Buying the wind - My Opinion - wind power

There I was again last night, lying in the dark, pondering the wisdom of going the SaskPower shade of green.

It all started in the fall when I told our slow-to-green electrical utility that I would pay an extra seven dollars each month for two hundred kilowatt- hours of wind generated electricity. According to their figures, this is enough electricity to power my average house for 10 days each month. It wasn't as if SaskPower set seven dollars as my personal limit. After all, they're now producing enough wind generated power from turbines near Gull Lake to fully power 7000 homes like mine. So I could have done even more to support this wind power initiative - I could have paid up to $21 each month on top of my regular bill and been green-powered every day. And the need is certainly real, what with Saskatchewan being one of the world's largest per capita producers of earth-warming greenhouse gases, much of it thanks to SaskPower's penchant for burning coal to create electricity.

Whatever I pay, as long as I pay something over and above my regular power bill, I'm demonstrating my personal commitment to a cleaner environment and a greener future, as the brochure says. So why am I not sleeping like a green saint, confident in the knowledge that I'm doing my part to rid our environment of greenhouse gases?

There are some things about this program that bother me. For one, I keep asking myself why only environmentalists should be asked to pay extra for wind power, when it is to everyone's benefit. Furthermore, it's misleading to say I'm getting 10 days of wind generated electricity at my house, because it's impossible to separate the wind power electrons from the hydra power or from the coal power electrons as they flow through the transmission lines and into my house.

SaskPower says that choosing to pay extra shows my commitment to wind power, supports the fledgling industry and contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gases world-wide. Of course I am committed to wind power, but if they want me to prove it, wouldn't a simple survey do? How can I show my lack of commitment to dirty coal technology? And in fact the industry is no longer a fledgling, but rather it's soaring in Europe, where the use of wind is growing 40 percent per year (Denmark will get half its electricity from wind by 2030), and even Alberta has been producing wind power for years.

As it aims out, the SunBridge wind project near Gull Lake is a partnership formed by the giant Suncor Energy Inc. ($8 billion in world-wide assets, best known for squeezing oil from the tar sands of Northern Alberta) and Enbridge Inc. (one of the world's largest transporters! distributors of oil and natural gas). This oil-based partnership built and will own and operate the larger of the province's two wind power generating sites. SaskPower will buy the electricity from them, then distribute it to all it's customers, whether they've agreed to pay extra or not. A part of me asks (frequently) whether the oil industry is buying into the renewable energy industry in order to control (or slow) the pace of its development. It's just a question.

Some good news is that the other (and smaller) of the two sites, the Cypress project, was built and will be owned and operated by SaskPower. A portion of the expertise and hardware was actually provided by Saskatchewan people. This is good news because, unlike the SunBridge project, it does not involve further privatization of the power supply, and will allow for spin-off growth in the industry locally.

Here's another thing keeping me awake. Of course I never believed that those seven extra dollars on my power bill would really deliver wind power to my door. I knew that wasn't technically possible. I am paying the extra to show support for the greening of the utility. I'm also turning off lights, the heat is down, I have some new triple pane windows, I walk as much as possible. What rankles is the use of my $7 for what they refer to as an "offset." Am I enabling SaskPower to avoid cleaning up its coal-fired plants?

It seems that SaskPower's strategy is to rely on offsets, or credits, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It foresees the day when the Kyoto protocol stipulates emission reduction targets. Clean offsets compensate for existing dirty practices. For example, in order to offset the greenhouse gases produced by coal-fired power generation in southern Saskatchewan, SaskPower has planted trees in northern Saskatchewan. And the $7 per month of wind power I'm pretending to purchase is said by SaskPower to reduce the province's greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equivalent to planting nearly 500 fully grown trees. Or (and this is not said) the $7 per month over and above my regular power bill rescues SaskPower from the need to clean up its current practices.

So now you know my conundrum: am I paying a little extra to encourage the utility to behave well and generate electricity through the perpetually renewable wind, or am I rewarding it for past decisions to stubbornly embrace nonrenewable and greenhouse gas-emitting coal?

I feel another sleepless night coming on.

Unless, of course, SaskPower were to accept that we all benefit from our public utility going truly green, and therefore we should all pay whatever it takes to get there.

Phil Johnson lives in an average house in Regina.

My Opinion does not necessarily represent the editorial views of Briarpatch. We welcome submissions and encourage any ensuing dialogue.

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