Canada’s Emission are on the Rise Along with Energy Poverty

The Toronto Sun newspaper had a February 23, 2023 article written by Lorrie Goldstein noting a report  released by the CCI (Canadian Climate Institute) disclosed Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2021 by 19 million tons or 2.8%.  Goldstein pointed out correctly that the results fly in the face of past assurances from the likes of PM Trudeau and former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Jonathan Wilkinson that they would decline!  The article went on to point out the impossibilities to achieve the goals they had set unless they shut down Canada’s complete industrial sector along with our oil and gas sector.  In other words unless they cripple the Canadian economy the goals, they have committed to will be unachievable!

While Goldstein correctly points out the negative place Trudeau and his minions now find themselves, the picture painted by the CCI’s report was actually spun differently by them! To wit: The CCI press release about the results had the following quote from Rick Smith, President of CCI: 

“It’s promising to see Canada starting to make tangible progress in reducing carbon pollution, especially coming out of the pandemic. Time is short, and our goals are ambitious. Hitting those goals is crucial to Canada’s future security and prosperity. 

Perhaps the foregoing quote from Smith (formerly head honcho at Environmental Defence) is simply a take on the old idiom;  “don’t bite the hand that feeds you“ based on the CCI’s charitable status. A review of their year-end March 31, 2022 filing with the CRA indicates their employees are well paid and we should suspect Smith is at the top of the following chart from their filing:

 It is also worth noting Rick Smith and Gerald Butts (PM Trudeau’s former Principal Advisor) are closely connected as both were the heads of two of the Strathmere Group’s 12 members as outlined in a series of articles.  Smith also has a close relationship (they even co-authored a book) with Bruce Lourie, one of the CCI’s directors and he is also listed as the Secretary-Treasurer of the CCI in the CRA filings.

If one examines their CRA filing as a “charity” it discloses gross revenue of $2,487,656 with $2,433,119 (97.8%) of it simply our tax dollars handed to them by the federal government.  Please note they didn’t claim any of their total expenditures of $3,646,724 as being “on charitable activities”.

It is apparent based on the numbers above the CCI overspent their revenue by about $1.159 million. Rest assured they will seek additional taxpayer funding and a recent search on the Government of Canada’s “Grants and Contributions” website indicates they were handed $500,000 on December 5, 2022 by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change where Minister Steven Guilbeault now hangs his hat! The grant is reputedly to do a “Policy analysis and stakeholder views on climate and environmental impacts of inactive oil and gas wells“. 

If one seeks financial information on the CCI website the only information one can find for their 2021-2022 year is the following one page “snapshot” and it’s in their “Annual Impact Report”:

I would think based on the foregoing, 99% of all Canadians would not consider anything the CCI contributes to Canada and Canadians to be what can be considered charitable.

The question that anyone examining the financial aspects of this “charity” called the Canadian Climate Institute should immediately ask is:

Why in hell should the CCI be considered a charity when here in Canada and in so many other places around the world we are seeing “energy poverty” skyrocket? Charitable food banks are pressed to help families suffering from poverty caused by increased costs of energy in the form of intermittent and unreliable renewable energy as well as carbon taxes on fossil fuels needed in so many aspects of our day to day living from farming to delivering the food to your local grocery store. Paying our tax dollars to ENGO such as the CCI amplifies the unjust treatment we are now experiencing!

To paraphrase Rick Smith’s ramble: Hitting the goals to reduce emissions is crucial if the plan is to increase energy poverty!

Time to right the wrongs and rescind the charitable rights of these hundreds of ENGO here in Canada using our tax dollars to further escalate energy poverty!

Five ENGO Demand More Government Bureaucracies to Execute the Just Transition

Five ENGO* (BLUEGREEN, Ecojustice, Environmental Defence, Equiterre and IISD) recently issued a 28 page proclamation labelled: “Proposals for the Canadian Just Transition Act”.  Needless to say they push the Justin Trudeau led Federal Government and all the provincial governments to jump on board the “Just Transition”.  They want the Federal Government to establish a “Just Transition Ministry” and equip it with bureaucrats ensuring the utopia of a “carbon-free” Canada with lots of low carbon, sustainable “green jobs” as the outcome!

If one does a word search in the 28 pages using the symbol “$” or the word “dollars” you come up with a big “0” but if you plug in “Net-Zero” you get 3 hits and if you try “emissions” it will generate 28 hits.  As one would expect searching the words “transition” and “just transition” respectively generated 391 and  293 hits. The proclamation is sprinkled with examples the authors feel exemplify what should be done in Canada.  They cite Spain, Scotland, New Zealand and Germany as examples of countries moving in the “Just Transition” direction but don’t bother to mention those countries are all suffering from high energy prices coupled with climbing energy poverty. You certainly won’t find any concerns expressed about the costs of the Just Transition on families or households in the 28 pages. 

The word “objective(s)” can be found 32 times and aligns with the word “Tables” found 27 times as the proclamation insists the Federal and Provincial governments establish objectives via those tables that must be adhered to under legislation set by the federal and provincial governments.  Naturally these objectives  require “monitoring” by more bureaucrats.

We should all be troubled by the fact that four of the five ENGO (more on BLUEGREEN below) are registered charities and all of them seem somewhat dependent on handouts (grants) and contracts from all three levels of government.  A quick review of the four and their CRA charity filings indicates over the five years of CRA records they have reported receiving over $27 million tax dollars, mainly as grants. IISD is one example with grants committed of almost $40 million.  Equiterre is another example reporting having received almost $7.7 million in grants/donations in their CRA filings over the past five years from Federal and Provincial governments.  Equiterre was reputedly co-founded by Steven Guilbeault, current Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Additionally two of them (Environmental Defence, IISD) have been contracted by government Ministries or subsets. It is also worth noting IISD also gets millions of dollars from UN Agencies, International Governments and their agencies as well as Foundations as noted in their Consolidated Financial Statement of March 31, 2022.

Now, let’s take a look at BLUEGREEN a not-for-profit whose membership consists of four charities (Pembina Institute, Environmental Defence, Columbia Institute and Clean Energy Canada), one not-for-profit (Broadbent Institute) and two unions (United Steelworkers and Unifor)!

BLUEGREEN

BLUEGREEN”s homepage states: “We can create good jobs across the country by making renewable energy, using energy more efficiently, decarbonizing manufacturing, and building more public transit.“

The above statement seems incongruous with what most would imagine, the two biggest private sector unions in Canada, would buy into, should their leaders reflect on how accomplishing the foregoing would impact their members. Interestingly no one from either of the unions were cited as “Contributors” to the “proclamation” paper but two of them from Unifor were named as “reviewers”!

If one looks at their respective websites for their views on “climate change” they appear somewhat less committed, then the proclamation in the “Proposal”. One senior individual within the United Steelworkers Union (USU) at an event last year stated:  “In the past, we knew that investments in our plants would provide long-term benefits. Today, the same logic must apply to the environmental question.“ Identifying those investments is not an easy task as a major ingredient attracting investments is cheap energy but that is what the “Transition” will affect the most so, “long-term benefits” appear elusive.  That should send a not-so-subtle message to PM Trudeau and his Ministers! 

