Toronto’s Windshare wind turbine may have gotten people excited, but its small output and difficulties in negotiating further urban turbines in Toronto make the project little more than a (much-needed) publicity excercise for clean power. The Windshare turbine is 0.75MW, capable of supplying the power needs of about 250 average homes. The real action is in wind farms in areas with steady wind characteristics, one of the most promising of which (in Ontario) is the eastern shore of Lake Huron.

The above photo is of the Kingsbridge I wind farm north of Goderich near the shore of Lake Huron. The project consists of 22 wind turbines and is rated at 40MW, capable of generating enough energy for 12,000 homes. Phase 2 (Kingsbridge II) will have 70 windturbines for 160 MW, giving a total of 200 MW for phases 1 and 2. The province of Ontario is helping fund renewable energy projects through a procurement process with the goal of having 10% of Ontario’s power generated from renewable sources by 2010. Allowing wind farms to be built on Crown land is one of their key initiatives. See the Ministry of Energy’s site for a map and list of new projects. The government of Canada meanwhile has had a Wind Power Production Initiative since 2001 using incentives to cover the costs of half of the premium for wind power for the first 10 years of a given project (see WPPI info here).

Ontario also has a commitment to eliminate all coal-fired energy generation by 2009, but in June Premier McGuinty backtracked on this promise specifically with regard to the Nanticoke plant on Lake Erie which is “the largest coal-fired power plant in North America and Canada’s #1 air polluter.” In 2005 Nanticoke produced as much air pollution as 3.3 million cars according to the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. The OCAA is advocating converting the plants boilers to natural gas for the rest of its operation, a conversion that would not be particularly costly.

The relevance of all this to urbanism in general may be self-evident but I feel like I should spell it out. The removal of key renewable energy production to less visible locations outside of the city may have less of of a direct impact on public perception of progress in renewable energy sources, but we can’t ignore the effectiveness of locating wind farms in places where there is the best wind and where a large number of turbines can be concentrated. Despite this, as primary energy users, urban dwellers musn’t allow themselves to lose sight of the importance of the origins of our electricity.  While most of the cities in Canada no longer have influence on the federal government’s energy policy, it is our duty to continue promoting energy conservation and increased renewable energy sourcing to help meet the Kyoto commitments we made as a nation, with much of the nation’s willing support.  It is also our duty to ensure that energy policy remains a key election issue at the provincial and federal levels.  We must do this not only out of self-interest (our urban air will be cleaner as a result), but to do our part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions for which we are all responsible.  Although Canada may stand to get off fairly easy with the predicted patterns for global warming, it would be historically criminal of us to ignore our own emissions to the greater peril of the rest of humanity and the world’s natural systems under the misapprehension that some warmer weather wouldn’t be such a bad thing.