Event Guide: Lake Ontario wind power community meeting

21 comments

1. I always thought that the Leslie Split could be a good location for windmills, except that the sand that built the split could have helped build up the Toronto Islands.

2. Given that the danger of windmills to birds is one of the most common reasons why people oppose turbines, the Spit would seem a poor choice.

   Another reason people fall back on is that they’re “ugly”. At 2km from land, how large would the turbines appear to an observer?

3. I think they’re beautiful even up close. It’s cool to ride on the bike path directly underneath one out in Pickering.
   I hope to see a whole string of them from the Beaches boardwalk one day.

4. I agree, I think their appearance lends a futuristic look to any landscape, as long as they are kept clean.

   Also they are said to kill as many birds per year as the average housecat.

5. The “kill birds” argument has been proven to be more of a anti-turbine marketing idea than reality. When somebody says lets also take down transmission lines, tall buildings, stop driving cars (ok Hamish I hear you), etc etc then I will take that argument seriously. Turbines are less dangerous to birds than many other things that we build or use every day.

6. Kevin,

   Do you KNOW how many housecats there are in Toronto?

   😛

7. I think there’s a middle ground on this question of the danger windmills pose to birds.

   While they may not pose a risk to birds in general (and I haven’t looked at the evidence for either argument, so who am I to say), it’s reasonable to suggest that putting windmills in the midst of a well-established bird habitat, like the Leslie St. Spit, would quite likely increase the risk of harm to birds.

   I personally fall into the Windmills-are-beautiful-and-inspiring camp, but I guess there’s an eye-of-the-beholder aspect to this.

8. To see how the wind turbines is done in Europe, take at look at the video at http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2008/suzukidiaries/

9. Why do they have to be so ginormous? Why can’t every farm have a smaller one like they used to about eighty years ago and feed power back to the grid?

   Could it have something to do with the financial structure? Maybe power companies don’t want to lose their production monopoly. Like with that Ontario farmer who has sunk tens of thousands of his own cash into generating power from livestock waste (methane) and has been getting the runaround from Hydro for years about selling power back.

   We need to get back to having numerous local suppliers as much as possible. Huge and monolithic isn’t working so great.

10. I have to assume that none of you live within view of the lake, since you seem to have little appreciation for the natural beauty of the lake and the bluffs. When I lived in Califonia, I was awestruck by the fugly off shore oil rigs dotting the beautiful coastline. Is that really what we want the lake to be, a platform for giant wind mills. Certainly, as we have seen in other jurisdictions, this will be a waste our tax and hydro dollars, since it is still not economical to use the wind for electricity in most areas. M’thinks this more of the symbolic politics of the far left.

11. Woody: dpon’t assume anything. I live right down on the lake and can see as far as Hamilton form my place.

    I would love to be able to see turbines in the lake.

    As for turbines besmirching the Bluffs — they wil be 2 km from the shoreline. It will have nothing to do with the Bluffs. In fact looking at the Bluffs means you are either on the lake or on the beach looking IN LAND not at turbines that are waaaaaay offshore.

    I don’t get why people find them ugly when they appear to be the most elegant and beautiful of any peice of infrastructure out there.

    As for the comment that this is just a symbolic act: the Danes have 30% of their energy (or something higher) derived from wind. This is not a political stunt, especially one coming from a utility like Toronto Hydro. It may be the best city-owned agency out there in terms making a smart and successful impact on the local environment.

12. Disturbingly, my comment from about 09:00 this morning is still unpublished here. Can anyone explain why?

    A 100m tower, 2000m away, will subtend an angle of about 3 degrees. This is about six times the size of the full Moon. People can get a better idea by visiting the turbine at the Pickering nuclear generating station. If you stand near where Petticoat Creek drains into the lake, you are about two kilometres from that turbine.

    Let’s just say that it dominates the horizon — the nuke plant is larger, but the turbine is much more obvious. Fifty of them would be quite the visual objection.

    But as I argued this morning, I think the aesthetic argument is a distraction — indeed, intended to be adopted by the local residents, so it is easier to ignore their pleas. Residents are well advised to stick with the plain fact that wind power will not scale to industrial levels as easily as many claim it will be.

    “Follow the money.”

13. Visual obstruction of what?

14. The birds Shawn,

    the birds,

    It’s the visual obstruction of the birds.

