Hearn Generating Station

The Richard L Hearn Generating Station (named after Richard L Hearn) is an out of service electrical generating station in Toronto. It is still owned by Ontario Power Generation, a publicly owned electrical generation company.

The site of the decommissioned plant is scheduled to locate the Portlands Energy Centre. Many area residents and elected representatives of the area opposed their plans.

The site is located at 440 Unwin Avenue in Toronto's Port Lands area. The approximate latitude and longitude of the site are: coord|43|38.730|N|79|20.105|W|region:CA_type:landmark. It is directly south of the foot of Carlaw Ave, across the shipping channel.

The Richard L Hearn Generating Station, together with the Ashbridges Bay sewage sludge incinerator stack and the Commissioners Street waste incinerator stack stand as towering landmarks of a bygone industrial era in the Portlands area of Toronto (All 3 facilities are no longer in operation).

Plant History

The R.L. Hearn Generating Station was the site of Canada's first 100 MW steam turbo-generator set. The station was officially opened on October 26, 1951 by the Hon.Leslie Frost, Premier of Ontario, with the first two units in service. Four units were in operation by 1953. The plant originally burned coal which was transported on ships through the St Lawrence Seaway. The station was designed by Stone & Webster. The turbine generators were built by Parsons in England and the boilers were made in Canada by Babcock & Wilcox (Cambridge, Ontario) and Combustion Engineering (Montreal, PQ).

Construction on the station was not even finished in the 1950s when Hydro officials and the government began to talk about phasing out the plant with nuclear power and closing it. The early years were marked by difficult labour relations and several near strikes. Several unions were involved in conflicts with management and each other during the life of the station. The R.L. Hearn station was one of the founding locals of the Canadian Union of Operating Engineers and General Workers (CUOE Local 100) in 1960.

The Richard L. Hearn plant reached full capacity of 1200 MW for the first time on March 22, 1961. At full load the boilers burned about 440 tons of coal an hour, and the turbines and other equipment required about 36,000,000 gallons/hr of cooling water from Lake Ontario. Total construction cost was $156 million (CDN). The turbine hall was almost convert|1000|ft|m long and was an impressive sight, viewed from the visitor gallery on the west side of the plant where the offices were located. Units 1-4 (100 MW) had one turbine-generator each. The 200 MW units (5-8) had two turbine-generators per unit, an arrangement called tandem cross-compound so there were a total of 12 turbine-generator sets in the turbine hall. At the peak of the R.L Hearn's operation in the 1960s the station employed up to 600. Many Ontario Hydro (later OPG) operators, maintainers, technicians and professionals began their careers, and were trained at the station and then went on to work at other plants and Ontario's CANDU nuclear stations.

The station at first had four smaller chimneys, one for each of the four boilers. The construction of the four 200 MW units added four more chimneys. The last three were a bit taller then the first five. The eight short chimneys were a source of air pollution in local neighborhoods and downtown Toronto and also fly ash and other particulates. The station contributed to Toronto's smog problem. The 50th Grey Cup smog in 1962 was likely partially caused by the R.L. Hearn, which was not far from Exhibition Stadium.

The eight chimneys were demolished and electrostatic precipitators were added for the 200 MW units when the large smokestack was built. The new single tall smokestack was build in response to pressure to reduce smog in Toronto by the emerging environmental movement in the late 1960s. It stands 215 meters (705 ft) tall and was one tallest in that world, costing $9 million (CDN) when it was completed in 1971. It was one of the tallest structures in Toronto until the CN Tower was finished in 1976. Air pollution in Toronto from the station was greatly reduced and the area around the plant became known as a good fishing and recreation spot.

In 1971, the entire plant was also converted to burn natural gas with four units retaining the option to burn coal. In December 1972, Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed called the convert|40|Gcuft|m3 of Alberta natural gas/year the station was burning "an appalling waste of natural gas" at the price of about $1/1000 cu. ft. and he charged that Ontario was getting a "cheap ride" at Alberta's expense.

The station operated burning natural gas until the early 1980s and then units 1-5 were mothballed. Conversion to natural gas reduced pollution but it become more expensive and the plant's efficiency was much lower than today's combined cycle and cogeneration plants. The last three 200 MW units at the plant resumed burning coal along with natural gas but they were phased out of operation in July 1983, due to concerns about increased air pollution in Toronto and an abundant energy supply in the province. The staff level had been reduced to around 180 when power production stopped in 1983. Some of the generators were operated as synchronous condensors to improve power quality until 1995 and the electrical control room and switchyard continued to operate, sending power into downtown Toronto with a staff of about 10.

In October 1985, Premier David Peterson's Liberal government proposed the re-opening the station using natural gas. It was only the first of numerous proposals to restart the plant, involving cogeneration, tri-generation, garbage incinerationand eventually gas turbine combined cycle plants as new technologies were developed.

