Business View - November 2015 169
tial uses of the geo-thermal resources. There are some in-
dustries now in Springhill using geo-thermal as their heat-
ing source and they advise us that they’re saving up to 60
to 70 percent of their annual heating costs; which is just
incredible, if an industry can save that amount. The com-
munity center of Springhill also uses geo-thermal. Once
we know the sustainability capacity of the geo-thermal we
will then look at a concept design for a regional, green,
geo-thermal industrial park, and how we market that in-
dustrial park to prospective industries.”
As if tide and geo-thermal energy wasn’t enough to put
Cumberland on the green-energy map, Bugley also touts
the area’s solar and wind potential. “We have the same
solar potential in Cumberland County as the city of Otta-
wa. It has to do with our geography and the length of our
days. So, we will be looking at engaging somebody in the
next few months to help attract solar power developers,”
he says. “We’ve also got a very high potential for large-
scale and smaller-scale wind energy projects. We have
one large- scale wind project right now that produces 32.5
megawatts of wind energy. There are three additional
large-scale projects being developed and there are three
in operation now, so that will give us six additional large-
scale projects.”
Fifty-eight years ago, the tiny village of Pugwash broke
onto the world stage when it hosted the first iteration of
the Pugwash Conferences of Science and World Affairs, a
society of scholars, scientists, and policy makers that, to
this day, works to bring scientific insight and reason to the
problems of humanity by “thinking in a new way.”
Obviously, that ethos has found a welcome place in the
governmental offices of theMunicipality of Cumberland as
its official seek to renew and revive its historic identity by
exploring new energy technologies, while also responding
to the current needs and desires of its people. And Rennie
Bugley, for one, is looking toward the future with enthusi-
asm. “We want to be the municipality on the planet that
produces more green energy per capita than anywhere
else. So we’ve got some really lofty goals,” he says. Lofty?
Perhaps. Achievable? Why not?
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