In 2009, the provincial Liberal government passed the Green Energy Act, which included, among many other items, an expansion in Ontario’s use of clean and renewable sources of energy, including wind and solar.
The Conservatives won the provincial election in 2019 and cancelled 758 renewable energy contracts, at a reported cost of over $230 million for taxpayers.
Effective January 1, 2019, the Conservative government repealed the Green Energy Act, stressing the need to give municipalities planning authority over any renewable projects.
Today
In August 2024, the Ontario government announced the province’s largest competitive energy procurement in history, following IESO (the Independent Electricity System Operator) forecasts that, by 2050, Ontario’s electricity consumption will rise by 75%. The IESO had recommended procurements of approximately 5,000 megawatts of new electricity resources by 2034.
The government announced a plan of action for “more affordable” energy, supporting a diverse supply mix including nuclear, hydroelectric, renewables, natural gas, and biomass. However, a closer look reveals that affordability is treated as an optional consideration, and the government is highly focused on very expensive nuclear reactors. In fact, Minister Lecce has made public presentations about his vison for Ontario to emerge as a global energy superpower that will rely on nuclear generation for increased exports to the United States.
The Minister’s letter to the IESO indicates that the procurement should be transparent, competitive, and cost-effective to secure “technology-agnostic energy resources”, including wind and solar. This includes explicit directions to protect prime agricultural areas. Note, however, that the government remains committed to fossil gas-generated electricity and emissions are forecast to increase dramatically. (See the November 18, 2024, SCAN! brief on the Affordable Energy Act, 2024 (Bill 214) on our website.)
While this was hailed publicly as a major flip-flop in favour of renewables by Doug Ford, despite the window dressing, it does not favour renewables and commits to increased fossil fuel use and increased emissions. In addition, the procurements require developers to receive municipal support resolutions, with the result that any municipality can ban renewable energy projects within its boundaries. Understandably, procurements must protect prime agricultural lands. The true breadth and scope of the agricultural restrictions may be difficult to predict at this time. All projects are prohibited in specialty crop areas, ground-mounted solar is banned in prime agricultural areas to prevent solar farms and Agricultural Impact Assessments are required for projects that are permitted on prime agricultural areas (this from the government which plans to bulldoze prime agricultural land to build Hwy 413 in its continuing efforts to encourage more driving).
The procurement process is to incentivize projects located in northern Ontario; unlock Crown Lands for renewable energy; and incentivize economic opportunities for projects with or by Indigenous communities on whose traditional territory the projects are proposed.
This procurement follows the government’s recent procurement of nearly 3,000 megawatts of new battery storage projects. The bottom line is that Ontario will require a significantly increased electricity supply and will have no choice but to look at all viable sources, including renewables to meet such a demand. With innovation, the costs and reliability of renewables, as well as the capacity for storage, are rapidly improving, seriously weakening old arguments against solar and wind energy.
Municipalities Fight Back
As of writing, 159 of Ontario’s 444 municipalities will not permit wind turbines. Copy this link into your browser to review a list of “Unwilling Host” municipalities which will not permit wind turbines: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.windconcernsontario.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Unwilling-Hosts-sept-6-1.pdf
Please note that this list was compiled by Wind Concerns Ontario, a not-for-profit group of organizations actively and aggressively fighting against wind turbines.
Is Your Municipality an “Unwilling Host” or About to Join the List?
SCAN! members may wish to check the status of their own community. If you plan to address the issue before a municipal board, you need to be aware that Wind Concerns Ontario provides resources for people to take their battle against turbines to their local municipal board, including PowerPoint presentations, brochures, fact sheets and signs. They are relying on the alleged harms of wind turbines to agricultural land, human health, water, birds and reptiles, as well as an alleged lack of benefit to the climate and lack of scientific support for wind power. The new President of Wind Concerns is a registered nurse who co-edited “Dirty Business: The Reality of Ontario’s Rush to Wind Power” (published 2011).
Key arguments raised by anti-turbine activists include the following:
Intermittency
Anti-wind activists argue that when the wind dies down, the electricity supply will shut off. This is untrue. First of all, the output from wind turbines is predictable with weather forecasting weeks in advance, and accurately predictable hours in advance. Wind turbines do not turn “off”; instead their power is ‘variable’. Modern wind turbines are capable of operating in a range of wind speeds, with different power outputs. If there is no wind at all, there is no wind power, but this happens rarely when turbines are well distributed across the province or the entire country, and it does not cause one’s power to turn off, due to the integration of the grid systems.
The electricity generated by the turbines can be stored, and battery storage technologies are developing rapidly. Batteries that can store energy for up to 12 hours are currently in development. Ontario’s Minister of Energy described the province’s recent clean energy procurement storage plan as “the largest battery storage procurement in Canadian history”. Further, as battery storage improves, energy costs will come down.