USU sent two observers to COP 27 in Egypt and one of the issues they noted was the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and their synopsis stated: “This measure involves the introduction of a price (tax) on high-carbon products entering Canada. Other countries are preparing for the implementation of such a measure.“ Obviously this has implications for Canada’s trade relationship with other countries, but it appears the USU recognizes the impact it may have on their members unless we implement it too!

In respect to Unifor an article on their website emphasized: “Revenue from carbon pricing be invested in ensuring that transitions for workers and communities are appropriately managed through training and matching displaced workers with new opportunities.“ That statement suggests the Federal Government abandon the current carbon tax rebate program and instead “invest” it to create those “transitions” the Proposal recommends.

The Broadbent Institute is of course named after Ed Broadbent the former leader of the Federal NDP and as one would expect they are gung ho on the Just Transition and push Canada to spend lots more!  Rick Smith who has become an icon of the “climate change” push wrote an article for the Broadbent Institute saying “we should be spending in the hundreds of billions, not just billions in the single digits.“ 

The four charities include Environmental Defence where Rick Smith was the head honcho for 9 years but now he is the President of CICC, a taxpayer funded ENGO pushing the “net-zero” initiative on behalf of the Trudeau government.  Needless to say ED has received grants and contracts over the years from us taxpayers.

The Columbia Institute in its CRA filings does not claim any contributions from any of the three levels of government seemingly obtaining most of its revenue from other “charities”. 

Clean Energy Canada is a “climate and clean energy program” within the confines of Simon Fraser University so doesn’t report on an individual basis to the CRA charities. As one would suspect SFU on the other hand in it’s March 31, 2022 filing with the CRA reportedly received over $358 million (38.3%) of its gross revenue from the three levels of government. A search of Federal contracts disclosed many to SFU from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change which we should assume went to Clean Energy Canada.

Now examining the Pembina Institute’s CRA filings one sees they claimed to have received $5,576K in grants from three levels of governments.  A search of the Federal Governments “Grants and Contribution” site however indicates they handed out $10,450K to Pembina! That is almost double the information filed with the CRA but with the CRA Union suggesting they will go on strike in early April they are unlikely to investigate.  The Pembina Institute also were handed $963K in contracts by the Federal Government over the same five years.

Conclusion 

The objective of ENGO employees, numbering in the tens of thousands, receiving huge support from taxpayers both via donations they receive (providing tax benefits to contributors) and via the various handouts from Federal, Provincial and Municipal Governments is self evident!

Those ENGO employees are concerned events happening around the developed world countries with costs of energy rising to historical levels are creating pushbacks on their views the “net-zero” target may be abandoned. The result is their jobs are in jeopardy so for that reason they continue to push the narrative about climate change and the “Just Transition” objectives. The bulk of those employed by ENGO fail to do proper research but have been hugely successful at manipulating elected politicians in Canada and those appointed to organizations, such as the United Nations, convincing them mankind are in full control of the weather. 

We, here in Canada and elsewhere around the world need to continue the pushback or we and our children and grandchildren will suffer the consequences!  Spending “the hundreds of billions“ proposed by Rick Smith in the Broadbent Institute article is beyond belief with energy poverty spiralling around the world.

The time has come to put an end to the Just Transition!

*ENGO are Environmental Non-Government Organizations

Climate Change, the Road to Net-Zero and some Recent Eye-Catchers

Over the past week or so those with an interest in what has been going on in Davos, Switzerland, at the WEF conflab may have missed a few interesting happenings.  Here is a brief review of a few of them.

New York state to forgive $672 million of overdue gas, electric bills

A January 19, 2023 article in Reuters carried the news, New York Governor Kathy Hochul was going to forgive $672 million of unpaid electricity and gas bills for almost 500,000 customers. She said it was “the largest utility customer financial assistance program in state history.” The forgiveness will provide “one-time credits to all residential non-low-income customers and small-commercial customers for any utility arrears through May 1, 2022.“ Governor Hochul went further and “launched a pilot program that guarantees its low-income participants will not pay over 6% of their incomes on electricity, and set aside an additional $200 million in discounts on electric bills for over 800,000 New York state residents who make less than $75,000 who are ineligible under the current discount.“  As a matter of interest New York state has the 9^th highest residential electricity rates of all US states and the $672 million is only about 10% (without currency conversion) of the $6.5 billion Ontario taxpayers absorb annually to keep our electricity rates at current levels. Ontario’s huge cost increases were caused by the McGuinty/Wynne led governments and their renewable energy push with high contract prices driving rates up by over 100%. It is worth noting wind and solar contributed only 6% of NY’s total generation in 2021 and Governor Hochul has set 2030 as their carbon free targets at 70% and 100% by 2040. We should have serious doubts those targets are attainable without more financial pain to New Yorkers!

For all their ferocity, California storms were not likely caused by global warming, experts say                                        

The foregoing headline was from the LA Times January 19, 2023 edition, and as one should suspect the Times is considered a MSM news outlet.  The article was related to the outcry from ENGO blaming the recent “drought-to-deluge” cycle that impacted California causing floods, property damage and 19 deaths on (as one would expect) “climate change”! It is so refreshing to see the reporter actually did research and this particular paragraph stands out in the article: “Although the media and some officials were quick to link a series of powerful storms to climate change, researchers interviewed by The Times said they had yet to see evidence of that connection. Instead, the unexpected onslaught of rain and snow after three years of punishing drought appears akin to other major storms that have struck California every decade or more since experts began keeping records in the 1800s.“

It’s so nice to see a few MSM journalists actually consult with real weather “experts” not just those like Al Gore or Greta who push for mankind to stop using fossil fuels to save the planet!

It’s Armageddon: Media Silent on Biden Admin Plan to Snatch Public Land For Solar Farms

The captioned headline was from the Washington Free Beacon a few days ago and noted:  “In December 2022, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced that her department would expedite plans to build solar energy farms across tens of thousands of untouched public land in 11 Western states. The announcement has garnered little to no national attention, save for the occasional report that the Biden administration is expanding renewable energy production.“ The article, linked to a presentation by the US Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management (BLM), referenced those 11 Western States and specifically provided details on six of them.  The public land identified in those six states totalled 440,200,000 acres of which 97,921,069 acres (22.2%) were designated as “Available for Development by BLM! One acre could potential hold up to 2,000 panels so at that level for just those 6 states there could be as many as 19 billion solar panels installed. We should all wonder after their “end of life” where would those solar panels wind up. A Harvard Business Review article about solar panels suggested: “In an industry where circularity solutions such as recycling remain woefully inadequate, the sheer volume of discarded panels will soon pose a risk of existentially damaging proportions.“ The article went on to note;  “The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)’s official projections assert that “large amounts of annual waste are anticipated by the early 2030s” and could total 78 million tonnes by the year 2050.“  The Harvard article goes on to say: “With the current capacity, it costs an estimated $20–$30 to recycle one panel. Sending that same panel to a landfill would cost a mere $1–$2.“ Perhaps solar panels are not the nirvana pushed by those eco-warriors who want us to completely abandon fossil fuels including US President Biden! 

It’s hard to spot any solar panels on the roof of President Biden’s beachfront home pictured below.

