power plants. Not to mention all the money needed to bring mothballed plants back on line.

Mike Harris' electricity "strategy" was a joke and an utter failure. In fact, he left office right before it started to become apparent how much of a failure it had been. Had he stuck around for another election, the opposition parties would have lambasted him in the media for it; that's one of the reasons he left.

For those who don't know, the plan went something like this: deregulate electricity prices to attract new investors who will build more power generation, thereby creating more power and lowering overall prices.

Sounds nifty, doesn't it? Until you think about it that is. As soon as the caps came off, the historically undervalued rates jumped and the public started screaming bloody murder. So the Conservatives put another "temporary" cap in place. Well, you must be an idiot if you think you're going to attract investors when you're basically telling them we want you to build new plants at your expense and your prices (and therefore profits) are going to be capped for an undetermined length of time (maybe forever).

So that's where we are now. We're in a stalemate. How do you attract investors when there's caps on energy prices? That's why there is such a big push on for conservation, until we can figure out what to do and slowly convince investors to build more capacity. The sad fact of the matter is that energy prices 1 year after the blackout were right back up to the same levels they had been before.

As for windpower, the HUGE startup capital costs are too prohibitive. There are certain regions in Ontario (mostly adjacent to the lakes) where wind farms could be built, but the public is not going to buy in to the idea when they hear how much their taxes will have to go up to fund it. And we already know people aren't willing to pay higher electricity prices. Not to mention what do you do if the peak of summer if there's a lull in the wind for a period of time, say a week or more? We'd be right back to rolling black outs...

 

[Svend]

I think the government or an entrepreneur should set up thousands of treadmills, rowing machines and exercise bikes across Toronto for people to use for free, then harness the energy created.
People would save a fortune on gyms, we'd have a healthier population and lots of hydro. A win - win - win situation.

 

[goodtime]

I think the government or an entrepreneur should set up thousands of treadmills, rowing machines and exercise bikes across Toronto for people to use for free, then harness the energy created.
People would save a fortune on gyms, we'd have a healthier population and lots of hydro. A win - win - win situation.

Hey, don't give my ideas away. I'm rowing my way to China and waiting for a few hot MPA to notice...

 

[Diode]

While I agree Hydro, is the best of all competing technologies for cost/A/h the problem is still greenhouse gases.
Flooding large land masses results in large amounts of co2 being released from rotting vegetation.
Also, James bay is really far away from the large consumers (GTA) resulting in significant power losses (I2R Losses)

We need more power to prosper...and Prosper is what I want to do!

 

[Gord's Bro]

I waited until the temp dropped before doing a load of laundry and then hung dry a lot of the items

Guess you don't live in Vaughan then. The City Above Toronto has banned clothes lines. Guess that means each of the thousands of new houses springing out of what were farm fields will now have to have an electric dryer.
And, if we don't have enough power now, where's the juice for all these new homes coming from?

G's B.

 

[bishop]

I am so tired of being made to feel morally culpable for wanting the materials comforts of a first world country. Pardon me if I enjoy relaxing on a hot summer night with the A/C pumping! And so what if I like to do the laundry at 2pm in the afternoon? Maybe I work the fucking night shift and can't do it at 8 or maybe I'm picking my kids up from soccer! If that makes me an enviro criminal than charge me more damn it! Open up the pricing system to reward those who care enough to curtail their consumption. I sure as fuck don't! And please do not try and lay the blame on the last government for our problems. They were the ones heading for market rates for electricity until that bafoon Eves got scared off and you don't see MCGOONY removing the freeze now do ya! It's totally unacceptable that we as citizens of this democratic country can't consume as much power as we bloody well want without warnings that the system is going to overload. Can you imagine if we woke up tomorrow to the following announcement by the government:

'Due to the fact that we didn't properly estimate the food consumption needs of the population, every person is only allowed 1 meal per day until we can figure out how to grow more food. And you can only consume that meal after 8 pm. Thanks for your co-operation and sorry if you die from malnurishment'

And one more thing for you guys to consider- I don't buy in to this global warming bullshit either- it's negative 20 degree every February! Where the fucking CO2 when I'm shovelling the 8 inch of snow off my Dodge! Show me how that's consistent with pollution. It's all just junk science presented by various industry groups plugging their own agendas. I say fire up the coal plants and let's get back to business people!

I agree, if you are willing to pay for it then you should be able to have what you want. But people wanna suck and blow at the same time, use power whenever and still pay next to nothing for it.