    /tongue-in-cheek

15. This is as impractical as the lone one at CNE.

    We DO NOT get enough sustained winds at high enough velocities to justify the investment.

    So this is symbolic… to be seen doing something.

    If they were serious and looking to involve many more sites they should look at
    http://www.avinc.com/ce_product_details.asp?Prodid=52

    and these can be installed on any building and are far more efficient.

16. “We DO NOT get enough sustained winds at high enough velocities to justify the investment.”

    If you have anemometer readings from the middle of Lake Ontario, perhaps you’d be good enough to share them with hydro and save us all some money?

17. “If you have anemometer readings from the middle of Lake Ontario, perhaps you’d be good enough to share them with hydro and save us all some money?”

    The study area comes within a few kilometres of the large wind turbine currently in operation at the Pickering nuclear station. If anything, the OPG 7 turbine is better than the proposed anemometer platform: the current turbine samples the wind at about 80 magl (meters above ground level) where all these proposed turbines would operate, while this anemometer will be about 7 metres over the lake.

    Now, I suppose Toronto Hydro could give OPG a call … but that wouldn’t cost a million dollars, nor would it create the necessary the air of ‘financial inevitability’ — can’t spend a million bucks and just walk away, can we?

    In short, the point is to spend the money — in feigned ignorance, if necessary — not save it. The residents clearly understood this is just the camel’s nose.

18. For the NIMBYs in carborough who don’t want wind turbines, there’s simply solution: don’t use your computer or air conditioning, then you wouldn’t need to generate more electricity.

    By the way, 5 km is the distance from the wind turbine at the CNE to LakeShore and Park Lawn, 2 km is from the wind turbine to Roncesvalles (as a bird flies). If you can see the turbine, so can the birds which have better eyesight.

19. M. Lis, you deeply misrepresent the (a) NIMBY position, (b) the business of the distance and visibility and even (c) the bird argument.

    Is it too much to ask you understand the arguments before you try to criticize?

    One by one:

    (a) The NIMBY’s are not asking for more electricity, but that the lake not be vandalized.

    A concept ironically lost on the “environmentalists” these days. (Who’d a thunk?)

    Worse, even if they were asking for more electricity, they would be asking for far, far, more than a miserable 250MW (name-plate; capacity factor for wind around here is 20-25%, so divide it by 4 or 5). This is zilch in the grand scheme of things. Baseload power in Ontario is, what, 15000MW? The GTA is probably 2/3rds of that. Peak power clocks in at about 25000MW.

    Incidently, I had to take the GO train along the lake shore two days this week. The stretch between Pickering and about Guildwood is indeed a very nice one to look at, especially from the upper deck of the train. Splattering a bunch of completely useless turbines in the middle of that panorama? For a feeble, completely ignorable, 100MW-250MW (name-plate) of power?

    But I guess this is all aesthetics, isn’t it? I like uninterrupted expanses of water, shore, and sky. You like squeaky, technological, detritus subsidized by me (of all people). To each his own.

    (b) So you are comparing the CNE turbine’s appearance against the backdrop of the entire city, to a string of turbines against a uniform lake?

    Doesn’t that strike you as a teeeeeny weeeny bit disingenuous? Or was this just an accident on your part?

    My previous comparison stands: go to Petticoat Creek and look at the turbine that is decorating the property near the PNGS. Still too much land (and nuclear generating station) in the background, but it’ll be a much better simulation of the final product.

    For real wind farms, I suggest you look tilt at some of the large ones near Long Point (on Lake Erie) or up near Sherbourne. Even from 10-15km away, these things are blatantly obvious. Maybe even a nuisance in the lethal sense: the OPP should start monitoring that stretch of Hwy 10 for increased incidence of traffic accidents.

    (c) The birds can see them too? Well, you know, even I, complete bird neophyte, understand they migrate primarily … at night. There is also the issue with the navigation lights each and every turbine will have. According to some scientific people, birds use the stars (when available) to help their navigation. This would suggest that actually being visible might be a problem, and one that would not require the bird actually hitting the turbine.

    But I guess if this wind-farm actually kills animals, no one would notice since they conveniently land in the lake. Out of sight, out of mind.

