Detail<\/h3>\n
On July 10, 2018, Bracebridge Generation (@BracebridgeGen<\/a>) sent the following three tweets …<\/p>\n 1\/3 A period of below-average precipitation in the region has resulted in low flows through rivers, streams & lakes in the Seguin River watershed. Evaporation rates with this hot weather is slowly taking its toll on water levels. Dams are fully logged in & outflows…<\/p>\n 2\/3 outflows have been reduced to minimum. Some lakes in the system will begin to have below average water levels if precipitation accumulations don\u2019t increase. The 14-day forecast suggests continued high temperatures with some precipitation.<\/p>\n 3\/3 Lower precipitation amounts under these dry conditions however, tend to be absorbed by vegetation and soils and don\u2019t add any significant contributions to the watershed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This reminds us that rivers in Muskoka have little flow in the summer. This is significant because the less flow, the less output from hydro-electric generating stations.<\/p>\n The graph above (click on any of these graphics for a larger view) shows the temperature in Toronto from June 10, to July 10, 2018, with temperatures above 30 \u00b0C on more than \u2153<\/span> of the days. As we all know; it gets hot in the summer, it doesn’t rain much, and as noted above, water evaporates, further reducing the water in Muskoka’s lakes and rivers.<\/p>\n The graph above shows the temperature for the 2\u00bd days from midnight July 8 to noon July 10, 2018. On July 9, 2018 the temperature was above 30 \u00b0C from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, as often happens in the summer. This is when Ontario needs the most electrical power, due to air conditioners. To encourage power generation during peak-demand times, the Bala proponent would be paid\u00a017.685 \u00a2\/kW\u2022h for power produced every weekday afternoon.<\/p>\n The graph above shows the rate of flow of water in the Moon River from January 1 to July 9, 2018. It shows a flow of about 90 m\u00b3\/s from January 20 to May 20, 2018, when the proposed hydro-electric generating station at the Bala falls would run at full capacity. But starting in June, the flow cycles between about 5 and 30\u00a0m\u00b3\/s, the next graph shows this in more detail.<\/p>\n The graph above shows the times that Ontario Power Generation was able to operate their two hydro-electric generating stations on the Moon River. These are the Ragged Rapids and Big Eddy stations, which need a minimum flow of 26 m\u00b3\/s to operate. The graph shows that on July 9, 2018 these stations operated; from 2:30 am to 4:30 am, from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm, and for another 90 minutes beginning at 10:30 pm.<\/p>\n As turbines are not efficient at low flows, this means that these generating stations operated at less\u00a0than 25% of their generation capacity for 7\u00bd hours in a 24-hour day. This is a capacity factor of less than (7\u00bd \/ 24) x 25% = \u00a08%, which would never justify construction except that the proposed generating station would operate at full capacity at other times of the year, such as spring and fall. Unfortunately Ontario has a surplus of electrical power during the spring and fall, as people are not usually using their furnaces or air conditioners at these times.<\/p>\n The graph above shows that on July 9, 2018 Ontarians paid an average of less than 4\u00a0\u00a2\/kW\u2022h for electricity, yet the Bala proponent would have been paid\u00a017.685 \u00a2\/kW\u2022h. This huge and unnecessary subsidy would total more than $100,000,000 over the 40-year contract for this unnecessary generating station.<\/p>\n That is, Ontarians would be forced to pay this private developer a subsidy of over $100,000,000 (details here<\/a>) for power that; would not be available when it is needed, would be mostly generated when it is not needed, and would be available from other sources at far lower cost.<\/p>\n On July 10, 2018 the Ontario PC government confirmed they will stop the proposed \u2013 and destructive \u2013 White Pines wind turbine project (CBC website here<\/a>, copy here<\/a>). We look forward to the PCs keeping their commitment<\/a> to stopping the too-dangerous, unnecessary, and unjustifiably-expensive proposed hydro-electric generating station at the Bala falls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summary The proposed hydro-electric generating station at the Bala falls would produce less than 8% of its rated output when this power would be needed the most \u2013 in the summer \u2013 making it almost a useless source of energy. The only reason the developer is proceeding with this proposed project is because Ontarians would […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8846"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8863,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8846\/revisions\/8863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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