Dawn’s early light

Kent Hawkins would be pleased I think. He along with a handful of others fought the lonely, and often bitter, fight against industrial wind turbines a decade ago in Prince Edward County. An engineer by training and by inclination, Hawkins occupied himself in the realm of fact and data. From his North Marysburgh home, he dissected the claims and promises made by governments anxious to be seen to be doing something about climate change and fossil fuel emissions, but who satisfied this need by mindlessly handing cartloads of money to developers eager to take it.

Hawkins demonstrated, through letters to this newspaper and others, and through blog posts and presentations, that intermittent electricity generating sources don’t work. Can’t work. Not here. Not anywhere. He showed, convincingly, that significant breakthroughs in fundamental physics and chemistry were necessary before uncontrollable and variable electricity sources could ever contribute a meaningful amount to the energy needs of our economies. A decade later, we are no closer to solving these basic problems. Yet we continue to throw billions of dollars away each year at a technology we know doesn’t work.

Kent was, and remains, a big proponent of conservation: his data showed that North Americans made significant achievements in conserving energy relative to our economic growth since the oil shocks in the ’70s. He believed greater inroads could be achieved. His letters and message could be heavy and demanding at times—but that is what electricity generation on a western economy scale is—a large, complex subject.

It is one of the reasons it could be so easily hijacked by those with political motives; one of the reasons it has taken so long to pull the wool away from the broader population’s eyes.

But it has begun.

Hawkins would have been pleased to see so many folks crowded into the Regent Theatre last week. The seats were full, latecomers gathered along the rail. They were eager to hear the latest news in the multifaceted fight against industrial wind turbines, in this community and elsewhere in the region.

He would have been impressed by the sheer number of folks on the stage who have joined the fight—working hard on issues of natural heritage, impacts on wildlife, property values, human health issues, and economic impacts as well as legal remedies and appeals.

Hawkins would be pleased, too, that County council has positioned itself squarely behind those who are working to protect this community and all its inhabitants. Last week council declared itself an unwilling host to industrial wind turbines by an impressive 11-5 vote. Prince Edward County joins 15 other Ontario jurisdictions in testing the commitment made by Ontario’s new Premier Kathleen Wynne to bestow more local control over these projects.

As government bureaucrats wrangle over a decision on 29 turbines in South Marysburgh, they know it is proceeding against the objections of this community and its local government. This is an enormous shift in a decade.

Kent Hawkins believes information is freedom; the key to unlocking ourselves from the shackles of misguided, devastating and horrendously expensive public policy.

Dr. Robert McMurtry was among the cast to speak to the gathering last Thursday. He observed that the weight of the evidence of harm to human health from industrial wind turbines has shifted from a probability to beyond a reasonable doubt.

But it was something else that would have caught Hawkins’s ear, I suspect.

McMurtry noted that when he moved to South Marysburgh in 2008 he planned on hosting a turbine or two on his property. That is, until he began to look into it a bit more closely. The more he researched, the more he realized it was a profoundly bad idea. The claims made by government and developers proved hollow, yet warnings from experts were being ignored.

Now Dr. McMurtry is one of the world’s leading advocates for those suffering from the effects of these relentless machines spinning over their homes.

The more one knows about wind energy—the less there is to like. On any basis. Not environmentally. Not economically. And increasingly, not politically.

Last week it felt as though we had begun to move out of the dark ages, with the promise of a broadening enlightenment.

Kent Hawkins would be pleased with that glimpse of light.

Hawkins currently resides in the Greater Toronto area. His writings on this subject may be found on masterresource.org, a widely followed blog on energy markets and public policy.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca