magazine / ja09
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July/August 2009 issue |
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Reverberations
Wind directions
I enjoyed the article “On
with the wind” (June
2009) by John Lorinc. It’s a shame society has yet to develop
a method for compensating those who are negatively impacted by developments
such as wind farms. Those positively affected, of course, are not expected
to complain. And the rest of us, the vast majority, pay little, if any,
attention until faced with our own problem.
Partial recognition should come in the form of decreased or increased
property assessments. Those negatively impacted get a reduced assessment.
Those positively affected should see their assessment rise. One aspect
to this approach is that the total decrease in property value for those
negatively affected may exceed the total increase for those positively
affected. The net difference is effectively passed along to the “unaffected” vast
majority.
All of us have a responsibility to pay attention to the rules governing
our land, particularly when those rules start to change. That is very much
a two-way street between us and our governments.
David N. Pringle
Calabogie, Ont.
Your magazine describes wind
energy as a solution to our electricity needs. In southern Ontario,
the greatest loads on the electrical-power supply are on summer afternoons,
when solar energy heats the air and streams through windows to heat the
interiors of homes and offices. Air conditioning causes the maximum loads.
When I see that solar energy beaming down, I think, “Why don’t
we use it?” Why isn’t every new house built with a south-southwest-facing
steep roof covered in photoelectric panels that generate electricity at
precisely the time it is needed? I am sure architects can design houses
this way. And why are there no solar-electric farms in southern Ontario?
Last winter, I visited Portugal and learned that it has two of the world’s
largest solar-electric farms. I can envision large fields near hydro corridors
in southern Ontario covered with solar-electric panels facing south at
the best angle for year-round electricity generation. These would be raised
high enough above the ground for farm machinery to pass beneath and to
let shade-loving crops grow or livestock pasture under them. I can also
see new solar-panel factories being opened and construction teams assembling
them, and technicians working alongside farmers to maintain the solar fields.
Solar-electric generation could generate many jobs.
Ray Achurch
Manitouwadge, Ont.
Despite raising the spectre of “economic uncertainties,” it
is unfortunate John Lorinc didn’t focus more on the financial costs
of wind
power. According to his numbers on the Gaspé wind farm, a $164 million
cost for a 100.5-megawatt plant with a 20-year life expectancy, operating
at a very conservative 25 percent capacity of 2,200 hours a year, would
have an infrastructure cost of less than four cents per kilowatt hour,
not counting operating costs. (A new coal or gas plant would also require
new trunk lines, etc., so these costs don’t factor into a relative
comparison.)
Four cents per kilowatt hour is a far lower rate than consumers currently
pay for electricity. There must be something missing if the government/
taxpayer has to subsidize this technology, but it explains why there is
such massive growth.
D. Gill
Toronto
Reading “On
with the wind” by John Lorinc first and “The transparent
oceans project” by John DeMont next, I saw a great difference in
approach. DeMont offered a factual report that contrasted strongly with
Lorinc’s boosterism. DeMont presented an example of quality reporting
that let me come to my own conclusions about what he described, much
more in line with what I expect from Canadian Geographic. You
have chipped away something of the magazine’s reputation for accuracy
and objectivity by letting Lorinc use the magazine’s pages as his
soapbox.
J. “Sandy” Matheson
Kitchener, Ont.
During my discussion with “On
with the wind” writer John Lorinc last summer, I went to considerable
length to explain the difference between good wind development and the
kind of wind development we have experienced in Ontario to date. I said
that sites should be chosen, in part, based on the impact, or lack thereof,
they will have on the landscape, since the building of commercial wind
facilities is not benign. Some landscapes will be more adversely impacted
by large industrial towers than others, and this should be factored into
the government-approval process.
I noted that the sizable steel-reinforced concrete bases that would have
to be bolted above grade to Georgian Bay granite would permanently alter
the landscape. Such irreversible decisions should not be made lightly.
I was upset to see my comments recast as being NIMBYism. I am a proponent
of wind as part of Ontario’s energy mix, as long as proper environmental
screening and safeguards are in place.
With regard to the Parry Island (which, by the way, is near Parry Sound,
not Port Severn) First Nation proposal, my reported comments are also inaccurate.
It does concern me that we have not been able to have an open dialogue
with our First Nation neighbours to ascertain their plan to erect commercial
wind turbines on Parry Island. From my review of wind installations in
the Township of Melancthon, in Sault Ste. Marie and, more recently, on
Wolfe Island, there is no doubt that an extensive grid of service roads
and transmission corridors will have to be built on Parry Island to support
commercial wind development. But that is a matter the First Nations will
have to review, debate and decide. To misquote me as referring to these
roads and corridors as “superhighways” makes me sound like
an exaggerating alarmist.
