Sales of Dirty Business closed

October 30, 2015

We have now closed out our inventory and effective today, this website is inactive.

Thanks to all for buying the book!

Anniversary sale!

It’s our anniversary!

And have we got a deal for you!

A lot has changed for wind power development in Ontario since the release of Dirty Business: the reality of Ontario’s rush to wind power

• Almost every wind power project in Ontario has been appealed
• Legal actions and appeals are ongoing almost every week
• 89 Ontario municipalities have declared themselves to be unwilling hosts to wind power
• New community groups popping up to fight new wind power proposals

Result: Ontario is now seen as a very unfriendly place to develop wind energy

Here is an excerpt from the book, and a snapshot of how wind power invaded Ontario.

“This is a story of an epic success in marketing coupled with revenue potentials in the hundreds of billions of dollars. It is a story of greed and gold-rush style entrepreneurs. It is a story of complacent, naïve and opportunistic politicians who recognized the Brand as an easy political win. For our elected politicians it was an opportunity to make a strategic decision for their jurisdictions to which no one, at least no one who was rational, could possibly take opposition. And finally, it is a story of ruthless, old-fashioned business practice where opposition must be obliterated in pursuit of the deal.

This is the story of the dirty business of clean, free wind energy.”

(From “Selling wind: it’s just business” in Dirty Business.)

Read articles from Parker Gallant, Tom Adams, Rick Conroy and others who have dared to tell the truth about the folly of wind power on a large scale in Ontario!

ACT NOW: Just a few copies are left!

Take advantage of our closing out sale and purchase your copy of Dirty Business today for just $10 plus shipping. Email us at dirtybusinessbook@yahoo.ca

Opportunistic politicians: in Ontario, Dalton McGuinty led the province to expensive wind power and skyrocketing electricity bills

The indefensible Green Energy Act

It’s been a busy week in Ontario for power issues. The Green Energy Act came under fire at Queen’s Park as the government tried to amend legislation to fix the illegal parts related to domestic content (which, it turns out, they know was illegal back in 2010 but did it anyway).Best quote of the day: PC Energy Critic Lisa MacLeod said that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne would be named Business Woman of the year…in Massena NY, which benefits from Ontario’s bargain-basement sell-off of power surplus to our needs, to neighbouring states.

Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli admitted that the province is spending over $1 B a year or $22 B over the next 20 years on wind power.

To celebrate, we’re making you a special offer on the book that explains how all this got started: Dirty Business. Until March 22, we’re offering you a second copy of Dirty Business for just $2.20 when you buy one at the regular price of $8.99, plus shipping. That means, your second copy is practically free.

And no, it’s not McGuinty-nomics…we mean it!

Email us at dirtybusinessbook@yahoo.ca and get your copies now.

Michael Trebilcock called it: hydro bills will go up

As people all over Ontario open their first electricity bills of 2014 (which don’t even reflect the increase effective January 1st) and are shocked to see a significant increase in the amount added to the amount owing, we recall the words of Michael Trebilcock in Dirty Business.

No comprehensive and professional analysis of the feasibility of the proposed amounts of renewable energy has been done to highlight potentially more cost-effective alternatives to renewables, such as further developing Ontario’s hydro resources, importing clean electricity from other jurisdictions, using “clean” coal or a more aggressive conservation policy. Evidence-based policy making by expert agencies has been replaced by government, by political expediency or personal hubris.

And now here we are: increases galore, with as much as 42% forecast for the next five years (Parker Gallant, Vic Fedeli and others think it will be much higher), businesses crying foul, energy poverty beginning to be seen among our more vulnerable populations, community organizations like churches and rinks saying they cannot continue, and citizens are saying, why can’t we buy cheap hydro from Quebec?

Why indeed.

What else is the foundation for Ontario’s current and very political energy situation? Ruthless marketing by the global wind power lobby? The failure of Ontario’s agencies to regulate prices of electricity? The complete absence of any business plan whatsoever?

