Wait a bit on the green file. In five years it will look smart.
Depends on your definition of "smart". If doubling or tripling your electricity bill is smart, then green is smart. Here are some approximate numbers for producing electricity in Ontario per MW.
Large Hydroelectric - between $35 and $45
Coal - $30
Combined Cycle Gas - $30
Single Cycle Gas - $75
Nuke - between $55 and $80
Wind - $140
Solar - $400
Now let's say Ontario peak demand is 25,000 MW. Traditionally, in order to meet this load with internal resources Ontario would need 25,000 MW generated from nuke, hydro, fossil (coal and gas) and bits and pieces of other stuff like biomass, demand response plus typically 1,400 MW of operating reserve, also provided by these same sources. Providing this generation and operating reserve all costs money. So now let's spend billions of money to install 5,000 MW of wind and 500 MW of solar. What can we get rid of by adding this extra green generation? Nothing!! Since solar and wind are so unreliable, we still have to maintain the 25,000 MW of generation from the traditional sources plus the 1,400 of reserve. In fact, as other jurisdictions like Germany are finding out, adding green is resulting in the need to add more operating reserve from traditional sources like hydro and fossil, and operating reserve costs money. So for a partly green grid to compete economically with a grid with no green, you need wind and solar to cost the same (or less than) than combined cycle gas. That is, the cost of wind had to reduce from $140 to $30 and the cost of solar from $400 to $30. In five years. Not likely.
And I don't buy into the argument that spending more on green power generation results in lower health costs. Nonsense. Smoking has decreased significantly over the last two decades and I don't see a corresponding decrease in health care costs. No doubt less air pollution means less breathing related issues, but just like smoking cessation, the health care dollars will still get spent, just on something else. There is no net savings to you and me as electricity consumers and taxpayers. Green is expensive, very expensive. But if very expensive meets the definition of smart, then in five years I will agree it was smart.