[Gunnair]

$1:

Put coal plants on standby, keep cars one metre from bikes: Ontario NDP

An Ontario NDP government would scrap new nuclear plants and put coal plants on emergency standby in an environmental platform unveiled on Thursday that leader Andrea Horwath said would instead funnel nearly $1-billion into home retrofit loans and community-based renewable energy projects.

As part of the platform, the party would “immediately” put coal-fired generators on standby and “seriously consider” plans to refurbish existing nuclear reactors in hopes of moving the province away from its dependence on nuclear energy, Ms. Horwath said.

The party would put existing plans to refurbish the province’s Darlington nuclear reactor on hold, as well as plans to build a new reactor at the site. Instead, it would use nuclear program’s $960-million budget to give homeowners grants and low-cost loans to make their homes more energy-efficient.

“We think there’s a lot of room to start looking at our energy needs a little differently because the most cheap form of power is the kilowatt hour that we don’t even have to produce,” Ms. Horwath said.

“Between heavy investment in conservation as well as significant attention to renewables, we think there is a future for us that isn’t necessarily 50% of our energy sources as nuclear.”

The NDP would keep the existing Liberal government’s feed-in-tariff program, which subsidizes renewable energy, for small projects that produce 30 megawatts of electricity or less.

For larger projects, such as major wind farms, the party would allow the Ontario Power Generation to decide what projects are built and how much to pay for the energy they produce. In most areas, the province would require at least some of the local green energy to be produced by municipalities, First Nations communities or local non-profit groups.

The NDP didn’t release any budget estimates for its energy program, but Ms. Horwath said that would be up to negotiations with the Ontario Power Generation.

Ms. Horwath said an Ontario NDP government would also make it illegal for motorists to get within one metre of a cyclist on every road in the province, a plan the party said was used in other areas but that one party official conceded was “not really enforced in other jurisdictions.”

Motorists would have to move over or slow down to wait for cyclists or risk facing a fine for getting too close, she said. The rule would apply on all roadways, including those in communities like Toronto that have existing bike lanes with less than a metre separation from cars.

To help communities protect cyclists, Ms. Horwath said the NDP would create a $60-million fund for municipalities to build bike lanes, bike storage facilities and support bicycle tourism.

“If that means you have to slow down and wait until you can safely be a metre away from a cyclist, then that’s what you need to do,” she said. “We need to get serious about making sure that people can safely ride bicycles in the province.”

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/08/11/put-coal-plants-on-standby-keep-cars-one-metre-from-bikes-ontario-ndp/

[saturn_656]

Not that I was seriously considering voting NDP, but with this platform they've proven themselves to be as detached from reality as they have ever been.

Premier Hudak it is.

[Bruce_the_vii]

They are going to can the nuclear program. Instead they are going to promote electricity conservation. There's lots of energy waste and conservation is an alternative but people won't do it. The electricity supply has to be planned out, not toyed with. Talk about disconnected.

[PluggyRug]

Here be Dragons....the death knell of the NDP.

[Tricks]

ARE THEY FUCKED!?

[commanderkai]

Man, that was the funniest thing ever...

Oh wait, this was serious? This wasn't some satire piece? The Ontario NDP actually means this?

[saturn_656]

Tricks Tricks:

ARE THEY FUCKED!?

Yes, yes they are.

[martin14]

commanderkai commanderkai:

:lol:

Man, that was the funniest thing ever...

Oh wait, this was serious? This wasn't some satire piece? The Ontario NDP actually means this?

No shit, eh... Jesus, they are stupid.

[2Cdo]

martin14 martin14:

commanderkai commanderkai:

:lol:

Man, that was the funniest thing ever...

Oh wait, this was serious? This wasn't some satire piece? The Ontario NDP actually means this?

No shit, eh... Jesus, they are stupid.

Not necessarily stupid, just being ignorant of the real world!

[Margaret]

They obviously don't want to get elected!

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Margaret Margaret:

They obviously don't want to get elected!

You'd have to kill every Conservative and Liberal before the NDP had a snowball's chance in hell of ever being elected in Ontario again, even without this latest bit of absurdity.

[Pseudonym]

There is no green future without nuclear power - I don't really understand the opposition to nuclear power within the environmentalist movement.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Pseudonym Pseudonym:

There is no green future without nuclear power - I don't really understand the opposition to nuclear power within the environmentalist movement.

It's the "left overs" that bothers them more than anything I'm guessing.
Unfortunately, they are pipe dreaming if they believe that solar and wind can make up for the loss of nuclear, coal, oil and natural gas.
As I've said before, gov'ts are more interested in finding ways to tax energy use instead of finding ways to let people be more self-sufficient.
The best use of funding for solar power would be in making solar panels/cells more efficient and much cheaper so that the average homeowner can have then installed to offset their use of fossil fuel generated hydro.
As it is, I don't see solar or wind replacing the megawatts that traditional power plants generate wihtout building huge solar and wind farms. And in most parts of Canada, neither will be very practical in the winter for large scale power generation.

[GreenTiger]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

Not that I was seriously considering voting NDP, but with this platform they've proven themselves to be as detached from reality as they have ever been.

Premier Hudak it is.

The NDP needs to hire a few more scientist and engineers as obviously they don't have many of them at the present time.

[saturn_656]

GreenTiger GreenTiger:

saturn_656 saturn_656:

Not that I was seriously considering voting NDP, but with this platform they've proven themselves to be as detached from reality as they have ever been.

Premier Hudak it is.

The NDP needs to hire a few more scientist and engineers as obviously they don't have many of them at the present time.

The sad part is that you don't need to be a scientist or an engineer to see how far off track they are.

They can't very well scale back fossil fuel burning AND nuclear generation, and only have solar panels, windmills, and "conservation projects" to fill that gap. What would end up happening is we (Ontario) would have to import ever increasing amounts of power from neighbouring jurisdictions.