Former OPG Thunder Bay Generating Station

The Thunder Bay Generating Station was originally constructed in the 1960's to meet Northern Ontario's demand for electricity. Thunder Bay was once a thriving manufacturing town with dozens of paper mills, sawmills, and other manufacturing operations. In the early 2000's, demand for pulp products crashed, as more people began utilizing computers and digital media over the once popular printed papers products. In 2007, the great economic recession hit Canada, resulting in a complete and utter decimation of sawmills and paper mills alike. Thunder Bay became “The Detroit of The North”.

This facility was designed to burn coal but in 2015, the Canadian Government began their plan to phase out coal. Some of you may remember the Gas Plant Scandal and this power plant was involved in it. Natural Gas piping infrastructure was ordered and delivered to the power plant and even laid beside the road, ready for installation, however this contract was cancelled and tens of millions of dollars in penalties had to be paid to Union Gas (now Enbridge).

Later in 2017, the plant was converted to run off of a specialty biomass pellet produced in Europe. This plant never saw much use and ran an average of 3 hours per year as a peaking plant. 

In 2019, a crack was conveniently located in the main boiler for the facility and it was completely shut down, citing safety concerns. Many people saw the writing on the wall; it was an absolute waste of money to maintain a facility that never really produced power. Why would OPG spend money on a project that only consumes it?

The locals called TBGS "Fantasy Island", because you never had to work very hard and the employees made over 100K a year as an average salary. One of the control rooms for the turbine was converted to a movie theater with surround sound and hundreds of DVD’s scattered throughout. There was even a basketball court on one of the floors and a golf driving range on the roof.

In 2020, Budget Demolition  purchased the plant for a rumored $3.3 Million and they are poised to make over 33 Million on the scrap metal recovery. Demo companies get a lot of hate, but out of all the scrappers, such as Riversedge Developments (Now Bioveld & Brothers Marketing), Global Demolition & Recycling (Actually killed someone), and Canadian National Demolition (pirates), these folks have integrity and are not and leaving behind a contaminated war zone.

I highly recommend watching Budget Demolition’s mini-series ‘Death of a Power Plant’.

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3 (Pending Release as of 2022-01)