Central Huron commissions study on Danish proposal for former Youth Centre property

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

After fielding numerous inquiries and hearing from about a half-dozen serious potential suitors, Central Huron Council may have found a match for the former site of the Bluewater Youth Centre in Denmark’s GreenLab.

 

Council held a special meeting last Thursday with representatives of the Trade Council of Denmark and GreenLab Skive to discuss a potential project at the site, building on a previous presentation from Alexander Ripley, commercial advisor to the Royal Danish Consulate in Toronto. Ripley is a former employee of Huron County’s economic development department and is familiar with the area from his time here.

 

Ripley was in attendance at the meeting, joined by Chris Watson and Vicki Lass from the department, as well as Benedikte Borg Pedersen, commercial advisor for the Royal Danish Embassy in Washington, D.C., and Jakob Hebsgaard Mogensen, head of business development for GreenLab Skive, from Denmark. This was an official meeting of council in Clinton, which was open to the public and allowed for residents to ask questions of council.

 

Hebsgaard Mogensen presented much of the information, discussing the basic principles behind GreenLab, the existing project in Denmark, what the future holds for it and how a similar site may work for Central Huron at the former Bluewater Youth Centre site.

 

GreenLab in Denmark is billed as a green and circular energy park, technology enabler and national research facility. At its core, it is a closed-loop renewable energy facility that brings together like-minded green businesses with similar principles and goals in an effort to constantly increase energy efficiency while always making that energy in a way that’s better and more sustainable for the environment.

 

To set the scene for his presentation, Hebsgaard Mogensen discussed how much energy that is produced is not put to its intended purpose and is lost in the process (a figure of roughly two thirds), adding that storage of renewable energy will potentially lead to even more energy loss from the source to the product.

 

The site, he said, generates sustainable energy for GreenLab’s partners, stores it in all its forms (electricity, heat, gas and electrofuels) and then allows the companies to share their surplus energy through an intelligent grid of energy and data called The SymbiosisNet™.

 

The green energy and circular energy park, which has increased tourism to the region since its creation, generates mostly wind and solar power. Hebsgaard Mogensen said that, because Denmark is quite flat, hydro energy is not much of an option, so turning to renewable sources of energy means wind and solar, though many creative methods like anaerobic digestion, closed-loop plastic recycling and more all now play a role in the park.

 

In his presentation, Hebsgaard Mogensen called the site “the perfect host” for technology companies, providing infrastructure and services that reduce the time to market, introducing the “chicken to the egg” and creating new markets and serving as a green transition facilitator, in addition to its role as a national research facility.

 

Central Huron Mayor Jim Ginn began the meeting with a history of the Bluewater Youth Centre building, beginning with its construction in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Originally designed and used as a psychiatric hospital, the site was later converted into a youth detention centre before it was closed in 2012, resulting in the loss of about 200 jobs.

 

By purchasing the property from the provincial government almost 10 years later, Ginn said the council of the day hoped to create an opportunity through the land and maybe replace at least some of those jobs and bring some of those young families back to the municipality with good, stable, well-paying careers.

 

Hebsgaard Mogensen said that GreenLab’s story is very similar, beginning with the closure of a large employer about 10 or 12 years ago and private investors and philanthropists coming together to create something that would rejuvenate the region and bring people, especially young people, back.

 

GreenLab was the result, beginning with an investment of about $60 million from a local foundation and private investors, which has since grown to a worth in excess of $450 million, finding green energy production solutions, increasing tourism and facilitating national research that will keep the good news and innovation coming.

 

Hebsgaard Mogensen said that if and when Central Huron moves ahead with a GreenLab project in the municipality, it can kind of be whatever council wants it to be. It wouldn’t have to be exactly like the project in Denmark or other projects in progress in United States locations like Nevada, Pennsylvania and more, it could follow its own path to prosperity.

 

Later in the morning, as part of her presentation, Borg Pedersen said that anaerobic digestion would be something that’s considered essential to a project like the one being proposed, but aside from that, the sky would really be the limit aside from the companies being committed to green energy and closed-loop production.

 

Hebsgaard Mogensen noted inputs for the system in Denmark include wind and solar power, grass and biomass, marine waste, manure, household waste and water being fed into a cycle of generating, storing and sharing power that encompasses electricity, hydrogen, oxygen, CO₂, cardboard, plastic and high- and low-temperature heat. Coming out of the other end of that process is biochar, oil-fractions, naphtha, upgraded biogas/methane, protein for animal food, degassed manure and waste sorted for recycling already in operation, while electricity, fibreboards, oxygen, ammonia, hydrogen and methanol are projects that the company has committed to for the future.

 

Hebsgaard Mogensen estimated that about 90 or 100 jobs could be created by such a project.

 

Lass, the county’s director of economic development, said that, from the county’s perspective, it was important that the project create what she called “high-value jobs” that would attract people to the area. Early discussions about the future of the property bandied about the concept of a luxury hotel, for example, but Lass said that while jobs would be created as a result, they wouldn’t be those “high-value” positions that would lure people to the area. She also noted that because of the site’s proximity to Bruce Power, it would make synergic sense for energy creation to be an avenue for the land.

 

As part of her presentation, Borg Pedersen noted that GreenLab projects are part of what ministries in Denmark are calling “reindustrialization”, rethinking the way energy is produced and the future of the planet.

 

Ginn, when noting about the bump in tourism that has come from the site in Denmark, said that many people see sites like GreenLab’s in Denmark as the way of the future.

 

Several members of the public were in attendance for the meeting, many of them neighbours of the site who were concerned about the potential for odour from a site dealing in waste of one type or another. However, Ginn said that the whole concept of a closed-loop energy creation system is to sequester what’s being created, so it’s in such a business’s best interest to not let those gases escape.

 

He also noted that this meeting represented a very early step in the process and that council still has many questions left that need to be answered before moving along.

 

Residents were also critical of the lack of transparency and communication in regards to the future of the site and the meeting itself, with one neighbour saying she had only found out about the meeting the night before, despite being an immediate neighbour of the site.

 

Lass, however, came to the defence of council, saying that she would instead commend council for how open and transparent the process has been. Council has taken all presentations in open sessions, never going behind closed doors to discuss it, she said, making it as open to the public and legal as it can be.

 

To that point, Ginn said that, whatever decision council makes, it will be adhering to the laws in regards to the site, including any reports, assessments or studies that will be necessary to develop the site further.

 

Borg Pedersen said the municipality’s next steps, if council was interested in moving ahead, would be to commission a feasibility study for the land and then move forward with introductions with the Danish group.

 

Lass said that she would advise authorizing a feasibility study as soon as possible, adding that the county would lend a hand in a way that would maximize the potential of the site, but minimize the impact on Central Huron ratepayers for the study.

 

Deputy-Mayor Marg Anderson asked staff to craft a report on the potential costs associated with a feasibility study, a potential timeline and possible funding strategies that would be presented to council at its next meeting, scheduled for Monday, April 15. Council agreed and approved Anderson’s request.

 

On Monday, council heard from Lass again, who said she estimated that a study would cost between $30,000 and $50,000 to complete. That was good news for the municipality, she said, as a study that costs $50,000 or less would be funded by the Danish Consulate, so, theoretically, moving ahead with the study at this point would mean no financial impact for the municipality.

 

Council approved going ahead with the study and struck a working group to further discuss the project in the months to come.