Taking this mega-recycling school of thought one step further requires underscoring another important factor of this fundamentally sound project. There are some 73,000 residential units in Sudbury, and not only would we create thousands of jobs, but we would also produce enough 100 percent renewable electricity to supply every residential unit with a set amount of electricity and electric heat for FREE!

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in Norway

Customers who use more electricity than the allowable limit would be charged market prices for all excess usage. This smart energy "Green Growth" project would
eliminate inflated and unstable natural gas and electricity prices, GST, and bill bank paying costs for our Citizens. Currently monthly charges for gas are 16 $ plus GST regardless of the amount of gas used. Add the transportation charge, plus GST, storage charge, plus GST, and your bill is 30 to 40 $ a month, every month, before you even use any gas.

For the average consumer, eliminating a series of nuisance costs like natural gas fees, GST thereon, and bank bill paying charges, is the equivalent of reducing a 2000 $ property tax bill by up to or over 100 percent! In other words, whether you're a property owner or renter, rich or poor, each user could receive a 2000 $ or so economic incentive per year if we proceed with this project. Thus, it would not only solve Sudbury's Hydro-Hell problem with unsustainable, unaffordable and unjust access to energy; but also put waste in its place!

Consider the alternative. Our federal government has already announced that natural gas rates are going to rise in order to cut down of greenhouse gas emissions produced during gas production. Cutting greenhouse gases will cool the earth’s temperature; which will drive your natural gas consumption and energy costs even higher, since the earth will be colder.

We could, and should also be using "Green Billing Accounts" (paperless) to eliminate non-value added activities and expenses. "Electronic billing" is easy, it's quick, it's secure, and there is no bill paying service charge.

Our "E-Pay" system would require you to enroll, following which you would receive an e-mail notification confirming the approval of your enrollment. The User ID chosen by you is to be used to Login into the system. After which you would be receiving an e-mail notification on monthly basis informing you that your bill is ready for viewing and payment is due in 14 days. On the due date you bill would be paid by automatic debit from your bank account or charged to your credit card, depending on which bill paying system you have selected. This e-service thereby eliminates paper, printers, ink, envelopes and postage, which would reduce city expenditures that you pay by a million or more $ every year.

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in the USA

Constant adjustments along the "future forward way" must be made in order to solve our economic problems, but to adjust and adapt is the "badge of intelligence." With the advent of genetic engineering, and through better cloning techniques that are currently being used, trees can also be genetically manipulated to grow faster and burn hotter. The hotter an incinerator burns the less emissions that are emitted.

Under this smart growth scenario trees are fully-grown in 3 years and ready for harvest and incineration. Growing energy forestry crops on a large scale can also be used to fuel an "Ethanol plant" and Ethanol plants are the way to the fuel future! An Ethanol plant would create many more new jobs when farming is included.

In partnership with Inco, Sudbury could, and should begin producing electricity from the Superstack, thus further increasing electricity production and reducing the strain on the provinces power grid.

For those who don't know, Inco's Superstack is 1247 feet tall; only 121 feet shorter than the former World Trade Center in "Zoo" York City. The Superstack was the tallest structure in Canada until the CN tower opened in Toronto in 1976. The Superstack was the tallest smoke stack in the world but is now the second tallest freestanding chimney after the GRES-2 Power Station in Kazakhstan, which is about 38 meters taller. However, Sudbury's Superstack is still the tallest cigar in the Western hemisphere and remains the second tallest freestanding structure in Canada. It was constructed by Inco in 1972 at an estimated cost of 25 million $.

The Superstack sits atop the largest nickel smelting operation in the world at Inco's Copper Cliff processing facility and could produce enough electricity for 200,000 homes; and could've been doing so for the past 35 years.

Hot air rises, naturally, and the Superstack operates as a giant vacuum. As the hot air rises in the stack it would past through an array of turbine generators clustered inside the stack. The result: enough clean, green electricity to power some 200,000 homes without producing a particle of pollution or a wisp of planet-warming gases.

Inco's copper refinery is now releasing stream and not even using the Superstack, and this stream could, and should also be used to produce electricity. The heat from the Superstack could, and should also be harvested to heat Dynamic Earth, homes and businesses in Copper Cliff; and it could've been doing so for the past 35 years.

Xstrata also has a smokestack in its smelter which could be utilized for the same electricity producing process.

We could also turn every available exhausted mine shaft into a 350,000 kilowatts a day energy producing shaft by repeatedly using the same water over and over again. Water from a reservoir above ground would drop down the shaft through a power plant underground and then be pumped backed to the upper pool to be repeated again and again.

To add to our renewable mix, "Electro Kinetic Road Ramps" should also be installed in our high traffic roadways to create electricity and give us a cutting clean-tech edge. When cars drive over ramps they produce electricity that will be used to power streetlights, traffic lights and cross walk signals, which would reduce our electricity costs. Several other street lights, traffic signals and would be solar-powered.

