What our government, the wind companies and their lobby groups won’t tell you about wind energy…

Look to be slapped with a new tax.  Those subsidiaries for the development of green energy projects don’t come free… We get to pay for it to the tune of $53 million dollars.

The new tax will appear on your hydro bills just as the 13% harmonized sales tax (yet another McGuinty scam) is about to be charged.  Our esteemed Premier of Ontario hitting us below the belt during these hard economic times.   But don’t worry, “it’s about $4 for this year for consumers and it’s a one-year program. It gets reassessed every year,” the Energy and Infrastructure Minister said.

Hmmm… I wonder if it’ll be lowered next year?
Not.

Just how will all those laid off workers pay for these extra taxes?    Ahhh… but wait… here’s the promise of new green jobs.  How unfortunate that they’ll all be temporary and at the cost of tourism in quaint rural Ontario.

But my question is why are we taxpayers bearing the costs?

Let’s remember that these subsidies will be used so that “for profit” businesses can develop green energy projects.  And with a guaranteed payout rate of $0.13/kWh (on land) and $0.19/kWh (for offshore) for electricity sent to the grid.

Someone stands to make an awful lot of money.

Consider that a 2MW turbine (your average 400 foot turbine) can produce 6 million kWh per year. That’s 52,560 million kW per year.   The government will pay him 13.5 cents per 1,000 kW that is put into the electrical grid.  By my calculations that amount’s to $6.8 million per turbine per year for land turbines and $9.9 million per year for offshore turbines.

FOR TWENTY YEARS!!!
Again… why are we the taxpayers footing the bill?

Is it any wonder SouthPoint Wind of Leamington is fighting so hard to ruin Lake Erie and Lake St.Clair with the development of 715 of these industrial metal monsters placed in the center of  what is essentially a provincial wildlife water park.

This is the color of green in Ontario.

The Ontario Government is trying to put wind turbine farms in our beloved lakes.

Not way out deep in the middle of the lake, but within 1.5 km of the shoreline… that’s less than 1 mile off shore.  Right in the middle of our public beaches, national parks and marinas.

The new Green Act overrides the municipalities and puts all the power in our now-elected officials… Leaving crucial Environmental Assessments in the hands of the developers!???

While I am all in favor of green energy, are our lakes the right place?

A few years ago, my husband and I moved our family as far south as we could go… Point Pelee is the southernmost tip of Canada.

We were fortunate to find a little place on the shores of Pigeon Bay in Leamington.

With bird sanctuaries everywhere, it’s bird heaven… even in the winter.

Now someone wants to ruin it with an industrial wind turbine farm.  The new proposal is for 15 wind turbines measuring 410 feet high placed in the lake  just 1.5 km (that’s not even a mile) off the shoreline and public beaches.

This is just Phase I, the original proposal was for 119 turbines.

And what a great summer it’s been!

While the weather has been cooler than most years, it’s actually been wonderful… not quite as hot and humid.   And fewer late afternoon thunderstorms.

We’ve spent most of our days at the park and at the beaches.  Here’s Tabytha her first time out on rollerblades.   She didn’t fall, not even once.

Austin, on the other hand, was trying to show off and landed  on his keister a few times.

And then there’s my big kid…

Our summertime friends were back again to visit.  Some days they fly in by the hundreds.

It seems like summer just started and here we are with only one more week until it’s back to school for the kids.

Hard to believe Austin will be in the eighth grade – one more year until high school – and Tabytha starts grade one.   She’s so excited to be one of the big kids now.

As am I…

It’s been 13 years since I’ve had my days to myself.   It’s hard to imagine.  What will I do?

Does this remind you of Gargamel’s Castle on the Smurf’s?   LOL!  He always had the only cloud in the sky hovering over head.   Other than a few whisps, this little poofy cloud was the only one in the sky that day.

It spent all day hovering over Pelee Island which you can see in the bottom right corner.

Not such a little cloud afterall!

Summer has arrived!

We’ve had a couple of weeks of beautiful weather. Sunny and warm… perfect beach weather.

We’ve been spending most of our afternoons at Point Pelee… The water is clean and the waves are big!!!

It’s like being at the ocean!