No such thing as a free lunch? Well, how about Dalhousie Mountain on April 23, where Darrell Dexter unveiled his government’s renewable electricity targets? Due to the generosity of Nova Scotia taxpayers, about 200 invited guests stuffed their faces with free sandwiches as they gazed at the gaggle of wind turbines that served as giant props for the premier’s big announcement.
Thanks to veteran Herald reporter Judy Myrden, we now know that the government spent somewhere between $11,000 and $16,200 that day selling its plan for renewable electricity to the media and the public. Renting buses to get participants to the mountain, paying for audio-visual gear plus that free lunch came to $6,000; hiring outside firms to design and print 200 copies of the glossy booklet the premier held up for the cameras cost $5,200; and $5,000 went to pay a PR company to organize the event. Myrden reported that former deputy energy minister Paul Taylor was paid $11,000 to shepherd the plan through various government departments and Parker Donham, journalist-turned-PR-consultant, received $15,000 to write the 28-page booklet that is also available online. (I’m not just saying this because Parker’s a friend, but the booklet is probably the clearest, best-written government document I’ve ever read.)
Myrden’s front-page story in last Friday’s Herald caused severe heartburn in the premier’s office. So, chief of staff Dan O’Connor decided to fight back. Instead of writing a letter to the editor, O’Connor resorted to trickery. Using the pseudonym “O’Dempsey,” he tried to post two separate comments on the Herald website attacking the paper for reporting that the Dalhousie Mountain PR event cost $42,000 when well over half that money was spent developing a detailed, five-year electricity plan. According to the Herald, O’Connor also questioned Judy Myrden and the paper’s integrity and so, the editors never actually posted his comments online. When a suspicious Myrden phoned him up, O’Connor eventually admitted the anonymous posts came from him.
Why would the most powerful official in the premier’s office hide his identity when criticizing a newspaper story? Well first, it’s hard for any government official to defend spending thousands on news conferences, photo ops and free lunches when the government claims it’s trying to restrain spending to balance its books. (Even the $11,000 figure, the lowest one possible for Moses Dexter’s mountaintop announcement, would be hard to defend officially.) Second, the electricity plan calls for hefty subsidies to private renewable energy developers, including a Spanish billionaire who controls a big wind company. The government calculates those subsidies will cost Nova Scotian electricity consumers an extra one to two percent every year. Hence the need for a splashy announcement to soften the news of steady hikes in the price of power.
And finally, the government says it will rely heavily on industrial-scale wind power to meet its renewable targets. Not only is there growing opposition from rural people who would be forced to live near noisy turbines and whose property values would drop sharply, there’s also growing awareness that large amounts of intermittent wind energy can’t easily be integrated into the grid. As Australian professor Ted Trainer shows, the more wind energy introduced on the grid, the greater the need to back it up when the winds die down. The government says backup will come from burning natural gas, but if Trainer and other critics are right, turning gas turbines up and down to match wind fluctuations would be wasteful, inefficient and would likely have little effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Trainer’s 2007 book is called Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain a Consumer Society—an unpalatable idea for any politician staging a lavish news conference to peddle the reassuring message that we can save the planet with “green” wind energy without having to give too much up.
And speaking of giving things up, I attended the Dalhousie Mountain event, but, for the record, gave up the chance to consume Darrell Dexter’s free lunch.
This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2010.
With these kinds of problems inherent in wind power systems (stepping up and down an alternate power source based on wind fluctuation) why are we not more focused on tidal energy? They are predictable and we have some of the world’s most powerful right at our doorstep.
I think the most interesting aspect of this story is that this government official tried to anonymously use an online comment section to sway public opinion in the government’s favour. These online comment sections are problematic for a number of reasons, in particular because they provide interest groups and corporate and government officials with a forum to anonymously undercut legitimate stories and arguments without having to be accountable or properly support their arguments. So in addition to the often hateful and ignorant comments that are posted, I think we are also frequently reading posts that are very deliberately trying to manipulate the facts to sway public opinion. This works in both directions I think, and includes those that are trying to suppress legitimate arguments, and those that are trying to prop up unsupported theories.
I have certainly cut back on reading these comment sections of-late, mostly because of the hateful, ignorant comments that are posted, but also because I think they are being used in an underhanded way by corporations, governments, and special interest groups. I think there is value in discussion, but I think we all need to really be careful about what we read in these anonymous forums.
And yes, I realize the irony of posting a critical message about online comment sections by posting a comment in an online comment section!!
Nuclear power is the only way to go… not that it will ever happen in this backwoods(door) province. Fuck, even New Brunswick, shit hole of the nation, has a nuclear reactor. We are screwed.
A lot of hot air concerning renewables. Hot air plus BS is a dangerous mixture.
Offshore wind is also quite predictable and certainly can be done in NS
Yet again you are wrapping several stories into one, to the detriment of each story.
I agree that it is more than time for the whole process of costly media events be abandoned. They waste money, fail to tell the whole story and simply provide reporters an opportunity to parrot the political message instead of investigating the real issues.
The abuse of position by a political bureaucrat should result in his/her dismissal and really does indicate the attitude of the politician whose office employs this individual. This, again, is a huge issue.
Finally, you continue to parrot the misinformation put out by the non renewable power industries. You do not report on all the subsidies paid to these industries but decry the attempts to level the playing field. Equally, you continue to accept the contention that our society cannot operate on renewable energy alone. It did before and it will probably be forced to do so again. It will be a different society but may well be a better one.
I am astounded at the ink required by local media to lambast the government about free sandwiches at a promotional event. I agree we need the fourth estate as a watchdog, but really, were there any kudos for gov’t efforts to push windpower? In the G8, we’re at the bottom of the heap in terms of installed windpower capacity. Perhaps we’d do better if the government didn’t have to waste valuable time defending nitpicking over-spending allegations.
So can anyone tell me how many wind turbines it would take to power Halifax or Dartmouth? And how economimical it would be? Just askin’.
Estimates vary significantly depending on whom you ask, BT.
Problem is, instead of focusing on the fact that wind power is reliable, and costs little to nothing to generate in comparison to the alternatives, Wark decided to rail on the government (a government, I might add, that they promoted heavily for before the election) for feeding people finger sandwiches.
But then again, if we’re to believe Wark, wind power will give people cancer and make them go nuts.
It says the Tuft’s Cove generating plant has a capacity of 415 megawatts.
That’s a lot of windmills.