Egypt defends power policies
CAIRO, EGYPT - A rationing plan for electricity in Egypt will help the country conserve electricity while plans develop for new energy resources, government officials said.
Cairo said imposed rolling blackouts during the warmest part of the year are necessary to prevent the electrical grid from collapsing. An energy council led by Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said the blackouts would continue during the heat wave but would last only a few hours at a stretch, Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm reports.
Magdy Rady, a government spokesman, said new power stations were expected to come online within a few weeks and more solar power facilities were on the horizon.
Meanwhile, three Egyptian nationals filed a lawsuit calling on President Hosni Mubarak to dismiss Electricity Minister Hassan Younis for failing to address the problem.
The complaint to Mubarak said the power cuts are leading to a loss in productivity and threatening lives of patients at national hospitals, the report adds.
The Electricity Ministry said a budget shortfall is to blame for many of the electricity woes.
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Ontario confronts reality of being short of electricity in the coming years
TORONTO - In a fit of ideological pique, Doug Ford’s government spent more than $200 million to scrap more than 700 green energy projects soon after winning the 2018 election, portraying them as “unnecessary and expensive energy schemes.”
A year later, then Associate Energy Minister Bill Walker defended the decision, declaring, “Ontario has an adequate supply of power right now.”
Well, life moves fast. At the time, scrapping the renewable energy projects was criticized as short-sighted and wasteful. It seems especially so now as Ontario confronts the reality of being short of electricity in the coming years.
How short? A recent report by…
