Trillium Power Wind Corp. has won an appeal that will allow it to proceed with a $2.25-billion lawsuit against the government of Ontario for imposing what the company alleges was a politically motivated moratorium on offshore wind farm development during the 2011 election.
[…]
The Liberal government is still dealing with the fallout from another decision made during the 2011 election — its decision to cancel gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga to save Liberal seats.
Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk put the cost of the cancellations at about $1 billion in a report last month. And OPP detectives visited Premier Kathleen Wynne’s office Wednesday as part of their criminal investigation into the destruction of emails related to the two cancelled plants.
Shadenfruede…..is that how it’s spelled? ;P
I like how the Trillium person compares his project to Niagara. Niagara cost is less than $0.02 per kwhr. How much would Trillium charge?
A $Billion here, a couple of $Billion there, pretty soon Ontario will realize the cost of Dulton chugging the Grrenie Kool Aide is that they stay bent over and get financially reamed while Dulton cashes his pension cheques and laughs all the way to the bank.
Frankly, I hope the province wins this one and drives Trillium deep down into a hole, never to be seen again….
Skip I think quite the opposite. The voters in Ontario need to learn the hard way what happens when you keep voting in idiotic governments that fall for all this moronic green nonsense.
The voters of Ontario know full well that the Liberals are toxic. It’s the De Facto Province of Toronto that keeps them in power. Trillium should petition the Provincial government to erect off-shore wind turbines along the north shore of Lake Ontario.
Say, from Burlington to Newmarket. The entertainment value would help ameliorate the hatred
Real Ontarians have for this administration.
I suspect that Ontarians are yet to learn the true state of provincial finances, until the current bunch are kicked out of power, their numbers are all you have.
But these Libtards can not stop lying, so expect the numbers to be billions worse than you can imagine.
As the new government just found in Australia, there will be other scandalous wastes of tax money to be discovered, currently hidden by bureaucratic corruption.
You may think your grandchildren have been sold into slavery by these Kleptocrats, but more likely its your great great children who will still be paying for the current thefts of public treasure.
I wonder if this lawsuit is a planned distraction to occupy the gov’t and insulate Trillium principals from an as yet undiscovered shady dealing. There is that saying “methinks he doth protest too much”. Suing because the people didn’t pony up free money is frivolous at best but may have more purpose than just jilted shareholder emotions. Time to start following the money….. 😉
It’s spelled ‘schadenfreude’ – you were close.
The ‘Ornge’ medevac helicopter scandal, a billion dollars for e-health, another billion for the gas-plant closures, the hits just keep coming. Now Wynne wants a provincial pension plan. A co-worker remarked to me that he thinks it is just a revenue grab, the Liberals will direct the contributions into the general revenue to make the books look better and throw an IOU into the pension fund.
I want Mike Harris back in charge.
I saw that. I just shake my head at all of this. There is cheap energy in Ontario but one cannot use it. Instead, one gets the “privilege” of over-paying for an energy source that gives you no energy and now this.
I don’t know much about producing electricity,but this statement doesn’t ring true to me.
“Kourtoff said Trillium’s project could now produce about 500 megawatts of power with fewer turbines — between 90 and 100 — than originally planned.
“We would put out as much guaranteed base load power in the middle of the lake as you would get from one nuclear reactor,”
I think that a nuclear reactor would produce much more than a 100 windmills, and would be more reliable, but I could be wrong.
Yes, a LOT more than 100 windmills. I call bullsh*t on that estimate: it’s obviously based upon a comparison of the full boilerplate capacity of each windmill, each operating 24/7 at full capacity, each sufficiently far away from neighbours as not feel any affect upon the wind. In short, a fantasy world, inhabited only by Low Information Voters, drug-addled greenies smoking and inhaling “sustainability”, and carpet-bagging cronies and their politicians. Mother Nature is not so easily fooled.
I’m trying to find a reference I dug up years ago, that calculated that to replace Pickering, a wind farm would need to be approximately the size of Algonquin Park … 10,000s windmills! Oh, and do you want to replace ALL the electrical generation in Canada with windfarms? You’ll need the entire province of Ontario, with windmills spaced every 1.6 miles in a hexagonal pattern. That’s a construction effort that dwarfs the building of cities. All of them. Ever.
In the meantime, check out this site: http://depletedcranium.com/nuke2wind.htm
Wallyj, if I recall, 500 Mw is equivalent to one generator at Nanticoke TGS. Prior to McGuinty, that was one eighth of it’s generating capacity.
Base load from wind power, I call bullsh!t. I wonder what world Trillium lives in.
Ontario’s must think that the wind automatically blows a bit stronger just for them whenever they turn there cloth dryer and the lights on in the evening.
