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If they did, it didn’t seem to register for long. The proposed agreement with Québec, Gagnon says, was short-sighted in the extreme: “This is a very long-term sector. It was not a good deal for New Brunswick, as it basically transferred the province’s energy future to another jurisdiction for quick and relatively immediate gains. So, I decided to speak out. I participated in the debate and made myself available to answer questions. I just wasn’t expecting to be asked for my opinion as much as I was.”
Apart from the dozens of interviews he granted to media outlets across the country, he released another crucial piece of research which attempted to show how the Graham Liberals were ignoring another, far better option. According to the document, “The profits generated by a 100 megawatt wind farm can reach $200-million over the 25-year life cycle of the project. Furthermore, since these estimates do not take into consideration eventual revenues from the trading of carbon credits, the profits could be much higher once carbon markets are introduced into the economy…. Extrapolating the results from a 100 megawatt wind farm to a total installed wind energy capacity of 4,000 megawatts in New Brunswick indicates that benefits could be in the order of $300-million per year or a total of $7-billion over 25 years. A Big Wind energy strategy could be an alternative to the sale of NB Power.”
Gagnon certainly takes no credit for the eventual failure of the deal with Québec, but he does appreciate any and all opportunities to promote and defend a remarkable and largely untapped resource for energy self-sufficiency in Atlantic Canada. For while governments may vacillate and lose sight of the big picture, despite their stated intentions, others remain consistently critical of wind energy as an inefficient, costly, even environmentally damaging source of power.
Writing recently in the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, chemical engineer Ian L. McQueen reflects the views of many, if not a majority, when he claims: “A wind turbine generates power only when the wind is strong enough. Power falls off sharply below the design optimum of 50 km/h. (For the technically minded, output rises and falls with the cube of wind speed, so halving wind speed reduces power to one-eighth.) And the wind is usually weakest when electrical demand is the highest – the coldest days in winter and the hottest days of summer.”
Moreover, he declares, “Wind turbines are big and ugly. And typically, a fifth of them are idle because of mechanical problems. They are also noisy, even at considerable distances: An endless rumbling. Whining from the gearbox. Blade tips whipping through the air at more than 200 km/h. A thump as each blade passes the tower. And optical flickering from the blades. Add to that a risk of ice being thrown off the blades in the winter. And not for nothing are turbines known as ‘Cuisinarts of the Air’ for their ability to slice and dice birds and bats, typically 20 to 40 per turbine every year.”
To which Gagnon smiles weakly. Many of the complaints, he says, are simply myths, based not on science but on “fear of the unknown”. Others are legitimate. Still, he insists, they can be addressed through better practices, especially with respect to the position and placement of turbines in and near communities. Where critics are on to something, however, is in the intermittence of wind-generated power. It’s a problem he and others are working hard to solve.
“Think of wind as part of a mix of renewable energy options,” he says. “One day, smart grids, which employ two-way digital technology from supplier to consumer, may be able to meter power more accurately and, therefore, meet demand more reliably.”
It’s pure Yves Gagnon: rational, determined, mainstream, and charmingly disarming. And, no, it’s not what you’d ordinarily expect from a lifelong friend of the earth.
