In about 2004 the Canadian Province Ontario made a deliberate decision to phase out its coal fired electricity generating facilities. It was motivated, not by direct "environmental concerns", but by the province's direct economic costs of health care- which are paid for by the Province itself.

In the United States, the community health costs of mining coal, and of burning coal to produce electricity are externalized away from the coal operators and the electricity generating plant operators onto the health care system. Thus, the coal operators and generating system operators have no significant direct economic incentive to clean up their acts and their facility operations.

But in Ontario (and most of Canada) a majority of the electricity generating "industry" and the health care "industry" are operated by the government- usually by the provinces. The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) is an independent, non-profit corporation established through the Electricity Restructuring Act of 2004. Licensed by the Ontario Energy Board, it reports to the Ontario legislature through Ontario's Ministry of Energy.

By 2004 Ontario had determined that its health care costs could be significantly less were the province to do away with its coal fired power generating facilities. So heath care cost, borne directly by the Province of Ontario, was the driving catalyst that pushed the closing of the unhealthful soot belching coal burners there.

Frank

----- Original Message ----- From: "James Kotcon" jkotcon@wvu.edu To: EC@osenergy.org Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:17 PM Subject: [EC] Fwd: 8 coal-burners closed Fwd: Ontario Waves Bye-Bye To Coal Fired Power Generation

Ontario Waves Bye-Bye To Coal Fired Power Generation

by Energy Matters [image: Coal fired power generation phaseout - Ontario Canada] Ontario, Canada's most populated province, has seen a boom in renewable energy jobs, with 20,000 employed in the sector. It's not such a rosy picture for the coal industry though, with coal fired power generation in Ontario slated to go the way of the dodo by 2014.

Ontario's Ministry of Energy says the province's Green Energy Act is on track to create 50,000 clean energy jobs by 2012 and coal usage for the first six months of 2011 was 94 per cent lower than for the same period in 2003.

According to Ontario's recently released 2011 Progress Reporthttp://www.ontario.ca/en/initiatives/progressreport2011/index.htm, eight coal fired power generation units have been closed already and two more will close later in 2011.

Thanks to initiatives such as feed-in tariffs, renewable energy is rapidly replacing fossil fuels. To date, over 2,000 medium and large-scale feed in tariff projects have been announced, representing enough electricity each year to provide the power requirements for around 900,000 homes.

Ontario's government says it will be one of the first places in the world and the first in North America to cease coal-fired power generation totally. It has set a goal of eliminating coal entirely by 2014. It believes shutting down coal will save Ontario's health care system CAD$3 billion annually and in relation to emissions, will be the equivalent of taking up to 7 million cars off the roads.

The Ministry predicts that by 2018, 10.7 gigawatts of clean renewable electricity from windhttp://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-energy/wind-energy/ , solar http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-energy/solar-power/ and bio-energy will be operational; producing enough electricity for 2 million households.

Residents of Ontario are also becoming more energy efficient, saving 1,700 megawatts of electricity through conservation - which is the equivalent of taking half a million homes off the grid.

Ontario's clean energy economy has generated more than $20 billion in new private-sector investment. The province's energy plan will rebuild 70 per cent of its electricity infrastructure over the next 2 decades.

While Ontario's commitment to renewables and the end of coal is admirable; its continuing love affair with nuclear power has been criticised. Nuclear power has been part of Ontario's energy mix since the 1960's and currently provides more than half of the power used by Ontarians every day.

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Frank and colleagues

I'd like to elaborate on Frank's memo. As a native of Toronto, I have kept close to what is going on up there.

Frank is right that the Province of Ontario Government has financial interest and control over BOTH the universal single payer health care system* and the means of power generation and distribution. The independent study that was commissioned by the Ontario Government was focused on determining the real impact cost of coal fired power, and where the province should be looking to modernize its power generating and delivery capabilities. (* It is actually a public option system, as you can buy "Cadillac" add-ons from private carriers.)

The study concluded that the actual cost of coal fired power was higher than renewable energy alternatives when you factor in the cost of health care in those communities that were down wind from coal fired power plants. (And when the WV Environmental Institute was functioning, and we put on the annual forum, we actually had one of the study's authors speak here in Charleston.)

After a spirited but careful debate among all the agencies and parties involved, the Premier of Ontario and his cabinet concluded that renewable energy was less costly, so they embarked on a policy of shutting down all the coal fired power plants and replacing them with renewable energy systems. The original date for completion was 2009, but they soon realized that was too ambitious, so 2012 was the revised end date.

Industry fought them. Ontario was West Virginia's biggest single coal customer at that time, according to folks I talked to at the company that enjoyed the business. Coal lobbyists argued that carbon sequestration was the answer. The Minister of Energy offered a classic response after a detail description of why CCS is technically and economically not feasible, by calling coal a Neanderthal fuel.

