Quebec approves new wind projects
The province has stumbled on a way to build huge new windmills, to generate wind energy, without angering local residents: Build them in the woods, far from populated areas.
Quebec is committed to being Canada’s leader in wind energy by 2015, when windmills generating 4,000 megawatts are to supplement Hydro-Québec’s largely hydroelectrical generating capacity.
Windmill towers can be 60 to 90 metres high, with blades 20 to 40 metres long, and local residents near some of the proposed new windmills don’t want them in their backyards. While they don’t pollute the air or dam rivers, opponents object to the visible pollution of the hulking towers and the noise they emit.
Nathalie Normandeau, named Quebec’s natural resources minister in a cabinet shuffle on June 23, announced yesterday that the province has given environmental approval to the first in a new series of 15 wind farms.
And she noted that when the promoters of the $800-million Lac Brûlé project, about 90 kilometres north of Quebec City, presented their plan to build 131 windmills in a forested area, it was “so well presented,” there were no questions.
As a result there were no public hearings before Quebec’s Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement, the minister said.
The Lac Brûlé project is on land owned by the Seigneurie de la Côte de Beaupré.
David Craig, who operates the Manoir du Lac Brûlé fishing lodge on the lake, has no qualms.
“Not at all,” he said, adding that having a wind farm across his lake could be an additional tourist attraction. “Its beautiful energy, renewable, green.”
Lac Brûlé is the largest of the 15 latest projects Quebec has approved, subject to acceptance by residents. It will generate 272 megawatts of energy.
Boralex, a company specializing in alternative energy and small hydro projects, will build the wind farm in partnership with Gaz Métro, Quebec’s main natural gas distributor.
But Normandeau did admit there are difficulties with other wind projects being developed, because of objections from people living nearby.
She said Kruger Énergie’s 68-megawatt Ste. Luce project, in the Lower St. Lawrence region, would not be built and the Aguanish project on the Lower North Shore would be relocated by its promoter, St-Laurent Énergie, to the Eastern Townships.
“We don’t want to impose projects where citizens are opposed,” Normaneau said.
By Kevin Dougherty
9 July 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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