A highly scalable map [5 meg .pdf] of offshore wind farm installations in northwestern Europe shows how far behind Canada is in exploiting this renewable energy source. The map detail at right is a static screen capture, at far less than maximum enlargement. (The map is reminiscent of various offshore petroleum maps of Nova Scotia's, an example of which can be downloaded here [400-k .pdf].Hat tip: Colin May....
A few weeks ago, I posted a critique of an opinion piece in the August 25 edition of AllNovaScotia.com [subscription required] by Prof. Larry Hughes of the Dalhouse University's Computer Engineering Department. Hughes is currently toiling as a visiting professor of Global Energy Systems at Uppsala University in Sweden. Shockingly, Contrarian is not yet daily reading in that particular corner of Scandinavia, so he only recently learned of my comments. Hughes writes: Contrary to what you have written, [my article in AllNovaScotia.com] has nothing to with NSP's existing 2010 or 2013 requirements. The article is about NSP's new 25% renewables...
Alistair Watt writes: The negative effects of living next to a wind power generating station have been known for some time. Consequently, to label opposition to them on that basis as NIMBY is unfair. Not In Anyone's Back Yard (NIABY) would be more appropriate. OK, let's review. We have to do something about electrical generation in Nova Scotia, because we currently burn the dirtiest possible fuel, coal, to produce about 75 percent of our power, and greenhouse gasses pose a grave and urgent risk to the future of the planet. However: We can't use hydro, because there are no big rivers left to...
Two weeks ago, AllNovaScotia.com, the excellent online journal run by daughter-father team Caroline Wood and David Bentley, ran the latest in a series of occasional pieces by Larry Hughes, a computer engineering coordinator at Dalhousie University. Hughes is something of an energy policy gadfly. He expects energy will soon be in short supply globally, so he places a lot of emphasis on energy security, by which he appears to mean energy produced within Nova Scotia. Nevertheless, Hughes opposes Nova Scotia Power's plan to mix wood waste with coal to burn in its thermal generating plants. His piece, in the August 25 edition...
In a post yesterday Monday, contrarian observed that a little noticed NDP campaign promise would advance Nova Scotia Power's renewable energy targets by five years. Today Tuesday, the new government made that promise official government policy. NSP must generate one quarter of its energy from renewable sources (hydro, wind, tidal, wave, solar, biomass, biofuel, or landfill gas) by 2015. It's certainly a laudable step, but how big a step is it? The answer to that is incredibly complicated. It's complicated because various stages of the renewable energy requirements imposed on NSP define renewable energy three different ways: as overall generation from renewable sources; as...
Lurking behind Nova Scotia Power's increasingly frantic efforts to find renewable sources of electrical generation is the threat of a crushing $500,000-a-day fine should it fail to meet legislated targets for 2010. That works out to $183 million per year—half again what NSP earned its shareholders in 2008.
For better or for worse, the threat is symbolic, not real.
Under the Electricity Act, a set of regulations known as the Renewable Energy Standards (RES) requires NSP to purchase at least five percent of its 2010 energy supply from renewable sources owned by third parties and built after 2001. The RES requirement increases to 10 percent in 2013, but may include generation from both third party and NSPI facilities. The Climate Change Action Plan, released last January, would have increased this to 25 percent by 2020, but a little noticed NDP campaign promise trumps that provision, moving the 25 percent deadline up to 2015.
RES regulations stipulate "a daily penalty of no more than $500,000" for failure to comply.
Of course it is possible that those reporting the symptoms of Wind Turbine Syndrome are more sensitive to sound and vibration than most people, or even than detection instruments. It’s also possible that other factors are at work. Could the illness be, to some extent, psychosomatic in nature?
Check out how they’re doing it in Ontario and other out-front jurisdictions, where "feed-in" laws or "standard offer contracts" are in effect — in which the utility is required to take power produced by entrepreneurs at a fixed rate, no haggling. Wherever it’s been tried, there’s been an explosion of energy entrepreneurship and new jobs. The [Nova Scotia Power] system of calling tenders one project at a time didn’t work elsewhere, and it hasn’t worked here.Ralph makes a few good points in the column, but these two paragraphs contain more foolishness than enough.
Kings South Green Party candidate and deputy leader Brendan MacNeill was the surprising star [*] of last night's all-party environmental forum. The Acadia environmental studies major, who already has an environmental technology diploma, came across as thoughtful, poised, well-prepared, persuasive.
Unfortunately, like many Nova Scotia environmentalists, MacNeill has been seduced by the independent power producers' self-serving lobby for guaranteed, above-market rates for their product. After the jump, a brief explanation of why this approach is wrong-headed for Nova Scotia.