Thursday, November 23, 2006

Why the Power Workers Union is running those ads

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers.

The last few weeks, there's been a radio campaign going on singing the virtues of clean coal and nuclear power in the province of Ontario. Not from the usual suspects, but from CUPE Local 1000 a.k.a. the Power Workers Union.

Both are necessary evils, and given we're still too reliant on the power of the atom as well as the "dirtier" kind of coal they're going to be with us for some time to come. But one of the ads, where a rock concert suddenly shuts down due to a shortage of power is just plain silly. It's completely dismissive of photovoltaic (solar) and wind power -- even though Ontario Power Generation does use those sources for a small but not insignificant percentage of the total supply.

What this is really all about is where the new nuclear power plants are going to be situated. It's more than obvious that PWU wants it at Nanticoke, a 45 minute drive south of where I live, because Canada's largest coal power plant is already there as well as the infrastructure for transmission lines. It would be nice if they actually admitted their conflict of interest.

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