Despite its recent investment in wind energy, Ontario will periodically ask wind operators to turn off their turbines, leaving gas and nuclear operating, This Magazine has learned.
Conservation efforts and more energy production have led to an occasional surplus of electricity in the province, requiring Ontario to power down some generators at certain times of the year. According to a source within Ontario's non-renewable generating sector, wind generators will be the first to be shut down during surplus periods due to contracts that favour older natural gas plants. Ontario will soon have 1,200 Megawatts of wind power installed, and significant portions of it would periodically go unused under the scheme.
Today marks two years since the beginning of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Put numerically, it's two years since three reactors melted down, causing an estimated $200 billion plus in damages, and forcing the displacement of more than 160,000 people previously living in the now state designated 'evacuation zone.'
It's important to note that additional thousands evacuated the region surrounding Fukushima amid health and economic concerns, though as far as compensation goes, they're marked as "volunteers" and thus, undeserving of recompense.
On Wednesday morning, as part of Toronto-based anti-nuke group DONT NUKE TO!, I commemorated the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster by unfurling an enormous stop sign banner in the middle of the intersection of Yonge and Dundas in the centre of Toronto.
I was in the intersection of Yonge and Dundas simply because I'm 27 years old and I've been alive for four nuclear meltdowns -- unit 4 at Chernobyl, and units 1, 2, and 3 at Fukushima Daiichi.
At the end of March, the Ontario Liberals received their two-year review of the Feed-In Tariff Program (FIT). The FIT was a component of 2009's Green Energy Act that aimed to procure renewable energy at a fixed, contracted rate that would both spur the renewable energy sector in the province and facilitate the shutdown of coal power generation.
Part 1 of Pushing back on the nuclear path outlined three post-Fukushima nuclear battles in Ontario. They were the campaigns to stop the construction of two new reactors at Darlington Station, the life extension of 10 more reactors in Ontario, and efforts to prevent economically desperate communities in Northern Ontario from becoming dumping grounds for Canada's radioactive waste.
In this final part, we're headed to Eastern Canada to outline the ongoing efforts to oppose nuclear in Quebec and New Brunswick.
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