Dear Editor,
Thank you, S. Carr, for your letter regarding the pumped storage propaganda on December 2, 2021. You are not the only engineer who has spoken against this proposal. The Ontario Society of Engineers (OSPE) deemed the pumped storage unnecessary. Instead, OSPE recommended that the Government of Ontario “implement electricity price reform that will allow consumers to use the surplus” electricity to reduce the cost to consumers and “reduce carbon emission without imposing additional cost.” In other words, the proposed pump storage is not required.
TC Energy (now disguised as Ontario Pump Storage) sells the project to the ratepayers using a promise of savings of $250 million per year but never shows how this is achieved. What they don’t reveal is that they have asked the Ontario Government to pay 4.6 billion for the construction, making the hypothetical savings insignificant. TC Energy will purchase cheap electricity at night and sell it back to consumers at a higher daytime price. They are major shareholders in the Bruce Nuclear Power Station, and two natural gas plants therefore profit at both ends of the process and waste 1/3 of the power purchased.
In an era when we will be more dependent on electricity for the greening of Ontario, governments should be exploring ways to find green solutions and reduce the cost of electricity. For example, people are encouraged to buy electric vehicles, but the cost to charge them becomes prohibitive as long as TC Energy is allowed to maintain a high price for electricity.
What TC Energy is proposing does not justify the destruction of an irreplaceable natural resource for $250 million per year. It is outrageous that the Ontario and Federal Governments place so little value on one of our greatest assets.
Regards,
Pat Zita, Meaford
