Alberta’s decision to phase out coal-fired power by 2030 represents a big shift (coal currently generates just over half of Alberta’s electricity), so it’s not exactly surprising that the phase-out has led to a fair bit of debate.

Throw in a complex lawsuit, threats of increasing power prices and a resurgence of the “clean coal” myth, and it becomes nearly impossible to figure out what’s actually going on.

Often missed in the conversation is the fact that 12 of the 18 coal-fired power plants in Alberta would have had to shut down by 2030 anyway under federal regulations introduced by former prime minister Stephen Harper.

Quite a lot of other facts are getting lost in the noise as well, so DeSmog Canada delved into the research to come up with these six handy facts.

Fact #1: Electricity Bills Aren’t Going to Skyrocket Because of the Coal Phase-Out

First things first: in late November, the Alberta NDP introduced a cap on default power prices at 6.8 cents per kWh, beginning in June 2017 and running until June 2021. (For reference, default rates are currently between 4.1 and 4.4 cents/kWh, depending on location.)

So yes, rates may increase a little, but there’s simply no way that retail prices can triple, or even double, as some have been suggesting.

Secondly, there are different elements of electricity bills: the cost of electricity and transmission or distribution costs.

Alberta has been anticipating an increase to the cost of electricity since 2014 (before the NDP was elected) because of improvements to the province’s transmission system and unsustainably low prices in recent years — and not as a result of the coal phase-out.

“Those cost increases are independent of coal phase-out,” Binnu Jeyakumar, program director of the Pembina Institute’s electricity program, told DeSmog Canada.

Many critics of the phase-out point to Ontario — which has seen a doubling in retail prices — as an example of what might happen.

But Jeyakumar notes the main reasons for the drastic price increase in Ontario were the payments for deferred grid infrastructure investments, and the costs associated with the refurbishment of nuclear plants.

“Those are massive, massive capital investments that we’re not looking at in Alberta,” she says.

Plus, the price of renewables has dropped significantly since the Ontario experience, and the process by which Alberta is procuring power is “much more competitive,” says Jeyakumar.

Fact #2: Coal Jobs Were Already Threatened by Shoddy Economics

Many small towns have expressed serious fears that the phase-out will kill hundreds of jobs.

In 2016, coal town Grande Cache, asked the provincial municipal affairs minister to consider dissolving the town after losing 750 — about one-third — of its jobs.

For Grande Cache, like many other coal-reliant towns, the issue of low coal prices had become existential.

Here’s the thing: this is not a new issue.

Coal prices — for both thermal and metallurgical coal — have plummeted in recent years as jurisdictions all over the world shift away from coal. Renewables have increased in viability, economic growth has slowed and natural gas prices have dropped, all factors in the collapse of coal that pre-date the announcement of Alberta’s climate plan.

“Planned coal phase-out — with the introduction of renewables and energy efficiency — is actually better for labour because it allows you to plan for support for your workers,” Jeyakumar says.

“The alternative is you have these coal plants that could come offline just purely based on economic reasons. It’s the coal plant’s owner and operator who’s making that decision. That gives the workers and province less time to plan for how they’re going to transition these workers into the new economy, or how they’re going to compensate those workers.”

Of course, such a reality don’t necessarily make the decline of coal towns any easier.

But many new jobs will be created in the transition to the “30 by ’30” target, which will see 30 per cent of electricity generated by wind, solar, geothermal and biomass by 2030 (which itself will replace two-thirds of the lost generation from coal). There will also be an increase in job opportunities as predicted by Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who stated in 2015 that “we need an army of carpenters, electricians and contractors going out to plug leaky buildings.”

These new jobs will exceed those lost through the coal phase-out. Pembina has calculated that there are 3,150 jobs directly associated with coal in Alberta. But between 12,600 to 35,000 jobs will be created between now and 2030, thanks to the province’s renewable energy program.

Alberta has committed $195 million to help coal and Indigenous communities with the transition to renewable energy. And on January 9, it was announced that Alberta Labour would be conducting a “Coal Communities Survey” to identify worker skills to help the department plan the transition. The government has also formed an Advisory Panel on Coal Communities.