The Biden Administration Finally Admits Its Mistake in Canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline

Last but not least was a great article disclosing how the US Department of Energy quietly released a report about the effects of President Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline right after his inauguration. As the article discloses; the cancellation; “has already cost the United States thousands of jobs and billions in economic growth while families suffer under the weight of record high energy prices.“ The article was written by Tom Harris and posted in Real Clear Energy just a few days ago. The article included specific details from the report noting: “the pipeline would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had an economic benefit of between $3.4 and 9.6 billion.“ What the foregoing also suggests is there was an effect on Canada as the crude oil that would have been carried in that pipeline would have been from Canada and have generated both royalties and taxes to government coffers. The sale of that crude would have benefited the economy and increased the value of the Canadian dollar giving it more buying power and have helped to reduce our inflation rate.

The article goes on to state:  “Two years into sowing its Green New Deal policies, the administration is reaping a bitter harvest. Due to Biden’s folly, oil, natural gas and electricity prices have more than doubled in just a single year. Meanwhile, more than 28 percent of Americans abstained from purchasing food or medicine to pay an energy bill in 2021.“ Additional points in the article clearly outline the cascade caused by the cancellation and its effect on global energy prices that hit the European community even harder then North America.

The follies of the Biden Administration’s mistakes will undoubtedly go down in history in a negative way as will our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who didn’t fight back on behalf of Canadians after Biden’s decree.

We should all recognize and note the damage being done on a collective basis by the WEF, the UNIPCC, etc. but we mustn’t forgive or ignore the damage being caused by our local politicians be they municipal, provincial or federal!

As has been highlighted in the foregoing four above brief synopsis the road to “Net-Zero” is paved with bad intentions and bad outcomes.  

Steven Guilbeault, “Green Jesus” or the “Grinch out to Destroy Canada’s Prosperity”

On May 12, 2022, CTV News issued a report with a video about a second minke whale being observed in the St. Lawrence River in Montreal with the first one observed on May 9^th!  The article noted this was the first time in over a century two whales had been spotted in the waters off Montreal.

Now, fast forward a few months to October 21, 2022, and an article in the Antarctica Journal stated Montreal would dump 2 billion gallons (about 7.6 billion litres) of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River and they apparently received the blessing of the Environment Ministry.  This wasn’t the first time they had dumped sewage as a CTV article from November 15, 2018, reported: “A suburb of Montreal has begun the process of dumping an estimated 162 million litres (35.6 million gallons) of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River“. They also dumped 8 billion litres back in 2015 and Catherine McKenna, then Federal Minister of the Environment gave her blessings to the dump.

Steven Guilbeault, current Minister of the Environment and Climate Change represents the Montreal riding of Laurier–Sainte-Marie and presumably gave his blessing to the latest raw sewage dump.  We should assume he wouldn’t want that fact to be known and tarnish the “Green Jesus” nickname he was reputedly given by La Presse many years ago.

Two weeks ago Guilbeault was interviewed by the NY Times and during the half-hour interview was quired as follows:

“I’m curious about the sort of broader idea of being in opposition to the Harper government. I mean, it’s clear you had something to fight against, which seems like a natural extension of your previous activism. Did it feel like a familiar position?“

He vaguely answered: “It’s a fascinating question, Lulu, because when you look at the history of the environmental movement, it was really created around being an opposition to something, to companies dumping toxic waters in our rivers and streams and lakes“. Interestingly he made no mention of his Municipality of Montreal’s habit of dumping raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River and the potential damage to the aquatic eco-system in his response but that is what we have come to expect from those eco-warriors.  He turned a blind eye to what is happening in his backyard!  How selective! 

Interestingly enough an article in the National Post October 30, 2021, shortly after his appointment as Minister of the Environment and Climate Change said:  “He told Radio-Canada he had wanted to work on something more local and more solution-oriented. That also meant working with governments on environmental issues, work that wasn’t a natural fit for the activism-oriented Greenpeace.”

The foregoing seems like a rather empty work plan as he has done nothing about his “local” community’s habit of dumping sewage into the St. Lawrence.  The CBC comment though does highlight his involvement with Greenpeace and activism while employed by them from 1997 until 2007.  Shortly after he left Greenpeace, he co-founded Equiterre.

Amazingly from 2010 to 2018 he was a registered lobbyist for Equiterre and after he was elected to Parliament on October 21, 2019 Federal grants to Equiterre took off and we generous taxpayers (surely coincidental) have provided them with almost $2.8 million so far.

His NY Times interview also touched on his arrests for activism while with Greenpeace and he went on and on about his climbing the CN Tower and his very first arrest at a OPG (Ontario Power Generation) coal generation plant in an attempt to prevent delivery by ship of coal to power the unit.

His two other arrests were not discussed but surely one of them should have been in respect to his stunt on Ralph Klein’s roof when Klein was Premier of Alberta.  That climb was to install a solar panel on the Klein’s roof carried out by activists including Guilbeault as an article in the National Post noted just after his appointment as the Minister for the Environment. As the article notes, “On April 11, 2002, Greenpeace pranksters climbed onto the roof of then-premier Ralph Klein’s bungalow in Lakeview. From inside, Klein’s wife, Colleen, saw vans arrive and people in orange uniforms take a ladder to the house. Mrs. Klein later said, “I was terrified,” she told an interviewer years later. She thought it was some kind of home invasion.“

Trying to determine if Guilbeault was jailed or fined as a result of any of the four arrests for his activism and the penalties he may have incurred is difficult. The only one with any detail on what the court decided was for climbing the CN Tower and for that he was fined $1,000 and ordered to perform 100 hours of community work.  We should all surmise the “community work” simply entailed him preaching about “global warming”!

To demonstrate the hypocrisy of Guilbeault, the Toronto Sun back in November 2020 called him out for the car mileage he was racking up during the Covid lockdowns at the rate of well over 3,000 km per month or three times what the average driver does. A year earlier during a radio interview he stated he would try to do without a car. His excuse, in respect to the Sun article was provided by his press secretary who stated, “he had to attend meetings in Ottawa”.  We should wonder why he didn’t simply take the Via train back and forth between Montreal and Ottawa! 

During his NY Times interview when asked if the environmental movement created in opposition could evolve beyond that, his partial answer was, “Everyone talks about electrification of transportation. OK, I’m all for it. I don’t own a vehicle. I’ve never owned a vehicle. I’ll never own a vehicle. But my ministerial vehicle is an electric vehicle.“  His strange response to the question suggests he may have been concerned the interviewee may have done some research that he needed to dispel in case he was asked about the Toronto Sun article! Oh, he probably rode his bike to Toronto to climb the CN Tower and all the way to Calgary to climb on the Klein’s roof (sarcasm fully intended)!

It is also interesting to look back at the two institutions (Greenpeace and Equiterre) Guilbeault spent his time with as both were members of the Strathmere Group; an army of 12 eco-warrior charities/not-for-profit creations that spent time organizing activities/media attention, etc. etc. in a push to scare everyone. Their initial “global warming” scare eventually evolved into “climate change” and their screams grew louder as the UN under the UNIPCC joined in!  Yours truly wrote about the activities of the Strathmere Group in several articles and Part 3 lists the 12 Canadian members.

The Strathmere Group and their affiliates have exerted tremendous influence on municipal, provincial and federal politicians. Those politicians seem to no longer possess either common sense or financial acumen. As a result, today, we find ourselves concerned about what Europe may or will experience this winter being, either a lack of energy or unaffordable costs. Media attention in Europe anticipate there will be a substantial increase in “deaths from the cold” and perhaps as many as 147,000. Many parents in Europe, here in Canada and elsewhere are also concerned how our children and grandchildren will survive in the future without fossil fuels.

