The province's plan to convert the local power plant to biomass isn't what leaders in the region wanted, but they say it's a start.
The Thunder Bay Generating Station was thrown a lifeline Friday when it was announced that the plant will start burning advanced biomass, the first of its kind in the world, by 2015.
Advanced biomass has the ability to be stored outside, which cuts down on capital costs unlike plants burning conventional biomass.The plant's fate had been up in the air for more than a year since the province's suspended a plan to convert it to natural gas.
MPP Bill Mauro, who made the announcement along with MPP Michael Gravelle, said running the plant at half-capacity with the advanced biomass is a prudent and practical plan.
With a five-year contract the region's energy needs can be monitored.
At that point the plant could be fully converted to biomass, switched to natural gas or possibly closed if the expected industrial energy demands don't become a reality.
"We can deal with the demands of the energy in three years, five years we'll be in a better position to know exactly what our needs are in case the mining boom does in fact occur. We are all expecting that to be the case," Mauro said.
With a conversion cost of $5 million for the announced plan, its also much cheaper than a natural gas conversion, which could be up to $400 million.
Mayor Keith Hobbs said he's somewhat happy with the announcement as the plant will stay open for at least the next five years. To get to this point has been a battle for leaders in the region that has seen three different provincial energy ministers come and go.
But the Northwest Energy Taskforce, which has done most of the work advocating for the plant, still wants to see a conversion to natural gas and the full 306 megawatts being generated at the plant.
"It's not so much of a battle now, it's more of a scuffle to get the rest of it done," Hobbs said.
Task force co-chair Iain Angus called the announcement a good start but he has a lot of concerns.
"We always knew it was going to be part of the solution but we didn't think it was going to be the only solution and we certainly didn't think it was going to be the one that the government announced today," he said.
A purchasing contract calls for 15,000 tonnes of biomass. He's worried that won't be enough to sustain the plant when peak demand hits.
"There's no way that they're going to be able to run the station for longer than a day or two," he said.
But OPG Northwest thermal plant manager Chris Fralick said a test burn done this fall saw 1,000 tonnes run the plant for more than 63 hours. 15,000 would be more than enough to meet current demand in the region.
"We would have enough to do that," he said.
Running only half of the plant will mean job losses for some of the 110 people who work there but Fralick said he's not sure yet how many jobs that would mean.
Hobbs is hoping that Thunder Bay will see some jobs if it can land a business to produce the advanced biomass pellets. The contract for the current supply would go to a U.S. Supplier or another Canadian company but hasn't been finalized yet.
