The Strongroup & WhiteMoose

[TogetherWeStand]

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From: cleanair-l-bounces@list.web.net [mailto:cleanair-l-bounces@list.web.net] On Behalf Of Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 9:36 AM
To: cleanair-l@list.web.net
Subject: [cleanair-l] McGuinty Government selling energy conservation short

Despite repeated statements that it wants to phase out our dirty coal plants as soon as possible, the McGuinty Government is still not pursuing the quickest and cheapest option to do so - paying large volume commercial, institutional and industrial customers to shift some of their electricity consumption to off-peak periods on peak demand days.

In the summer of 2006, Toronto Hydro introduced programs that paid its customers to shift their consumption to off-peak periods. The result was that Toronto’s peak day electricity consumption fell by 5 megawatts last year despite the fact that, on a province-wide basis, Ontario’s total peak day demand increased by 4%. Moreover, according to Toronto Hydro, the financial benefits of its large volume commercial, institutional and industrial peak saving program exceeded its costs by an astounding ratio of 181 to 1.

Peak saving programs are among the most cost-effective conservation efforts because the cost of supplying electricity is at its highest on peak demand days. In fact, according to a recent report by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA), the cost of supplying electricity at the time of system peak in Ontario is a whopping $1.64 per kWh – or more than 16 times the annual average price of electricity.

Unfortunately, the OPA, in true bureaucratic fashion, is refusing to aggressively pursue this low-cost option to phase out dirty coal. According to the OPA, it will not launch its large volume peak shifting program until May or June, which will give large electricity customers little time to prepare and respond before the summer peak hits. Worse yet, the OPA says it is unwilling to pay the actual full cost of supplying electricity in peak periods -- $1.64 per kWh -- to those who are willing to reduce their peak day demands.

Please contact Energy Minister Duncan at dduncan.mpp@liberal.ola.org and ask him to direct the OPA to pay Ontario’s municipal utilities (e.g., Toronto Hydro) and large volume commercial, institutional and industrial customers up to $1.64 per kWh to reduce their peak day demands this summer.

Please pass this message on to your friends.

Thank you.

Jessica Fracassi
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Communications & Membership Manager
402-625 Church St, Toronto M4Y 2G1
Phone: 416-926-1907 ext. 245
Fax: 416-926-1601
Email: jessica@cleanairalliance.org
Website: www.cleanairalliance.org
________________________________________
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance is a coalition of health, environmental, and consumer organizations, faith communities, municipalities, utilities, unions, corporations and individuals working for cleaner air through a coal phase-out and the shift to a renewable electricity future. Our partner organizations represent more than six million Ontarians.
_________________
North,South, East, and West are connected ... Protect the North.

[TogetherWeStand]

From: cleanair-l-bounces@list.web.net [mailto:cleanair-l-bounces@list.web.net] On Behalf Of Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 9:34 AM
To: cleanair-l@list.web.ca
Subject: [cleanair-l] Pulling Toronto Backwards

The Ontario Power Authority’s (OPA’s) mega-project plans for our electricity system may soon be seen first-hand from East Toronto backyards, parks and schoolyards. The OPA is calling for Hydro One to construct a high-voltage transmission corridor through the city’s east end to carry nuclear-generated electricity to the city’s downtown.

The 10-storey transmission towers that could carry these new lines through Markham, Scarborough, Leaside and Riverdale to the waterfront will be a very visible example of the price we will pay for the OPA’s single-minded focus on an old-style centralized power system fed by three giant nuclear plants.

There is, of course, a much better solution that fits with Mayor David Miller’s commitment to making Toronto the greenest city in North America (as opposed to one of its most nuclear reliant). Instead of spending $600 million on towers, trenches and wires, as the OPA proposes, we can embrace a smart, new energy future by developing a truly integrated plan for significantly improved energy efficiency, Made-in-Toronto renewable power, and much more reliable and efficient combined heat and power systems (systems that are 80-90% efficient compared to the 30% efficiency of a nuclear plant). The result would be an efficient, flexible, reliable and clean electricity system that puts power where it is needed – not miles away.

It’s interesting to note that New York City is required to have the capacity to generate 80% of its electricity within the city’s boundaries. Toronto, meanwhile, currently generates 2% of its own power and the OPA’s plan will just continue to stretch the city’s already tenuous links to remote power stations even further.

