Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
A reader recently raised the issue of “Trust” with regards to the proposed Pumped Storage Project. I would like to provide a perspective on who we might trust to do the right things here.
TC Energy’s project website is still full of facts and relevant information. I cannot see any changes to the Save Georgian Bay website since my last visit. That may reflect the resources available to dedicate to the two sites, but many aspects of the Save Georgian Bay site continue to bother me.
What jumps out at me from the TC Energy information is how open and honest they are about the years of effort, millions of dollars of expense, and the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who will need to weigh in and be convinced before we know what this project would finally look like, how the design will resolve itself, what the associated risks might be, even whether it might prove impossible to proceed with it at all.
That starts right from their front page. “Pumped Storage Conceptual Design” (emphasis mine). As far as I can see, absolutely no one at TC Energy is making any representations that they know now all they will have to know – 4 years from now – to proceed with this project. Hence the “Conceptual Design”. Detail after detail about what steps will be required to get to that point. I have seen absolutely nothing to convince me TC Energy hasn’t been open, honest, and especially, realistic, so far in the long process that lies ahead for this project.
If the people hoping to build it don’t even know what “it” is yet, what are the Save Georgian Bay group protesting? What exactly are they trying to “Say No” to? And what evidence have they offered that I should trust them, and not TC Energy? Their site shows a number of things they say they are opposed to, but those things are primarily things they imagine could go wrong with some generic undefined pumped storage facility of very questionable vintage.
They seem to especially have it in for one built in Michigan between 1969 and 1973, so if TC Energy wants to build community support I’d suggest they not propose to move that one here. (If you want to use “modelled after” then I guess my 2008 Honda Civic is modelled after my 1967 Ford Falcon. Virtually identical vehicles in fact.)
I put it to you that the Save Georgian Bay campaign actually doesn’t know what they’re protesting – at all. They can’t. That doesn’t rule out the possibility they might know at some point in the future, maybe say when TC Energy knows what they might want to build and how, but right now they are vigorously opposed to things that appear and may prove to exist solely in their own heads. Or in Michigan. They are fighting a “Concept”. A critical concept that we no longer have the luxury of time to argue about.
Unless of course they have psychics or time travellers on their team. If they have looked at or travelled to 2024 and had the opportunity to pore over thousands of pages of expert assessments, potentially dozens of design improvements, a final design, lake bed studies, topography, proofs of concept, underlying rock assays? Sign offs from all the groups and Government levels that will need to sign off? And they came back to warn us all that all of it turns out to be a monstrous threat and we need to fight this thing? Well, then obviously I apologize.
But if this is what they did I still have two requests. The Save Georgian Bay website was never updated to reflect the design changes TC Energy has already agreed to at this very early stage in the process to alleviate community concerns about water turbidity and fish mortality. If this is because they know when in the future TC Energy plans to renege on those commitments, I would like to know the date it happens. And I believe it would only be common courtesy to share any genuine detailed specific damning evidence they have on the dangers of the actual “Project Proposal” (as opposed to the current “Conceptual Design”) that they may have in order to spare my friends and neighbours the embarrassment that comes from publicly and visibly opposing a crucial clean energy project – when they don’t even know what it will look like yet.
Pumped Storage facilities are the last absolutely essential piece of the puzzle needed for an integrated renewable energy grid in Ontario. Pumped Storage is the “battery” we so desperately need when our really good “power plants” don’t function so well. Solar panels are fantastic power plants – except on cloudy days. Wind turbines are great power plants – except on still days. We also need a lot of really big batteries. The distinction is crucial. If someone attempts to “explain” to me that pumped storage isn’t a good choice for a power plant – starts spinning me tales that pumped storage plants are -30 to -35% energy negative as a power generator, for example, I politely reply that no doubt is because pumped storage is a great big battery. Not a power plant. If we collectively look honestly at what devices are genuinely meant for then the quality of the debate goes way up.
Bruce Mason, Meaford
