A Case in Point
In 2009, the Green Energy Act (GEA), formally the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, was introduced by the Liberal Government of Ontario, Canada under Premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne and lasted 10 years. Resulting from their alliance with politically driven climate change, this act was offered in an attempt to expand renewable energy production, encourage energy conservation, and create green jobs.
Subsequently, many renewable energy investors were looking at the government’s wide-open subsidy purse. A fellow I know that resides in the westerly section of Southern Ontario contacted me citing that a newly formed energy firm had announced plans to build a wind farm in his area and was planning on holding public meetings to garner community opinion. He wanted to have his say.
Naturally, I went into the substantial detriments of electrical generation by renewables, their sporadic production, and intermittency, and thus significantly higher costs in comparison to traditional energies. I discovered as I articulated and detailed these for him, his struggle was not with solar and wind because he ‘believed’ climate change was real, but, like the coastal elites of Nantucket Sound and Martha’s Vineyard, he did not want the subsequent unsightliness of turbines – the hostility of the NIMBY (the Not In My Backyarder). It is a great and virtuous communication of self-righteousness to be in support of anthropogenic climate change, as long as one does not have to be restricted or limited by its resulting policies.
Many firms were looking at capitalizing on Ontario’s climate cash, while other manufacturing and agricultural industries were leaving Ontario due to the exorbitantly rising costs of energy. These included such heralded names as H.J. Heinz and Caterpillar, Inc. According to Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper, “Ontario's Green Energy Act has created tens of thousands of jobs according to the provincial government, but the Fraser Institute report found that 1.8 manufacturing positions were lost for every job created in the renewable-energy industry”. Of course, most of the jobs created were subsidized by the taxpayer and also resulted in enormous electricity bills for every Ontario consumer.
Just recently one writer that I much admire Canadian Rex Murphy writes of yet another significant loss in Canadian business as a result of climate policy. The nation lost substantial business and jobs because the federal Liberal government is unwilling to produce and sell liquefied natural gas (LNG) to European nations that may be in dire need of the product. I link Murphy’s National Post article here.
As noted in the Murphy article, Germany just made a deal with the nation of Qatar for the supply of LNG. The contract is to extend for 15 years. While the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, a leading country crier relative climate change, told German officials “there has never been a strong business case” for natural gas terminals on Canada’s east coast, the word, “business” should have been replaced with the term “progressive environmental”.
Canada’s richest province in natural resources, Alberta, has long been impaired and vilified by Trudeau and his leftist, irrational climate policies. If the United States wants to do a comparative study on the damage that can be created by incentivizing renewable energies, while reducing traditional energies, look no further than across the northern border. Yet, the American federal government is incentivizing investing in wind farms in many ‘rural’ locations. Many are getting turned down by elected county officials, but I’m confident without significant protest, the rejection of wind farms and locations will not be an option.
Perhaps the greatest concern is that as more and more wind and solar farms are being constructed, the more we realize that their contribution to energy will never be enough.
Murphy concludes his National Post article by rightfully citing, “Green ideology is a contagion of folly and fantasy and there is no vaccine against it till by some miracle of nature, common sense and some reasonable acquaintance with reality makes a return to Western political thought”.