If you think there are better ways to spend $600 million, please email Mayor David Miller, mayor_miller@toronto.ca, and urge him to take action to demonstrate that Toronto does not want to be tied to the past, but is ready to move forward to a clean, green energy future.

For more information on the proposed East Toronto transmission line, see our new fact sheet, East Toronto Transmission Line: Pulling Toronto Backwards on our website at www.cleanairalliance.org .

Please pass this message on to your friends.

Thank you.

Jessica Fracassi
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Communications & Membership Manager
402-625 Church St, Toronto M4Y 2G1
Phone: 416-926-1907 ext. 245
Fax: 416-926-1601
Email: jessica@cleanairalliance.org
Website: www.cleanairalliance.org
________________________________________
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance is a coalition of health, environmental, and consumer organizations, faith communities, municipalities, utilities, unions, corporations and individuals working for cleaner air through a coal phase-out and the shift to a renewable electricity future. Our partner organizations represent more than six million Ontarians.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this list please visit www.cleanair.web.ca/getin.
_________________
North,South, East, and West are connected ... Protect the North.

[TogetherWeStand]

From: cleanair-l-bounces@list.web.net [mailto:cleanair-l-bounces@list.web.net] On Behalf Of Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 3:11 PM
To: cleanair-l@list.web.net
Subject: [cleanair-l] Spring into volunteer action!

Those beautiful spring days - sunny afternoons with the birds singing and flowers blooming before the summer smog season starts - really are just around the corner even if it doesn’t look like it today. We want to use these long and beautiful spring days to spread the word about the need to get the coal phase out back on track as Ontario’s No. 1 climate change and smog solution.

Come out and volunteer for cleaner air. Help us distribute our Nanticoke: Canada’s No. 1 Air Polluter pamphlet at subway stations, distribute information about the East Toronto Transmission Line in Scarborough, Leaside and Riverdale, or help to distribute information about our real climate change solutions in your community.

Volunteering with the OCAA is fun, rewarding and a great experience that allows you to have an impact on the biggest issue of our time – global climate change.

If you’re interested in volunteering in any capacity with our campaign, please contact Manisha Pahwa, Volunteer Coordinator at 416-557-2123 or manisha@cleanairalliance.org.

You can also order copies (free of charge) through our website at http://www.glcommunications.ca/data/posterinsert06.html.

Please pass this message on to your friends.

Thank you.

Jessica Fracassi
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Communications & Membership Manager
402-625 Church St, Toronto M4Y 2G1
Phone: 416-926-1907 ext. 245
Fax: 416-926-1601
Email: jessica@cleanairalliance.org
Website: www.cleanairalliance.org
________________________________________
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance is a coalition of health, environmental, and consumer organizations, faith communities, municipalities, utilities, unions, corporations and individuals working for cleaner air through a coal phase-out and the shift to a renewable electricity future. Our partner organizations represent more than six million Ontarians.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this list please visit www.cleanair.web.ca/getin.
_________________
North,South, East, and West are connected ... Protect the North.

[TogetherWeStand]

From: cleanair-l-bounces@list.web.net [mailto:cleanair-l-bounces@list.web.net] On Behalf Of Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2007 1:42 PM
To: cleanair-l@list.web.net
Subject: [cleanair-l] Do we need the proposed new Bruce Transmission Line?

Last year the McGuinty Government established its innovative standard offer program which pays individuals, farmers, co-ops and companies 11 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity from small-scale renewable power projects.

Unfortunately, the Ontario Power Authority is refusing to purchase electricity from green power projects in the Bruce County (Lake Huron) area because Hydro One does not have sufficient transmission capacity to bring all of the Bruce area’s potential nuclear and renewable electricity supplies to market during every hour of the year.

To alleviate this transmission bottleneck the Ontario Power Authority is recommending that Hydro One build a new $600 million transmission line that will only be needed to bring power from the Bruce area to southern Ontario consumers for a few exceptional days over a limited four-year period, namely, 2013 to 2017. The Ontario Clean Air Alliance believes that there is a better alternative to meet our electricity needs.

A better alternative

1. The Ontario Power Authority should lift its moratorium on the purchase of renewable electricity from power projects in the Bruce area and instead encourage currently stalled projects in the area to move forward. Ontario needs to obtain as much new, clean renewable electricity as it possibly can – as soon as it possibly can. It makes no sense to refuse to purchase green power in the Bruce Area just because there may not be sufficient transmission capacity to bring 100% of the Bruce Area’s total electricity supplies to southern Ontario during every single hour of the 2013 to 2017 period.