Fact #3: Billions of Dollars Will Be Saved in Healthcare Costs (And Fewer People Will Be Sick)

The coal phase-out isn’t just about cutting greenhouse gases. It’s also about reducing air pollutants, including sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, fine particulate matter, ozone, cadmium, mercury and lead. These can lead to serious respiratory and heart diseases.

The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment estimates that coal leads to 107 premature deaths, 80 hospital visits and 4,862 asthma-related sick days in Alberta every year, costing the province around $300 million.

Over the next 20 years “the phase-out can get us up to $3 billion in healthcare savings for the province,” Jeyakumar says. “If you look at the whole balance sheet — you add up the health cost savings and the potential for labour transferring from renewables and energy efficiency — the province actually comes out way ahead than it would be without the coal phase-out.”

Fact #4: Yes, Coal Companies Will Be Compensated, but Out of Carbon Tax Revenues

There’s been plenty of debate about whether the six coal units that are being shut down before schedule should receive compensation from the province.

A 2015 publication from Pembina concluded that four of the six units would receive a “fair return on capital” by 2030, undermining the case for compensation.

It argued that “investors in merchant units built after 2001 were well aware the long-term operations of these facilities would be subject to change of law related to climate policy,” but it might still be helpful to pay off the owners of the two most recently constructed units — Capital Power and TransAlta’s Genesee 3 (2005) and Keephills 3 (2011) — to maintain an attractive investment climate.

“As a matter of law, I think it’s crystal clear the province didn’t have to pay a cent,” agrees Nigel Bankes, chair of natural resources law at the University of Calgary, in an interview with DeSmog Canada. “It’s just new regulation. No one is entitled, unless specific commitments have been made, to a particular environmental regime to continue from the time they made an investment.”

Alberta’s government did indeed decide to provide “transition payments” for the six coal units that would otherwise operate past 2030, representing “approximate economic disruption to their capital investments.”

In late November Alberta announced it will pay Capital Power, TransAlta and ATCO a total of $97 million per year beginning in 2017, totalling $1.36 billion by 2030.

All money for the “transition payments” will be diverted from revenues from Alberta’s carbon tax on large emitters (the Specified Gas Emitters Regulation, to be replaced in 2018 by the Carbon Competitiveness Regulation). In other words, none of it will come from general revenues.

“It does seem to me the province struck a reasonable balance on this,” Bankes says.

Six Handy Facts About #Alberta’s Coal Phase-Out https://t.co/7yptHiHmLb #ableg #yyc #yeg

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 17, 2017

Fact #5: ‘Clean Coal’ Was Never a Viable Option

The previous federal regulations introduced in 2012 would have required 12 of the 18 coal-fired power plants in Alberta to shut down by 2030. The six remaining would be forced to close in later decades, with one as late as 2061.

That is, unless coal-fired units could reduce their emissions to 420 tonnes of carbon dioxide per gigawatt hour (gWh), or about as efficient as natural gas. The only way to do that is via carbon capture and storage (CCS), which either requires an extremely high carbon price or government investments to justify.

The retrofitting of SaskPower’s Boundary Dam coal-fired power plant with CCS technology is an example of how expensive this can get. The revamp cost of $1.47 billion effectively doubled the cost of power from $0.06 per kilowatt hour (kWh) to $0.12 per kWh from the facility.

Plus, since its opening, Boundary Dam has been plagued with issues, including frequent shutdowns, a massive leaking storage tank, cost overruns and equipment failures in August and November; the latter, a compressor failure, resulted in only 49 per cent of potential volume capture (the monthly target is 65 per cent).

In Alberta’s plan, there’s no entertaining the notion of CCS, which would likely require billions in payouts to coal companies and a long-term increase in power bills.

Rather, the government has acknowledged there are far more economically and environmentally viable options, and introduced clear policy direction to see them come to fruition. The province has stated that “where it is economically viable,” coal-fired power stations will be converted to natural gas power plants.

Jeyakumar says the best and cheapest alternatives to coal remains renewables (two to three times cheaper) and energy efficiency (up to six times cheaper).

