Clearing the Air About Wind Turbines | Opinion

 Bill Palmer has responded to an article local papers recently ran in Ontario by failed Liberal federal candidate Rob Oliphant equating renewables and health.

Clearing the Air About Wind Turbines | Opinion | UR | Woodstock Sentinel Review:

It is no surprise we find Rob Oliphant writing about a cornerstone program of the Ontario Liberal Party, leading him to state, “It is time to embrace renewable energy in all of it’s forms including solar and wind powered energy.” Let’s explore a little further. If we look at the output from the Ontario coal fired generating stations from 2003 to 2011, we find it was reduced from about 40 TWh a year to about 4 TWh a year. The Web site of the Premier of Ontario proudly announces that the implementation of renewables resulted in shutting down the coal. Not so! The reduction in coal output from 2003 to 2011 was enabled by a 20 TWh increase in nuclear output, a 20 TWh increase in natural gas fired generation, and a reduction of 20 TWh in the Ontario load caused by the recession and factory closures in Ontario. The 4 TWh increase in output from wind and solar did not result in shutdown of coal.

 Mr. Palmer's full response is here, while Oliphant's original letter is here

The original letter notes figures from the Canadian Medical Association.  That report is based on an earlier model from the Ontario Medical Association; modeling based on ground level ozone and particulate matters.  The letter therefore simply regurgitates the outcomes of the same statistical exercise, long after it was discredited, as a meaningful statement on the health impacts of coal-fired generation, by Ross McKitrick.