Winning at losing

Sometimes when you win, you lose. The Town of Fort Frances recycling program is showing marked success. Each pickup brings more plastic, paper, cardboard, and metal cans to the recycle centre. It is prolonging the life of the landfill. The recycling program is performing as it was designed and Fort Frances residents can stand a little taller for their commitment to the environment.
However, one of the consequences of the recycling program is that community residents are not buying as many bag tags or making as many trips to the land fill with their own garbage. The deficit from the landfill is growing and that burden is being passed on to the taxpayers. Our success in one program is the cause of financial ruin in the other.
The McGinty government in their rush to green energy has committed Ontario Hydro to pay more for electricity generated by wind mills, solar energy, co-gen stations and other green energy sources than they are selling power to consumers. So when your electrical bill comes along, your rates will appear to be going through the ceiling. The switch to these new “green energies” is costing every business, industry and householder more. We’re winning in changing to green, but the cost of operations of homes, businesses, and industries is putting everyone at risk.
When someone chooses to create power for the grid, it is not the power generator that has to pay for the attachment to the grid; it is the owner of the grid. In Fort Frances, if you were to put solar electrical panels on your roof, and produce more power than your home would use, you could sell that power to the Fort Frances Power Corporation and they are mandated to provide all the equipment to accept the power. Electrical consumers in Fort Frances will pay for those connections. Again the consumer loses even though we are getting clean green energy.
Recently in my travels west, premium gas in North Dakota was less expensive than regular octane gas. I chose the higher octane rating and discovered that my mileage increased by about 10%. I wondered why. Researching on the web, I discovered that when ethanol is added, the resulting blend will reduce mileage. It may burn cleaner, and it may be considered a renewable energy, but in the end it does cost you more to travel. You win and you lose.
Every home in Fort Frances is now connected to a smart electric meter and in the future we will be connected to a smart water meter. We will pay different rates for use of water and electricity at different times of the day. The McGinty government has suggested that we do our laundry between 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. I don’t know too many people who want to stay up those hours to do laundry.
And if Ontarians follow the lead of the premier, electrical consumption will jump and then because of higher demand at those hours, consumers will be charged more.
It will probably be suggested that we only flush our toilets at those hours too, since that it the period of lowest water usage.
Every car manufacturer is looking to create the green energy electrical car. When you plug your power cord into the socket, you don’t see the windmills, nor the coal fire electrical generators, nor the hydro-electric dams nor the nuclear power stations. You see just a harmless cord. No person is talking about how you will refuel your vehicle without more power being available.
Nuclear power generation may be more costly to create, but those plants deliver power to consumers at rates that are less than coal, natural gas, windmills, and solar panels. Frances, Sweden, Norway, Germany see these sources of electricity as the potential for the future of their nations. In Canada, we are choosing the more expensive brands. Yes we are winning at losing.
–Jim Cumming,
Publisher