Fact #6: Alberta’s Approach Guarantees Phase-Out is Permanent

By far the most controversial element related to the coal phase-out has been the province’s lawsuit filed in regards to “Power Purchase Agreements,” or PPAs.

The story is a confusing one, but here are the basics: Alberta deregulated its electricity system in 2000, which allowed for power purchase agreements to be signed directly between electricity generators and buyers. A public balancing pool was created to handle the PPAs that weren’t sold off. All was well.

Except there was a small and little-known clause that was introduced by the Energy and Utilities Board only five days prior to the auctioning of the PPAs. In short, the clause ensured that buyers had the ability to transfer the PPA back to the public balancing pool if any government decision was deemed to make the agreement “more unprofitable” (rather than just “unprofitable,” as the original wording had allowed for).

That clause remained dormant for more than 14 years but now, with the introduction of Alberta’s economy-wide carbon tax, the clause is being used by four PPA buyers to terminate contracts — a move that has the potential to cost the province $2 billion by 2020.

The details are confidential, but Bankes says they’re going to “split the difference,” with the Alberta government reimbursing the companies for the estimated cost of the carbon price, while the companies pay an “anticipated calculated cost associated with the market risk” that accounts for the lower electricity prices.

The province has negotiated a confidential settlement with all but one company: Enmax, the city of Calgary’s utility company.

What this whole process has ensured, interestingly, is that no government in the future can bring back these phased-out coal-fired power plants, because the contracts have been absorbed by the balancing pool and subsequently terminated.

The good news is ten megatonnes of annual emissions will be permanently cut, Alberta’s air will be cleaner and the province will be one step closer to a building an electricity system for the 21st century.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Nearly $1 trillion (£700bn) is being invested in new coal-fired power plants worldwide despite the fact that the demand for electricity generated from coal has declined for two years in a row, shows a new report released today.

The report, by Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and CoalSwarm, warns that this problem of overbuilding is creating an “increasingly severe capacity bubble”.

Last year the global power sector added at least 84 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity. This is a 25 percent increase from 2014.

As the report explains, across the world a generating capacity equal to 1,500 coal plants is either in construction or in various stages of planning. The amount of capital potentially wasted on these plants comes to US$981 billion.

Yet, the average coal plant is running fewer and fewer hours each year.

In China for example, the consumption of coal for electricity generation dropped 3.6 percent last year. Currently, the average Chinese coal plant runs less than half the time – the lowest level since 1969 – and the government recently announced plans to halt new coal plant approvals.

And in India, 11GW of thermal capacity is lying idle. Last year saw the first drop in India’s annual coal power installations since 2006 and the report expects this the drop “to be even more pronounced” in 2016.

“The era of Big Coal is clearly coming to an end,” said Nicole Ghio, senior campaigner for the Sierra Club’s International Climate and Energy campaign. “Coal use keeps falling off a cliff and plants are sitting idle, yet more money is being wasted on misguided attempts at locking in this dirty, dangerous fuel.”

Lauri Myllyvirta, senior global campaigner on Coal and Air Pollution at Greenpeace, described the situation as a “last-ditch push” by an industry which is becoming “rapidly uncompetitive”.

But while coal plant retirements may be growing globally, led by efforts in Europe and the US, this is not happening fast enough to balance out the overbuilding.

As the report warns, the danger of all this potential capacity sitting idle is that, in the end, it might be used but with significant impact on the world’s ability to meet its climate targets under the Paris Agreement.

“Even with no further building of coal plants, emissions from current coal plants will still be 150 percent higher than what is consistent with scenarios limiting warming to 2°C,” it explains, “meaning that most operating and new coal-fired plants will have to be phased out well before the end of their planned lifetime.”

Even building “high efficiency” coal plants is not a viable solution the report states, since this would lock in “large, long-lived carbon emitters, interfering with the need to fully decarbonize the power sector by 2040 in order to limit warming to 2°C”.

Instead, the report argues that the amount wasted on the coal capacity bubble should be direct towards alleviating energy poverty and investing in clean energy such as wind and solar power.

