Editor,
I wanted to submit a letter this week regarding a wake-up call about the lack of attention and education to the global human population growth: now pushing 9 billion!
BUT then came a couple of people that I perceive as chronic complainers: 2 members of TCE’s inner circle Mark and Bruce. As usual they took solid information presented by “two Pats and a Tom” and attempted to dismantle facts we present and then as usual these two suggest zero viable solutions or reasoning. Added to that was an ignorant dismantling of an accredited very knowledgeable engineer named Garry Hunter of Mississauga. Enough is enough.
To comment on four people plus thousands more that care about our municipality and the Georgian Bay area (all the way to Kincardine) we will continue to denounce any diatribe that exists! Not create one as these two do. They continue to present a bitter, abusive and lengthy letters or should I say emotional rants heavily criticizing simple facts and accurate well-researched information we present. Take their reference to Mr. Garry Hunter: this man has forgotten more about geology than Mark and Bruce combined have ever possessed. His research is readily available and provides geological analysis in his reports plus he mentions other options and viable solutions. I will come back to Mr. Hunter, but I will note here that dialogue is about RESPECT. If you want information reach out to people that know, not to people that just have an opinion.
Mark and Bruce also attack Stephen Vance for printing factual evidence and solutions that our little group and more share with our community. Well boys: he printed both of your tirades last week and you still complain! So that Stephen’s readers do not have to go through reading more exhausting raging rhetoric from these two I will say this:
It is important to note that this letter is only about TCE’s Mark and Bruce: 2 people. Several residents in our community likely are in favour of TCE’s Pumped Storage project. They have their opinions and I TOTALLY respect that. I respect the arguments they advance backed by information they may have acquired. I just do not agree with the overall solution for energy storage being pumped storage. There are better solutions that I and others have presented over 5 years.
One massive challenge facing TCE’s Proposal is cost: now estimated at $8.4 billion! Check back a year or so to one of Bruce’s Independent Newspaper claims regarding SGB’s cost estimate of $10 billion: remember Bruce? In one of your rants, you criticized an SGB member for stating the costs could never get to $10 billion. Today, it is estimated to cost $8.4 billion and that number will top $10 billion before it even gets started! IESO twice advised the project does not provide adequate return on investment and value for Ontario. That was when the projected cost was estimated at $4.3 billion. People should start to listen to FACTS and not opinions.
About Hunter and Associates: Mark and Bruce, when did you become geologic engineers? The point Garry (and i) made in our last LTE was AT THIS POINT OF THE DEVELOPMENT no corporation would spend millions of dollars of their own money to do advanced research when the basic research was already available, and no government approvals had been made. This project was denounced TWICE, in 2013 and 2024. TCE’s “Geologic testing” being performed now is simply jumping the gun that wastes Ontarian’s hard-earned dollars.
Regarding Indigenous Partnerships it must be mentioned the much advertised (by TCE) partnership with the Saugeen Ojibwa Nation does not yet exist and SON’s concerns need to be addressed. There is a lot of money involved that SON and all other affected nations simply NEED…we owe that to them: period! I find it easy to acknowledge that our land stewards: the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, Chippewa and other indigenous nations (excuse my ignorance) need to be involved and profit from any energy projects across Ontario: Battery Energy Storage Systems seem to be the way of the future: globally. Our Indigenous peoples MUST be in partnership with energy procurement: with projects that are efficient in every way!
The municipality of Meaford? Perhaps if our elected officials and CAO get their treasured Community Benefits Agreement out of their heads, they will see the obvious solution that is best for all of the Georgian Bay region: Meaford will be just fine.
Hence, I reveal some challenges and some ideas to mitigate. This TCE PSP will cost $9 billion plus. It is not a simple ‘pump water uphill and draw it back down for energy requirements’. It is a massive complex project requiring years to construct. Battery storge options are now available with more going forward with the costs going down and EFFICIENCIES going up. I find it difficult to ignore this fact. We could have in operation twenty 500MWh battery storage projects in two years: perhaps with new technology such as Iron Air battery systems, we could do this at half the cost and zero use of critical and rare raw materials like lithium. This technology would provide 100+ hours for available energy storage per project: these are stats from 2021: 5 years ago! Today, solid-state battery development is well under way. Here are solutions that offer lower cost, higher efficiencies with global acceptance promoting sustainable solutions with complexity, risks and costs simplified and eliminated. The entire world is going Battery Energy Storage but TCE’s idea remains “Pump it up”: a profit solution but not a very wise one.
Let’s step away from diatribe that we have never promoted and ask Mark and Bruce to stop their attacks on reason and instead try offering solutions that are better than the two Pat’s, Tom and Garry continually present. let’s just do what is best for Meaford and all of the Georgian bay area!
Pat Maloney, Meaford
