Re: Save Georgian Bay's presentation to Owen Sound Council about pumped energy storage (Feb 10)

Grid energy storage is absolutely essential to making green renewable energy practical and cost effective. We should be preliminarily supportive. This is exactly the kind of thing renewable energy advocates have been asking for.

I'm surprised that environmentalists would part of a group opposing such a project before knowing details of what is being planned and before the environmental studies are done. Why assume that it couldn't be designed to make it safe for fish and to avoid turbidity?

Not building such a facility in the first place, with the passing of the Green Energy Act, was a monumental mistake that resulted in years of embarrassing stories about Ontario selling our excess and expensive renewable electricity to the US at a loss.

In looking into this, I was surprised to find this kind of storage is 80 per cent efficient.

I do mourn the loss of the forested area. But with demand for electricity set to increase with electric cars, we need to be flexible and accepting of some tradeoffs if we want to shut down the remaining gas plants.

Dieter Heinrich, Owen Sound