Wind, solar or unicorn flatulence will be the only options.
Via North Country Public Radio:
It’s a gas leak of a different kind. Recently, a copy of the Ontario government’s climate change action plan was leaked to the media. The big controversy in the document is a suggestion that home heating with natural gas and oil will be phased out and no longer permitted in new homes after 2030 in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even though that’s 14 years away, even the slightest suggestion of no longer having gas as a heating option is getting a pretty cool reception from many Ontario residents. For decades, many Ontario homeowners have been switching to gas and getting rid of oil because of the lower cost, higher efficiency, and abundant supply. Residents and councils in towns without connections to gas pipelines still lobby gas companies and energy regulators to expand to their communities. The provincial government is ironically even attempting to expand the natural gas industry through economic development programs.
Due to regulatory changes and renewable generation policies over the past 20 years, Ontario’s electricity rates have gone from among the lowest in Canada, to the highest. Homeowners aren’t exactly eager to start heating their houses with electricity because of that. It’s totally opposite from the 1980s when Ontario Hydro ran a TV advertising campaign with a talking oil furnace named Fillmore (as in, fill with more oil), encouraging people to turf their oil-thirsty furnace and “Go Electric.” Of course in much of rural and northern Ontario, good old fashioned wood is still the fuel of choice for many homeowners during the winter months. They either cut it on their own properties or buy it from a nearby supplier. Some heat with wood and oil combination furnaces and try to use as much wood as possible to keep oil costs down. “Getting the wood in”—which usually means stacking it in a basement or shed, is a late summer ritual for many rural Ontarians.
HT: Tom Nelson