GOLDBORO — Construction could begin on a multi-billion-dollar energy park in this coastal community to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from locally sourced wind, solar and biomass as early as 2026, say senior officials of Irish renewables company Simply Blue Group.
More than 130 area residents of all ages enjoyed popcorn, cotton candy, lunch, live music and even a bouncy castle at the Goldboro Interpretative Centre Sept. 14, as they attended the official launch of the project, the details of which had been a closely guarded secret for almost three years.
“This is a mega-infrastructure project, and we made a deliberate decision that we wouldn’t talk about it until we were past a point of confidence and feasibility,” Simply Blue co-founder and CEO Hugh Kelly told The Journal in an interview at the event. “It had to be a project that, as we say, would ‘wash its own face.’ In terms of the lifespan, some oil refineries are 50, even 100, years old. This should be no different.”
Project plan
The project, which the company expects to be fully operational in 2029, involves installing solar collectors and as many as 100 wind turbines on 46,000 acres of land the company has secured through a private lease agreement near Caledonia in the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s. From there, a new transmission line would send approximately 300 megawatts of solar-generated – and 800 megawatts of wind-generated – electricity a year to a new plant on 266 acres the company recently purchased for $12 million from Pieridae Energy in the Goldboro Industrial Park (with a three-year option on an additional 489 acres owned by the Municipality of the District of Guysborough – MODG). That facility would convert leftover wood chips (biomass) from the forest and saw milling industries into green hydrogen to make SAF for international distributors.
According to Simply Blue Chief Operating Officer and Director of Hydrogen and Sustainable Fuels Michael Galvin, the company has signed an agreement to buy 700,000 tonnes of biomass annually from Truro-based woodlot manager Wagner Forest Management to produce approximately 150,000 tonnes of SAF a year. “Wagner will act as our agents to gather it,” he told The Journal. “In order for us to be able to certify our end product as sustainable, we’ve got to make sure that it’s the type of fiber that nobody else wants – that it’s a byproduct.”
Community benefits
Once operational, Galvin and Kelly said the project should generate hundreds of good local jobs, though they were less certain about numbers during the construction phase. “During construction, it’s difficult to say,” Kelly said. Added Galvin: “It’s an enormous project… I’m very hesitant to put figures to it, because numbers change… When we are in operation, it will be hundreds.”
Galvin said as many of the jobs as possible would be filled locally. “It’s a much better fit for our type of project to be run by people who live next to the project.”
The company may also engage in community benefits agreements with relevant municipal authorities. Kelly said, “It’s a bit early to say… but we’re looking at all of that. The core of our business is investing in local communities. We’re driven by the values that we proclaim. And it’s about growing sustainable businesses, sustainable industries. We started this up because we wanted to help fight climate change. That’s the principal objective here, and this looks like a project that can really do that.”
According to Kelly, Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore was a perfect fit for the megaproject. “We looked around the world for the right location,” he said. “We didn’t look for any particular opportunity for Nova Scotia; we looked at the right location for a project like this, and Nova Scotia came out of that analysis as being a super location with a unique confluence of all of the different factors we need to make such a project successful.”
Public reaction
MODG Warden Vernon Pitts couldn’t agree more. “We have one of the best wind regimes in the province of Nova Scotia, if not all Canada,” he told The Journal at the project launch. “Over the years, we’ve come to find out that green energy is the way [of] the future. If we can generate energy from our own natural, renewable resources, it’s a win for everybody… This is a phenomenal project for the overall good of the community, as well as the municipality. It will pay tax the same as any other business or organization or private individual. [It will also] take in all aspects of the various trades.”
Larry’s River resident Alphonse Pitts – who’s hoping to generate some business for the construction and general contracting firm he represents – is counting on it. “This is the future of the whole world, actually,” he said. “Natural gas was a big thing in Goldboro when I [worked on it] for three years. The talk then was: ‘We’re going to build LNG, we’re going to do this and that.’ But that’s in the past. This is the future… This is very different. This is more exciting.”
Indeed, said Issac’s Harbour resident Maxine Mansfield: “For our area, this looks very positive because it’ll help our tax base.” Added her husband, Dave Mansfield: “I’ve never been all that positive towards windmills, to be honest. My concern is what happens when their life expectancy is over. In the U.S., 20 years ago, they had 13,000 abandoned windmills. That’s my concern here. But the fellow [Simply Blue presenter] here sort of gave me an answer; they’ll probably take them down for the metal in the towers.”
Meanwhile, he said, of the major wind turbine-based projects announced for Guysborough County recently, including the 400-plus planned by EverWind Fuels, “This [Simply Blue] one is the only one going that I see has any benefits to us. The other ones want to put these monstrous windmills here, but all the power is going to go elsewhere.”
Added Warden Pitts: “You’re going to have some opposition from a small faction, but we’ll take that. As long as we remain transparent and open to public input, this project has some good legs underneath it.”
At an announcement in Halifax earlier in the week, Natural Resources and Renewables Minister Tony Rushton noted that Nova Scotia is “poised to become a leader in green hydrogen. This industry will help us and our global partners fight climate change. Simply Blue Group [is] going to make a big difference in our transportation sector and as a new market for our low-grade wood fibre, they will help our forestry sector be healthy and strong.”
Simply Blue’s Stakeholder Engagement Lead Megan Harris confirmed that a final investment decision on the project – which will require a provincial Class 1 environmental assessment and possibly federal permitting depending on the final design specifications – is expected in 2026, prior to ground breaking.
