(a) The Ontario Green Energy Act provides for a very high level of subsidy to the power producers – that’s the way that feed-in tariffs work.

Here in British Columbia, BC Hydro paid an average of 8.5 cents kWh in its recent Clean Power Call. In Ontario, under the Green Energy Act, the Ontario Power Authority will pay:

44 – 80 cents kWh for solar PV
12-13 cents kWh for run-of-river hydro
10-19.5 cents kWh for biogas power
13.5 – 19 cents for wind power
13 – 13.8 cents kWh for biomass power
10.3 – 11 cents kWh for landfill gas power

(See http://fit.powerauthority.on.ca/Page.asp?PageID=122&ContentID=10543&SiteNodeID=1103&BL_ExpandID=260)

These prices increase by 0.4 to 1.5 cents kWh for Aboriginal and community-owned power. See
http://fit.powerauthority.on.ca/Page.asp?PageID=122&ContentID=10380&SiteNodeID=1103&BL_ExpandID=260

Why do you call the BC Hydro prices “exhorbitant”, while praising the Ontario scheme, when the BC Hydro prices are all much lower than the Ontario prices? It doesn’t make any sense.

The BC Hydro price is a market price, that requires no subsidy. It’s the Ontario prices which are deliberately NOT market prices, which require a subsidy.

(b) The private sector is 100% involved in providing the power, every bit as much as in BC – there’s no difference on that front. Why are the private power producers “self-serving” in BC, but noble heroes in Ontario? It makes no sense.

(c) For the run-of-river power in BC, BC Hydro only pays only 5 cents kWh during the freshet period, April-June, precisely because – as you say – it does not need the power then; this is to minimize the risk that BC Hydro will have to sell the power for less than it pays for it.

If I was the Premier of Ontario, I’d do exactly as they have done – so make no mistake, I’m a great champion for their cause. But here in BC, if we adopted a Feed-in Tariff, the new power generated would primarily be for export, since we are close to having 100% green power already. This is why it is difficult for BC to adopt the Ontario approach. It’s one thing for Ontario rate-payers to subsidize their own province getting more green power.

But would BC residents accept the same, knowing that the power was destined for export?

I’m glad you praise the Ontario scheme, since it is – as you say – meaningful and in many ways radical. But I don’t understand how you can use the Ontario Green Energy Act to attack the BC green energy approach, since they both empower the private sector IPPs, yet Ontario pays up to ten times higher prices – as a subsidy- than BC does.

Andrew Weaver wrote to the editor, saying the article had some probems correctly reporting his views:

Weaver clarifies comments on panel

By Andrew Weaver, Times ColonistJanuary 29, 2010

Re: “UVic scientist calls for overhaul of United Nations panel on global warming,” Jan. 27.

The article suggested I believe that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was tainted by political advocacy, that its chairman should resign, and that its approach to science should be overhauled. These statements do not accurately reflect my views.

The IPCC is charged with developing scientific assessments that inform policy. It offers policymakers rigorous updates on our understanding of climate-change science.

The IPCC is not tasked with prescribing policy. Policy recommendations put forward by the chairman of the IPCC or any of its working groups represent individual views, rather than the view of the IPCC itself.

Some have been questioning whether certain statements by the chairman are appropriate. I agree that these are legitimate questions, but that does not mean that I am calling for the chairman’s resignation.

The IPCC has three working groups: Science, Impacts and Adaptation and Mitigation. These groups have become large due to the enormity of evidence to be examined. As a consequence, there is not as much interaction between them as there should be.

The recent statement in the Impacts and Adaptation report regarding the likelihood of the Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035″ is an example. This error would likely have been caught by the broader science community if there were more regular interactions between the various working groups.

None of this changes the conclusions of the IPCC concerning the human contribution to past, present and future global warming. The real question is whether we want to deal with this problem. And for this, the IPCC cannot provide the answer.