Get your copy of Dirty Business and find out!

Order today: dirtybusinessbook@yahoo.ca for $8.99 New Year’s price plus shipping*

Or, get it fast on Kobo at http://prod-www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Dirty-Business-reality-Ontarios-rush/book-0Sf5rAUWEUuvqRMd-DBR-A/page1.html

*We regret we can no longer ship to Australia.

Tom Adams on helpful journalists

In Dirty Business, Tom Adams writes that “…city-bound journalists are largely unaware of the corrosive effects some wind developments are having for communities, neighbourhoods, even families.”

Turns out, it’s worse than that: the latest spate of emails internal to the McGuinty era provincial government indicate that provincial government and agency officials actually sought to manipulate the media via “friendly” voices, whose favour may or may not have been encouraged by government contracts.

Here from Tom Adams current blog posting, his story on Corrupt Electricity Reporting, pertaining to Tyler Hamilton who parlayed his apparent environmental and electricity system knowledge into an influential column at The Toronto Star. (Hamilton no longer writes for The Star.) http://www.tomadamsenergy.com/2013/08/28/corrupt-electricity-reporting/

For more Tom Adams and others who foretold the situation today, your copy of Dirty Business can be ordered at dirtybusinessbook@yahoo.ca 

Tom Adams: “Very very dangerous”

A set of emails sent between former staffers of the former McGuinty government reveal how the regime was struggling to fight negative press and having the truth about the gas plant cancellations come to light.

Among the emails was a one from former CBC news reader and OPA executive, Ben Chin. He said that energy commentator Tom Adams was “very very dangerous.”

No kidding: Tom Adams in Dirty Business: “While the renewable energy project developers are still enjoying the last blush of their gold rush, job-destroying, budget-busting electricity rate increases have just begun. The McGuinty government’s massive portfolio of excessively priced, take-or-pay energy contracts will be ripping off ratepayers for twenty years.”

“The Green Energy Act must go,” he concluded.

Read more Tom Adams, plus Parker Gallant, Michael Trebilcock and many more in Dirty Business.

Order today at dirtybusinessbook@yahoo.ca

Just $9.99 CAD plus shipping.

(Sorry we can no longer ship to Australia)

Dirty Business is also available as an e-book on Kobo.com and at select book stores, including

Manotick Office Pro

Books & Company, Picton, Ontario

Book review:”a conversation with a wide range of people”

BOOK REVIEW

Dirty Business: The Reality of Ontario’s Rush to Wind Power.

In this collection of short essays, the editor is very specific in the introduction, referring to the “wind power generation industry” and how it measures up from a business development standpoint.  The authors of the 22 short chapters that follow examine the case for wind power in terms of the perceived need and the establishment of – or lack of – government policies and goals for alternative power generation, methods of financing, sourcing materials, sales and promotion, and whether the adverse effects have been addressed.  Four academics, three business and finance experts, two medical professionals, two real estate consultants – one from Canada, one from the US – as well as a professional engineer from MIT, two respected journalists and some rural residents living near the industrial turbines each share their opinions, relating some interesting facts and statistics along the way.  The editor cautions us that “it can be a very unpleasant picture when it’s all assembled” (p. 1).

 Some contributors have taken a wryly humorous approach to the wind industry. Dan Wrightman, an Ontario farmer, describes the scene if the same feed-in tariff structure was applied to rainwater production. The results are laughably absurd, but bring into sharp focus the truly illogical elements of the plan which is being applied to wind power generation.  Others point more seriously to some disturbing elements that may have far-reaching consequences.  Michael Trebilcock, professor of law and economics at the University of Toronto, uses direct quotes from the 20-year Long-term Energy Plan to warn that “[t]he consumer rate will increase by about 3.5 percent annually over the length of the Long-term Plan.  Over the next five years, however, residential electricity prices are expected to rise by about 7.9 percent annually (or 46 percent over five years)” (p. 7).  While some increases can reasonably be expected over time, Trebilcock wonders about the fate of the “public utility type regulation of the electricity sector … to protect consumers against excessive and unjustified cost and price increases” (p. 11).