As Christmas approaches, my belief is we should regard the “Green Jesus”, Steven Guilbeault and his Liberal and NDP cohorts as the Grinches out to destroy Canada’s prosperity!

Investigative Reporting by a Toronto Star Journalist is Disinformation

Recently invited to be a guest on Zoomer Radio, I agreed, and was informed I would be joined by Bryan Purcell, VP of Policy and Programs at The Atmospheric Fund. TAF is a “not-for-profit” company with almost $100 million of “restricted funds” that have been provided by the City of Toronto, the Province of Ontario and the Government of Canada and appears to have 30 employees.  They use the revenue generated from the funds ($7.1 million in their 2020 and $1.2 million in 2021 financial reports) and other revenue (minimal) to provide grants described as: “has the potential to generate large-scale carbon reduction in the GTHA“ (Greater Toronto Hamilton Area).

The planned discussion/debate was to be in respect to a Toronto Star article posted November 30, 2022 titled “Ontario’s new gas plants will cause your hydro rates to rise, report says” and presumably for Zoomer’s audience to hear competing views on the content in the article from yours truly.

Shortly before the program was to start the Auditor General of Ontario released her annual report so I, and presumably Bryan Purcell, were informed the discussion was cancelled as the host wanted to cover the AG report due to it’s significance in detailing how the AG viewed Premier Ford’s led financial management over the prior year.

The TorStar article was written by Marco Chown Oved* who identified himself as a “Climate Change Reporter” in the article heading! On his LinkedIn profile, he identifies himself as an “Investigative Reporter at Toronto Star”! The TAF representative, Bryan Purcell, also scheduled to be on the radio program, is quoted in the article and on his LinkedIn profile states he is a: “Environmental Professional focused on Climate Change mitigation“ but his qualifications suggest he is stretching the truth.

Below we will examine some of the claims made in the article based on the report prepared by Power Advisory, which we assume TAF paid for with our tax dollars!  The report’s author from Power Advisory was Travis Lusney, whose LinkedIn profile discloses he was the Senior Business Analyst at the OPA (Ontario Power Authority). In that former position he states he; “Managed analysis and implementation of procurement policy. Focused on the Feed-In Tariff Program with emphasis on pricing, connections and stakeholder engagement.“  Hmm, one should wonder if Mr. Lusney, was at least partially responsible for the cost of electricity in Ontario jumping by over 100% due to the FIT contracts to wind and solar proponents which paid them as much as 82 cents/kWh for rooftop solar. Perhaps we should take his recent report to TAF with the proverbial “grain of salt”, or should we simply shrug it off based on the “investigative journalism” claims of Marco Chown Oved, the Toronto Star reporter?

Claims from the article:

“Rather than relying on natural-gas-fired generation to meet growing electricity demand, Ontario’s cheapest and most reliable options require new wind and solar,”

It is unbelievable the “investigative journalist” didn’t bother to do a little research work on the foregoing claim as he would quickly discover wind and solar are not the “cheapest and most reliable”. Had the author simply bothered to look at the February 2022 report of the FAO (Finance Accountability Office of Ontario) he would have discovered they have driven up the cost of electricity to the point where taxpayers are forced to absorb a cost of “$38.6 billion (32.7 per cent) to move most of the cost of 33,000 renewable energy contracts with wind, solar and bioenergy generators from all electricity ratepayers to the Province.“  Had he also bothered to just examine a few days of IESO data he may also have discerned wind and solar’s bad habits of generating power when it’s unneeded and failing to deliver power during “peak hours” on cold winter days and hot summer ones. Recent examples of unneeded power generation occurred December 2^nd and 3^rd when IWT (industrial wind turbines) operated at 76% of their rated capacity whereas on December 7^th and 8^th they operated at a miserly 8.5% of their rated capacity. In the first instance the IESO were forced to sell off that power for pennies of it’s cost and in the latter case natural gas and hydro ramped up to prevent blackouts such as those that occur in California and elsewhere around the world where wind and solar are a large part of electricity grids.

People, governments and businesses are switching en masse to electricity as a power source for cars, heating and heavy industry in an effort to lower carbon emissions and avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Once again, the Toronto Star’s “investigative reporter” obviously did not do any research, or he would have discovered the “en masse” switch is not happening to any great extent without government grants, and they obviously must be higher or people won’t switch.  In the case of EV penetration a very recent article from mid November pointed out EV sales in Canada were low during the first 6 months of 2022 stating:  “Based on average new vehicle registrations, the EV total would have to grow from 55,600 to about 480,000 over six months to hit that 60 per cent target.” The 60 per cent target is for 2030 and the 2035 target is 100 per cent. The Federal government also hand out grants for heat pump conversions as well as interest-free loans of $40K but once again reviewing government statistics the conversion rate is not happening. A StatCan report notes heat pumps as a primary heat source have only grown from 3% in 2013 to 5% in 2019 and forced air furnaces have only declined by 1% from 53% in 2013 to 52% in 2019. Funnily enough, electric baseboard heaters over the same time frame fell from 28% to 26%. The actual data easily demonstrates the “en masse” switch the author suggests is a fallacy!

“The report says Ontario needs to start making significant investments in its grid, especially considering the lengthy timelines required to build the transmission, generation and storage required to simultaneously meet demand and reduce emissions.”

Hydro One just received approval from the OEB (Ontario Energy Board) for a rate increase for planned capital spending on their transmission system.  The spending appears to represent about $7.5 billion over the next five years.  Spending of that amounts suggests the investment is “significant” and a little research by the article’s author would have disclosed that!  No investigative integrity is apparent!  

“It’s very clear that if we’re going to go to net-zero, renewables are going to be part of the mix,” said Travis Lusney, the report’s author and director of power systems at Power Advisory. “How far you go is dependent on a lot of factors, even outside of the electricity sector.”

Well, it is apparent Lusney has a love affair with renewables as his prior role at the OPA (Ontario Power Authority), created by the McGuinty Government handed him the power to construct the mess of the electricity sector in Ontario that (as noted above) the FAO stated in his February 2022 report will cost taxpayers $38.6 billion.

“The report finds that a 97 per cent non-emitting grid can be achieved by building new transmission lines, solar and wind generation as well as energy storage facilities. This would allow the grid to reduce its dependence on natural gas to a few peak demand days in mid summer.”

It is worth noting the report fails to mention Ontario’s electricity grid is already over 92% “non-emitting” and fails to include a cost/benefit analysis to achieve the additional 5% emissions reduction it seeks. The report in the three scenario’s recommends adding as much as 12,700 MW of wind capacity, 5,500 MW of solar capacity and 3,900 MW of storage capacity. The report goes on to suggest those wind turbines, solar panels and the storage capacity be spread throughout the province. The report then forecasts due to the spreading it would require as much as an $8.4 billion spend on the transmission system in order to get the power to where its needed. In summary the Power Advisory report recommends  spending billions of dollars to achieve a 5% reduction in emissions in Ontario’s electricity system.  As outlined above it is very unlikely those new facilities coupled with the additional wind, solar and storage capacity and their associated costs would reduce electricity prices! Instead those costs would drive up prices much as they did in the past with a much smaller capacity addition of renewables. Nevertheless, we should be pretty sure Power Advisory would love the foregoing to happen and Travis Lusney would surely rise in the ranks of his employer, Boston Advisory, who would stand to benefit from the money stream generated by assisting applicants seeking contracts from IESO. 

