Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Ontario to Phase Out Coal by 2007, or 2014, or ...

How about 2018.
 From the Hansard for April 17th, 2011:

Ms. Helena Jaczek: My question is for the Minister of Energy. There’s no doubt that Ontario’s electricity system is turning the corner. Eight years ago, our power system was, by all accounts, an ugly, unreliable mess from top to bottom. Our system lost generating capacity the equivalent of Niagara Falls running dry; the PC government of the day was trying to privatize Ontario’s transmission grid; the use of coal had increased by 127%; and the province was on life support from temporary leased generators and imported electricity that cost Ontarians $1 billion in less than two years.
What progress is the government making in cleaning up our electricity system to build a healthier future for our kids and grandkids?
Hon. Brad Duguid: I want to thank the member for Oak Ridges–Markham for her question and assure her indeed that tremendous progress is being made to clean up the dirty, unreliable mess the PC Party called an electricity system.
The member, and other members who are heckling right now, may be interested to know that, compared to the first quarter of 2003, the first quarter of 2011 saw a reduction of 90% in coal use, probably for the first time ever.
We’ve permanently shut down eight coal-burning units so far. That’s like taking 2.5 million cars off Ontario roads. We’ve announced the conversions of the Atikokan and Thunder Bay generating stations. Ontario will be completely coal-free by 2018—not an easy thing to do, but we have a plan and we have the leadership, unlike the opposition—
................

CORRECTION OF RECORD

Hon. Brad Duguid: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: In a response to a question earlier today, I think I said that we’d be out of coal by 2018. The actual time is 2014. I don’t know if I said that, but I got a note that said that, so I just wanted to correct the record.----

ahh, that makes more sense now.
That's when the horrible dirty PC government of 2003 planned to exit coal, before losing to an election promise to do it by 2007.



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