By Cecilia Nasmith
Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance foresees a future of cleaner air and lower energy prices, if Ontario would just phase out its gas-fired power plants by 2030.
Addressing this week's meeting of Northumberland County Council's standing Public Works Committee, Gibbons said his organization was originally formed to do the same for coal-fired plants. They worked on this for 17 years, until the last one was shuttered in 2014. The result was that greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants fell by 93% between 2005 and 2017.
To do the same for gas-fired ones would give the province a 100% carbon-free electricity grid, and also ensure the province achieves its 2030 climate target. In the meantime, however, power-plant pollution has started to rise again, and should rise by more than 300% by 2030 – and more than 500% by 2040.
This creeping rise is due to three factors, Gibbons said – Ontario's steeply increasing demand for electricity, the closing of the Pickering nuclear plant by 2025, and the province's lack of planning for that shutdown except (as Gibbons put it) “to import more fracked gas from Western Canada and Pennsylvania, and cranking up the gas plants.”
The alliance proposes a three-pronged alternative – an investment in energy efficiency, increased reliance on wind and solar energy, and taking advantage of Quebec's huge water-power surplus (which they now export cheaply to the US) to, in effect, serve as batteries for wind and solar energy.
Investing in this strategy would create jobs in every community, Gibbons said, including the County of Northumberland. Relying on gas for power plants creates none.
Costs for wind and solar power have sharply decreased to the point where implementing this three-pronged approach could bring energy costs down to less than two cents per kilowatt hour.
Gibbons said that, to date, 15 Ontario municipalities are requesting the province to phase out gas-fired plants.
“I am also pleased to note that President Biden has promised to phase out all fossil-fuel electricity generated in the US by 2035,” he added.
“We are hoping the County of Northumberland will pass a resolution requesting the Government of Ontario to phase out all gas-fired power plants by 2030 to help Ontario and Northumberland achieve our climate targets.”
The motion passed directs staff to contact the province for further information, from which they will prepare a report for the committee's consideration – after which the committee will make a recommendation to county council.
