The development of off-shore wind farms in Ontario, Canada has suffered a setback for more than a year now since the Liberal government had imposed a moratorium on all off-shore wind projects since February 2011, stating that more environmental and health studies need to be done. In a press release, Energy Minister Brad Duguid had stated: “Fresh water wind turbines are something that's relatively new, and the Ministry of the Environment needs a level of comfort on the science before they can approve any further consideration of them. On-shore, there's 30 or 40 years of peer-reviewed science ... there's no evidence of health impacts from on-shore wind, but off-shore wind is completely different."
Trillium Wind Power Corp., who had four off-shore wind power projects that were derailed because of the moratorium, is now suing the province for $2.25 billion in damages. The company’s lawyer Morris Cooper has said that the “the only science involved….is political science,” arguing that the province had “acted in bad faith” when it issued the moratorium.
Another company, SouthPoint Wind has also filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the province and three provincial ministries (Environment Canada, Hydro One, and the Ontario Power Authority) because of the moratorium. It has been developing industrial wind power projects in Leamington, Union, and Kingsville when the government cancelled applications. The company claims that the government had acted “deliberately and deceptively” when it gave the freeze orders.
If off-shore wind farming is not detrimental to health and the environment, it is considered to be a significant energy resource. It offers higher wind speeds; more constant winds; and lower wind turbulence offshore that does not stress the turbine for a set wind speed compared to on-shore wind farms. However, they are said to be more expensive to construct and operate. Technologies like Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) and SOnic Detection and Ranging (SODAR) are just two of the innovative technologies used to study the potential in selected sites for off-shore wind farming.
While the development of Canada’s wind off-shore wind farms has suffered major setbacks, the technology has been well-accepted in Europe, now considered as world leader in offshore wind power. In the United States, the off-shore wind farm project in Block Island in Rhode Island developed by Deepwater Wind has already finished three years of environmental studies on the site and hopes to get its permits approved next year. If all goes well, they will have all their five turbines operating in 2014.
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