Hydro in Niagara: A century ago, naysayers said renewable energy was too expensive for OntarioDAVID DUPREY/The Associated Press
This is not the first time an Ontario premier has found himself under fire over a plan for massive investments in renewable energy to end his province's reliance on coal.
One hundred years ago, premier James Whitney was in the hot seat over his proposal to harness what a friendly editorial writer of the time described as "the pure white light generated by God's greatest masterpiece, Niagara Falls." Others decried the dream of building the hydro-electric generating station at Niagara Falls as an expensive folly that would bankrupt the province.
It did prove to be fabulously expensive. If no one remembers how the controversy dominated Ontario politics for 15 years, it is only because the result was the province emerging as the economic engine of Canada, with Niagara Falls as its sparkplug.
If there is a lesson worth remembering, it is that the investments being made today in modern forms of renewable energy can be for this century what the turbines at Niagara Falls were for the last: the foundation of our future prosperity and a source of pride.
Of course, investing in green energy is never about pure altruism. A hundred years ago, the province wanted to get off coal for energy-security reasons rather than health or environmental ones. The catalyst was bitter strikes in the coalfields of Pennsylvania that had cut off supplies and threatened to doom Ontarians to freeze in the dark. The consequence was that Ontario was ahead of the game when the second industrial revolution arrived, powered first by electricity and then by the internal combustion engine.
In the 21st century, energy security is inextricably intertwined with securing a stable climate and healthy ecosystem. In a world threatened by dangerous levels of global warming, and what can be done with radioactive waste by individuals with malicious intent, there will be no security - of any kind - if we don't find ways to meet our energy needs in a way that doesn't lay waste to the planet.
This is where necessity again opens the door to opportunity. The Americans are gearing up for massive investments in renewable energy and the European green-energy revolution is well under way. Someone is going to have to manufacture the products that both create that energy and save it by improving the efficiency of our homes, vehicles and workplaces.
Fortunately, rebuilding our energy system along more sustainable lines offers plenty of opportunity. Alberta may have lost an early lead in wind energy, but there's no reason it can't mount a comeback and the province is well situated to be a leader in geothermal power. Nipping at Ontario's heels are Quebec, Manitoba, British Columbia and Nova Scotia, all of which are exploring how they can prepare their economies for the next century through green-energy investments.
But we're not going to get very far if we aren't prepared to accept that the price of energy is going to rise, even if bills go down as we do a better job of conserving energy we don't need and doing more with less raw power when we do need it. Anyone who tells you we can build new generating facilities - black or green - that can match the indirectly subsidized power from decade-old plants nearing the end of their working lives is selling you a pipe dream. The only reason that we now think of Niagara Falls as a source of cheap power is because the cost of building it was repaid decades ago.
A century ago, the naysayers said we couldn't afford to build Niagara Falls. Yet I suspect that most of us are glad that our grandparents' generation forged ahead with what remains an engineering marvel that dramatically improved our quality of life. I also suspect that if we get this right, our grandkids will be just as glad that we are building the renewable-energy projects that will power our future and their past.
Keith Stewart is the director of the climate change program at WWF-Canada, and co-author of Hydro: The Decline and Fall of Ontario's Electric Empire.