Noise/Health Effects
Anti-wind activists rely heavily on emotional concerns over possible health effects of noise; now that noise levels are diminished, they argue that infrasound (a sound of such low frequency that it is inaudible) may affect health. Any infrasound, however, is masked by the many other natural sounds in the environment, such as wind, running water, storms and animal sounds, as well as in the human-made environment of technical infrasound such as air conditioning, cars and refrigerators. Moreover, the alleged symptoms described, such as fatigue, headaches and nausea, are general and broad, and arise during daily life and from daily stress. Causation is near impossible to prove.
To date, there is a lack of support for the anti-wind arguments by any significant number of researchers and there are no reliable studies on health symptoms. Nor have the activists been able to show any geographic relationship between symptoms and the turbine locations. Obviously, placement of turbines and setbacks are important considerations, and turbines should be located away from homes, perhaps in unused areas affected by pests or drought, for example.
When you are faced with an excerpt that appears to prove a causal relationship between a wind turbine and an adverse health condition, scrutinize it carefully, look at the entire document and where it is coming from. Note that there are some health professionals who are anti-wind turbine crusaders, just as there are anti-vaccine health professionals.
Risk to Birds, Blanding’s Turtles, and Bats
Ironically, given the already documented effects of fossil fuels on our natural environment, anti-wind activists use their love of birds, the Blanding’s turtle, and bats in their campaigns.
It is true that the turbines are a hazard for birds. While there are numerous estimates about how many birds are killed by wind turbines a year, the total is far less than the millions killed by crashing into windows and tall buildings and the estimated four billion birds killed every year world-wide by domestic cats. In 2019, the National Audubon Society shocked North Americans by reporting that two-thirds of America’s birds are threatened with extinction from climate change, but keeping global temperatures down will help up to 76% of them. A 2012 study found that wind projects kill 0.269 birds per gigawatt-hour of electricity produced, compared to 5.18 birds killed per gigawatt-hour of electricity from fossil fuel projects (see the MIT Climate Portal). Avoiding migration pathways, protecting bird habitats, and painting one side of a turbine blade black (the increased visibility has been shown to reduce bird fatalities by over 70%) are among the initiatives underway to reduce bird fatalities. Special devices are already available in Europe that stop the rotor from spinning when birds or bats fly too close.
The risk to the Blanding’s turtle is frequently raised, but this is a red herring. The Blanding’s turtle is rare in Ontario, is nomadic and slow to reproduce. A proposed wind farm of nine turbines in Prince Edward County was stopped by a tribunal because of irreparable harm to the turtles — not because of the wind turbines, but because of the associated roads, traffic, and the opening of the secluded area to vehicles, poachers, and predators. While the headlines read “Blanding’s turtle halts wind farm,” they should have read “Roads and traffic halt wind farm”.
Wind turbines are a real hazard to bats. Groups such as Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative and Bat Conservation International are actively working on finding solutions. When you dig deeper into the research, however, you find that the top threat to bats in North America is climate change itself. The other top threats are changes in land use, wind energy and disease (largely white-nose syndrome cause by a fungus).
Other Arguments
Anti-wind champions will point to wind energy subsidies, but these must be contrasted with the enormous subsidies and tax concessions to fossil fuel generation technologies and the health care costs caused by pollution, wild fires and extreme heat events.
The sum of global fossil fuel subsidies was estimated recently by the International Monetary Fund to be approximately £3.4 trillion/$CDN6.2 trillion per year.
They may argue against the costs and debris caused by de-commissioning a turbine but, according to the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, 85 to 90% of turbines can be recycled or reused if dismantled correctly. Blades made of composites can be shredded or ground down and repurposed and there is ongoing research and innovation underway, particularly in Europe (see, for example, WindEurope and the European Technology & Innovation Platform on Wind Energy).
They will also point to an adverse effect on land value, which in some cases will be accurate. Limited European studies on land value are somewhat inconclusive. Once again, setbacks and location are critical decisions. However, flooding, extreme heat and wild fires caused by climate change have already devastated property values in many parts of the world.
Conclusion
Humans’ insatiable and rapidly growing need for energy supplies will continue to harm our precious planet. All electricity sources have some negative effects. It is our responsibility to choose wisely and to increase our reliance on clean energy technologies such as wind energy and to reduce our reliance on finite nonrenewables such as coal, oil, and gas. There is simply no other rational or ethical alternative.
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Recently retired after 40 years of practising law, Anneli LeGault is a member of the SCAN! Legal Committee.
If you found this blog post interesting and informative, please consider joining the Education Committee and helping with our work. We also welcome comments and feedback. Please contact Sue Craig at susan.craig@sympatico.ca