My view of the folks voicing support is that they fit into one of three categories: 1. Ignorant of the facts.
Chris, thank you for so nicely insulting our intelligence.
2. In favor of hydro power at all costs, taxpayers be damned.
Chris, have you heard any of us supporting Manitoba Hydro's invasion of sovereign First Nation's lands? Or any massive hydro project?
3. Friends of, or paid lobbyists for, or people who owe favors to, or are getting kickbacks from this project.
Well Chris, it's time for me to come clean: I and thousands of the other "little people" who work along the downtown Riverfront but could never afford to live there expect a kickback- clean air! We're the coughing and hacking middle aged non smokers and the children with asthma who want clean, non polluting power.
Remember the diesel generator I told you about yesterday? Well, it's been running a lot lately, and it smokes. The smoke is blown by the prevaling winds on hot days right into our workplace. When the wind shifts before a storm it blows towards a day care center. That generator was buried in the bowels of the Post Office addition back about 1990. It was put there for good reasons, to supply backup power and take some load off the grid during the occasional 100 degree day. Technology wise, it's a diesel dinosaur, built before electronic controls and exhaust gas recirculation. So unlike the new diesels that you couldn't make smoke if you tried, it belches more than a bit of "particulate matter". Prolonged exposure to said particulate manner may make breathing difficult or impossible.
That dirty old generator seems to run more every year. In fact, the other day it was running to take the Post Office offline when it was only 72 degrees out. Now as we are seeing it's near impossible to site new clean power here in the Mill City. Nuclear power is going nowhere and any new coal plant will be hundreds of miles away. Yet each year our population increases and demand for energy with it. Where is that energy going to come from?
More dirty old diesels. A megawatt of solar power capacity costs about $10,000,000. Wind and small hydro are just as clean for a bit less investment. But a dirty thirty year old locomotive can be had for less than $100,000 and will put out a couple megawatts of dirty power. Said dirty old locomotive/generator is also scarcely regulated, being a grandfathered "mobile source". Where do you think the investor's money will go? Then there's the horde of aging "emergency" generators, similar to the Post Office's. With new clean power projects blocked they'll be belching away 24 hours a day.
So Park Board members, let us have clean power to replace our dirty old diesels, and clean fresh air to breathe.
Workin' on the Riverfront,
Dyna Sluyter
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