“In each scenario, hydro prices will be lower than they would be if the province goes through with its plan to build new gas plants, the report concludes, mostly because gas is expected to get more expensive, a rise that will be exacerbated by the increase in carbon tax. Meanwhile, prices for wind and solar, which are already cheaper than natural gas, are expected to fall.”

First off, one should wonder how each scenario will cause “hydro prices” to be lower but perhaps they were actually suggesting “electricity prices” will be lower? Past and current experience in Ontario due to wind and solar generation have actually caused “hydro spills” meaning OPG are paid to simply spill water over dams without running them through the turbines. Ratepayers, however pick up the costs of those spills and for the past several years their costs have been substantial. The spills by OPG are almost always caused by unneeded wind generation as their contracts give them “first-to-the-grid” rights . On the statement, “prices for wind and solar” are expected to fall” is also far from the truth.  As one example an article last month about Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, stated: “Vestas has raised prices more than 30% in the past year to help stem losses.“  It should also be recognized gas prices would fall if our abundant supplies in Saskatchewan and Alberta had more pipelines available but the Federal government has done everything in its power to prevent that from happening.

As the foregoing once again suggests; the Toronto Star, their reporters, and other MSM companies simply accept what they are told or read and fail to do any research to determine if they are providing facts or fiction. In this case it seems obvious it is the latter and reporter Marco Chown Oved should immediately rewrite his LinkedIn memes as it doesn’t suggest he is a “investigative reporter”!

* Marco Chown Oved’s LinkedIn biography brags about how the CAJ (Canadian Association of Journalists) were so enthralled with an article he wrote about “climate change” they blessed him for writing it. Perhaps they will do so again for this diatribe of BS as the MSM seems to have abandoned publishing the truth and the CAJ has endorsed their abandonment!  This is what Marco Chown Oved has on his LinkedIn site: ”Awarded the inaugural Environmental and Climate Change Award from the CAJ for my feature on heat waves in Montreal, a part of the Toronto Star’s Undeniable series on climate change.”

Is Hydrogen the Answer to Reaching Net-zero—Apparently, it’s not!

The following was sent to me by a contact with the “knowledge, skills sets and experience to highlight the fallacies of pushing the green hydrogen agenda” and it’s related to the concepts of my prior articles about “energy storage”. NB: the knowledge he displays in the following are beyond the scope of yours truly!

Text from the contact!

“Hi Parker

Converting “excess” electrical generation by electrolysers (e.g. as built by Hydrogen Optimized in Owen Sound), will permit wind generators (like Enbridge, K2 Wind, etc.) to operate at maximum possible output even when the electrical demand is low (like at night), so that the proponents (like Enbridge at their “Power to Gas” pilot plant in Markham, or Calsun at their proposed plant at the former Bluewater Youth Detention Centre) can make BIG money producing “green” hydrogen, thereby ensuring lots of Government (i.e taxpayer) support.  

The wind generators (like Enbridge) will be able to be paid full price for their power, approximately $135 a MWh or so, instead of the somewhat reduced rate paid for curtailed power. However, they will be able to buy the surplus at about $0 to $10 a MWh, to produce hydrogen, to add to their distribution system, so when electrical demand is high, they can sell it to natural gas generators to produce power to sell at maybe $200 a MWh.  Yes, they certainly win.  

The consumer, well, let’s see. We’ll pay $135 for the bought wind power, sell it for $10, and then buy it again at $200, so the consumer cost is maybe $125 + $ 200 = $325 a MWh.  (About 4 x the price paid for nuclear generated power in Ontario).  The more surplus we create, the more we’ll be able to sell at low price, and buy back at high price, so the cost for us will go up even more.

Winners = Enbridge, Hydrogen Optimized, Carlsun, and the Government policy hacks who want a hydrogen economy.  

Losers = those who live near wind farms (present and future, as there will be more justified), the electrical consumers, and taxpayers.

You can do a google search for Forbes March, 29, 2022 for their article, “Gas Utilities are Promoting Hydrogen, but it could be a dead end for consumers and the climate.”  Admittedly it is a biased article (every writer has their agenda) and in this case the writer’s agenda is that full electrification of the economy is better for the environment than burning natural gas.

Some highlights from the article, and the logical extension from them:

• 26 projects to add hydrogen to natural gas lines have been proposed across 12 states since 2020  (so, nearly everybody is doing it!).
• BUT, the blend can only be from 5% to 20% hydrogen in the natural gas lines  (elsewhere I read 7% max) as consumer appliances can only safely burn a blend up to that concentration.
• It’s not clear what adding hydrogen to the natural gas lines at the Bluewater Detention Centre will mean to % hydrogen in the lines locally, but the amount added will probably not be huge.
• Burning hydrogen (H2) produces less energy than natural gas (methane, or CH4) so a 20% blend would reduce greenhouse gas emissions only 6% to 7% as you lose energy in electrolysis.
• price of green hydrogen will raise price of the blended fuel 2 to 4X above standard natural gas (good for Enbridge, bad for the consumer).
• burning hydrogen produces water vapour (H2O), a more potent green house gas than CO2, but its residency in the atmosphere is less than CO2, so it is considered to have less impact.  Burning methane (CH4) produces CO2, H2O, and nitrous oxide NOX.  The results are complicated by the fact that methane (natural gas) leaks have an effect some 80X higher than CO2, but it has a less residency time in the atmosphere, so the overall result is considered to be only 25X as much.  NOX has a higher impact yet.  Let’s just say the overall impact of burning H2 is not zero, but it’s probably slightly better than burning CH4.

So is it realistic to consider we’ll have much impact on the environment by producing “green hydrogen”?

in 2020 Ontario’s energy usage was: (figures from Canada Energy Regulator – Provincial Energy Profile), converting all data to Peta Joules for equivalency comparison).

• 1435 Peta Joules from refined petroleum (gasoline and diesel mostly)
• 935 Peta Joules from natural gas
• 514 Peta Joules from electricity (58% nuclear, 24% hydro, 9% gas, 8% wind, <1% solar, < 1% biofuel)
• 37 Peta Joules from biofuels (wood mostly)
• 127 Peta Joules from other fuels (like coal & coke)

From the above, we see that in 2020, less than 1.5% of Ontario’s total energy consumption came from wind and solar.  It gives a rough idea of the feasibility of moving all of Ontario “off oil and gas” to all “renewable sourced electricity” by 2050.

So, if we could convert 5% of the natural gas in the distribution system to hydrogen, that would be about 47 Peta Joules, or if we assume 15% loss in the conversion, needing 54 Peta Joules of electricity (more than 1/3 of the total electricity produced).  Let’s just say that’s unlikely.

In passing, let’s just say the probability of converting all new vehicles bought in Canada by 2035 to electrical vehicles, or vehicles powered by hydrogen, to convert that 1435 Peta Joules that come from petrochemicals of gas and oil as called for by federal law is … well remote.  Does anyone ever consider these things before passing laws?  Does not appear so!

