DIETARY FALSE HOPE
The article, Scientists developing wheat for celiac suffers (sic), provides false hope to celiac sufferers that high quality bread can be made with no side effects.
Contrary to Dr. van Wettstein’s assertion that gliadins “are not required for baking,” there are no peer-reviewed publications showing that high quality loaves can be prepared without this essential group of proteins.
The transgenic wheats that have been produced in the Washington state studies may be useful scientifically for understanding celiac toxicity, but it is hyperbole to suggest that they are or will be pragmatic dietary solutions for celiacs.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Martin Scanlon, C&G, PhD
University of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, Man.
CO-OPERATION BEST
What a different outcome there would have been to the disaster of the mall collapse in Elliott Lake had the tenants believed in co-operation instead of private enterprise.
All they would have had to do five years ago would have been to stand shoulder to shoulder and demand that the owner repair the building to their satisfaction before one cent of rent would be paid.
As long as he could collect the rent without fear of their boycott, he was home free.
There is nothing private enterprise can do except react to problems in individual ways because they firmly believe that co-operation is bad for business — because that is what they are always told. Nothing could be further from the truth, and any society that co-operates is far superior to any that do not.
Jean H. Sloan,
Lloydminster, Sask.
LINES NOT NECESSARY
Graham Lane’s Dam-nation list of the negative implications of Manitoba’s BiPole III are very similar to what Albertans face with the two 4,000 MW DC lines (ATCO’s EATL; AltaLink’s WATL) being foisted on us.
The Electric Statutes Amendment Act allowed our government to declare these lines as critical, without “proof of need,” cost-benefit analysis or any other checks and balances, and thereby basically ignored Alberta ratepayers’ concerns, as well as the public interest.
Alberta Electric System Operator’s supply-demand report of July 5 shows Alberta’s maximum electricity generation capacity to be 14,409 MW.
Peak consumption, on our most recent hot day, was 10,062 MW. Yet AESO ordered a rolling blackout, and made a public appeal to Albertans to reduce their use of power.
This recent rolling blackout was attributed to AltaLink’s Ellerslie substation transformer tripping out, and “a number of generators (being) out of service for planned and unplanned maintenance, and wind generation (being) very low.”
AESO’s supply-demand report still shows five coal generators down: Battle River, H.R. Milner and Keephills No. 1, plus Sundance No. 1 and No. 2. The latter two were deemed unrepairable and mothballed years ago, so it is a mystery as to why they are still listed as being capable of generating 576 MW.
The AESO Report also reports 27 gas facilities generating zero MW … as well as eight wind generators….
According to Dave Cooper of the Edmonton Journal, Alberta has the highest amount of co-generation in North America, but AESO does not track Syncrude’s, Suncor’s or Dow Hydrocarbon’s 1,736 MW co-generation capacity, nor the forest products plants, which each generate at least 20 MW.
If Alberta is so short of power, why is Alberta exporting electricity?
Despite … the National Energy Board reporting that Alberta exported 4,477 MW in December 2012 alone … this government still claims these two 4,000 MW DC lines are just for Albertans….
Albertans, question our current government’s approval of these two 4,000 MW DC lines, for many of the same reasons Lane lists, plus the fact that SNC Lavalin, a mega contractor now in court for worldwide fraud, owns AltaLink, did all the engineering on their WATL and will do all the construction. World Bank will no longer do business with SNC, but in Alberta, it is business as usual with SNC Lavalin, while Albertans pay all their costs, and increasingly obscene electricity bills….
Meanwhile, Albertans are repeatedly subjected to rhetoric about how the cost of these two 4,000 MW DC lines will only be the monthly equivalent of “a cup of coffee.”
Proceeding with Manitoba’s BiPole III and Alberta’s two 4,000 MW direct current transmission lines is truly, as Lane says, “unnecessary and foolhardy.”
Bill and Marion Leithead,
Bawlf, Alta.
