Ontario has begun setting the pace for North America’s change from fossil fuels to renewable energy and that pace appears to be quickening.

First, the Canadian province’s government passed a landmark Green Energy Act (GEA) in May of this year. Then three weeks ago, Ontario’s deputy premier and minister of energy and infrastructure, George Smitherman, halted plans to build two new nuclear reactors because of excessive costs, pleasing anti-nuclear activists who had objected to the GEA’s continuation of  provincial reliance on nuclear power.