Gas-fired plant has residents riled up
Community wants Metrolinx to use greener technology at Mount Dennis LRT terminal
Public transit is supposed to be the greener way. But the Eglinton Crosstown LRT isn’t green enough, say community groups in Weston and Mount Dennis.
They want Metrolinx, the provincial agency in charge of building the Crosstown, to reconsider building a natural-gas-fired power plant at the Mount Dennis LRT terminus.
The community doesn’t object to putting a hydro plant on the old Kodak lands, where the light-rail-vehicle maintenance and storage facility is to be built. It just wants the province to look at greener technology, said Simon Chamberlain of the Mount Dennis Community Association.
“If you think about it in terms of the Paris (climate) discussions, back here at the provincial level, we’ve got a golden opportunity to put more solar power in, which is being ignored, and a decision being made to put in a fossil fuel power generating station, however small. It doesn’t seem to add up,” he said.
Residents have been monitoring Crosstown developments closely for years. Until December, however, they had no inkling that the gas-fired plant was to be included in the project. It was unveiled at a public open house by Crosslinx Transit Solutions, the construction consortium hired by Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario for the $9.1-billion plan to build and maintain the line.
The Mount Dennis group, along with The 12, a group of Ward 12 residents, and Blue Green Canada, a coalition of labour and environmental groups, have written to the province requesting a cleaner power source.
The gas-powered plant would be significantly smaller than those cancelled by the Ontario Liberal government in Oakville and Mississauga be- fore the 2011 provincial election, said Chamberlain.
He said residents have been dismayed by the overall lack of green innovation in the Crosstown. Solar panels are being used on private buildings nearby. The Kodak site would be ideal for them, but they aren’t in the plan, says a letter from the community groups to MPP Laura Albanese (York South—Weston).
She has passed on their concerns to Environment Minister Glen Murray and Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca. Albanese said she expects at the very least there will be more public consultation.
“We’re not prepared to be bulldozed,” said Rick Ciccarelli, a community activist, who notes that the Crosstown, the Union Pearson Express and GO Transit will all stop in the area. “We want to see people have a conversation about the alternatives. If there is going to be more development in this community in terms of a mobility hub, it makes sense to do more energy planning. Nobody’s done that.”
The gas-fired plant would probably only be used a “handful” of times a year as a backup generator, according to Metrolinx.
It would have the capacity to run the entire Crosstown system to avoid peak demand times on the provincial power grid and save about 40 per cent on the price of electricity. It would also generate enough power to run the entire Crosstown system in a power outage, said a spokesman for the agency.
“Alternatives like fuel cells have been suggested but would not provide the kind of power source needed to even minimally support the future transit line or the maintenance and storage facility. Fuel cells are neither feasible or practical,” he said.
The upfront costs for a greener technology would probably be significantly higher, said Greg Allen, an engineer who specializes in sustainable technology. But if the government considered life-cycle expenses, the alternatives might make more economic sense, he said.
Allen, who has looked at the Mount Dennis plan, thinks the project should consider power storage technologies such as vanadium redox batteries. There is always excess ca- pacity in the system, he said. It makes sense to capture that.
“When the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, you can call on these storage facilities to put power back in the system. It’s very common in Europe,” said Allen, who notes that the natural gas plant would be sitting idle most of the time.
Before the Mount Dennis gas-fired plant can proceed, it will have to be approved by the city and the province. City council has directed staff to meet with Metrolinx and Toronto Hydro to review the capacity needs and the backup power plan.
It has also asked for a Mount Dennis community plan to be expedited, said Fernando Carou, of Toronto’s Environment and Energy Division. That report would look at how conservation initiatives could be married to the area’s growth and land use. Carou expects to report back to council in the first half of the year.