The Globe and Mail published an interesting article (attached below) Nov. 25, 2022, noting,“that while 72% of all new cars in Norway are electric vehicles, oil consumption in the country hasn’t changed.”

That should be enough numbers to set your heads spinning.  Apologies, but every now and then a dose of reality is needed.

Let’s conclude that the governments are all “hell bent” on producing hydrogen and keep telling us it will make a BIG difference in climate change.  Unh- unh,  T’ain’t; gonna happen, but what WILL happen is that costs for consumers will go up drastically, the results will be minimal, and certain investors will become VERY rich.”

Electric Vehicles Demonstrate Inept Governments via Grants, Mandates and New Taxes

Developed countries around the world are literally throwing money at trying to electrify the transportation sector (passenger cars and light trucks). Canada is no exception as at both the Federal and Provincial levels many announcements and articles have displayed how they have handed out grants to manufacturers of the vehicles, batteries to power them as well as charging stations. Depending on where you are around the world EV buyers receive a variety of incentives, including direct grants, tax breaks (no sales or VAT taxes), low-cost charging stations, etc. all  with taxpayer dollars.

Surprisingly despite all the billions of our tax dollars being handed out Canadians are not buying those EV at the same pace as the rest of the world as an article a few days ago noted: “Statistics Canada data show EVs made up one in 14 new vehicles registered in the first half of this year, compared with one in 20 a year earlier.“ The article went on to state China was responsible for 56% of global sales and for Canada to achieve the 60% sales target for 2030 they would have to grow from 55,600 to about 480,000 over six months to hit that target. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact the Canadian Automobile Association lists 80 EV models with an average sales price of $82,000 and, EV lose considerable range in our cold winters?

Two of Canada’s taxpayers smaller handouts

Lion Electric Company: Back onMarch 15, 2021 a joint announcement made by PM Trudeau and Quebec Premier Legault handed Lion Electric $100 million of our tax dollars and labelled it as an “investment”!  The grant they handed out was 54% of the cost ($185 million) of building a “battery assembly plant” in the Laurentians but labelling it as an investment seems a stretch as, if, and when, Lion Electric generate a profit we taxpayers will not be recipients of dividend payments or appreciating shareholdings.  On the latter note it is an interesting exercise to see how the shares have performed since the grant announcement.  Shares in the entity appear to have had an initial value on the NYSE of US$16.31/share on March 1, 2021, and as of November 18,2022 were valued at US$3.01 a drop of 81.54%! Interestingly Lion recently announced their third quarter 2022 results and stated their revenue was up 244% but losses increased by 316%! Quite the investment!

Taiga Motors Corporation: On July 12, 2021, the Mayor of Shawinigan and the Federal and Quebec Governments announced forgivable loans and grants to Taiga which would allow them to manufacture electrically  powered “personal watercraft, snowmobiles, electric motorization systems and battery packs.“ The collective amount was $50 million (40%) towards the $125.17 million cost of the new plant. Car and Driver tested one of the Taiga snowmobile models in March 2022 and while they didn’t disparage it, they suggested you better not stray too far from your base due to their limited miles range (62 miles for the one tested).  The price was also rather startling with the “Nomad” priced at US$19,490 whereas a Ski-Doo or Polaris model would be in the US$10/12,000 range with much higher mileage. Taiga’s initial share price after their launch in April 2021 was $13.25 and it now sits at $4.00 meaning it has dropped 70% and if one looks at their year over year results their losses as of the 9 months ended September 30^th were down from $88.8 million to $35.9 million. Can we really trust politicians to create wealth using our tax dollars to electrify our transportation and other sectors?

As noted, the foregoing handouts were small ones, but we Ontarians have been subjected to handouts by the Ford and Trudeau led governments totalling in the billions aimed at the same goal of electrifying the transportation sector (automobiles and light trucks). They handed out $1 billion to Stellantis, $590 million to Ford $518 million to GM and $260 million to Honda meaning $2.368 billion of our tax dollars were committed to ensure we retain some of the jobs we have had for decades in the auto sector. The province and the feds have also been trying to attract battery manufacturers and will supply LG Energy with $1 billion of our tax dollars as well as an unknown amount to Umicore, a Belgian global metals refiner who will build a battery materials facility.

In addition to the foregoing taxpayer grants, the Federal Government also have the ”Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program aimed at handing out $680 million to entice people and companies to build “charging and refueling stations”. They apparently see this as “one of the key barriers to ZEV adoption“ but we taxpayers should suspect its related to the average sale price of those EV as noted above and our concern about them losing range during our cold winter days.

What’s happening elsewhere? 

Norway: A recent article; “Norway Became an EV Paradise, Now It’s Imposing a Weight Tax and Bringing  Back the VAT“ noted upcoming legislation in Norway will rescind most of the favourable benefits that have made it the country with the highest EV sales per capita. The new legislation will remove the many perks granted to EV buyers displayed in a graft posted in an article a few months ago. The VAT in Norway alone will add 25% to the purchase price of an EV and the weight tax another 2/3%.  As that occurs, we would expect, the 78 % EV sales have so far represented in 2022, will fall, as they will cost considerably more than a new ICE vehicle once those new taxes become legislated.

United Kingdom:  It appears the UK has recently become  concerned  the net zero target may well lead to “five fuel taxes: fuel duty, vehicle excise duty, landfill tax, the carbon price floor and the emission trading scheme” drying up according to an article in the Financial Times!  As a result of that concern a “tax vacuum” will be created during a time when the country is running significant deficits so, as a start, they plan to charge EV owners with the vehicle excise duty.  Grants being handed out are also on a downward trail as purchase grants for new EV have been reduced from £5,000. to £1,500.

Targeted EV sales in Canada

The 2022 Federal budget expanded the push to electrify the transportation sector in Canada requiring 20% of all vehicles sold in Canada to be EV by 2026, 60% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. In addition, the budget extended the $5,000 per vehicle grant to help achieve those targets. Annual new auto sales in Canada vary between 1.5 million to 2 million so by 2035 at the low end $7.5 billion of our tax dollars will possibly wind up supporting those “mandated” sales. The other issue relates to lost sales taxes etc. from ICE vehicles as outlined in a January 17, 2022 article, published by the CPA (Canadian Professional Accountants), noting: “The federal government collects nearly $6 billion per year in gas and diesel excise taxes, not including the GST or HST on those purchases. Add in provincial fuel taxes and over $16 billion in annual government revenue that will disappear once Canadian drivers are weaned off the gas pump. It’s enough to rip a large hole in public finances.“ It is worth pointing out the CPA article was using 2021 data and the price of both diesel and gasoline have climbed considerably since then meaning the revenue lost added to government grants will increase taxpayer costs to over $30 billion annually.

Conclusion:

Looking only at the Trudeau led government’s plan to electrify the transportation sector in Canada demonstrates their inept ability to govern the country responsibly due to their insane belief Canada’s emissions reduction from the transportation sector will impact the climate. Not a chance!

Ontario’s Perfect Demonstration of Wind’s Intermittent and Unreliable Nature

A Short History about wind’s electricity generation arrival

“Scottish engineer and physicist James Blyth (1839-1906) was credited as the first to generate electricity by constructing a windmill attached to a dynamo to light his cottage in his home village of Marykirk, Scotland in 1887.  He offered to allow his current to be used to light the main street of the village, but superstitious residents reportedly considered the mysterious electric light to be “the work of the devil“!