In June 1987, elected members of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party were pushing to have the Hearn re-opened as a natural gas power plant. [http://www.ontla.on.ca/hansard/house_debates/33_parl/session3/L027.htm#P321_89703]

In 1988, the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party were calling for the addition of scrubbers to the Hearn and proposed to return the station to service. [http://www.ontla.on.ca/hansard/house_debates/34_parl/session1/L089.htm]

On March 16, 1990, Ontario Hydro announced the restart of two units (7 & 8) to meet demand for the winter of 1991.The restart had a projected cost of $69 million CDN. Work on the restart was well underway when the new NDP government of Premier Bob Rae cancelled the project.

The site was designated as protected for future electricity development by the Mike Harris and Ernie Eves led Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. This was also done with all other existing publicly owned electrical generating stations during the deregulation of the Ontario electrical power system . The plant had all of the asbestos insulation removed and site remediation work was done in the 1990s.

Former premier, Mike Harris later mentioned his plans to build the Portlands Energy Centre on the site of the Hearn, but the actual proposed site sits next to Hearn.

In 2002, the OPG announced that Studios of America and Comweb Group, headed by Paul Bronfman would be leasing the property of the former generating station and had plans to construct a convert|300000|sqft|m2|abbr=on multipurpose film production studio called Great Lakes Studios on the site. Most of the boilers and a large amount of other equipment were removed and sent to the scrapyard. This movie studio project was abandoned in 2006. Although the station did not become a movie studio, the R.L. Hearn interior and grounds were used in a number of movie productions over the years.

The nearly abandoned plant attracted photographers and "urban explorers" who published their work on websites and in photography exhibits in recent years. It was also featured in an urban exploration and industrial archeology film called "Echoes of Forgotten Places" by filmmaker, Robert Fantinatto (http://www.scribblemedia.com ). In 2008 an urban explorer fell into a coal chute in the plant and was severely injured, he died later in hospital.

Some interest has also been expressed in developing a 3D virtual reality model of the station for film production and computer games.

Recent Changes

The Ontario government announced in April 2005 that the Portlands Energy Centre would not be part of the approved 2,500MW of new power production in Ontario coming online in the next few years. The Independent Electricity System Operator warned of rolling black-outs in Toronto if 250MW are not added by 2008, with an additional 250MW required by 2010.

However, in February 2006 this decision was reversed, and there is a new plan emerging that would see a new plant built next to the Hearn plant. Toronto mayor David Miller is attempting to have Hearn restored in some capacity to provide that power rather than build a second plant, while nearby residents appear to be opposing any power generation in the area.

A proposal was made by the City of Toronto owned Enwave (Toronto District Heating) and Constellation Energy to install advanced gas turbines and cogeneration inside the station and restore the station's control rooms, turbine hall and building exterior as a historical, movie set and education centre. The Minister of Energy, Hon. Donna Cansfield rejected the proposal in a controversial move that favoured the Portlands proposal.

On September 18, 2006 an agreement was signed between the Provincial government, Ontario Power Generation and TransCanada Corp. to construct a gas-fired plant next to Hearn. The Portlands plant may eventually be co-generation, however it is being built as a combined cycle plant due to inability to negotiate contracts for cogeneration energy sales. Construction is set to begin in the summer of 2007 with simple cycle production in 2008 and combined cycle operation scheduled for 2009. Extensive demolition of previously preserved areas of the station including the turbine hall began once Studios of America abandoned their plans for a film studio.

In April 2007, a proposal to build a $600 million transmission corridor from the Portlands plant to connect with higher voltage transmission lines north of Toronto was being discussed and opposed by resident and other groups. The transmission system that the R.L Hearn station supplied was a 115 KV network of buried and overhead lines and transformer stations in Toronto. The city has been supplied by stepdown transformer stations from the east and west since the R.L. Hearn closed, which are becoming overloaded, especially in the summer.

ee also

* Lakeview Generating Station
* Nanticoke Generating Station
* Portlands Energy Centre - a proposed new electricity generation station
* Toronto waterfront - plans for revitalization
* Toronto Port Authority - Federal Government agency responsible for port operations

External links

* [http://ridemypony.com/index.php/category/hearn Charles Bodi's pictures of the dismantling of Hearn]
* [http://www.invisiblethreads.com/potd/collections/2004_gs Hearn interiors, control rooms] and [http://www.invisiblethreads.com/potd/collections/2004_gs2 other details] from Kendall Anderson's Hearn photo galleries
* [http://vanishingpoint.ca/hearn.html Vanishing Point]
* [http://www.thephotomat.ca/ The Photomat]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/axle81401/423117533/in/set-72157600003006402/ The Skies Above]
* [http://www.ntropy.us/air33/pblog/index.php?x=browse&category=29&pagenum=1/ Air33 of NTROPY]