    But you know, M. Lis, even though I think I am right and you are all wet here, I am willing to yield this entire field to you. This is because I think all of it is a pretty large and smelly red herring. Aesthetics? Birds? Property values? What possible difference do any of that make if the fundamental idea of extracting energy from wind is poor engineering and insane energy policy in the first place?

    Do you think that will get serious consideration? Hard, technical and economic stuff … instead of the easily dismissed subjects like birds? What do you think? Seriously. Should a decision to build a wind-farm be based on the impact it may have on trivialities like the property values nearby, or on applied physical and economic law? Should we just yield to Parkinson’s Law of Triviality (google it up; Wikipedia has a nice article on it)? Or do you think we can — finally — use our collective heads for a change, and for the better?

20. What about the thought of puting a Renewable Energy Platform that floats on the water. Renewable Energy Vessel can easily be moved around to meet desired location.
    Hybridtricity had proposed Renewable energy Vessel Platform in Lake Ontario as a alternate to off Shore Wind farms.
    Platform would have Green Vessels incorporated (Tree’s,Grass, Benches)

    Wednesday November 12, 2008

    The White House
    1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
    Washington, DC 20500

    Attention: President United States of America
    Barack Obama

    Canada Donate/Give Symbolic Gesture Renewable Energy Vessel/Platform Memorial/Peace.

    Dear Barack Obama President of United States of America.

    On behalf of many Canadians congratulations on your Presidential Win.
    I would also like to take this time and as a symbolic gesture on behalf of people of Canada would like to Give/Donate a Renewable Energy Vessel/Platform Memorial/Peace for Government and people of United States of America.

    At this time we are two Entrepreneurs from Toronto/Ontario Canada (Hybridtricity) that hope to gain support/co-operation of our Canadian Federal Government Priminister Stephen Harper in helping to bring attention to a concept that can serve for many purposes.

    Renewable Energy Vessel Memorial/Peace

    Concept
    How it works

    Mr. Obama, the concept of the Renewable Energy Vessel/Platform Memorial/Peace works pretty much like a game but with a twist.
    It starts in by one Country (Canada) that you are (U.S.A) allies with Donate/Symbolic Gesture or vice versa a Renewable Energy Vessel/Platform Memorial/Peace.
    U.S.A accepts this Symbolic Gesture from Canada then in turn can either return Gesture back to Canada at that time or later date.
    President Obama, you then hypothetically speaking go to Iran to talk with Iranian President Dr. Ahmadinejad where at that time President Obama, could Donate/Symbolic Gesture Renewable Energy Vessel/Platform Memorial/Peace and the Iranian President Dr. Ahmadinejad could do the same in return to the U.S.A.
    So now the U.S.A has two Renewable Energy Vessels one from Canada one from Iran.
    As you gain vessels that turn into a Platform.
    The more Countries and its representatives that you meet with President Obama, and talk in regards to political agenda’s (Peace) you can either Donate/Receive a Renewable Energy Vessels.
    Essentially the more Countries you meet with and are Allies with the more vessels you will have and the larger your Platform becomes.
    Peace is finally Arrange at the end with all Countries having a Symbolic Gesture Renewable Energy Vessel Donated/Given in sign of peace to one country or another to make Large Renewable Energy Platform.

    Energy Generated/Produced from this large Renewable Energy Platform then in turn could be used to the Countries (U.S.A, Canada other) advantage in by supplying much needed Electrical Generation/Production to a countries Electrical Infrastructure.
    Electrical Energy Generated/Produced from this Platform could then be donated to those who within that country can not afford to pay for their electrical use.

    This Renewable Energy Platform could be turned in to Renewable Energy Memorial/Peace Platform based on a Political Agenda of Peace with other Countries.

    Small Plaques could also be placed on every Solar Panel or Dedication/Memorial plaques placed on Vessels or Platform to represent (Remembrance Day, Veterans Day, Birth, Death, Achievement, Hero’s) or causes (Cancer, Aids) etc.

    President Obama,
    I hope that you will be encourage to participate In the World Renewable Energy Vessel/Platform Memorial/Peace and together in by doing one thing we can accomplish two things (Peace, Climate Change, Global Warming, Environment).

    Thank You,
    Dean Potvin
    President, C.E.O
    Hybridtricity.com
    deanpotvin@hybridtricity.com

21. Wind Power is one of the best alternative energy sources that we should utilize, it is very clean and non-polluting. I was able to built a small wind generator at home which can power small appliances.