The government did a major f*ck up with putting the cap back on after they spent more than a billion dollars on setting up a deregulated market. But that is Ontarians for you, a month of high rates and they are ready to call another election. In retrospect a bit of the blame should be put on the govenment, if we had an extra 1000 Mw of generation capacity when the market opened then we could of avoided much of price spikes which caused people so much concern. But I can tell you this, for many years prior to 2002 (when the market opened) Ontario was generally a heavy net exporter of power from NY and Michigan. But enough things went wrong (Pickering, hottest weather in 30 years, higher than expected generator outages due to thermal stress) that since 2002 we suddenly became a heavy net importer of power, No one saw this coming.

People can stomach gas as a commodity, and can live with the price spikes, but when it comes to electricity all of a sudden they do not have the stomach for it. If anything people should bitch more about gas prices because half the cost is made up of taxes, but in electricity the government roughly subsides close to half the cost.

The whole electricity industry is so messed up because there is absolutely no certainty, they live and die based on what the government wants. I know Ontario Power Generation is FUBAR, because they have no objectives. Before it was to make money, now it is err...... make money but no too much, don't lose money but give out rebates which will destroy your bottom line, fire the board of directors install a new board and fire them again.

 

[goodtime]

... I don't buy in to this global warming bullshit either- it's negative 20 degree every February! Where the fucking CO2 when I'm shovelling the 8 inch of snow off my Dodge! Show me how that's consistent with pollution. It's all just junk science presented by various industry groups plugging their own agendas. I say fire up the coal plants and let's get back to business people!

Guess you haven't been to the Columbia icefield or the Poles. Quick before it melts away...

You sound like an American. Coal kills animals and people. There are more efficient means. This is the 21 century...

 

[pmurphy17]

For those of you who doubt the wind turbine feasibility...

about 20-25 mins north of orangeville they are in the process of installing 45 wind turbines. The reason it took so long to get the project going is the long process of wind studies. they spent over a year studying the long term wind currents to find out the best spots for max daily wind currents.


Regarding cutting back.... maybe someone from the city should cruise along Post road(Bayview/Lawerence) in the evening. Happened to be cutting through there around 9:30 last night. One retard had everyone tree with lights on. Lost count after 22 lights. Old saying more money than brains!

 

[burlboy]

Bottom line is if you want a steady power supply then you are going to have to pay for it. If you want windmills that's fine but you will have to pay for them.

You can't have the pluses and duck the minuses. the power industry should be allowed to charge a fair rate for power generation and distribution. Electricity is not some human right, its a comodity if you want to use it you should have to pay for it. You also can't stick the business comunity with all the cost for your subsidized power because they will move there business to a more competetive comunity and then you will be complaining about all the "good jobs" being gone while you sit in the dark because nobody will pay for your power usage.

 

[bishop]

For those of you who doubt the wind turbine feasibility...

about 20-25 mins north of orangeville they are in the process of installing 45 wind turbines. The reason it took so long to get the project going is the long process of wind studies. they spent over a year studying the long term wind currents to find out the best spots for max daily wind currents.


Regarding cutting back.... maybe someone from the city should cruise along Post road(Bayview/Lawerence) in the evening. Happened to be cutting through there around 9:30 last night. One retard had everyone tree with lights on. Lost count after 22 lights. Old saying more money than brains!

Those windmills are heavily subsidized by the govenment.

 

[Meister]

The CNE wind turbine actually costs serveral million to put up and operate, even then the amount of electricity generated is pitiful.

Maybe so, perhaps it is a supersize model. But, I know of a company in New York State that bought one for 500k US (they told me so) and is using it to run their plant. I am not sure what the operating costs are.

Either way you got to develop something that is sustainable ie.
hydrogen, wind, water, solar, tides, growable resources etc...

oil, coal and nukes are just not long term options for the next few centuries.

 

[goodtime]

What makes you so certain that the melting is caused by human factors? hhhmmm..... because that's what you hear in the mainstream media right? And of course those scientists who come up with these theories have no personal interests in promoting them do they?

Can't wait for yer response ya tree hugger.

You got one part right.

Goodtime is a hugger all right. MPA hugger that is. Whenever they see me, they want a goodtime...

Sure, Parks Canada hired bunch of summer student every night with blow torch to melt away inches from the Icefield. Seeing it with your own eyes is the best proof.

You are agreeing the ice is melting, regardless from what, the water has to go somewhere. Totally different environement decades from now.

 

[Meister]

All I can say is oil is at 66.45 US a barrel. And, that is not because some Arabs want to create a crisis like they did in the 70s, it is purely demand driven from China right now.

So, we can stick our heads in the sand or stop wasting resources. But, we have to come up with better energy solutions.