GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

  On Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul finally unveiled the changes she wants to make to New York’s flagship climate law, after  months of waffling .   The core of Hochul’s proposal is to push back the law’s first big deadlines for emissions reductions. The 2019 law requires New York to cut emissions 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030. And it required the state environmental agency to issue regulations by the start of 2024 to achieve those cuts.   Hochul’s administration failed to do so, and was given an  ultimatum of sorts  by a judge last October: Issue the rules, or change the law.   Hochul has chosen the latter. She wants a seven-year extension on the 2024 deadline — pushing it to the end of 2030 — and wants to link the rules to a new, as yet unspecified emissions target in 2040. She also wants to revise how the state  counts emissions , effectively allowing homes and businesses to burn more gas for longer.   The governor doesn’t want t...

  ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday unveiled proposed changes to New York’s Climate Act that would preserve the transition of the state’s economy to low-carbon energy sources while eliminating requirements to comply with the short-term mandates of the law.   ​The 2019 Climate Act requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2030. By 2050, those levels are supposed to be reduced by 85%. Supporters of the law claim the mandates will positively impact the planet’s climate and reduce pollution. Hochul acknowledged those goals as worthwhile but said the statute’s timeline would result in higher utility costs that would be too much for many people to handle in a state already grappling with a housing crisis and the high cost of living.   “We will not walk away from our climate goals, but make sure that the path we’re on is realistic and fair to the people we serve, because a climate policy that leaves working families behind...

  On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul finally started tiptoeing toward reality on New York’s climate law. In a lengthy opinion column, she laid out her proposal to postpone by a decade the state’s stringent greenhouse-gas emissions rules, set by law to hit in 2030 — pointing fingers at everything from COVID-19 to upstate NIMBYism to President Donald Trump to justify waving the white flag.   But Albany legislators should never have imposed these  draconian CO ₂   emissions  targets to begin with. Even in 2019, when the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act was passed, New York had among the lowest carbon emissions per capita of any state in the US, with 6% of the nation’s population but only 1% of its CO ₂ . Forcing this law on New Yorkers is like imposing calorie restrictions on anorexics to solve America’s obesity problem. And make no mistake, the Climate Act imposes severe restrictions in seeking a 40% reduction in gas emissions by 2030. A New Y...

  Wind farms on Wolfe Island have been turned off after a blade from one of the turbines ripped off sometime Monday. The mayor of  Wolfe Island , Judy Greenwood-Speers, got the call Tuesday from  TransAlta , the company that operates the farms. “It seems that the turbine blade fell straight to the ground in front of the turbine, so that’s good and also unusual,” said Greenwood-Speers. There are 86 turbines that have been operating since 2009. She said over the past 17 years, nothing like this has ever happened. “This is very surprising to them (Transalta) too, in that, it’s an unusual occurrence,” added Greenwood-Speers. On Monday a blade from a wind turbine on Wolfe Island broke off. TransAlta, the company who runs the farms, is currently investigating.  She was taken to the location where the blade fell, which was between 4th and 5th Line Road, just south of Base Line Road, on Wolfe Island. Due to the wide-open space where the turbine was built, no one was injured....

  An investigation is underway after a massive blade snapped off a wind turbine on Wolfe Island, near Kingston, Ont. The "blade failure" happened on Monday during "high wind conditions," according to TransAlta, the company that  operates 86 turbines on the island . No injuries were reported, the company said in an emailed statement. "As a precaution, the facility remains offline while we conduct inspections and a technical assessment of the turbines." Photos shared by Township of Frontenac Islands Mayor Judy Greenwood-Speers show a white, 80-metre tower in a field with only two of its three blades still attached. The third lies on the ground near its base. A blade from a wind turbine lies near its base in a field on Wolfe Island. TransAlta, the company that operates the wind farm, said the damage happened during 'high wind conditions. '    "The good news is no one was hurt. It landed basically at the bottom of the turbine ... so no damage done...

  For years, politicians across the Western world have insisted that windmills and solar panels would power the future while reliable energy sources were dismantled in the name of climate policy. Now reality is beginning to intrude. Canada is preparing to unveil a national electricity strategy centered on expanding nuclear power as governments confront a basic problem they ignored for years — electricity demand is rising far faster than their green policies ever anticipated. Artificial intelligence, data centers, and electrification mandates are dramatically increasing power demand across North America. At the same time, governments closed coal plants, restricted natural gas, and stalled nuclear projects for ideological reasons. The result has been rising electricity prices and growing concern about long-term energy security. Canada is now quietly acknowledging what engineers and economists have been saying for years.  Nuclear power   remains one of the few reliable basel...