Dear Editor,
Who would try to sell a bunch of Honda Civics to do the work of a twenty-six-foot box truck? Well…
Imagine that I open a furniture store. My customers can’t transport their purchases home themselves. They need me to deliver them.
A tiny amount of research (I look at what’s delivering big stuff everywhere on the roads) tells me I’ll need the best choice, the absolute ‘gold standard’ of furniture delivery choices. I need to purchase a twenty-six-foot box truck, slap my logo on the sides, and get to delivering customers furniture purchases!
Before I can do that, a group called Save Georgian Highways forms to protest my delivery needs. With zero evidence, they insist box trucks – the most common form of furniture delivery vehicle – aren’t safe. In Meaford. Only in Meaford. Box trucks are an existential threat to Meaford. At least that’s what they say publicly.
Save Georgian Highways says I should use a fleet of Honda Civics to deliver my furniture. Civics aren’t what I need or want to serve my customers. And this despite the fact these particular Honda Civics only work for 4 hours a day. (For metaphorical reasons that I hope will become clear in just a few paragraphs).
You would hope that all of Meaford would be saying, “That’s without a doubt the stupidest thing I’ve ever read in The Meaford Independent” at this point.
But not all of Meaford could be saying that. Based on past public statements, I predict that a tiny minority of wilfully misinformed people in Meaford will probably say, “We should listen to these Save Georgian Highways guys. They could be right. Just because they’re safe everywhere else in the world, do we REALLY know that big box trucks won’t destroy Meaford?”
Why do I think that?
The Government of Ontario ordered 3000MW of energy storage. ASAP. Just for starters. More large scale/long duration energy storage will be needed after the first step is complete.
The gold standard for large scale and long duration energy storage – worldwide – is pumped storage hydro. 1,000-3,600MW capacity at each installation. Proven now. Not at some indeterminate point in the future. They operate for 11 hours a day without interruption. Operate for one hundred years. The oldest one has been operating for 115 years! Hundreds of them are in operation or being built worldwide now to meet the needs for large scale energy storage. They’re everywhere. Top safety record too.
Pumped storage hydro truly is the ‘furniture delivery box truck’ of energy storage solutions around the world! Perfectly suited for what the job requires!
Somehow, a small group of people, blinded by their own misguided goal, would prefer Ontario go with the ‘furniture delivery Honda Civics fleet’ of energy storage.
Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are just 250MW – 350MW per installation now. All of Canada only has about 1000MW installed – in total. They might get better as long as you’re prepared to wait long enough for the technology to improve. But batteries only deliver power for 4 hours – even though we need 11 hours per day in Ontario (See. I promised I’d come back to the 4-hour thing…) They might last for 15 to 20 years. Might not. We don’t really know. That technology isn’t time tested at all yet. BESS installations catch on fire an alarming amount everywhere they’re being built though. With toxic flames producing lots of poison gas. You sure wouldn’t want to live near one with that kind of a safety record. Or ask someone else to live by one just because you didn’t want to live by a safe pumped storage hydro facility.
Not much has gone Save Georgian Bay’s way lately.
Grey Highlands Council refused to endorse Township of the Archipelago’s (TOA) ridiculous Resolution opposing Meaford Pumped Storage. Once they found out how silly TOA looked after the TOA Council got hoaxed. TOA Council opposed something that wasn’t going to be built, in a location it was never going to be built on. TOA Council opposed something that only existed in their own minds. Afterwards, weeks later, they chose to learn the facts. Ooops! That’s backwards gang.
Grey Highlands Council looked at that mess and went “Yeah. Hard pass on that nonsense. Don’t bother us with that stuff for at least another year.”
I’m sure SGB were surprised that Meaford Councillors and the CAO didn’t tour cemeteries in Ludington containing the victims of pumped storage disasters there. Or wade through the mangled remains of millions of fish like SGB promises we will do here if the Meaford project goes ahead. And they’re especially unhappy that Ludington wouldn’t confirm what SGB has been telling Meaford for years. Simply because none of it is true.
Instead, Ludington said, “Everything’s great here.”
And now, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada plans to conduct a thorough, professional assessment of the Pumped Storage Proposal. Which means they’ll be ignoring the unsupported ‘conclusions’ Save Georgian Bay has been trying to sell for years. ‘Conclusions’ reached long before the assessment work to produce real conclusions had even begun. ‘Conclusions’ SGB routinely presents as ‘facts’.
Until such time as a hint of truth to their tired unsubstantiated claims emerges, SGB is yet again out of luck. This time with the IAAC.
Do project opponents seriously expect IAAC to forget what they came for and decide to evaluate…. something else?
That’s not real-world thinking. That’s more wishful thinking.
So. The desperation grows daily. Rote repetition of the same old stories increases. Evidence is ignored.
Finally?
C’mon. Can we all agree that a Honda Civic can’t deliver a sectional sofa and a dining room set?
Bruce Mason, Meaford
