<a href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensofEngland/TheAngevins/HenryIICurtmantle.aspx">King Henry II</a> is purported to have said, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest!” These words were to have tragic unintended consequences, at least for the Archbishop of Canterbury. The year was 1170. And yet there is still a lesson for today’s political leaders.
No, I’m not talking about the current federal Senate scandal swirling around the prime minister and his office. I’m talking about the far more important unintended consequences of political language at Queen’s Park. Specifically, I am focusing on the disastrous chain of events set off by former premier Dalton McGuinty’s <a href="http://www.daltonmcguinty.onmpp.ca/CentralNews.aspx?id=347" target="_blank">rhetorical demonizing of coal</a>.
Coal burning contributes to smog and to climate change. Both are harmful to human society, so why not demonize it?
In physics, energy is energy – the ability to do work. Coal is simply a source of primary energy, as are natural gas and oil. As with all sources of primary energy - including wind, hydro, solar, biomass and uranium – the technologies we use to harness the energy are imperfect, and often come with harmful side effects.
Indeed there are no perfect technologies. So we must work to minimize their harmful side-effects. But if an energy source is demonized by careless political language, then there is no technological fix allowed. We must exit its use.
So what’s harmful? Potentially everything. The coal exit policy set off a chain of events that can only be described as one of the biggest, most damaging and slowly unfolding industrial policy blunders in the history of the province.
Our Nanticoke and Lambton coal plants were strategically located in the grid, very low cost, highly flexible in their use, and with relatively low emissions compared to the huge number of US coal-fired plants in our air shed.
They were also a significant part of Ontario’s electrical generating capacity. So the 2003 policy decision to exit coal-fired generation by 2007 was not only technically infeasible, but created an immediate “supply crisis” that then energy minister Dwight Duncan trumpeted widely. Needless to say, when you announce to the world that you have a crisis, even a self-inflicted one, then many will come forward to solve that crisis for you … at a very high price of course.
What followed then was a series of contracts for natural gas-fired plants - labelled “clean energy” even though they too had emissions. Some contracts were subject to competition. Others were not. And then many were arbitrarily given higher prices. The very expensive Bruce refurbishment deal was signed.
The alternative of co-firing the coal plants with biomass to bring emissions to the level of natural gas or better was never seriously pursued. This was an option championed by the Power Workers’ Union, the only voice of reason and fact at the time. Nonetheless the Power Workers’ were ignored even though such a solution could have saved the existing coal plants and their innate advantages, used a fuel that did not have to be imported and lead to fewer emissions than actually happened.
Nonetheless, the politics of “Party brands” dictated otherwise. Political decision-making with respect to the generation mix in the province soon freed itself entirely from any reality in the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT), micro-FIT programs and the <a href="http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/docs/en/amended-GEIA-en.pdf" target="_blank">Samsung deal</a>. We now have an “excess supply” as well as an unwieldy mix of supply. And the associated excessive costs are cemented into our future.
Of course, any critic of this debacle - masquerading as sound public policy - is quickly dismissed as anti-environmental. This is notwithstanding the very limited amount the McGuinty government actually did with respect to the far more significant and detrimental emissions from the transportation sector. And coal, the so-called “dirty fuel” was apparently only a problem in generating electricity, not when making steel, cement or other uses. And co-firing coal with biomass could have made a far more valuable contribution to the environment, and the Ontario economy, than all the high cost alternatives that were actually pursued.
Nonetheless, these terrible mistakes need not be repeated by you, Premier Kathleen Wynne. Make the decisions which must be political – for example what should be our environmental standards. But then stand back and allow technical experts to decide on the generation mix that minimizes cost and meets all required standards. And hold them truly accountable for the outcomes. They are certainly paid well enough.
In short, Premier Wynne, do not begin your policy deliberations with the question, “Does this fit our Party brand?” Begin with the question, “What is the right thing to do?” Don’t let communications and winning elections as opposed to good governing be your guide to public policy. The “communications first” road leads inevitably to the ultimate idiocy and trust destroying secrecy of the gas plant scandal.
Think, before you say anything. Or the unintended consequences could be immeasurable.
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Watch Your Language

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