Ontario's Tax Funded Foolishness

Much more coal than oil is burnt in Ontario to create electricity. It fuels 5 plants in Ontario: Nanticoke, Lambton, Atikokan, Lakeview, and Thunderbay. Coal burning creates nitrogen oxide (NOX), a key contributor to smog; sulfur dioxide (SOX), which causes acid rain; and carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas. Burning coal also releases other pollutants such as mercury. (This is a potent neurotoxin that accumulates and concentrates as it travels through the food chain.)

While scrubbers can be installed on coal plants to reduce nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide emissions, carbon dioxide cannot be removed. The coal industry often talks of "clean coal" but removing the carbon dioxide would require overcoming some of the basic laws that govern chemistry and thermodynamics. To be totally honest, the industry really should use the phrase "less filthy coal".
Ontario's coal plants cannot even be described as "less filthy". There are plans to install nitrogen oxide scrubbers on 4 of the 12 units at Nanticoke and Lambton, but that would leave the remaining 8 units without any controls. And installing this technology slightly reduces thermal efficiency. This means more coal must be burned to achieve the same output. This, in turn, increases the emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. Sulfur dioxide has been reduced by switching to lower sulfur coals but electric power generation in Ontario still continues to be the largest single emitter in the province.

Coal generators in Ontario cause roughly 20% of the province's emission of nitrogen oxides. At high summer temperatures this reacts with other chemicals in the air to create ground level ozone, a lung irritant that has been associated with breathing difficulties and asthma. The Canadian Medical Association estimates that every year approximately 2000 Ontarions die prematurely from smog. Thousands more Ontario citizens have smog-related breathing problems that result in a reduced quality of life.

Acid rain, smog, mercury, climate change---whenever we turn on a light in modern-day Ontario we are substantially contributing to these problems.

Oh, I didn't mention that this environMENTALly conformist Province is 200 Million in debt. There are MANY programs where the proper research was implemented and it, became a failed (another) use of tax dollars. But what difference does this make 'cuz Suzuki LOVES Ont. and McGuinty too.
There was the programme where land owners could send their green power to a grid to lower their power bills. That SOUNDED nice until it was discovered that the grid could receive the green energy. Again, millions was wasted in harnessing this green energy.