The Ontario Liberals deserve credit for getting it half right. The Samsung sweetheart deal and the Green Energy Act are good for the planet -- but bad for the economy.We now subsidizes green electricity (Samsung, GEA) plus we subsidize dirty electricity (health care costs, climate change), but we ignore accurate pricing and conservation, by far the most cost effective and greenest ways of advancing green power.
Subsidy upon subsidy is economic folly. Coal-generated electricity is subsidized by hidden climate change costs and by the health care costs of dirty air, while nuclear is subsidized by the lost opportunity costs of past nuke debt, limited liability, future decommissioning costs, etc.
It’s dumb economics to subsidize both green AND dirty electricity, dumb to tax people and businesses to keep the price of electricity artificially low, encouraging waste and discouraging conservation.
The McGuinty government is using legislation and regulations to do what the market would do far better. Ontario should instead end direct and hidden subsidies to all types of electricity, implement accurate pricing and allow efficiency to reduce demand.
By charging the accurate cost of electricity, wind power would not require feed-in tariffs, and other renewables would be much closer to viability without subsidies. Revenue from from true cost electricity accounting should be used, dollar for dollar, to reduce income taxes.
Ontario should avoid unnecessary, bureaucratic, unfair and counterproductive green energy legislation.
"Ontario should instead end direct and hidden subsidies to all types of electricity, implement accurate pricing and allow efficiency to reduce demand."
ReplyDeleteReducing subsidies for renewables would expose the massive inefficiencies associated with the current technology. Wind has a 40% output of potential capacity and that is being generous. Without FIT's and subsidies renewables don't compete with nuclear or fossil fuels. Find me a nation that doesn't heavily subsidize their renewable industries. The only way to bring renewables into an energy mix is to imliment a carbon tax on the energy industry that grows incrementally every year making carbon free technology more viable. But a tax is a tax and no one government feels comfortable going into an election boasting new taxes. So instead the libs choose an indirect tax, tariffs.
http://envirogy.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/employing-duplicity-to-sell-green-energy/