Lakeview Coal Stacks Bite The Dust
Whoooosh and it was gone. My friend Norm forwarded me this pic he shot of yesterday’s demolition. I’m sure more than a few people in Toronto are thankful for one less coal fired plant in operation. We have enough smog days to contend with and welcome sight no matter how thirsty Ontario consumers and industry are for POWER. The Ontario government has commited to double renewable power sources by 2025. Currently we produce less than 10% of our needs this way so to double them … (doesn’t sound like much but at least it’s a step in the right direction). Of course we here in Ontario are lucky that Niagra Falls contributes the majority of the about 25% of our needs (though this used to meet the lionshare of our electrictiy needs)
Critics got something to chew into today though. The latest McGuinty government plan calls for increasing our Nuclear Power infrastructure. It may take another 15 years before approvals, environmental assesments and construction is completed but over $40 Billion will be ear marked for the project. I guess alledged or want-to-be terrorists don’t have enough targets already.
How much has been spent to “re-integrate” the Bruce and Pickering plants closed in 1997 for saftey reasons? Even all this these plants are still not 100%. Wonder if the new plants due to be constructed will be anything like the CANDU reactors. The original CANDU’s were not “weapons factories” as their waste couldn’t be used for weapons grade material. Maybe that’s how Bruce and Pickering were “broken”, through the use of MOX (mixed oxided fuel-spent nuclear fuel or weapons grade fuel mixed with regular fuel). Not as though a MOX hasn’t happened before ruining a reactor.
Conservation is plain common sense to most people these days (MONEY IN YOUR POCKET). Don’t know how many people will throw up solar panels and begin to contribute to the grid but another hurricane, mega black out or another increase in the price paid for the Electric bill and your sure to see something like that (not to mention some anger and frustration thrown in for good measure). If nukes are the new crack I don’t want to be addicted.
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Funny that more downtown towers aren’t being given “tax credits” or some other initiative to install the green roof idea or solar panels etc.
I have noticed a few houses in North York with panels up but nothing huge.. where are our windmills???
Yeah Tax credits (were available) for home owners that upgraded their old fridge or roof or ??? to energy efficient items but that got cut by the Feds. They don’t seem to want anything to do with Kyoto. Industry Energy use dwarfs Consumer use so it would be better to tie any tax breaks (for the Oil industry and other Manufacturers) to investment in Energy efficient methods. Really a win/win since the companies would be paying less tax and reduce long run costs of their operations.