2. Instead of spending $600 million to marginally increase the Bruce area’s total electricity exports to southern Ontario during exceptional days between 2013 and 2017, we should invest in more cost-effective options to meet our electricity needs such as energy conservation, renewable power and small-scale combined heat and power plants.

For more information please visit www.cleanairalliance.org and download our new fact sheet, A New Bruce Transmission Line: Does it make sense for Ontario?

Please pass this message on to your friends.

Thank you.

Jessica Fracassi
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Communications & Membership Manager
402-625 Church St, Toronto M4Y 2G1
Phone: 416-926-1907 ext. 245
Fax: 416-926-1601
Email: jessica@cleanairalliance.org
Website: www.cleanairalliance.org
________________________________________
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance is a coalition of health, environmental, and consumer organizations, faith communities, municipalities, utilities, unions, corporations and individuals working for cleaner air through a coal phase-out and the shift to a renewable electricity future. Our partner organizations represent more than six million Ontarians.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this list please visit www.cleanair.web.ca/getin.
_________________
North,South, East, and West are connected ... Protect the North.

[TogetherWeStand]

On June 18th, Premier McGuinty announced that he would issue a legally binding regulation requiring the complete phase-out of Ontario's dirty coal-fired power plants by 2014. However, Premier McGuinty still hasn't posted his draft coal phase-out regulation on the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) Registry for public comment.

Premier McGuinty's slow progress is in stark contrast to the quick action taken by Ontario's former Minister of the Environment, Elizabeth Witmer, to phase-out coal burning at the Lakeview Generating Station in Mississauga. Elizabeth Witmer posted her draft regulation to phase-out coal burning at Lakeview on the EBR Registry on the same day (March 26, 2001) as her announcement that she would issue the regulation.

Please contact Premier McGuinty and ask him to post his draft coal phase-out regulation on the EBR immediately to ensure that another important coal phase out promise doesn't fall by the wayside before the October provincial election.

Premier McGuinty can be contacted at https://www.premier.gov.on.ca/feedback/feedback.asp

Please pass this message on to your friends.

Thank you.

Jessica Fracassi
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Communications & Membership Manager
402-625 Church St, Toronto M4Y 2G1
Phone: 416-926-1907 ext. 245
Fax: 416-926-1601
Email: contact@cleanairalliance.org
Website: www.cleanairalliance.org

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The Ontario Clean Air Alliance is a coalition of health, environmental, and consumer organizations, faith communities, municipalities, utilities, unions, corporations and individuals working for cleaner air through a coal phase-out and the shift to a renewable electricity future. Our partner organizations represent more than six million Ontarians.
_________________
North,South, East, and West are connected ... Protect the North.

[TogetherWeStand]

The opportunity to entrench a coal phase out deadline in law will either be seized or missed this month. With the election countdown clock ticking, the current provincial cabinet will meet one last time on August 22nd. This will be the last chance for the government's proposed phase-out regulation to be made law. So please take a break from the beach to help us push through this important clean-air milestone:

If you have not already commented on the draft regulation, do it now! Please visit http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-External/displaynoticecontent.do?noticeId=MTAwOTUx&statusId=MTUwNzkw&language=en and tell the government that:

You strongly support a legally binding coal phase-out deadline
You also want to see legally binding requirements for interim annual reductions in coal use.
The deadline for comments is midnight on Friday, Aug. 10th.

Please also tell Premier McGuinty to enact an improved regulation at the Aug. 22nd. cabinet meeting. And if your MPP is a cabinet minister ( Click here for a list of cabinet ministers.) please also contact them and urge them to make adopting the regulation a priority ( for minister's contact info, click here.) (Or visit the Ontario Legislature website at www.ontla.on.ca).

If you don't know who your MPP is, click here to search by postal code (or visit Elections Ontario at www.electionsontario.on.ca ). If your MPP is not a cabinet minister, send your message to Environment Minister Laurel Broten lbroten.mpp@liberal.ola.org and Energy Minister Dwight Duncan – dduncan.mpp@liberal.ola.org.

If you have any problems with the link for the regulation posting, the EBR registry number is 010-0945. Simply go to www.ebr.gov.on.ca and enter this number. You can submit comments online by clicking the “Submit comment� button in the right-hand margin on the draft regulation page.

Please pass this message on to your friends.

Thank you.

