Polling our Readers - June

[greatwhite]

On a small scale solar is at the break even point. The Liberals have driven the cost of electricity up so high it now costs the same to build your own solar and make payments as it does for your monthly bill to Hydro One. The downside is we still use batteries and they are still toxic. Solar power still can not be used on a large scale very well as there is no way to store the power and output cannot be predicted most power actually produced by it is sold at a 99% loss to the US. We pay the solar farms 70 cents to produce it and we sell it to the US for about 2 cents. Only a Liberal supporter would see that as a good deal.

Wind and Solar are an expensive joke for power at this and any foreseeable point. To say otherwise is to be ignorant or lying about the carbon footprint to create the windmills or solar plants.

Ontario has wasted about $5B+ on the current windmills and the results are:

1) tens of thousands of birds killed each year.
2) costs to produce them and costs to buy their electricity costing billions to taxpayers.
3) Yesterday when I looked the entire wind grid was producing 254 Mw or 1.7% of Ontario's production... while several water turbines individually are producing several times the entire grid.
9:29 June 10, ALL the wind together is 683 Mw while water power has Sir Adam Beck II alone is 1104 Mw, RH Saunder 835 Mw and many others producing significant percentages or more individually than all the wind combined.
*instead of $5B on wind a new turbine on the Ottawa or Niagara would have cost half that and produced far more power RELIABLY.

4) a blight on the view, property value and safety of Ontarians (Ministry of Transport has been over ridden several times on wind turbine locations!).

and I could go on and on.... wind turbines are unreliable, expensive and an ideologues play thing.... they aren't suitable for everyday reliable use and will never in their lifetime safe more carbon than it took to produce them. The only justification for them is posturing and payoffs to companies friendly to the current gov't.

[MikePal]

Wind and Solar are an expensive joke for power at this and any foreseeable point. To say otherwise is to be ignorant or lying about the carbon footprint to create the windmills or solar plants, the costs, the science and their usefulness.

I think once you do a little reading you'll see that there are many countries that have very successful wind energy programs...Denmark is one of them;

Today, more than 40 per cent of Denmark’s energy supply comes from wind power and the plan is to reach 50 per cent by 2020, as set out in the 2012 Energy Act. In 2050, the plan is for Denmark to be 100 per cent free of fossil fuel and wind energy will make up a very large part of the energy mix by then.


Denmark has benefited tremendously from being a first mover in the wind industry and the country today boasts a world-leading industry with hundreds of companies covering every aspect of the supply chain, ranging from wind turbine producers, developers of offshore wind farms to special vessels for offshore installation, transport, maintenance and service and manufacturers of components and parts for the turbine.

http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/wind-energy/

[LowbanksArcher]

I think once you do a little reading you'll see that there are many countries that have very successful wind energy programs...Denmark is one of them;

I'll give you 1 guess as to which country has the most expensive electricity in the word.

[mosquito]

On a small scale solar is at the break even point. The Liberals have driven the cost of electricity up so high it now costs the same to build your own solar and make payments as it does for your monthly bill to Hydro One. The downside is we still use batteries and they are still toxic. Solar power still can not be used on a large scale very well as there is no way to store the power and output cannot be predicted most power actually produced by it is sold at a 99% loss to the US. We pay the solar farms 70 cents to produce it and we sell it to the US for about 2 cents. Only a Liberal supporter would see that as a good deal.

Projects in the southern US where there is ample and consistent power solar is a good source of power but even it has issues like being a death ray... zap zap burn bird burn....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...air-tests.html
"Biologists say 130 birds caught fire mid-air while entering an area of concentrated solar energy created by the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project near Tonopah, Nevada."

I'll give you 1 guess as to which country has the most expensive electricity in the word.

Uh...... Denmark?

5 million people, about 3/4 the size of Nova Scotia and over 6,000 wind turbines...


An interesting view on wind in Denmark...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...evolution.html

Unfortunately, Danish electricity bills have been almost as dramatically affected as the Danish landscape. Thanks in part to the windfarm subsidies, Danes pay some of Europe's highest energy tariffs – on average, more than twice those in Britain. Under public pressure, Denmark's ruling Left Party is curbing the handouts to the wind industry.

"Since 2005 alone, 5.1 billion kroner [£621 million] has been paid to the wind turbine owners. That cost has been borne by businesses and private consumers," says the party's environment spokesman, Lars Christian Lilleholt.

... There has also been growing scrutiny of the wind industry's macro claims. Though wind may indeed generate an amount of electricity equal to about a fifth of Danes' needs, most of that electricity cannot actually be used in Denmark.

Except with hydropower, electricity cannot be stored in large quantities. The power companies have to generate it at the moment you need to use it. But wind's key disadvantage – in Denmark, as elsewhere – is its unpredictability and uncontrollability. Most of the time, the wind does not blow at the right speeds to generate electricity. And even when it does, that is often at times when little electricity is needed – in the middle of the night, for instance.

So most of the wind electricity Denmark generates has to be exported, through interconnection cables - to Germany, to balance the fluctuations in that country's own wind carpet, or to Sweden and Norway, whose entire power system is hydroelectric, and where it can be stored. (The Swedes and Norwegians use it themselves - or sell it back, at a profit, to the Danes. If they use it themselves, there is, of course, no saving whatever of C02 – because all Norway and Sweden's domestically-generated hydropower is carbon-neutral anyway.)

"I would interpret the [export] data as showing that the Danes rely on their fossil-fuel plants for their everyday needs," says John Constable, research director for the London-based Renewable Energy Foundation, which has commissioned detailed research on the Danish experience. "They don't get 20 per cent of their electricity from wind. The truth is that a much larger unit, consisting of Denmark and Germany, has managed to get about 7 per cent – and that only because of a fortuitous link with Norwegian and Swedish hydropower."