 Although the book is a collection of facts and opinions that explore several aspects of the down side of wind power generation, it is nevertheless an engaging read. Finish one or two chapters, and I challenge you not to pick up the book and read another; you will feel like you have indeed done the research, and have had conversations with a wide range of people with a keen interest in the business of wind power generation.  You will likely be convinced that wind power generation perhaps is not the “green” solution to our power needs; if not convinced, you may at least understand why so many others see the wind power generation industry as a “dirty business”.       

 Grace Howell

 Grace Howell, M.A., is a writing instructor at Huron University College, and a freelance writer.

 Dirty Business: The reality of Ontario’s rush to wind power.

Jane Wilson, Editor. Parker Gallant, Contributing Editor. Published 2011.

ISBN 978-0-9877210-0-6

https://dirtybusinessbook.wordpress.com

dirtybusinessbook@yahoo.ca

The urban-rural divide in Ontario: how did it happen?

From today’s Toronto Star, a letter to the Editor referring to a column last week.

Re: McGuinty plugs the cabinet holes, Column, Oct. 20

Martin Regg Cohn’s column demonstrates why us peasants from the rural hinterlands have completely different mindsets and needs from our urban cousins.

The main reason most of the province outside urban areas is Tory blue is clearly its opposition to industrial wind factories. All the other items were peripheral to this issue that coalesced opposition like I’ve never seen before. The only rural residents who support industrial wind factories are land owners who directly stand to profit and a few misinformed residents who believe all the propaganda from off-shore wind factory companies and Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals.

Cohn claims “. . . polls show wind power remains broadly popular . . .”, however the majority of respondents are from urban areas who pass these wind factories on the way to their cottage and think, “How wonderful, we’re saving the planet.” They don’t have to put up with these ugly, inefficient, hazardous and expensive machines 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, forever. We do!

If urban residents feel so supportive of these machines and rural residents are firmly opposed, there seems to be a simple solution that will satisfy everyone: only build industrial wind factories where people support them, (i.e. the urban areas that voted Liberal). Voilà — a simple solution to a sensitive political headache for McGuinty.

The “shrill voices of anti-turbine protesters” will not fade away. If this government fails to acknowledge the problem it’s created with its Green Energy Act, further action can be expected.

If urban dwellers fail to see the harm they’re causing in supporting this method of producing electrons, then maybe it’s time to ramp up the opposition. Maybe a “boycott everything Toronto” program by rural residents could start the process.

Maybe it’s time to again discuss creating a province of Toronto outside of the province of Ontario. That way urban and rural issues need not become so cloudy!

Roger Nerney, Port Elgin

How did the urban-rural divide get so bad in Ontario? You need to read Dirty Business, the reality of Ontario’s rush to wind power. To order, e-mail us at dirtybusinessbook@yahoo.ca Pay by PayPal, Interac or send a cheque (see How To Order page)

Or, visit Reflections Books in Fergus, Manotick Office Pro in Manotick, or Books & Company in Picton, Ontario.

Follow us on Twitter at dirtybizness!!!

Reviews!

Comments are coming in about Dirty Business: the reality of Ontario’s rush to wind power

-an amazing compilation

-thank you, thank you, thank you. All of rural Ontario thanks you!

-This is great. This is the best information, all in one place.

-a good read and attractively put together

-Thanks for wrecking my day off. I sat down to read a bit with a cup of tea and ended up spending the day reading the whole thing. And now I’m mad as hell!!!

To order Dirty Business, please e-mail dirtybusinessbook@yahoo.ca

We accept payment by cheque, PayPal (we can invoice you) or Interac bank transfer.

Copies are on sale at Manotick Office Pro in Manotick and Roxanne’s Reflections in Fergus. Copies will also be on sale at a special event in North Gower, September 28th at 7 p.m., Client Services Centre.