I can tell you that several conversations that I have had with engineering consultants here in West Virginia who are being paid government supplied tax dollars to develop CCS technologies have privately told me that they cannot see how it will be technically or economically feasible. It will at minimum double the cost of coal fired power, but that security and even legal liability questions appear to be too complicated and impossible to resolve.

Among several projects currently under construction in Ontario is a Concentrated Solar Power plant in Saulte Ste. Marie....on the North Shore of Lake Superior.

As a member of the WV Public Energy Authority board, when it was allowed by the Manchin administration to even meet, I constantly urged the State leaders to wake up to the impending death of coal fired power and begin to aggressively participate in the global trend towards renewable clean energy. And now we know we have geothermal opportunities in the Eastern counties. But I guess my agitation led to the end of PEAS meetings, And as you know, the WV Energy Plan that was published is nothing but a continued manifest for the benefits of coal, and pays minimal lip service to any and all other cleaner forms of energy.

Thermal Coal is definitely in decline even here. The question remains, who has the political chutzpah to develop an aggressive pan and the incentives to get the sate on a road to embrace the future, train and find clean safe jobs for displaced miners and incentivize and accelerate the growth of the renewable energy industry in West Virginia? And how can we influence that inevitable future?

Allan

-------------------------------------------------- From: "Frank Young" fyoung@mountain.net Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 7:06 PM To: EC@osenergy.org Subject: Re: [EC] Fwd: 8 coal-burners closed Fwd: Ontario Waves Bye-Bye ToCoal Fired Power Generation

In about 2004 the Canadian Province Ontario made a deliberate decision to phase out its coal fired electricity generating facilities. It was motivated, not by direct "environmental concerns", but by the province's direct economic costs of health care- which are paid for by the Province itself.

In the United States, the community health costs of mining coal, and of burning coal to produce electricity are externalized away from the coal operators and the electricity generating plant operators onto the health care system. Thus, the coal operators and generating system operators have no significant direct economic incentive to clean up their acts and their facility operations.

But in Ontario (and most of Canada) a majority of the electricity generating "industry" and the health care "industry" are operated by the government- usually by the provinces. The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) is an independent, non-profit corporation established through the Electricity Restructuring Act of 2004. Licensed by the Ontario Energy Board, it reports to the Ontario legislature through Ontario's Ministry of Energy.

By 2004 Ontario had determined that its health care costs could be significantly less were the province to do away with its coal fired power generating facilities. So heath care cost, borne directly by the Province of Ontario, was the driving catalyst that pushed the closing of the unhealthful soot belching coal burners there.

Frank

----- Original Message ----- From: "James Kotcon" jkotcon@wvu.edu To: EC@osenergy.org Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:17 PM Subject: [EC] Fwd: 8 coal-burners closed Fwd: Ontario Waves Bye-Bye To Coal Fired Power Generation

Ontario Waves Bye-Bye To Coal Fired Power Generation

by Energy Matters [image: Coal fired power generation phaseout - Ontario Canada] Ontario, Canada's most populated province, has seen a boom in renewable energy jobs, with 20,000 employed in the sector. It's not such a rosy picture for the coal industry though, with coal fired power generation in Ontario slated to go the way of the dodo by 2014.

Ontario's Ministry of Energy says the province's Green Energy Act is on track to create 50,000 clean energy jobs by 2012 and coal usage for the first six months of 2011 was 94 per cent lower than for the same period in 2003.

According to Ontario's recently released 2011 Progress Reporthttp://www.ontario.ca/en/initiatives/progressreport2011/index.htm, eight coal fired power generation units have been closed already and two more will close later in 2011.

Thanks to initiatives such as feed-in tariffs, renewable energy is rapidly replacing fossil fuels. To date, over 2,000 medium and large-scale feed in tariff projects have been announced, representing enough electricity each year to provide the power requirements for around 900,000 homes.

Ontario's government says it will be one of the first places in the world and the first in North America to cease coal-fired power generation totally. It has set a goal of eliminating coal entirely by 2014. It believes shutting down coal will save Ontario's health care system CAD$3 billion annually and in relation to emissions, will be the equivalent of taking up to 7 million cars off the roads.

The Ministry predicts that by 2018, 10.7 gigawatts of clean renewable electricity from windhttp://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-energy/wind-energy/ , solar http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-energy/solar-power/ and bio-energy will be operational; producing enough electricity for 2 million households.

Residents of Ontario are also becoming more energy efficient, saving 1,700 megawatts of electricity through conservation - which is the equivalent of taking half a million homes off the grid.

Ontario's clean energy economy has generated more than $20 billion in new private-sector investment. The province's energy plan will rebuild 70 per cent of its electricity infrastructure over the next 2 decades.

While Ontario's commitment to renewables and the end of coal is admirable; its continuing love affair with nuclear power has been criticised. Nuclear power has been part of Ontario's energy mix since the 1960's and currently provides more than half of the power used by Ontarians every day.

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