I was stunned to see the about-face the OFA has taken on wind turbines, considering the opportunity it has brought to the rural community to participate in the provinces’ need for electrical generation and the economic benefits it has brought to many areas.

When I was in Germany two years ago, I asked a local wind developer if they had any issues of people claiming health problems caused by wind turbines.

He gave me a strange look and replied, “It is funny you mention that. We did 20 years ago when we first started but it has been so long ago that I had forgotten about it until you mentioned it now.”

Here we are in Canada two decades later, going through the same phase of people fearing change.

I recall an old-timer telling me many years ago that he remembers a century ago when he was a boy and his father bought one of the first automobiles in his area, people would stand at the side of the street and shake their fist at them as they drove through town.

I am confident that with time, wind turbines will be accepted by the naysayers as a modern, clean and safe way to satisfy our demand for electrical energy.

It is cheaper per kWh produced than any other form of new generation we could build today, including nuclear, and without a doubt more efficient than growing switchgrass and trucking it to a generator plant to be burned as the OFA is recommending.

Doug Wagner, President Saturn Power Inc.