Oshawa it would appear is poised to have an Ethanol Plant put down on the waterfront. For some it may be a good idea. With the looming layoffs and downsizing at GM a new Ethanol Plant would help to employee some of these hard workers. Same with another Nuclear Power Plant – that’s going to generate quite a few skilled contracting jobs for a long time during construction and afterwards for maintenance.
But – is the Ethanol Plant a good thing in general? Is it good for the waterfront and is it ultimately good for world economy. There are several arguments on both sides of this story.
On the one hand Ethanol manufacturing is driving up the cost of food prices around the world and removing corn from the table and placing it into our cars. On the other hand it does reduce emmissions and employs hundreds if not thousands of people.
I’m not sure where I sit on this debate. I like the idea of generating jobs for Oshawa. But I’d like to make sure that the Ethanol Plant proponents were also responsible for cleaning up a significant part of the waterfront if that’s the site they are going to build on. I guess I’ll have to do some more reading about it and see what else is being said.
If you’re interested in following this debate I suggest you visit the “Take Back Oshawa’s Waterfront” group on Facebook. Brian Nicholson and Mayor John Gray are members of this group! The group is running its own poll which you can vote on here. You can also vote for your opinion on the DurhamRegion News site.
I encourage you to leave your comments here and share your thoughts with our readers!
