OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to 'LETTER: Think your natural gas prices are high now? published Feb. 6.
I spent my professional career in the electrical energy business, mostly in Ontario but also in Texas, British Columbia and other jurisdictions.
In Ontario, wind and solar power account for less than 10 per cent of electricity production, yet receive subsidies so high the government shuffled most of them into the tax base so they wouldn't appear on your hydro bill.
Non-renewables are a great idea, but they are in no way cheap.
Nor has battery storage proven economical at the utility level in any jurisdiction I am aware of. If you think batteries are cheap, go price an electric vehicle.
I'm not a fan of any fossil fuel, but a strategy that plans for gas-fired power plants to keep the lights on when the wind stops blowing in the night seems sensible to me.
Wayne Clark
Springwater Township