Andrew Weaver

University of Victoria
© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Here’s the article by Foot quoting Weaver:

UVic scientist calls for overhaul of United Nations panel on global warming

By Richard Foot, Canwest News ServiceJanuary 27, 2010Comments (14)

A University of Victoria climate scientist says the United Nations panel on global warming has become tainted by political advocacy, its chairman should resign, and its approach to science should be overhauled.

Andrew Weaver said the leadership of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has allowed it to advocate for action on global warming, rather than serve as a neutral science advisory body.

“There’s been some dangerous crossing of that line,” said Weaver, echoing the published sentiments of other top climate scientists in the U.S. and Europe this week.

“Some might argue we need a change in some of the upper leadership of the IPCC, who are perceived as becoming advocates,” he said in an interview. “I think that is a very legitimate question.”

Weaver said the IPCC has become too large and unwieldy. Its periodic reports, such as the 3,000 page, 2007 report that won the Nobel Prize, are eating up valuable academic resources and driving scientists to produce work on tight, artificial deadlines at the expense of other, longer-term inquiries that are equally important to understanding climate change, said Weaver.

“The problem we have is that the IPCC process has taken on a life of its own,” said Weaver, a climate-modelling physicist who co-wrote chapters in the past three IPCC reports. “I think the IPCC needs a fundamental shift.”

Weaver’s comments follow a series of recent revelations about the scientific credibility of the IPCC’s work.

The panel admitted last week that its 2007 report wrongly asserted that Himalayan glaciers likely would melt by 2035. That alarming claim created concern across southern and eastern Asia, whose major rivers are fed by the glaciers.

While the content of IPCC reports is supposed to be rigorously checked by a scientific, peer-review system, those rules weren’t followed in this case.

The glacier-melting claim was kept in the report even though some glacier experts considered it preposterous.

The claim originated with an Indian glaciologist, Syed Hasnain, who works for a research company in India headed by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC’s chairman.

British newspaper reports say Pachauri’s company used the false glacier claim to win multi-million-dollar research grants from the U.S. and Europe.

The scientist responsible for the Asia chapter in the IPCC report also told a British newspaper that he included Hasnain’s glacier claim for political purposes.

“We thought,” said IPCC author Murari Lal, according to The Mail on Sunday, “that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.”

The damage to the IPCC’s credibility caused by the “glaciergate” affair, and by last December’s “climategate” scandal, have provided months of fodder for critics who have long been skeptical of the IPCC’s warnings.

Weaver said Pachauri should resign, not only for his recent failings but because he was a poor choice to lead the IPCC to begin with.
© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

However, I am surprised to find Prof Weaver among those who disapprove of this sort of behaviour, at least in relation to run-of-river projects, since I had seen him quoted elsewhere ridiculing the concerns of project opponents in relation to things like the appearance and placement of transmission lines. He was saying we need more clean electricity and we have to get it immediately, and that certain minor losses of other amenities will just have to be tolerated. Sorry, I forget where I saw this.

Let us hope that Ontario’s plan will be assessed with the same enthusiasm that it will garner the criticism of private interests that want access to public resources for private gain.

One percent of the world’s population owns almost half of its wealth and influences most of the remainder.

Still, I am very much opposed to this prorogation for the reason stated in The Economist editorial. This practice of suddenly and quite unexpectedly dismissing the Commons whenever its discussions become unduly bothersome tends to make Parliament accountable to the Prime Minister rather than the other way around.

Beyond that, the politics of this move are more complicated than usual, since the immediate impact in the polls has been to cost the government some percentage points. Since the Conservative machine has the best polling and opinion analysis that money can buy, is it really possible that they didn’t see this reaction coming? Is this drop in the polls just an accident they didn’t anticipate? Or did they go ahead with this gambit knowing full well it would cost them and benefit the Liberals?

I lean toward the latter interpretation. I think this is a gift to keep Ignatieff afloat in his own party and to allow him a chance to get up off the floor and avoid dropping below the 25% line, which was close at hand only a month or two ago. The real fear for both Liberal and Conservative strategists is that a fully flat-lined Liberal Party would open a door for Jack Layton and the NDP to make an historic breakthrough, something neither of them wants to see.