Let's all freeze in the dark!

These are tough times for anyone wanting to keep the lights on in Canada.  Anti-nuclear activists are opposing plans to extend the life of some of Ontario's aging fleet of reactors.  The (self-appointed, unelected) Council of Canadians vows to oppose a pipeline to bring Alberta oil to Quebec and Atlantic Canada (or any other pipeline, anywhere, for that matter).  Moving oil by train just got a whole lot more difficult, as a result of the disastrous and tragic derailment in Lac-Megantic.  NIMBYs and craven politicians ensure that gas-fired generating plants can no longer be sited in urban areas, where the power is actually needed.

Still, we can always count on renewables, right?  I mean, the environmentalists love those, don't they?  Well, maybe not.  Check out this story about how a group of green NIMBYs is trying to scupper plans for wind and solar power generation in a semi-wilderness area north of Toronto, because they don't like the way that stuff looks.

Now, I'm no fan of wind power, which might just be the least practical form of renewable energy.  As even the greens are starting to notice, the turbines are uglier than sin. The wind never blows at the right time and storing the power is problematic, so you have to build conventional power plants to provide backup capacity, which is mighty expensive.   Still, Canada is a country of climate extremes.  You need heat to live here in the winter, and in most places you need cooling to function in the summer.  If every conceivable method of generating power is going to run into opposition from one quarter or another, then there are about 35 million of us who are going to start wishing ourselves away.

Maybe the most telling part of the linked story is the very last line:  "Development is development whether it has been painted with a green brush or not".  Ah, there you have it.  Remember this old quip?

What's the difference between a developer and an environmentalist?  A developer is someone who wants to build a cabin in the woods.  An environmentalist is someone who already has one.