Advertisement 1

Again, Grits got it wrong with closure of coal-fired power plants

Article content

A new Fraser Institute study by economists Ross McKitrick and Elmira Aliakbari directly challenges the major financial justification Ontario’s Liberal government gives for closing down its five coal-powered electricity plants.

 

Under Premier Kathleen Wynne and her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, the government has always maintained that while its decision to close the coal plants cost billions of dollars and contributed to Ontario’s soaring electricity prices, the resulting decrease in air pollution saved Ontario $3 billion annually in health costs.

(The Liberals have since revised this figure to $4.4 billion, when, they say, environmental costs are added.)

In fact, counters Kenneth Green, senior director of natural resource studies at the Fraser Institute: “Ontario closed its coal-fired plants with promises to greatly reduce air pollution and save billions of dollars in health costs, neither of which came true. Now the province has the most expensive energy in North America.”

McKitrick, an economics professor at Guelph University, and Aliakbari, senior economist with the Fraser Institute, argue the reason closing Ontario’s coal plants didn’t significantly reduce air pollution was that they weren’t major contributors to begin with.

The real culprit was emissions from U.S. coal plants that adversely affected air quality in Ontario.

Further, say McKitrick and Aliakbari, the government knew this when it made the decision to close the coal plants and went ahead anyway.

As their report states: “The Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change undertook a special analysis of the role of U.S. emissions in Ontario air quality in 2005, which showed that a majority of O3 (ground level ozone) and PM2.5 (particulate matter) was due to U.S.-based emissions and would not be reduced by cutting emissions in Ontario.”

Given that, the authors say, the government’s claim closing Ontario’s coal plants saved $3 billion annually in health costs is, “implausible”.

As they explain: “According to Statistics Canada, Ontario spent $35.2 billion on health care in 2005. The province’s analysis implies that about 10% of the health-care budget at the time was spent on illnesses caused by coal plant emissions. Since the coal plants were responsible for only 1% of PM2.5 emissions, all PM sources taken together must have caused many times that amount, potentially exceeding what the province actually spent on all forms of health care.”

While the Liberals claim significant drops in premature deaths and hospitalizations due to closing Ontario’s coal plants, their own 2005 study said: “In actual fact, it is impossible to identify which specific deaths that occur over a given period of time are actually attributable to air pollution. Air pollution is a contributory factor in a multitude of deaths and is almost never the overriding or irrefutable single cause of death.”

Whatever air quality improvement occurred in Ontario as indicated by a dramatic drop in smog days, appears to have resulted from a drop in U.S. emissions.

The Fraser study notes that while closing Ontario’s coal plants had no effect on nitrogen oxide (NOx) levels, an important component of smog: “U.S. monthly average NOx emissions fell from 556 megatonnes in 2002 to about 263 megatonnes in 2014, a reduction of 293 megatonnes.”

 

Article content
Advertisement 2
Advertisement
Article content
Article content
Latest National Stories
    News Near Pembroke
      This Week in Flyers