Media Watch

The Kennedys Love Wind Power

 "Call Joe-4-Oil" becomes "Call Joe-4-Wind"

Wolfe Island is the largest of the world-renowned Thousand Islands. Located where Lake Ontario ends and the St. Lawrence River begins its flow to the Atlantic, its beautiful sunrises, breath-taking sunsets and spectacular night-time skies are a big part of its charm. It is one of Canada's most important bird watching areas, and it's where  Joe Kennedy wants to build a wind farm. Apparently the wind turbines on someone else's horizon doesn't annoy the Kennedy Clan in the least. Below is the story from the  local property owner's web site.

GAIA Power Meets Business & Tourism: GAIA Power’s Samit Sharma presented an update about their planned wind farm for Wolfe Island. He was accompanied by Benoit Fortin, Vice President Infrastructure for Skypower Corporation.

In his presentation Sharma noted that the project has been in the planning stages since 2002 with Hearthmakers Co-Op and the City of Kingston. Originally the idea was to have the Federation of Municipalities as well as Wolfe Island engaged to raise some part of the finances for the project.

Because wind power has come of age there is less interest by traditional Canadian Municipalities and Federal agencies to be engaged because wind power is now seen as a business initiative.

The Ontario Government as issued a request for proposals for 300 megawatts of renewable energy with significant financial and structural constraints for the RFP. Projects can be no larger than 100 megawatts ,require a $50,000 bond per megawatt and experienced teams of professionals to run the project.

According to Sharma it was important to find a strategic partner whose values were in line with GAIA’s. “In consultation with our partners Hearthmakers we entered into a joint venture agreement with Sky Power Corporation along with Citizen Energy, a US based company run by the Kennedy Family.”

Read the article here.