The Ups and Downs of Industrial Wind Generation

 A day in the life of industrial wind turbines in Ontario

On November 11^th Ontarians were treated to the up and down vagaries of IWT (industrial wind turbines) spread throughout the province. They did a great job exhibiting their spasms and inability to generate power when needed but cranked it out when unneeded. A few examples over the day follow!

Hour 1

At Hour 1, IESO forecast IWT would generate 3,936 MW but only accepted 3,253 MWh on the grid so we should assume the difference (683 MW) was curtailed at a cost of $120/MWh allocated to ratepayers.  The market price (HOEP) was 0.00/MWh over the hour as we supplied Michigan, New York, and Quebec with 2,428 MWh. The 2,428 MWh represented 74.6% of the above noted grid accepted IWT generation so clearly wasn’t needed but, we ratepayers picked up their costs of over $327,000.  To drive the point home IWT frequently generate power when its unneeded! Ontario’s peak demand in Hour 1 was only 12,591 MW and could have been easily supplied by nuclear and hydro alone but the “first-to -the-grid rights allotted to IWT companies usurps our other generation sources! Hydro at that hour generated only 3,307 MWh, their lowest hourly generation for the day!

Hour 4

Moving on to Hour 4 (hour ending at 4 AM) IESO reported it as the lowest Ontario peak demand hour (12,095 MW) for the day and those IWT were still humming and forecast to generate 2,938 MW. IESO accepted 2,718 MW (22.5% of demand) and sold off 2,497 MW (91.9% of accepted IWT generation) to the same Hour 1 buyers for the princely sum of $3.49/MWh generating $8,714.53 of revenue but it cost (assuming it was all IWT generation) us Ontarians $337,095.00 without including curtailed costs.

Hours 1 to 7

Hours 1 to 7 saw IESO forecast IWT generation of 19,866 MW (58% of their capacity) and 17,884 MW was accepted while exporting 16,422 MW (91.8% of IWT grid accepted generation). The HOEP average was $8.90/MWh for those 7 hours meaning if those exports were either all IWT generated power (very likely) or caused by them the net cost to Ontario ratepayers was: $1,963,000 (16,422 MW X $135 plus 1,982 MW [curtailed] X $120 minus 16,422 MW X $8.90) for those 7 hours!

Hours 8 to 19

As the day progressed Ontario peak hourly demand increased while generation from IWT fell and at Hour 18 they only supplied 267 MW or 1.5% of Ontario’s daily peak demand of 17,237 MW! IWT failure at that hour to provide generation meant “net imports” were 1,004 MW as we purchased power from Quebec and even some from Michigan.  We paid an average of $46.93/MWh for that imported power greatly exceeding the cost of our sales to them in the middle of the night when those IWT were generating power we didn’t need.  As IWT generation fell the HOEP market price climbed and from hours 8 to 19 averaged $50.12/MWh a vast improvement from the early morning prices.

Hour 17 and hours 20 to 24

IWT generation at Hour 17 was at its lowest for the day generating only 240 MW but it started to ramp up slowly and by hour 20 was generating five times what it generated at hour 17.  For hours 20 to 24 IESO accepted 10,357 MW as peak demand fell and exports climbed.  Needless to say, as demand fell over the final five hours IWT generation increased while the HOEP fell from $34.40/MWh during Hour 20 to $2.11/MWh in Hour 24 as our unneeded generation from those IWT climbed!

The “first-to-the-grid” rights granted to the IWT owners by the Ontario McGuinty/Wynne led government(s) continue to burden us ratepayers with costs as the foregoing clearly demonstrates! As it turned out November 11^th, 2022, captured the intermittency and unreliable nature of IWT over a 24 hour period clearly demonstrating how they operate not just daily but, weekly, monthly and annually! 

Based on what Ontarians and many others around the world are currently experiencing, due to the unreliable and intermittent nature of those “windmills”, we should, perhaps reconsider the events from 135 years ago! Eco-warriors around the world have pushed to have IWT replace reliable electricity generation from fossil fuels in their push for “net-zero” so perhaps the label by the residents of Marykirk, Scotland in 1887 should be resurrected and applied to IWT but not the electric light.

Perhaps it really is the “work of the devil” posing as an eco-warrior out to save the world from “climate change” that brought on the push for those intermittent and unreliable IWT! 

High Carbon Prices sure Appear to Create Energy Poverty

A recent chart was posted by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) whose membership consists of 38 “high income” democratic countries. The chart lists countries around the world with a “carbon pricing instrument” for the year 2021 with the lowest (Brazil) at the top and the highest (United Kingdom) at the bottom.  Canada was ranked as the sixth (6^th) highest and four of the top six were European countries (Germany, France, Italy, and the UK) and the only other one in the top six slightly outranking Canada was South Korea!

The chart coincidently popped up when doing research on how countries were reporting on “energy poverty” amongst their households/populations.  All energy costs have risen considerably higher than they were even a year ago as we; in the Northern Hemisphere, face the upcoming winter so we should be concerned about how those higher energy costs will affect the general population.  Viewing the chart suggested a look at the six (6) countries, who have imposed the highest “carbon price”, to see what their “energy poverty” data disclosed. Data was not readily available in all cases but what was available told the story that “energy poverty” certainly affects a large percentage of the population in all six of those countries except for South Korea where no specific “energy poverty“ data could be found!

 Energy poverty country by country NB:

Korea:  A search demonstrated no articles or studies defining the percentage of households suffering from “energy poverty” but it is worth noting South Korea imports 95% of its energy needs so we should suspect “energy poverty” is high.  Korea’s overall poverty rate is estimated to be 15.3% by Statista as of the end of 2021 so we would expect a similar percentage of their population would be at or close to that level in respect to “energy poverty”!  

United Kingdom: There are many articles and research papers related to “energy poverty” in the UK and a recent report from the University of York states: “More than three-quarters of households in the UK, or 53 million people, will have been pushed into fuel poverty by January 2023, according to a new report authored by York academics.“ The article about the report goes on to note: “On 26 August Ofgem (Ofgem is the energy regulator for Great Britain) announced the energy price cap will increase to £3,549 per year from 1 October 2022. The electricity and gas price cap will rise again in January 2023. The size of the January increase has not yet been announced, but it is expected to take bills to £4,200 per year, with some sources predicting even larger increases.“  It’s worth pointing out the OECD chart claims the UK has the highest “carbon pricing instrument” which currently is 136% higher than Canada’s. With our rates scheduled to rise by $15/tonne annually it won’t be long before our rates surpass those of the UK. 

Italy: The above chart indicates Italy has the second highest carbon price in the world but there seems to be relatively scarce recent information reported about “energy poverty”.  One article from September 3, 2022 did disclose “One in six Italians, or up to nine million people, could sink into energy poverty due to soaring bills across the EU, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported on Saturday, citing the Italian General Confederation of Crafts.“ The foregoing suggests 15.3% of Italy’s current population will be or are now suffering from energy poverty. The article also notes: “Italy’s Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani planned to ask the entire population to turn the heating down, starting from October. Italy has already introduced some limits on the use of central heating in public buildings and apartment blocks, and these are expected to be tightened under the new measures.“  The article goes on to say: “Italy’s Serie A football league announced plans to put a four-hour limit on the use of floodlights in stadiums on match days, as part of energy-saving measures“. Does that suggest future games will be played partially in the dark or only during daylight hours?

