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Queen's Park
December 12, 2008 - 5:00pm
NDP Energy Critic Peter Tabuns says the McGuinty government’s decision to proceed with an expensive low-efficiency, gas-fired plant in York Region is a serious economic and environmental blunder.
Residents from across York Region have strongly opposed the new plant, and Tabuns introduced a private members bill this fall seeking to ban large polluting gas plants in York Region. His bill was defeated by McGuinty government MPPs.
“It is a serious mistake to allocate $365-million of scarce government resources on a plant that will only operate on a handful of summer days,” said Tabuns.
“A similar investment in conservation and renewable energy development would have been a much wiser course.”
Studies show that the new single-cycle gas-fired plant is only 36 per cent efficient and will only operate at about 1.5 per cent of its capacity.
“It is hard to believe that the McGuinty government would divert so many resources on an out-of-date and polluting technology when so many opportunities for conservation and renewable energy exist,” said Tabuns.
“Instead of wasting money on this plant, the government should expand the Peaksaver program to reduce peak energy demand, and provide much stronger financial incentives for the purchase of energy-efficient air conditioners, solar water heaters and gas ranges,” he added.
Tabuns noted that the McGuinty government could be making much faster progress in supporting the expansion of small-scale wind, solar, biomass and high-efficiency combined heat and power plants in Ontario.
“The fact that the government’s narrow, small-scale Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program was so rapidly oversubscribed shows that there is huge community interest in providing renewable power to the Ontario grid. The main barrier to a greener and cleaner energy future in Ontario is political will,” said Tabuns.
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