No worry, with the magic of equalization payments it will not be the people of Ontario that pay for this.
WallyJ and Fred, yes, each of the eight units at Nanticoke are 480 MW each. Each of the reactors at Pickering are 540, and each of the 12 reactors at Bruce and Darlington are about 900. However, the difference is capacity factor. Each of the nuclear and coal-fired units can run at least 80 per cent capacity factor. The wind turbines out on the lake will run at best 25%. So, per installed MW, it takes three to four times as many wind turbines to produce the same amount of electricity.
Running at 80 per cent capacity factor, the nuclear or coal unit will produce about 3.5 billion kWh every year. At 25 per cent, the 500 1 MW turbines will produce about 1 billion kWh every year. (8760 hrs/year x capacity factor x installed capacity)
In practice of course, it’s not that easy. Wind turbines aren’t dispatchable. They may be producing electricity when no one needs it, or be in the middle of a windless day when demand is high.
Please note that because they’re out on the lake, maintenance costs will be estremely high. Also note that for the same reason transmission costs will be extremely high. Finally note the area covered on the map. That constitutes a very large navigation hazard in a highly trafficked waterway.
Base load is what wind power has to be conditioned with to utilize its inherent unpredictability on a grid. Wind power by definition cannot be base load unless operating in an extremely rare location where absolutely constant optimum wind and transmission line opportunities coexist. The only other way wind farm base load could function is if the wind farms were large and widely disbursed and were paid a ridiculous price for gross overcapacity (base load no larger than 5% to 10% capacity factor). I would not take the word of an industry representative from an industry that can only exist from rent seeking.
This is an interesting article on wind politics in Ontario;
http://quixoteslaststand.com/2013/09/15/mike-crawley-liberal-party-politics-and-industrial-wind-turbines/
At the time of this piece Crawley was prez of the Ontario Liberals. He is now the prez of the federal Liberals,though he is quietly stepping away from that position,no expalanation,no media coverage.
Newmarket is nowhere near Lake Ontario, but Oakville would do :}
Ontario. Old Huron word for “land where rats herd sheep”.
So … the OPP WILL be looking for emails regarding the wind power moratorium as well? Hmm…
Does anyone really think the OPP will come up with anything in their snoop-a-doop of the premier’s office that will result in any charges being laid?
This lawsuit by Trillium is interesting.
They claim for over $2 billion. That figure is likely based on their spurious claim that they were going to build a “nuclear” windmill farm out in the middle of a huge lake.
Now,if the Liberals dispute these ‘facts’, will that cast a shadow on the complete gov’t green numbers?
BTW,in the link I provided above,Trillium complains about the Liberal gov’ts cozy deal with the Liberal prez. IMHO,Ontario has a huge pile of sleaze that has to be sifted through carefully. But never mind,Rob Ford is smoking a cigarette within 5 meters of a doorway !!!
What a lot of people seem to miss in this debate is the amount of concrete or steel required for the wind mill foundations. Lake Ontario is not the North Sea. Anything installed in Lake Ontario will have to be built close to shore and not in the middle of the lake, to reduce the amount of constructions material required for the foundations. So you’ll have wind mills creating visual and audible pollution from Hamilton Bay to Kingston to generate the required power. Probably a lot cheaper to invest in pixie dust and unicorn farts!
Were this suit to proceed successfully, Liberal government would have paid out $3.35B for absolutely nothing; no gas plants, no turbines, not 1 kw of energy produced. Is it any wonder bond rating agencies are concerned about Ont running out of money.
Nefoundlanders are still paying every day for the very foolish electricity deal Prem. Smallwood signed with Hydro-Quebec. NFD gets paid pennies for electricity Quebec resells to US for dollars. Guess what, contracts are valid, no matter how shortsighted the premier doing the signing.
The AG warned that McGuinty and a few aides signed longterm deals with Samsung for land wind plants, with no tenders or even cabinet consultation. A queasy thought,McGuinty dealing with
hard headed Koreans. The cost to get out of these deals will make this suit look like small change. In the longterm, McGuinty’s deals may well make Premier Smallwood look like a visionary.
I am curious as to whether there isn’t a federal interest in placing navigation hazards in Lake Ontario. I mean, the federal fisheries people used to get their panties in a knot over culverts on back roads in Alberta. The feds would love an environmental review they could reject.
Lets split the difference.
The rent seekers go bankrupt.
Their double crossing enablers in government go to jail.
The taxpayers/power customers win.
The “north shore of Lake Ontario” “from Burlington to Newmarket”?
Why don’t you come back after you’ve learned how to read a map?