A wind farm on Toronto Island?
Fixing Toronto – Part Five
You might have missed this given the size of the readership of the news publication in question, but Toronto Mayor David Miller is considering putting a series of wind turbines along Toronto’s Waterfront. No. I. Am. Not. Making. This. Up.
If you’ve ever driven along Highway 10 north of Shelburne, you’ll have a sense of just how big a commercial windfarm might look when it reaches critical mass. The locals either love them or hate them, which is often determined depending upon whether you are getting the revenue from the site or just having to look at them in the distance.
But, a wind farm on Toronto Island? It’s one thing to put a demonstration site up at the CNE. But an entire windfarm? On Toronto Island? Here’s what Inside Toronto reported just yesterday:
Miller said in general, the conference has confirmed for him that Toronto is on the right track environmentally. Although he noted that Copenhagen is much more bicycle friendly than Toronto. And he was impressed with the larger reliance on wind power.
When asked where he would like to see more windmills in Toronto, Miller replied that the Island airport would be a good spot.
“It’s right in the middle of a wind tunnel – it would be a perfect place to provide green energy and once you have a rail linking the downtown to the airport you have no transportation reason at all to have an airport downtown,” he said.
You might ask what municipal politicians running a $500 million annual budget deficit are doing in Copenhagen at a climate summit for Heads of State and government. Just how big is the Green Bargaining Table?
The folks who live along Toronto’s Waterfront, and on Ward’s Island in particular, might wonder if they’d prefer a small commuter airport or a 25 turbine windfarm. Obviously, you’d need to build some of the turbines in Lake Ontario to make it commercially viable. The sailors will have something to say about that, too. And then there are the migratory birds to consider.
Our firm has had great experience with a wind farm investment a few years ago called Ventus Energy. We went into a deal on P.E.I. with VentureLink and Good Energies in 2006. Suez bought it out and is now using Ventus as their North American wind platform (see prior post “Ventus Energy to be acquired by Suez SA of France” July 25-07).
Wellington was the first tenant in BCE Place (now called Brookfield Place) to become Bullfrog Powered, and we also financed Canada’s largest biodiesel company Biox (see prior post “Biox looks set to raise $50 million in IPO” Nov 28-09) — our green credentials are pretty good I think.
As much as we’d love to finance another wind farm development, I’m not sure the Toronto Waterfront is a smart place to put it.
MRM
(hat tip JH; disclosure – this blog, as always, reflects a personal opinion and in no way represents the views of the TPA, its Board/Staff or the federal government)
I have extensive experience of wind farms in the west of Ireland. I can see them from the 2nd floor of our home.
They are a blot on the landscape, and I know of no one who wants them. Other than the owners that is who can pump their electricity back into the national grid and make money.
For a man who was so opposed to Porter and the Island airport, and who is hell bent on tearing down the Gardner I cannot believe he is stupid enough to support this half cocked idea.
Welcome to what the rest of Ontario has been putting up with for ages. Funny how Toronto has been spared since they use the lion’s share of energy. Take a look at the ecological travesty forced upon Wolfe Island. The perverted “pseudo-environmental” zealots want to industrialize what’s left of our natural areas all for some half baked ideological fallacy.
http://windconcernsontario.org
We spent some summer holidays in the Kingston area, which we had not been back to since our Queen’s days. I was saddened to see the beauty of Wolfe Island destroyed by the wind farm. How on earth this got approved is beyond imagination. There are many places in Canada to put wind farms. Keep them away from the cities and within views of population centers.