One of the basic requirements of sustainability is that economics be integrated with environmental and social concerns. Ignoring basic economics of reality in the name of those concerns, both perceived and real, is not sustainable.
But in socialist imposition of government policy, all governing rules of common sense are ignored:
- Under the new Ontario electric power and green energy plans, personally directed by the minister, everybody is protected and subsidized except consumers.
- Billed as a North American first, the new Ontario green energy plan involves imposing hidden taxes on electricity consumers to fund an industrial strategy based on government directives, subsidies and trade protectionism — all for the benefit of a select collection of rent-seeking corporate interests. Today's the first day those corporate interests and local community activists can apply to the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) for new "Feed-in Tariffs" on new wind, solar, biomass and other renewable generating facilities.
- While the going price of electricity at the wholesale level in Ontario is currently around 4 or 5 cents a kilowatt hour, the OPA is offering feed-in tariff contracts at between 45 and 80 cents to companies building new solar power generating facilities, 13.5 cents on land-based wind farms, 19 cents on off-shore wind farms, and between 10.4 and 19.5 cents on biogas projects.
As Corcoran points out, feed-in tariffs have not worked in Europe, nor is demand for electricity in the province of Ontario robust in the present climate: both economic and real.
But economic reality and social equity never prevent green environmentalist dogma from being embraced politically when it is deemed expedient by inept and morally bankrupt regimes.
