Thursday, May 01, 2014

Gas Plants Redux...But With Torys And Wind Farms

From PCPO MPP Todd Smith:

Prince Edward County, ON — Responding to a request for clarification by CCSAGE Naturally Green regarding the PC Party’s position on wind projects currently “in the pipeline”, local MPP Todd Smith has confirmed by letter that, under a PC government, such projects will not be allowed to proceed if there is no municipal consent.

Smith referred to the text of Bill 42, the Affordable Energy and Restoration of Local Decision Making Act, introduced by Tim Hudak in the Ontario Legislature in 2012. Smith said, “The intention here is quite clear that, regardless of where in the process a project is, provided a project is not connected to the grid, it is our intention not to go ahead with it unless it has municipal consent. Clearly, the projects planned for Prince Edward County do not have municipal consent and thus, would be cancelled.”

Its worth noting that Tim Hudak has said in the past that projects in the pipeline will be allowed to proceed, so this sounds like a bit of free-lancing on Smith's part.  To make the stupidity of it even greater, Todd Smith is for The Marmora project, which is a pumped energy storage facility meant to work as a battery to store power from wind-farms and other intermittent energy sources.  Anyway, lawsuits be damned, apparently! How Hudak's Tories can criticize the OLP for cancelling those gas-plants while getting set to go down exactly the same road--except this time pandering to a different set of voters over a different power generating source--is beyond me.

PS. The analogy to Trillium's cancelled wind farm doesn't really hold, I don't think.  That project was early on in the process.  No contract was in place.  

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