Letter to the Editor
Editor,
In a very recent edition of The Meaford Independent, TC Energy offered responses to a number of questions posed by readers and residents. To date, they have refused to answer the questions listed below, I suspect because if accurately answered, these responses would not support TC Energy’s claims that their proposed pumped storage facility will “reduce global warming” and “Turn a 100% loss into a 75% Gain”.
Based on my 20-year engineering involvement with designing and building water storage and hydro-electric generating projects, I have provided the answers to these questions the public should expect to receive from TC Energy if they were to be completely honest and forthcoming:
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“Please confirm that Ontario’s surplus electrical energy that is exported to American utilities south of our border is being used there to reduce the consumption of coal (and therefore the creation of CO2 and SO3 in our shared atmosphere).”
Correct Response: “ Yes, all the bordering U.S. states to Ontario have a component of coal as their energy sources. Coal consumption is the first method of energy source they will attenuate when receiving Ontario clean electricity because it is the easiest for them to shut down and allows them to claim less dependency on coal and the associated effluent of greenhouse gasses.”
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“The source of the electrical energy to power the Meaford reservoir storage pumps will originate from a transfer station located in Barrie. The electricity generated by the Meaford facility will be returned to the transfer station in Barrie for distribution to Ontario consumers. What percentage of the electrical energy leaving Barrie and sent to Meaford Pumped Storage will actually be returned to Barrie for grid distribution?”
Correct Response: “When kinetic and potential energy transfer efficiencies are considered for all the water pumping process, reservoir evaporation, turbine generation, high to low voltage transformations, and “I squared R” losses along 200 kilometers of transmission lines, Barrie will receive between 55 to 60% of the energy sent from Barrie.”
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“So what happens to the 40 to 45% of electrical energy that doesn’t make it back to Barrie?”
Correct Response: “It is released into the environment as waste heat.”
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“So, is it correct to assume that in order that Barrie receives 1,000 megawatts back from Meaford, it has to supply about 1,540 megawatts to the Barrie-Meaford transmission line?”
Correct Answer: “Yes”
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“So, TC Energy is advocating that Ontarians waste electrical energy at the rate of 540 megawatt-hours so that TC Energy can sell electricity back to Ontario consumers at the rate of 1,000 megawatt-hours?”
Correct Response: “Yes”
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“Would TC Energy’s engineering staff confirm that rechargeable home energy storage units installed within a dwelling during Ontario’s 8-month-long heating season have an energy capture efficiency of 100%?”
Correct Response: “Yes”
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“Would TC Energy’s engineering staff confirm that the utilization of rechargeable home energy devices does not require any changes or additions to Ontario’s electrical distribution grid and that they would also supply emergency back-up power to Ontario homes, so equipped during power outages?”
Correct Answer: “Yes”
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“TC Energy has estimated the cost of the Meaford Pumped Storage to be about $3.3 billion. A significant portion of this cost estimation would be derived from the diesel fuel needed to power the earth moving equipment. How many litres of diesel fuel have been budgeted to complete this project and how many tons of CO2 would be created from the combustion of this budgeted quantity of fuel?”
Correct Answer: “Given the amount of material that needs to be excavated and imported to create a reservoir of this size (6 million cubic metres), about 95 million litres of fuel will be required. The combustion of this quantity of fuel will produce about 232,000 tons of CO2”.
TC Energy must be forced to honestly and accurately answer this level of inquiry regarding the Meaford Pumped Storage proposal. Such response will confirm to those less familiar with power generation and power management, that the antiquated technology TCE is promoting has since been replaced with far more efficient and less disruptive innovation in electrical energy storage. Carving up Niagara Escarpment topography, destroying Georgian Bay aquatic habitat, and constructing a high voltage transmission corridor from Barrie to Meaford are completely unnecessary measures to achieve the 1,000 megawatt storage capacity TC Energy seeks to create.
Stephen Carr, Meaford
