Jacques Charbin
29th August 2009, 12:42
Despite the silent majority's approval of all the benefits of wind farms, there are self-interested, well organized NIMBYs everywhere in the province of Ontario to oppose them.
The facts are: we need more power; the province is trying to close polluting coal plants; nuclear is insanely expensive and its hazardous wastes are dangerous; there's limited potential for more hydro; it's too soon for economical/mass-scale solar; imported power would be expensive and possibly unreliable; wind farms are one of the most economical and environment-friendly forms of distributed power generation and they have to go where there is electricity demand, the wind blows, and transmission capacity is available.
Ontario's new Green Energy Act is poised to increases the previous minimum setbacks from residences, and prevent NIMBYs from delaying/stopping wind farms, just as they can't stop noisy/ugly highways, railroads, and other power plants, which are required for the greater, common good.
So my question is: should we citizens for sustainability lobby for nationwide setback standards to silence NIMBYs?
The facts are: we need more power; the province is trying to close polluting coal plants; nuclear is insanely expensive and its hazardous wastes are dangerous; there's limited potential for more hydro; it's too soon for economical/mass-scale solar; imported power would be expensive and possibly unreliable; wind farms are one of the most economical and environment-friendly forms of distributed power generation and they have to go where there is electricity demand, the wind blows, and transmission capacity is available.
Ontario's new Green Energy Act is poised to increases the previous minimum setbacks from residences, and prevent NIMBYs from delaying/stopping wind farms, just as they can't stop noisy/ugly highways, railroads, and other power plants, which are required for the greater, common good.
So my question is: should we citizens for sustainability lobby for nationwide setback standards to silence NIMBYs?