Not Everyone Is Happy About Green Energy

The St. Leon wind farm, in Southwestern Manitoba. Photo via Flickr user, Loozrboy.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finalized a report over the weekend that tells governments what can be done to avoid the dangerous and scary effects of climate change. Like a good psychic reading, the report intentionally does not provide a pathway to success, but shows us what the future could look like if governments tweaked different things, such as changing gas prices, adding green energy, subtracting nuclear power plants, etc.

When Environment Canada peered into its huge and very obvious crystal ball last year, it said that Canada is nowhere near reaching its 2020 emissions-reduction goals. It also said that most of Canada's success has come from provincial green energy initiatives, specifically Ontario's ban on coal-fired power plants.

But, as the IPCC report shows, the path to a green future isn't straightforward. As energy prices begin to soar in Ontario and more rural communities refuse to host wind projects, Ontario is learning that green energy, like all development projects, comes with certain costs that will be shouldered by some communities more than others.

The Provinces Are Picking Up The Slack

In Copenhagen in 2009, Harper committed to reducing Canada’s 2005 level of carbon emissions by 17 percent by the year 2020, meaning the country should by then be emitting 612 megatons (Mt) of carbon.

In the house debate last week, Elizabeth May asked the government twice if that commitment still stands. But Colin Carrie, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, chose to give her a run-down of the government's climate change strategy instead of answering her question directly.

This strategy consists of regulating the transportation and electricity industries while leaving the oil and gas industry—officially Canada's biggest emitter, as of last Friday—to its own devices. Harper has been promising to write emissions rules for the oil and gas emissions since 2008, but has delayed implementation, saying that he will get around to it “in the coming years.”

Environment Canada's 2013 Emissions Trends Report answered May's question by saying that if the government continues down its current path, it will miss the 2020 Copenhagen target by 122 Mt. To put that number into perspective, to make up for this deficit, Canada would have to get rid of Alberta's entire oil sands—twice. Canada did manage to get its overall GHG emissions down by 35 Mt from 2005 to 2011, but this is largely due to the reduction in emissions from electricity production, which is almost entirely thanks to Ontario’s decision to phase out coal. The 2013 Ending Coal for Cleaner Air Act, the biggest single emissions-reduction action taken by a government in North America, closed the province's remaining coal-fired power plants and banned new ones from being built.

Robert Hornung, President of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, says provincial initiatives have opened the door wide open for large-scale wind projects to step in. Ten years ago, the capacity of the wind turbines in Canada was 322 megawatts. At the end of 2013, it was 7,800 watts, and in 2016, it will be 12,000 megawatts. Canada is the ninth largest wind market in the world, and there were only five countries that installed more wind projects last year, he says.

The Costs of Going Green

Ontario’s long-term energy plan, which was released last December, says electricity bills are expected to go up by 42 percent by 2018, and 68 percent by 2038. The industrial sector will see its bills go up by 33 percent in the next five years and 55 percent in the next 20 years.

That’s not good news for Ontario’s economy. The Globe and Mail reported last week that businesses have received letters from governments in the US trying to lure them over the border to save money on their electricity bills. While businesses have yet to take them up on the offer, it highlights a growing problem that Kathleen Wynn's government is trying to address through government relief programs.

The rise in energy costs is due to a combination of overdue infrastructure upgrades and the transition from coal to renewable energy. But Hornung points out that when you compare the cost of wind energy to existing sources of power, wind is obviously going to be more expensive. What people should be doing is comparing new wind projects to other new facilities, such as nuclear or coal plants. When you do that, the price of wind energy is quite competitive, he says.

While rising energy prices will be shared by everyone plugged into Ontario's power grid, many people living near wind turbines say they are the unwilling hosts to Ontario's vision for a green energy future.

Stephana Johnston, 84, is a member of Wind Concerns Ontario (WCO), a network of 35 groups and about 400 individuals who are fighting wind-development projects in their communities.

She built her dream home on 20 acres of farmland in Norfolk County, boasting what she proudly refers to as “a million-dollar view of Lake Erie.” She put her life’s savings into a custom-built home that she thought would be comfortable and safe for the last two decades of her life.

But after 18 wind turbines, standing over 360-feet tall, went up within three kilometres of her house, she says she started to experience “excruciating pain” and sleepless nights. She now stays in a rented apartment in Port Rowan, Ontario and travels back to her house on Wednesdays and Sundays to bathe and do her laundry.

Whether Johnston’s symptoms are caused by the turbines or not, she may be stuck with what she has because her house has been on the market since December 2009 and not a single person has come to view it. She says she just wants to get back what she has put into the house, which was approximately $600,000 including the land.

Gallant says many people in WCO didn’t realize what they were getting into when wind energy developers started knocking on their doors. “You think, ‘wind is free…but you have a different perspective when [a 400-foot turbine] is right up next to you… all of a sudden you’re faced with something that is so out of character with the area and is going to create this rural divide, neighbour hating neighbour.”

WCO is pushing back against Ontario’s Green Energy Act and what it has taken away from rural communities in terms of democratic rights, says Gallant. “You can have a say if Tim Horton’s wants to put up a building on a main street, but you don’t have the right to say ‘no’ to a 400-foot tall wind turbine. That doesn’t make any sense. That’s why [almost 100] communities have voted against being willing hosts” of wind projects, says Gallant.

As wind energy moves from the margins into the mainstream, it’s starting to deal with many of the same challenges as other mainstream energy sources and will have to take on some of the same responsibilities to maintain its social license to operate, says Hornung.

VICE reported last month that the Canadian mining industry was finally coming to terms with the fact that community resistance is starting to affect its bottom line, and is now trying to save its reputation by winning the acceptance of the people affected by its operations.

It’s fair to say that wind-energy developers assumed they would have public acceptance when they started building turbines in rural communities, says Hornung. “What they’ve learned is that acceptance has to be earned.”

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