electricity

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BC Hydro’s planned project for a hydroelectric dam on the Peace River—known as the Site C dam—is proving to be controversial, with some industry groups panning the plan while touting renewable energy sources such as wind.


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The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released its latest “Synthesis Report” drawing together the findings of the most recent three-volume set of the Fifth Assessment Report.


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At the end of March, the CEO of the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) issued a directive regarding the implementation of Ontario's "Long term energy plan," which spells out what the provincial energy regulator plans to do to spur energy conservation.


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In The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict over Creativity, Enterprise and Progress, a book published shortly before the millennium, author Virginia Postrel decried widespread pessimistic attacks on humanity's future.


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In a speech to the Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce in London on July 14, 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to Canada as the emerging “energy superpower” that his government “intends to build.”  The prime minister and Joe Oliver, minister of natural resources, have repeated this claim on various occasions since.

While the term “energy superpower” sounds exciting and important, that likely isn’t where the country is heading (and likely not what we want to be). Rather, Canada is on track to become an energy “superproducer” if the right policy framework is in place.


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Earlier this month the Fraser Institute published a report sharply critical of one of the flagship policies of the Ontario government, namely the Ontario Green Energy Act (GEA). We found that the Act is costing Ontario over $5 billion annually but yields negligible environmental benefits, and that equivalent or greater benefits could have been achieved using conventional pollution control measures at less than one-tenth the cost.


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A year ago the Alberta Government appointed a Critical Transmission Review Committee to determine whether the Alberta Electric System Operator's (AESO) proposal that two high voltage direct current (HVDC) north-south transmission lines be built because of occasional congestion on the Edmonton to Calgary corridor is reasonable. In spite of the availability of lower-cost alternatives, the Committee agreed with the AESO's proposal, the Redford government accepted the Committee's recommendation, and AltaLink and ATCO Electric are now in the throes of planning to commence construction.