It notes that the nearly $1 trillion wasted is equivalent to the total level of investment needed to provide electricity to the 1.2 billion people currently lacking access to energy according to the International Energy Agency.

This would also be enough money to increase the amount of solar and wind power installed globally by 39 percent, the report finds.

“The hundreds of billions being thrown at coal could instead go toward the booming clean energy sector, helping more than a billion people get access to the clean, reliable electricity that fossil fuels have failed to deliver,” explained Ghio.

In addition to its significant climate impact, the report finds that the additional new proposed coal capacity would result in over 130,000 more premature deaths worldwide each year due to air pollution.

“The clock is ticking on the transition to clean energy,” said Ted Nace, director of CoalSwarm. “Although this research has revealed hundreds of billions being squandered on unneeded coal plants, there’s more at stake here than money.”

Photo: Tennessee Valley Authority via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This article is authored by Binnu Jeyakumar and originally appeared on the Pembina Institute's blog.

“The days of denial are over,” said Environment Minister Shannon Phillips, kicking off the 2015 Alberta Climate Summit held last week in Edmonton. She was sending a message that Alberta’s attitude and commitments around climate change are changing.

The summit focused on exploring viable options for progress on climate change, with the participation of stakeholders from across the spectrum. More than 300 people filled the room, representing the oil and gas industry, the electricity sector, First Nations, unions, environmental groups, municipalities and the provincial government. The excitement was palpable as participants discussed both the reasons to take action and the opportunities now available.

The summit explored policy solutions in several areas, including carbon pricing, renewable electricity and energy efficiency. If you want more context on climate policy in Alberta, Pembina’s backgrounder from August is worth a look.

Carbon pricing

The morning included a discussion of British Columbia’s $30-per-tonne carbon tax, and the need for better communications about the success of carbon pricing. The panel emphasized the need for a better-informed conversation about what emissions sources could be covered and exempted, the effective price level, and the different ways to use the revenue that is generated.

On the topic of effective pricing, Nicholas Rivers of the University of Ottawa pointed to various studies that link price and impact, saying “We are looking at a $100-ish price on carbon by 2050.”

Of course, carbon emissions are not just carbon dioxide. Drew Nelson, of the Environmental Defense Fund, reminded attendees of the climate impact of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. The United States has introduced cost-effective regulations that reduce methane leaks in the oil and gas sector, and enacting similar regulations in Alberta could result in significant reductions in emissions which total to well over 10 million tonnes of carbon emissions.

Coal phase-out and renewables

“What is our electricity system designed for?” was the question posed by Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association. He argued that to make sustainable reductions to carbon emissions, the entire electricity system — rather than just a few components — has to be reviewed. Alberta needs to evaluate the best ways to incentivize capital investment in renewables, learning from the experiences of other jurisdictions such as Ontario. Some options to consider include centralized procurement of electricity, or making retailers responsible for achieving a certain proportion of renewables in the generation mix.

There is also a need to manage the climate impacts, as well as the local environmental and health impacts, of Alberta’s existing coal-fired plants. The closure of TransAlta’s coal plant in Centralia, Washington, was discussed as a case study for how Alberta could negotiate an accelerated phase-out of coal.

Energy efficiency

When talking about cutting emissions, there’s a compelling case for energy efficiency. It’s the cheapest way to make more energy available, it creates jobs, it reduces operating expenses and it cuts down fossil fuel use. As Alberta adopts a new building code, the province should look to B.C. and Ontario — two provinces that are making huge strides in promoting building efficiency and sustainable urban development — for ideas on how to save energy.

There was no shortage of energy in the summit room, with people staying long after the end of the event to continue their discussions. That enthusiasm was perhaps driven by a sense of urgency, as the economic, health and environmental risks associated with the status quo become more and more evident. But it also speaks to a distinct sense of excitement in the province about the tangible actions that Alberta can and should take in the near future.

Presentations from the 2015 Alberta Climate Summit are available online here.