Lastly, you omitted a key argument of mine, which is that wind developers
should be required to post bonds at the outset of each project to cover
the cost of decommissioning turbines and returning the site to its natural
state when the turbines stop producing energy.
Bob Duncanson
Executive Director
Georgian Bay Association
Toronto
Your article states that Ontario will need to build 2,000 kilometres of
transmission corridors to bring privately generated green power to the
market. While landowners are willing sellers and are compensated for hosting
wind turbines, the same cannot be said about landowners along these corridors
whose land is expropriated by Hydro One Networks so that privately operated
green-power companies can get their product to the Golden Horseshoe. While
we support green and renewable power, we are being forced to subsidize
the Ontario electrical consumer.
We are not NIMBYs. Our family and our neighbours have hosted two major
power corridors since 1965, and we are about to get our third. Hydro One
will now control more than 20 percent of our property, and the company
says there is very little financial damage to it. We do not agree with
its assessment.
We have had to put our lives on hold, as we cannot sell land that, in
the words of professional appraisers, is “condemned.” Four
hundred affected landowners, from Bruce County to Milton, have been forced
to invest thousands of dollars in time and costs to meet with lawyers,
land agents, Hydro One bureaucrats and others who are paid by the Ontario
taxpayer. Cabinet ministers refuse to meet with us. It appears that we
are orphans in the system.
Dennis Threndyle
Elmwood, Ont.
It is unfortunate that many voters emerge into the working world and spend
their lives without a basic understanding of energy flow, where it comes
from and that it is the lifeblood of society. As pointed out many years
ago, the event of “peak oil,” as first coined by American geologist
King Hubbert, will change our business-as-usual growth-oriented societies
forever, like it or not. Many knowledgeable energy experts agree that peak
oil has arrived.
Today’s young will live in a renewableenergy society, or they will
have no society. So the question boils down to which is more important:
catering to NIMBY wishes today or collectively laying the groundwork for
a sustainable society?
Don Chisholm
via internet
Watching the watersheds
Iwant to thank writer Terry Glavin for addressing the important subject
of renewable-energy development, especially the thorny issue of hydro-power
development in British Columbia (“The
green gold rush,” June
2009). We are concerned, though, that some readers may have been left
with the misleading impression that so-called run-of-river hydroelectric
projects are benign to fish. Glavin’s article focused on Plutonic
Power’s proposed Bute Inlet project, where fish, including trout
and char, are present in at least 10 of the 17 rivers and streams intended
for diversion. Fish are also found in the “diversion reaches” of
scores of other proposed hydro-power projects around British Columbia.
These projects typically divert 75 to 95 percent of a river’s flow
into pipes over several kilometres, directly impacting fish and riparian
ecosystems. The cumulative impacts of multiple projects clustered in important
fish and wildlife habitat are poorly measured and rarely accounted for.
That’s troubling, given there are more than 250 current waterlicence
applications for hydro-power development in the southern coast region,
where dozens of projects have already been approved or constructed.
Watershed Watch supports the development of truly green energy, but such
development should be carefully and openly planned and monitored and done
in ways that respect the rivers.
Craig Orr
Executive Director,
Watershed Watch
Coquitlam, B.C.
Archaeological ghosts
Iwas delighted by Heather Pringle’s article (“Strands
of evidence,” April
2009). Archaeologist Pat Sutherland’s work to confirm what
has long been suspected — that Norse Greenlanders sailed west into
Hudson Strait as often as they travelled south toward Newfoundland — deserves
to be better known.
It also says something about the ghost of Thomas Lee, who was sent North
in the 1960s to investigate sites on the west coast of Ungava Bay and found
several he suspected were of Norse origin. This was about the same time
that Helge Ingstad was investigating at L’Anse aux Meadows, N.L.
Ingstad’s work was hailed, and Lee’s was not (for good reason:
they were not comparable in diligence or importance), and Lee’s claims
became more and more extravagant. He died, his credibility shattered, a
few years later.
Sutherland, quite understandably, has no interest in following Lee’s
example. That said, Lee’s fieldwork was good, and what he found has
never been satisfactorily explained. Sutherland’s work, which demonstrates
that the Norse visited the north side of Hudson Strait, makes clear that
a critical re-examination of Lee’s work on the south side is overdue.
George E. Sollish
Syracuse, N.Y.
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* Letters may be edited for length, accuracy and liability.
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