Jessica Fracassi
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Communications & Membership Manager
402-625 Church St, Toronto M4Y 2G1
Phone: 416-926-1907 ext. 245
Fax: 416-926-1601
Email: contact@cleanairalliance.org
Website: www.cleanairalliance.org
_________________
North,South, East, and West are connected ... Protect the North.

[J-Desrochers]

With the weather forecasters promising hot and muggy weather tomorrow, many Ontarians will be preparing to start up their air conditioners. But before you hit the “on” switch, make sure your air conditioner is equipped with a peaksaver device that can help Ontario avoid the need to ramp up dirty coal-fired electricity generation on hot summer days. If it is, you are eligible to enter our Chillin’ without coal contest with more than $10,000 in prizes to be won. You can enter at www.PeakBusters.ca.

How about a weekend at a luxurious country inn in the heart of Ontario’s wine region or cottage country? A $200 gift certificate for Lululemon Athletica or Future Shop? Tickets to the big summer shows in Toronto? Or some new garden furniture, hand crafted in Muskoka? We’ve lined up great prizes that will allow you to relax and enjoy summer while feeling good about your contribution to reducing peak summer electricity demand - and your climate impact.

Just think, if everyone with a central air conditioner in Ontario installed a free peaksaver device that allows their utility to temporarily reduce their air conditioner’s energy demands, but not home comfort in peak periods, we could eliminate the need for four of Nanticoke’s eight dirty coal boilers. And that would mean we all win big.

If you don’t have a central air conditioner or live in a multi-residential building, you can still win - check the contest website for details at www.PeakBusters.ca.

Thanks to our sponsors: Bell, enerShift, Hydro One, Newmarket Hydro, NOW Magazine, PowerStream, Veridian Connections and yorkregion.com.

Please pass this message on to your friends.

Thank you.

Jessica Fracassi, Communications & Membership Director
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
402-625 Church St, Toronto M4Y 2G1
Phone: 416-926-1907 ext. 245
Fax: 416-926-1601
Email: jessica@cleanairalliance.org
Website: www.cleanairalliance.org


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The Ontario Clean Air Alliance is a diverse, multi-stakeholder coalition of approximately 90 organizations including cities, health associations, environmental and public interest groups, corporations, public utilities, unions, faith communities and individuals. The OCAA’s short term goal is to achieve the complete phase out of Ontario’s four coal-fired power plants by 2010. Our long term goal is to ensure that all of our electricity needs are met by ecologically sustainable renewable sources. Our partner organizations represent more than six million Ontarians.

Interested in donating to the OCAA? Please click here to find out how.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this list please visit http://www.cleanairalliance.org/bulletins_email_signup.

[J-Desrochers]

Peter Tabuns, MPP (NDP Energy Critic), has introduced a private members bill to the Ontario Legislature that would make it illegal to build a simple-cycle power plant larger than 30 megawatts in Northern York Region (NYR). Bill 79 also instructs the Ontario Power Authority to take every reasonable action to meet NYR’s electricity needs with a combination of energy conservation and demand management, renewable energy and high-efficiency natural gas-fired combined heat and power plants.

If passed, the bill will prevent the Ontario Power Authority from contracting with a power developer for the construction of a low efficiency 350-400 megawatt power plant in NYR.

You can support Mr. Tabuns’ bill by signing our petition at www.petitiononline.com/nyr/petition.html. We need to demonstrate that there is widespread support for a more climate friendly approach to energy planning in Ontario. Please sign it today and get your friends and family to sign too!

You can read Mr. Tabuns’ private members bill at www.cleanairalliance.org/nyr.

Please pass this message on to your friends.

Thank you.

Jessica Fracassi, Communications & Membership Director
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
402-625 Church St, Toronto M4Y 2G1
Phone: 416-926-1907 ext. 245
Fax: 416-926-1601
Email: jessica@cleanairalliance.org
Website: www.cleanairalliance.org


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The Ontario Clean Air Alliance is a diverse, multi-stakeholder coalition of approximately 90 organizations including cities, health associations, environmental and public interest groups, corporations, public utilities, unions, faith communities and individuals. The OCAA’s short term goal is to achieve the complete phase out of Ontario’s four coal-fired power plants by 2010. Our long term goal is to ensure that all of our electricity needs are met by ecologically sustainable renewable sources. Our partner organizations represent more than six million Ontarians.

Interested in donating to the OCAA? Please click here to find out how.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this list please visit http://www.cleanairalliance.org/bulletins_email_signup.