There are also a number of ways to get involved:

• Take the Alberta government’s climate change survey (open until September 18)
• Send your recommendations to the Climate Leadership Panel
• Stay tuned to the activities of the Energy Futures Lab, a platform to discuss, experiment and innovate in Alberta’s energy system.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A side event at the UNFCCC COP20 climate negotiations in Lima, Peru was disrupted Monday when climate activists and individuals representing communities on the frontlines of energy development flooded the presentation hall and staged a ‘walk out’ on fossil fuels.

The event was hosted by the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and the Global CCS Institute and featured Lord Nicholas Stern and David Hone, Shell’s chief climate advisor, as speakers.

The talk, originally entitled “Why Divest from Fossil Fuels When a Future with Low Emission Fossil Fuel Energy Use is Already a Reality?,” was inexplicably renamed “How Can we Reconcile Climate Targets with Energy Demand Growth” and focused on the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a technological solution to carbon emissions that cause global warming.

A citizen group formed outside the venue holding a banner that read “get fossil fuels out of COP” and used the acronym CCS to spell out “Corporate Capture ≠ Solution.”

Civil society groups gather outside a fossil fuel sponsored event discussing carbon capture and storage. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

The protest was designed to “defend our rights from these companies and corporations that are attacking our people,” Ana Maytik Avirama, from the Corporate Europe Observatory Foundation, told a crowd gathered outside the presentation pavilion.

“We need to keep the fossil fuel lobby out of these negotiations, out of our governments and out of the decisions that are trying to protect our livelihoods and our lives,” she said.

Godwin Uyi Ojo, executive director of environmental rights action in Nigeria attended the action to protest Shell’s presence at the climate negotiations.

“Enough is enough,” he said.

Godwin Uyi Ojo speaks to a crowd gathered outside the IETA event. "Leave the oil in the soil, the coal in the hole, the tar sands in the sand," he said. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

“Shell is in that conference promoting dirty energy. They say dirty energy has a place in the future…what you see there is greenwashing. That’s why people are so angry at Shell. We are tired of these antics.”

Bronwen Tucker, a member of the Canadian Youth Delegation said the event, which was sponsored by Shell and Chevron, was designed to discredit grassroots fossil fuel divestment campaigns and tout CCS as a climate solution.

“CCS has been labeled the unicorn of the climate change world because instead of taking emissions out of the atmosphere it would just store them, but it’s an unproven technology that’s prohibitively expensive, much more expensive than renewable energy and other solutions that have been put forward,” she said, adding the event is emblematic of a long-term problem at COP of fossil fuel industry influence in the climate decision-making process.

Bronwen Tucker from the Canadian Youth Delegation told DeSmog CCS is an "unproven technology" that directs investment funds away from renewable energy. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

Lord Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute of Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, told DeSmog CCS has the potential to play a huge role in climate action.

“We have to take 50 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent now, globally, down to about zero by the end of this century.”

“We’ve not got many options. And in my view energy efficiency can do the half of it, and the more it does, the better,” Stern said, adding renewables will play a major role as well as some nuclear.

Lord Nicholas Stern discusses CCS with DeSmog Canada. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

“The rest will have to be CCS. That’s all we’ve got. The problem is so big and so important that we’ve got to do all we can.”

He added that CCS removes particulates in dirty emissions coming from sources of energy like oil and, especially, coal.

“The climate emissions we produce now kill people down the track,” Stern said. “Particulates…are killing people now on a major scale. We’ve got to deal with both of them and CCS does both of them.”

According to a report recently put out by the New Carbon Economy, particulate matter from the burning of fossil fuels contributes to both lung and heart disease. According to the World Health Organization particulate pollution plays a substantial role in nearly 4 million premature deaths each year that are attributed to outdoor pollution.

Stern acknowledged there is some uncertainty associated with the technology but he added “you’ve got to pursue all the options because some are going to do better than others and you can’t tell for sure what those are going to be. From the point of view of managing risk, it makes sense to go after more than one [solution].”

Mike Monea, president of the carbon capture and storage initiatives for SaskPower, Saskatchewan’s main power provider, also attended the event to talk about CCS viability in the wake of Boundary Dam, the world’s first coal plant retrofitted with carbon sequestration technology. The project went live in October 2014.

