Standard Offer Contract

[Wilco Vercoelen]

Ontario, Canada offers an excellent incentive for Solar, Wind and other types of renewable energy. Currently it is CAD $0.42 per kWh for Photovoltaics and CAD $0.11 per kWh for Wind Energy. Every kWh you produce must go into the grid. It is one of the best incentive programs in North America. Use the online form to apply at http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/sop/

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Wilco,

Not sure I would call it 'excellent'. It's a start, but not much more than that. Where's the 50% rebates that some US states have?

At current prices of equipment and installation, and the amount of solar we have in most places of Ontario, it takes almost 20 years to break even (return on investment) with solar at 42 ct/kWh. You and I went over this a little while ago.

For wind it's even worse. At 11 ct/kWh it's more profitable to do net-metering. My current electricity bill works out to 14.3 ct/kWh once all the 'extras' are added in, such as dept-recovery fee, transportation fee, line losses, taxes etc.

By the way, there is also a hybrid format, where one does annual net-metering and get paid for any excess at the end of the 1 year metering period. The downside is that one gets less than the SOP price for the extra electricity. The wording is "SOP price less the hourly Ontario energy price". I'm not sure how much that would actually be per kWh.

Honestly, I wish Ontario and federal politicians would get serious about renewable energy. Looks like they have found a renewed love-affair with nuclear though, so I'm not all that hopeful right now...

-Rob-

[Wilco Vercoelen]

I still think it is excellent, but there is always room for improvement.
The provincial government must lower the subsidizing of electricity in different phases and show people (and let them pay) what the real costs of (nuclear) power is.
This will promote energy conservation and renewable energy automatically. At the same time, get rid of the monopoly of energy companies and open the market so that people can choose which electricity supllier they want, green or grey. The government must be able to keep control of the infrastructure and secure a reliable transmission grid.
The province made the first move, now it is up to the federal government to take renewable energy seriously and pay a part (30-50%) of the purchase price.

[James Jarrett]

I'm something of an unusual case. I am hard core environent and hard core alt energy, but I am also pretty hard core Nuke power.

Here's why. If we ignore the terrorist threat, and the fact that any Nuke plant must be built like a fortress (I know we can't but just say...) Modern control systems, fail safe systems make Nuclear plants very safe. I'm not too worried about a meltdown.

It is possible (tho more difficult) to build nuclear power plants that use plutonium as fuel instead of uranium. I'm not a nuke chemist, so I don't know the particulars, but I believe it has to do with "doping" the PU with other "inert" compounds to bring it down to the level of uranium (could be wrong here).

Why should we do this?

Because right now, the United States has enough enriched Plutinium in stockpiles from decomissioned nuclear weapons to power the entire united states, at current usage levels for 1000 years! +- a decade.

Yes, dealing with the spent fuel is a problem, but Nuclear power is a cradle to grave industry. NO OTHER INDUSTRY at the end of a decade (or even a month for that matter) can point and say "That is *ALL* the mess we made.

I think in 1000 years, we could find better ways to deal with the waste and to make better cleaner energy. Hell, if we ever develop fusion, small bits of the used nuclear fuel could be fed into the reaction over time (when you are as hot as a sun, *ANYTHING* can be burned until it breaks down into hydrogen.

The point is, we *CAN* do it. Politically it is not popluar, and from a "safety" issue even less so. Still I think a country that can send man to the moon can deal with this. Esp. Forty bloody years later!!

Just my $.02, which adjusted for inflation is about $.0018

James

[Jon Durham]

I agree on the nuclear power. We can do it and we can deal with the waste. We first just have to concede that you can't just dig a hole, toss it in and walk away. A waste management program is possible and already implemented in France. Storage facilties that monitor the waste containers for leakage and you just put the container inside another container in 60 years or so. Repeat as necessary until something else comes along. Probably wouldn't cost more in the long run than cleaning up after fossil fuels. Safety can be achieved and containment stategies in place.

One government type question I have for those of you that have already built using alt energy: For a project like mine, using exclusive 12 volt systems, how, in a rural area where your county inspectors will know little to nothing about your power system, do you get permits, approvals, etc., and build without the government trying to subject you to codes that don't address your technologies ? Anyone run into problems ?

[Wilco Vercoelen]

I believe Nuclear is essential for the energy mix, but I think it should be temporarily. If we invest the same amount of money in renewable energy and shift subsidizing from dirty power to Green Power I think we can make a real difference and do it clean and decentralized too.
A nuclear plant is always triple over budget without even decommission, add decommission and it is really shocking. Also uranium requires mining, meaning more pollution and other environmental issues. Everybody is talking about the waste but look at what it cost to get the stuff in the first place. There isn't a whole lot of Pure Uranium out there and if it is less pure you need more.
I do not know at this time what impact of plutonium is, but I think we should get rid-off it, and fast The reason, humans are always the weakest link, not matter how high-tech the security and protection is.

[Don Ross]

What a legacy we're leaving for our descendants to have to deal with through this 40 year experiment with Nuclear Energy? The idea that Nuclear Energy is Clean & Green Power has been instilled into mainstream thinking by the industry, govt. & media ( ads showing the children flying kites in the clear blue sky with the nuke station in the background ) yet there is nothing about it from start to finish that is clean or green. There really is no finish to it as we all know because it's radio-active affects will last forever....just slightly longer than the debt. for this folly that we'll also be passing along to our kids! Take a look at some of the good work being done over the past 12 years by a group I belong to www.cfre.ca which strives to educate people about the real story behind this industry. Plutonium is the most toxic & dangerous substance ever produced, & the mixing of other toxic chemicals with it to extract energy from it then dumping the liquid waste products into the ocean ( which is what England & France are doing while being sued by Scotland & Ireland for their actions ) is absolute insanity.

[Rob Beckers]

I recently finished reading "Solar Revolution" by Travis Bradford. It's an interesting (and very much recommended) book; it is of course biased towards solar, but instead of emotion the author uses economics to explain his position. The author has a background in corporate finance, and uses that for a very thorough evaluation of the numbers behind energy. Part of that is to analyze the economics of traditional energy sources, including nuclear (or 'nuculur' for some or our friends in high places south of the border :D).

According to the author, nuclear energy is not cheap no matter how you slice it. Currently it ranges in production cost between $0.06 and $0.14 per kWh. Production cost is not the same as 'delivered' cost to the user, there are line-losses, and an expensive distribution system that add to the delivered cost. Nuclear energy is therefore at the most expensive end of the spectrum of electricity sources that provide base-load electricity (Base-load power plants are those that cannot be started or stopped rapidly, so they cannot respond quickly to peak-demands). Quite a departure from "electricity too cheap to meter" as nuclear was presented in the 1950's. That cost is after massive subsidies to the development of nuclear power, and it does not take into account the cost of disposing of radioactive waste (Assuming we'll develop the technology do do so in a responsible manner, none currently exists), nor is the cost of the eventual decommissioning included, another very expensive item. Not included either is the potential cleanup cost in case of an accident. The Chernobyl meltdown cost an estimated $26 - $34 billion, which exceeds the value of all the electricity ever generated with nuclear power at all plants in the Soviet Union. We still pay for all those extra costs, in the form of taxes. The author concludes that from a purely economic perspective nuclear power is not going to be the answer.

Food for thought...

-RoB-