Coal units' closure 'fantastic,' Go Green Together's Smith Torrie says

Northumberland Today
September 11, 2009
Valerie MacDonald
 

Coal units' closure 'fantastic,' Go Green Together's Smith Torrie says

A spokesperson for Go Green Together, Cobourg says she is not surprised that four coal-burning units are being shut down four years earlier than the original provincial government goal.

Ontario Energy Minister George Smitherman last week announced that two of the eight coal units at the Nanticoke Generating Station and two of the four units at the Lambton coal plant will be permanently shut down by October 2010.

The advanced closures are expected because electrical demand has dropped "so we don't need the same amount of coal to meet the extra demand at peak times," Judy Smith Torrie told Northumberland Today.

"I think it's fantastic," she said.

It's good news for air quality and those with conditions like asthma, she said.

Still, there will continue to be smog from coal plants that are operating in the United States.

With the provincial government taking this action is gives Ontario more of a moral opportunity to encourage other provinces and states to to the same thing, Smith Torrie said.

Smitherman also said that he hopes the Atikokan coal plant will be converted to biomass by 2012, says Ontario Clean Air Alliance outreach director Angela Bischoff.

She called the announcement "concrete progress toward meeting the government's commitment to reduce coal use by another third before the next provincial election in October 2011... and to finish the coal phaseout, as promised, no later than 2014."

The organization, however, continues "to urge the government to achieve a full phase out of coal - the single largest industrial contributor to climate change in Ontario -sooner rather than later," Smith Torrie said.

"We believe the government can - and should - eliminate all coal-fired electricity generation before the October 2011 provincial election because every tonne of greenhouse gas eliminated now is much more valuable than a tonne saved five years from now."

Smith Torrie is urging people to e-mail Smitherman "congratulate him for taking important steps toward eliminating coal use in Ontario and urge him to achieve a complete coal phase-out before the next provincial election."