Unreliable, expensive, relying on carbon and hydro for stability..... BAD joke! Ontario has ample locations where hydro can easily be expanded or built, a reliable, much more carbon positive power source ignored by ideologues to the detriment of the future, the environment and people's ability to pay for rent/food/debt.

Ex.
http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/201...ly-as-designed
Sir Adam Beck 1 is at 20% (capacity), Sir Adam Beck 2 is also less than capacity and our tunnel is at zero … not producing any power,” Reg. Coun. Bart Maves said during a regional council meeting Thursday night.

Adding a Sir Adam Beck 3 for that new tunnel or upgrades to the existing ones or adding river flow generation to Niagara would produce more and far more reliably than wind!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...t-electricity/


Wind is suitable for small projects where intermittent unreliable power is not a problem or cottages where it can be used to charge a battery bank.

[mosquito]

June 13 1:10 PM

Wind is now producing .... 82Mw or .5% of Ontario's electricity production.... Solar is a whole 1.2% or 197 Mw.
http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html

OH and Sir Adam Beck 2 is 1,349MW ..... over 1,000 Mw than solar and wind combined! Produced cleanly and reliably!


$5,000,000,000 and the highest electricity rates in North Ameria .... to have Solar and wind producing... drum roll please 1.7% .....


June 14 10:40AM
Solar 140Mw .9% Wind 209Mw 1.3% Combined: 349Mw and 2.1%

OH and Hydro:
* Descjoacim on the Ottawa ALONE is 315Mw
* RH Saunders 886Mw
* Sir Adam Beck 1 is at 1/3 capacity (more than capable of making up the combined Solar and Wind
* Sir Adam Beck 2 is at 1132 Mw and at 100% 1455 Mw So the unused capacity is about the same as ALL the solar and wind are producing

* Hydro unused is about 3,000 Mw.... 10X what solar and wind are producing right now


June 16, 11:15 AM
797Mw for Wind and 4.8%
Hydro:
* RH Saunders 886Mw
* Sir Adam Beck 2 is at 1149 Mw and at 100% 1455 Mw * Still far more than Solar and Wind combined

* NOTE: Hydro unused is about 2,800 Mw.... 3X what solar and wind are producing right now


June 17th at 11:15
Wind 1.2% 198Mw Solar .6% 101Mw. TOTAL: < 2%
Hydro:
* RH Saunders 683Mw (2X all the Wind+Solar alone)
* Sir Adam Beck 2 is at 1301 Mw (1,000 more than wind and solar combined!)


June 18 8AM
Wind is .5% or 77Mw Solar is 0% and 7Mw

Hydro: * no point the production is reliable and I will just give the total and the one.
Total 3,823 Mw with a capacity of 7458 Mw
* Sir Adam Beck 2 is at 1031 Mw



June 18 1:33PM
A hot day and the need for A/C and as usual Wind is failing Ontarians
First time I have seen solar above 1%.... 1.3% and 231Mw
Wind is however 53Mw and .3%


Wind Range 53Mw to I saw it up to 1,400Mw, making it Unreliable, expensive and fluctuating like crazy so hydro, natural gas and nuke need to provide stability... $5,000,000,000+ A WASTE of money!

[Jerryklimczuk]

Complete waste of money, the problem is the Liberals dont know how to admit they are wrong and start listening to the people that put them into power, the people that have done the math, the scientists that study all the bird deaths and just plain old common sense. I have never voted for and never will vote for a hard headed Liberal.

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[Jerryklimczuk]

Making Ontario residents overpay on their electricity bills to make power, so the Liberals can sell it for less than you pay to produce it is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. How are these morons still in power? Even better, who voted for these idiots?

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[mosquito]

The highest I have ever seen Wind!!! Just to be fair I wanted to report it and it will probably be what they report from the gov't and media, not the average of course just the peaks like today..

June 20 10:37 PM
A hot day and the need for A/C and the highest I have ever seen wind power.
Wind is 2624 Mw and 12.5% of Ontario's generated electricity... still less than the unused hydro capacity though.

So out of the 6 days I have listed, this is the first it has gone above 50% of the supposed capacity and is close to probably 90% of the available capacity.

It is also the highest I have seen the total generation too 21,229Mw and demand 20,773Mw.



Back to Normal, less than 2%
June 21, 9:25AM
Wind: 232 Mw and 1.4%
Solar 33Mw and .2%
Total Production: 16,610 Mw Demand: 15,255 Mw
UNUSED hyrdo capacity 3,000 Mw ???? Why do we need wind again?????


June 22 8:16
Wind 947Mw or 4.7% ..... doing good... but ALL the wind is still less than just Sir Adam Beck II in Niagara alone! Imagine if they enhanced it or added a Sir Adam Beck III instead of the billions on bird killing, scenery killing, dangerous (as declared by Ministry of Transportation) in some cases and health threatening to locals wind turbines.... that can't be relied on!

[mosquito]

http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html

June 24, 2016
ALL of the wind is now producing 53Mw or .3% of Ontario's production again, with demand of 15,947Mw and generated is 17,088 Mw
Solar is 167Mw or 1% of Ontario's production.
Hydro is 24.7%



Wind Range 53Mw up to the rare 2,624Mw, making it Unreliable, expensive and fluctuating like crazy so hydro, natural gas and nuke need to provide stability... $5,000,000,000+ A WASTE of money!

[patvetzal]

And the structural engineers tell us that the lifespan of the concrete towers will be 20 years, maybe by then someone will come to their senses.