Carbon capture and storage infographic from SaskPower.

Monea argued CCS technology is no longer in question and should play a critical role in the new climate era. And although Monea highlighted the positive climate effects of CCS usage, the position of SaskPower is that CCS “is making a viable technical, environmental and economic case for the continued use of coal.”

Saskatchewan local, Megan Van Buskirk, a member of the Canadian Youth Delegation said the $1.35 billion Boundary Dam project won’t do much at all to address climate change.

“There are lots of issues involved with that project in terms of its reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, for example, SaskPower which is a monopoly in Saskatchewan – which owns that power plant – their emissions are 15 million tonnes per year and that storage facility is only reducing their emissions by 1 million tonnes.”

Van Buskirk adds that SaskPower already has a plan to sell much of that captured carbon to Cenovus Energy for enhanced oil and gas recovery.

“So we see that issue there where we’re touting this as a solution to climate change but really we’re using it to extract more oil and gas which will ultimately mean more greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.

“We really believe this is a false solution to climate change.”

Brad Page, the CEO of the Global CCS Institute, said he feels CCS is a necessity if we’re going to meet global climate targets. He points to the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledges CCS will play a role in preventing carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere. 

He added negative public perception is due to a lack of understanding – something industry needs to remedy.

“At a very simple level, CCS puts carbon dioxide back underground where it came from. Many of the people I talk to think CCS is putting carbon into big caverns or something. It’s in fact back into the porous spaces in rocks that the oil and gas originally came from. So it’s actually not a threat.”

Page did not speak to concerns that failed CCS projects could re-release carbon back into the atmosphere.

He added, “I think that environmental groups are really from their heart concerned about continuing the use of fossil fuels and I think many of them want to actually see CCS take off and prove that it can actually be one of those viable technologies.”

Page pointed to Boundary Dam as an example of viable CCS and said there are about four more projects underway in their early construction stages.

“By 2050 though, with the sort of climate targets we’ve got we can’t achieve those emission outcomes without all the technology. Renewables are really important in this, as it energy efficiency. Nuclear is a fairly unloved duckling as well, but it’s going to be needed. And so is CCS.”

“I don’t see that there’s another option here.”

Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy and chief scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said we’ve “dallied so long on moving toward aggressive emissions reductions that we really need to explore every possible opportunity to constrain emissions below 2 degrees C.”

Frumhoff added efficiency and renewables may not be enough in themselves to limit warming to that 2 degree level.

“Therefore we need to consider other technologies including some that some of us might not love and that may themselves pose some risks. But we’re simply not at a point where we can ignore the much greater climate risks of going above 2 degrees C.”

But for Tucker, the conversation about CCS at the ongoing UNFCCC climate talks should not be dominated by industry.

“It would be the same as having tobacco companies at a conference on lung cancer. There’s a clear conflict. They already have so much sway outside of discussions like this. There’s no room for companies to be holding official UN events."

Jamie Henn from the climate advocacy group 350.org described CCS as a "smokescreen."

"The fossil fuel industry can run from divestment, but they can't hide from the reality that 80 per cent of their reserves need to stay underground. Here in Lima, world leaders are finally talking about targets that are in the realm of what's needed, namely going to zero carbon by 2050. If we're going to meet that goal, we need to start now. If Big Oil wants to research CCS, fine, but that shouldn't distract us from the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels and towards 100 per cent renewable energy." 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Last Tuesday the government of Ontario announced the Thunder Bay Generating Station – Ontario’s last coal-fired power plant – had burnt off its last supply of coal. The electricity of Canada’s most populous province is officially coal free.

“Today we celebrate a cleaner future for our children and grandchildren while embracing the environmental benefits that our cleaner energy sources will bring,” says Bob Chiarelli, Ontario’s 
Minister of Energy, in a press release.