All of these ideas would make Sudbury a global hotbed of "alternative-energy entrepreneurship," thus, our "risk appetite" needs to expand and it's time to take some calculated risks and to view innovation as the "Bank of Tomorrow." Make deposits into it today and it will yield dividends tomorrow. By creating new jobs, and new virgin revenue sources, we would reduce everyone's property taxes when the newly generated revenue is applied to city expenditures, Thus, the idea of being able to provide Citizens with a living wage and lower taxes while at the same time heal the planet is an enormously attractive one.

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in Burnaby B.C. Canada

Creating new jobs would dry up available unskilled and semiskilled workers thereby driving up the wages of other low-income workers city wide who would then hop skip and jog to the highest paying job offer. This very un-tech job creating solution would also lower out of wedlock births, the use and sale of illegal drugs, crime rates, policing, prosecuting and prison costs, while increasing spending in the city, gas tax, GST and income tax revenue for both federal and provincial governments, thus reducing the dependency on taxpayer support. Creating new revenue for senior levels of government puts Sudbury in a position to receive more in-grant aid.

Therefore, the federal government has a vested interest in seeing this venture become reality by providing funding for the project. The federal government has billions of $ set aside for their war on climate change and this project is their lead eco-fighting warrior, thus we need to tap into their cash register!

For the sake of this discussion consider this; suppose building 20 burners, 5 manufacturing plants covering dozens of lines of products and, adding turbines to Inco's Superstack and Xstrata stack cost 10 billion $. From just one penny of GST the federal government makes over 5 billion $ every 3 months. They could pay this off in 6 months! By February 2009, they will have spent 7 billion $ of OUR money in Afghanistan. Think about that! The federal government has multi billion $ surpluses every year! In 2006, all levels of government, municipal, provincial and federal, had a 29 billion $ surplus. Spending 10 billion $ "one time" to eliminate up to 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gas EVERY YEAR is a bargain! The federal government can print off all the money it needs! The provincial and municipal governments cannot. The provincial government would also chip in reducing the federal government’s burden in this project.

Once the federal government invests they would pay out less in employment insurance, GST rebates, processing and postage costs while its taxation collections in insurance premiums, GST and income tax would rise. The federal government would also increase their revenue from private firms that the new employees patronize when the employees earnings are spent. Instead of being a burden on the federal treasury a great many new people would contribute to it.

Studies estimate that for every million $ the government spends on public projects it gets back in tax revenue and employment insurance savings about 500,000 $. The net cost to government is therefore only about half of the actual investment. Thus, they could fund the 10 billion $ project and it only cost them 5 billion.

The net cost could turn out to be smaller still. If the improvement in employment and sales prompts business to expand--and this project would--then the government would collect additional tax revenue and save even more in employment insurance payouts as a result of the jobs created by the private sector expansion. Thus, eventually the government recoups "all" of its funding despite the large-scale upfront investment.

As the portfolio of possibilities is endless, Sudbury must think outside the square, heat up the city's economic thermostat, and innovate to grow this wisdom economy.

The "eco-product-index" is extensive, the local-sourcing vast; and this venture is at a minimum a ten-way-trade-off. (1) Sudbury gets much needed jobs, (2) Sudbury businesses and residents get low cost hydro, (3) Sudbury increases revenue from the sale of excess hydro, (4) Highway 69 is completed soon rather than later, (5) the province gets to eliminate landfills across the province, (6) the province gets a much needed new source of hydro for its insatiable volume demand, (7) the province reduces the burden on the already taxed hydro generation system by removing Sudbury's hydro needs from their power grid, (8) the province and city reduces welfare rolls, (9) the province and federal government increases income tax revenue from new jobs created, and (10) the province increases sales tax revenue from the newly employed people spending their earnings.

Sudbury’s renewable energy field would import over two billion $ a year in low carbon currency tipping fees--over 20 billion every 10 years--while sales from newly manufactured products would fetch over 336 million $ more. This economic growth and output would create 2000+ cleaner economy jobs in this new wisdom economy. Two thousand 45,000 $ a year jobs would have a 90 million $ annual impact in Sudbury from employee wages alone!

Even without other province’s trash, Ontario produces enough garbage to guarantee waste flow electricity production and would produce hundreds of millions in tipping fees.

So as you can see, there are many "positive feedback loops" and nothing here is intellectually complex or hard to do, and this wise intoxicating prosperity plan is simple to understand, easy to implement, and as win win as it gets!

Compare this "smart growth revenue friendly bulletproof prosperity plan" to what our current mayor is offering!

Higher taxes, less service and no jobs! Dumb growth in the extreme!

Our mayor can play Mary Had a Little Lamb but he can't play Beethoven! Our mayor is a walking talking excuse and lacks the ability to choreograph a win without telling a lie. Our mayor lied his way into office because he knew he wouldn't win otherwise.

Our Twentieth Century mayor provides no future based answers for he’s not innovative or revolutionary ready because he's fluent in NDP.

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[ 09 July 2007: Message edited by: Sudbury ]

[ 09 July 2007: Message edited by: Sudbury ]