The man who was the Ontario Health Minister when the eHealth boondoggle started was recently was in my neck of the woods to announce another boondoggle.
George Smitherman was in West Carleton to announce the opening of a massive solar farm this past week.
So where’s the boondoggle you ask? Just read this to find out where we are getting OfficiallyScrewed by Smitherman (and McGuinty).
The Arnprior project, which has been undertaken by EDF EN Canada, the Canadian arm of a French renewable-energy company, EDF-Energies-Nouvelles, has been the beneficiary of about $100 million in funding from Ontario taxpayers. It is supposed to be operational in December and feed into the provincial power grid. The site, which the company has leased for 20 years, is expected to generate about 20 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to provide for the peak electrical demands of about 7,000 households.
Critics have questioned whether Ontarians are getting their money’s worth. They point out the province is subsidizing solar companies like EDF EN to the tune of about 42 cents a kilowatt-hour for their power, when conventional electricity sources such as coal cost consumers about five to six cents per kilowatt hour..
$100 Million in funding to a French company for the solar farm set up…BOONDOGGLE.
Subsidizing them 42 cents per kilowatt-hour when coal power costs 5 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour…BOONDOGGLE.
But the insult to injury here is the fact that this solar farm is opening in December. Correct me if I am wrong but we have two things that make solar energy very tough to produce in December. 1) it’s Dark from 430pm through to 8am and 2) It snows in the Ottawa valley … ALOT. Hmmm….BOONDOGGLE.
Now let’s do some math. The farm is going to produce 20 Megawatt-hours of power which is 20,000 kilowatt-hours. And 46 cents x 20,000 is $9200 per hour. In Ottawa we get approximately 4000 hours of daylight a year which means the subsidy is going to be about $3.7 Million per year. Over 20 years, that’s another $74 Million dollars. Added to the $100 Million to build the farm, that’s enough money to produce 2.9 gigawatts of power.
For those who remember, that’s enough for Marty McFly to travel back in time twice.
Too bad Ontario voters can’t go back and time.