The coal power plant in Thunder Bay was one of five in Ontario that a little over ten years ago produced 25 per cent of the province’s electricity. Burning coal is a particularly polluting form of generating electricity and shutting down Ontario’s five coal plants is the equivalent of pulling seven million cars off the road in terms of global warming greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Ontario is the first province or state in North America to successfully phase out the burning of coal to produce electricity. The Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development describes the move as the “single largest regulatory action in North America” to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The province’s coal phase out arrives a year ahead of schedule. Ontario Premier Ernie Eves committed in 2002 to shut down all the province’s coal power plants by 2015. Last year, the province’s current premier Kathleen Wynne introduced legislation that will ban coal from being used for electricity production in Ontario ever again. 

The Ontario Clear Air Alliance (OCAA), a Toronto-based organization that played a central role in the coal phase out welcomed Tuesday’s announcement describing it as a “great day for our province and our planet.”

David vs Goliath – Ontarians' Campaign to Shut Down Coal Plants

“When we started our campaign, people in Ontario who considered themselves to be politically astute, assumed that we didn’t have a chance to achieve a coal phase-out. And it is not surprising that they thought so. We were engaged in a David and Goliath battle,” says Jack Gibbons, director of the Ontario Clear Air Alliance.

“The majority of the people of Ontario didn’t know that Ontario had coal-fired power plants. And they certainly didn’t know that our Nanticoke Generating Station on Lake Erie was the largest coal plant in North America and Canada’s #1 air polluter,” Gibbons told DeSmog Canada. Nanticoke shut down last December.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance formed in 1997 to push for an end to coal in the province. Currently the Alliance consists of ninety public health organizations, faith groups, unions, hydro utilities and municipalities, including the City of Toronto.

“People thought that while the OCAA might be well meaning it was engaged in a futile campaign that was sure to fail,” recalls Gibbons.

The political context in Ontario was less than ideal for a campaign against coal when the Alliance got started. Progressive Conservative leader Mike Harris was premier at that time. The ‘Harris Years’ remembered by many Ontarians as a time of severe cuts to the public sector and clashes with environmental groups. This was not the premier one would expect to bring about the end of coal in Ontario.

Surprisingly, it was Harris who legislated in 2001 the closing of the Lakeview coal power plant in Mississauga. Lakeview closed four years later becoming the first of Ontario’s five coal plants to shut down.

Game Changer – Ontario Medical Association Speaks Out Against Air Pollution

“The involvement of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) in the air pollution issue changed everything,” Gibbons told DeSmog Canada.

On May 12th, 1998, the president of the OMA, an organization representing the province’s doctors, announced “air pollution is a public health crisis” in Ontario. Two years later the Association released a study showing air pollution killed 1,900 Ontarians per year and cost the economy $10 billion annually.

“While the politicians could ignore the environmentalists when they said that smog kills, they couldn’t ignore Ontario’s doctors. And neither the politicians nor OPG (Ontario Power Generation) dared to challenge the doctors when they said that air pollution is a public health crisis in Ontario. As a result, the politicians had to find a solution to this crisis,” says Gibbons from Toronto.

The Thunder Bay coal power plant will be converted to biomass in order to keep producing electricity and has retained sixty jobs in the process. According to the province of Ontario, a combination of nuclear, biomass, natural gas, waterpower, wind and solar power have made up for the power coal once produced. All are far less polluting than coal-fired electrical generation.

Is a Phase Out of Nuclear Power Next? 

As for the Ontario Clear Air Alliance, one campaign has ended and a new campaign has already begun. The Alliance’s focus now is to phase out nuclear power in Ontario, possibly a far more difficult task given over half of Ontario’s electricity comes from nuclear and the province’s two biggest political parties – Liberals and Progressive Conservatives – support nuclear power.

Gibbons believes by using a similar strategy that the Alliance’s used for its coal campaign they will succeed in phasing out nuclear. The pillars of the organization’s success with coal, according to Gibbons, was having a clear message, good solution, and credible messenger, addressing an important political issue, and building a strong base of public support.

“That in a nutshell is how we achieved the coal phase-out,” Gibbons told DeSmog Canada.

The Ontario Clear Air Alliance’s goal is for Ontario to run on one hundred per cent renewable energy by 2030.

Image Credit: coal power plant by Wigwam Jones via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.