Air Pollution – Ontario Energy Policy
GREEN ENERGY ACT: I was on TVO's The Agenda on April 19th 2012, debating the province's Green Energy Act. On the whole I was pleased at the outcome.
ONTARIO's GREEN ENERGY ACT: In 2011 I published a column in the Financial Post on why Ontario should roll back its Green Energy Act. The Environment Canada emissions inventory data I referred to can be obtained here (box 2A). Unfortunately I made an error in the column. I pointed out that coal-fired power plants emit 699 tonnes of PM2.5, and I said that wood-burning fireplaces emit 65% more, or 1,150 tonnes. That is not correct. Residential fuel-burning fireplaces emit 1,150 tonnes of PM2.5. Residential wood-burning fireplaces emit 23,303 tonnes, or 33 times the amount from the power generating plants.
WIND ENERGY CONFERENCE: In October 2010 I made a presentation to the Society for Wind Vigilance conference on wind energy and social justice. My presentation was called
WIND ENERGY CONFERENCE: In October 2010 I made a presentation to the Society for Wind Vigilance conference on wind energy and social justice. My presentation was called
THERMAL POWER PLANTS: Here in Ontario the government has adopted the regrettable idea of shutting down our thermal power plants. I have presented counter-arguments in a few places. The most comprehensive is:
- *McKitrick, Ross R., Kenneth Green and Joel Schwartz (2005) Pain Without Gain: Shutting Down Coal-Fired Power Plants Would Hurt Ontario". Fraser Institute, January 2005.
A 2007 presentation, to a conference organized by the Queen’s Institute of Energy and the Environment, made the same case very briefly:
- McKitrick, Ross R. (2007) “The Case for Keeping Ontario’s Coal-Fired Power Plants.” Invited presentation to Queen’s University Institute of Energy and Environmental Policy conference “The Future of Coal in Ontario.” Toronto, May 10 2007.
I also did a review of the Ontario Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Power Workers’ Union in 2004. These two papers emerged from that work.
- McKitrick, Ross R. (2004). "Power Plants, Air Quality and Health: The Case for Re-examining Ontario's Coal Policy" Prepared for the Power Workers Union, May 2004.
- McKitrick, Ross R. (2005) "Analytic Review of Cost-Benefit Analysis of Replacing Ontario's Coal-Fired Power Generators." Prepared for the Power Workers Union, June 2005.
A related paper is my 2004 paper on particulates and affluence, published in the Fraser Forum.
- McKitrick, Ross R. (2004). "Particulates, Energy Consumption and Affluence" Fraser Forum April 2004
In 2004 I made a presentation to a conference of the Association of Major Power Consumers of Ontario. Among other things I showed that the model used by the Ontario Medical Association to connect air pollution levels to death and disease rates at today's low pollution levels would have predicted implausibly high non-traumatic death rates in the mid-1960s given the then-higher pollution rates. In February 1965 it would have predicted more air pollution deaths than there were deaths from all causes. The text is here:
- McKitrick, Ross R. (2004) "Air Pollution, Health and Mortality: Separating Fact from Fiction." Presentation to the Association of Major Power Consumers of Ontario, April 2004.
