Portlands facility may be necessary evil
Energy centre reviled by neighbours
Peter Kuitenbrouwer
National Post
Monday, February 04, 2008
A lot of development in Toronto may not have occurred without the Portland Energy Centre, a plant spokesman says.
The inside of the Portlands Energy Centre, rising quickly on Unwin Street east of Cherry Beach, resembles a scene from an old James Bond film, where an evil genius is hatching a plan for world domination. In a soaring hangar criss-crossed by steel girders, as cranes and forklifts beep and roar, dozens of workers in reflective orange vests are welding, painting, tightening bolts. Four cylindrical steel smokestacks, the tallest two 75-metres high, resemble launching silos for missiles.
Neighbours in Leslieville, Riverdale and the Beaches have for years painted the new, $730-million power plant -- a 50-50 venture of Ontario Power Generation and TransCanada Pipelines --as evil.
Indeed, it is unattractive: a huge box clad in aluminum siding, painted grey.
I am not sure anyone will grow to love the natural gas-fired Portlands Energy Centre. Still, its builders do have one powerful argument for the place: in the 1960s Toronto produced 1,200 megawatts of power in city limits; these days, with double the population, the city produces power via one lonely wind turbine at Exhibition Place.
Yes, we can use our clotheslines (the province is even poised to decriminalize the practice) but, given that the City of Toronto consumes about one quarter of Ontario's electricity, it makes sense to produce some of the stuff on site.
Besides, you know all those new condos (and even a few offices) going up? They need hydro. "A lot of the development going on in Toronto wouldn't have occurred if this plant hadn't have gotten a go-ahead," says Ted Gruetzner, the affable spokesman for the new power plant, who led me on an exhaustive tour through thick mud the other day.
The plant's location is both idiotic and sensible. On the idiotic side: why is the new behemoth rising next door to the much bigger brick Richard L. Hearn Generating Station, which operated from 1951 to 1983? Explanation: In 2002, Studios of America, run by Mario Cortellucci, a fundraiser for former premier Mike Harris, leased the Hearn from OPG for 20 years. So far, the company has done nothing there.
"The lease was an impediment, and the engineers said they couldn't fit the new plant in the old building," says Mr. Gruetzner.
On the sensible side, the power plant needs a location near the lake, since it sucks lake water in both to cool the turbines and to produce steam. Our port is not just for sailboats and picnicking: companies like Redpath Sugar, Cascades (which recycles cardboard) and Lafarge Cement, along with a new cement plant going up next to Portlands, create Toronto jobs and belong here. These companies bring in supplies by water, rather than further clogging our highways.
With 500 workers on site right now, the power plant is on schedule, but has faced at least one setback: on Oct. 3 Steve Cuthbertson, 27, an apprentice electrician, "touched a live wire and he was electrocuted," says Mr. Gruetzner. His father, Stephen Cuthbertson, was his foreman at the time.
Meanwhile, dredging for a plant discharge channel revealed weak pilings on the Unwin Street bridge; the city has closed the bridge to cars. Bikes and pedestrians may cross.
This week, workers at the plant are installing turbines. The plant begins production on June 1 as a simple cycle: "It's like a jet engine," says Mr. Gruetzner. "You burn gas [which comes by pipeline from western Canada] and it turns a turbine which produces power." After the 2008 summer peak, workers will shut the plant to install a second system, capturing turbine exhaust to heat water into steam and drive a second set of generators. Once the combined cycle begins to operate -- by December, operators say -- the plant will produce 550 megawatts of power, enough for about 450,000 homes.
The plant is giving land to the University of Toronto for a solar research facility, which seems a token; would it kill these guys to put a few solar panels on their plant roof ? That said, next July when I flick on a fan to stay cool, I will be glad for this joint.
pkuitenbrouwer@nationalpost.com
