You drive halfway across Ontario to enter the sustainable energy sweepstakes. You arrive at the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the parking lot is completely jammed with BMWs. Minister George Smitherman has sold all the parking spots to offshore interests and numbered companies. You have just been bushwacked by the Northern Silo System of Planning.

We Northerners have just woken up to the fact that we can build a sustainable economy based on our renewable energy resources. By converting to district heating and using our nothing but waste wood, we could cut community heating costs by three-quarters. Even better, the community heating plants could also produce electricity. Then waste heat from the electric generation plant could be used to heat homes the way it’s done in Scandinavia. With low and stable heating costs many more northern communities will survive and even prosper.

You can imagine how exciting this must be for the Jim Watson, minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. District heating and generation co-operatives would do exactly what the ministry website says it is supposed to do.

Electricity revenues would be icing on the cake. Ontario’s new Green Energy Act will allow new rates of 12.2-cents-per kilowatt for electrical energy produced from renewable resources. A 10-megawatt plant running 24-hours-a-day, all year would produce 87,600,000 kilowatts, worth $10,687,200.  Running at 80 per cent, a plant in the Temiskaming region, for example, would add about $8-million-a year to the community.

The heating plant would have to pay for wood waste, of course, generating more local income. A community-owned power corporation or a co-operative would keep the profits in the region. On the other hand, outside ownership would reduce the benefits considerably, but would provide the kind of management skill shown by the very clever people in the international financial community.

Michael Gravelle, the Minister of Northern Development should be talking up this strategy with all the mayors and councillors across the North. Ministry staff should be helping communities create energy co-operatives in as many towns as possible. Shouldn’t Gravelle be working to make sure Northern communities all get as big a share of the sustainable energy gravy train as possible?

The Northern Silo System of Planning makes sure that no one is really representing Northern interests. There is a good chance no one has even mentioned the opportunity to Jim Watson or Michael Gravelle. Power generation falls under George Smitherman’s ministry. Wood waste falls under Donna Cansfield's jurisdiction. Northern Development is under Gravelle. It is quite possible no one in any of these ministries in the south has put the pieces together.  

What if Northern communities do the math themselves and start to develop their own energy cooperatives? Here is where the CIA comes in. Anyone planning to connect to the power grid is required to apply to the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) for a Connection Impact Assessment (CIA). The IESO makes sure that new plants and new equipment don’t crash the system.

Under the Green Energy Act, utilities have to give priority grid access to green energy projects and they have to act quickly. The first green projects will get to use any slack in the system. Latecomers will have to pay to upgrade the transmission system. All the parking spots will go to the people with the fastest lawyers.

We have already seen a mad scramble for the rights to produce sustainable energy using northern wood waste. Behind the scenes sharp operators are rushing to grab the available grid access. They’ve seen how the Game is played in Europe where the original Green Energy act was written. They know what grid access is worth. Our Northern mayors don’t. Without help from the ministries, the race will be over before most Northern communities realize it has started.

We need better leadership from our provincial ministers, especially Michael Gravelle. Without their leadership, the energy gold rush will be like every other resource boom in the North. First a legal give away, then a long sucking sound as the benefits go south.

The Northern Silo System of Planning works for everyone but Northerners.