France: France shows up on the chart as the country with the third highest carbon price and there is a fair amount of data about “energy” and “fuel poverty”!  One study titled “Energy Poverty in the EU” notes “the inclusion of transportation increases the energy poverty rate in France from 18% to 21^%. This is particularly relevant as CO2 prices and thus fuel prices are expected to further increase to protect the environment and combat climate change.“  The foregoing indicates as many as 14.3 million people in France are experiencing “fuel poverty” whereas another article suggests in 2019 there were 3.5 million households facing “energy poverty”. Residents per household in France is lower than most countries with only about 2.4 residents per household suggesting, at that time, about 8.4 million were experiencing “energy poverty”!

Germany: A very recent article about “energy poverty” in Germany contained the following rather disturbing statement: “One in four Germans (approximately 21 million) are currently energy impoverished, up from one in six in 2018. The poor and disenfranchised are far more likely than others to slip into energy poverty. A member of Germany’s lower-middle class is now twice as likely to fall under the “energy poor” category compared to only one year ago. The German government is scrambling to ease the pressure of increasing prices for suppliers and consumers. “  The article says Germany is doing the “scrambling” by various means such as: “One of Germany’s efforts to curb energy poverty is through reducing the use of natural gas, through both energy-saving measures and switching to different fuels. Most public buildings are lowering their thermostats, and monuments will no longer be lit at night. Heated swimming pools are banned. Germans are being encouraged to take cold showers. The government is also reducing taxes on other forms of fuel, giving discounts to people who switch to public transportation, and reopening old coal power plants.“

Canada: Once again it is difficult to locate recent reports or articles related to how many households or individuals in Canada are experiencing “energy poverty” though yours truly has tried on numerous occasions over the past many years.  Natural Resources Canada published a 145 page “2021-2022 Energy Fact Book” which has one page (#37) providing a chart for 2019 suggesting “energy poverty” affected just 6% of Canadian households.  The foregoing would mean 1,060,000 households and with 2.9 people per household would be, 3.1 million Canadians (8.5% of our population) who experienced “energy poverty” in 2019!  One should suspect; as the data is from 2019, it came before energy prices from natural gas, electricity, furnace oil, propane, etc. jumped to current levels as pointed out in a very recent article.  Amusingly the NRCan report on page 38 notes “Canada’s energy prices in 2019 are relatively low” with comparisons to [surely coincidental to the OECD chart] France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The only outlier was the USA and the latter beats Canada except for “electricity” costs possibly due to Quebec’s low hydro prices.  

It is interesting to note countries with the highest “carbon pricing instrument” in the G20 are those countries where energy poverty is the highest and Canada seems to be quickly heading in the same direction under the policies of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his minions such as Ministers, Freeland, Guilbeault and Wilkinson.

Surely with our carbon price scheduled to rise to $170/tonne by 2030 and the push to shut down fossil fuel extraction and generation it won’t be long before Canada’s “energy poverty” rates surpass those of the UK, Germany, etc. and Canada will be able to claim the title for both “highest carbon price” and for highest percentage of people living in “energy poverty”. 

Quite the legacy PM Justin Trudeau will leave our children and grandchildren!

NB: The data found in some cases specifically was related to “energy poverty” but in other cases it was referenced as “fuel poverty” which presumably includes fuel travel costs in addition to energy required by households.

The Federal and Provincial Governments Hit Us with Luxury Taxes to Heat Our Homes

As winter approaches one can’t help but notice the increasing number of articles pointing out how energy required to heat our homes has become a significant and concerning news issue. The articles point out the cost of natural gas, furnace oil and propane have increased along with the numerous taxes levied on them by the Federal and provincial governments and is driving up fuel poverty.

Here in North America, we have been observing the panic ensuing the UK, Germany, and other European countries as their move to green their energy supply to meet the elusive “net-zero” target has darkened the future for households and businesses.  They have discovered without fossil fuels to back up intermittent wind and solar many countries will see from 40 to 60% of households experience “energy poverty” and many businesses face closure through bankruptcy or via movement to countries with lower energy prices. Employment will no doubt rise, and inflation will continue it’s upward move!

Fortunately, North America hasn’t been as badly affected as Europe, however, it will not be an easy winter for many Canadian households and particularly those depending on fossil fuels to keep their house warm in our cold winters. While Canada has not experienced the incredible increases Europe has, in the price of those fuels, we nevertheless have been affected negatively by much higher market prices of natural gas, furnace oil and propane despite our abundant supply of those fuels in the form of oil and natural gas. We have also been negatively affected by increasing taxes levied by the Federal government and sales taxes increasing as they are applied to the increased costs of those fuels.

In Canada approximately 50% of all households (6 million) heat with natural gas, 7% with furnace oil (850,000 households) and just over 1% (150,000) with propane. As all of those are fossil fuels or derivatives; the Federal “carbon taxes” apply, as well as provincial and federal sales taxes. We should note the latter (sales taxes) are also applied on the Federal carbon tax, so they become “a tax on a tax”! The carbon tax is currently set at $50/tonne and is scheduled to rise to $65/tonne on April 1, 2023 and will continue to rise annually reaching $170/tonne in 2030.

Having read several articles, the decision was made to determine how households will be affected in the upcoming winter months; by reviewing both the cost of the fuels (natural gas, propane, and furnace oil) and the taxes applied on them at their increased market price.  According to the OEB (Ontario Energy Board) “Historical natural gas rates“ have increased 115% from late October 2021 to late October 2022 whereas NRCAN (Natural Resources Canada), suggests furnace oil has increased by 57.5% and propane by 20% over the same timeframe.

Because our household uses natural gas it is relatively easy to review a monthly bill from the past 2021/2022 winter to determine how much it will increase should we consume the same amount for a 2022/2023 winter bill.  I will leave it to other households heating with furnace oil or propane to review the potential upcoming costs to heat their home this coming winter!

It is worth pointing out; in Ontario* the OEB set price adjustments (natural gas only) on a quarterly basis, so the year-over-year comparison may be modestly affected!  If our household consumes the same amount of natural gas the fuel costs and the associated taxes levied will result in our monthly bill increasing by approximately 74.5%.  Fuel costs will represent 29.6% of the upcoming bill and taxes 30.7% versus 33.2% and 26.7% in the prior year should all the other related costs remain static. 

Please note the foregoing discloses despite those fuel costs climbing considerably; Federal and Provincial taxes will climb faster!

One should take note when Ontario published their March 31, 2022 financial results, sales tax revenue had increased $3.8 billion from 2021 and were $2.8 billion over their forecast and surely played a role in allowing them to claim a budgetary surplus of $2.1 billion. Obviously, a lot of that revenue came from taxes on our energy bills and one should assume the Federal government also benefited greatly via their various tax levies on those fossil fuels we consumed to heat our homes.

It is apparent our two levels of governments seem to believe it is a luxury to heat our homes using fossil fuels based on their continuing levels of increasing taxation.  Time for them to recognize heating our homes during our cold winters in Canada is not a luxury!

*67.2% of Ontario households heat with natural gas.