Letter - Costs considered?

To the editor:

In most cases, when a corporation considering investing in a particular community is met with public protests, their reaction is to threaten to take the project elsewhere. 

Many of them make good on that threat. Not so with Horizon Wind.  They are fighting tooth and claw to build their wind farm here. 

The only possible reason is that the profit potential is too enormous to pass up.  In fact it’s not even potential, it’s actually guaranteed by the Ontario government, which will be paying them many, many times the going rate for electricity. Thunder Bay Hydro will also be on the hook for a good portion of the capital costs.

Whatever your feelings about wind power, and ignoring location concerns for the moment, costs have to be a consideration. If wind power is ever going to be practical, we will have to find ways to get the pricing down to realistic levels. 

When a company is certain of guaranteed sales and high profits for the next 20 years regardless of market conditions, where is the incentive to invest in new technology? 

They have no obligation to ever lower their pricing. In fact, if the government doesn’t continue to pay them extortion level rates when the contract expires, they will most likely simply walk away from this installation, leaving the taxpayers with out of date and inefficient equipment.

Economic and Industrial Trade Minister Sandra Pupatello told the local media that the HST isn’t a new tax.  Not true. 

The price of electricity (and a good many other essentials) will be rising by eight per cent on July 1.

Little wonder given the way the government is throwing that revenue by the bucketful at projects such as Horizon is proposing. 

The 21st century Dalton gang is proving to be much more successful than their 19th century namesake at relieving the public of their cash.



Bill Paul,
Thunder Bay