Hearn Generating Station
Encyclopedia
The Richard L. Hearn Generating Station (named after Richard Lankaster Hearn) is a decommissioned electrical generating station in Toronto
. The plant was originally fired by coal
, but later converted to burn natural gas
. It is still owned by Ontario Power Generation
, a publicly owned electrical generation company. The plant has been described as "Pharaonic in scale", and encompasses cubic metres of space—large enough to fit 12 Parthenon
s inside.
The plant is located at 440 Unwin Avenue in Toronto's Port Lands area, directly south of the foot of Carlaw Avenue, across the shipping channel and next to the recently opened Portlands Energy Centre
. The Richard L. Hearn Generating Station, together with the nearby Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant
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 three smokestacks are no longer in operation, and only one still stands).
, 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 Saint 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, Quebec).
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.
(later Ontario Power Generation) 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 units added four more chimneys. The last three were a bit taller than 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 eight chimneys were demolished and electrostatic precipitators were added for the units when the large smokestack was built. The new single tall smokestack was built in response to pressure to reduce smog in Toronto by the emerging environmental movement in the late 1960s. It stands 215 metres tall and was one of the tallest in the world, costing when it was completed in 1971. 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.
Premier Peter Lougheed
called the billion cubic metres of Alberta natural gas the station was burning annually "an appalling waste of natural gas" at the price of about $0.035 per cubic metre, 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 units 1–5 were mothballed between 1978–1979. Conversion to natural gas reduced pollution but increased operating costs and the plant's efficiency was much lower than today's combined cycle
and cogeneration
plants. The last three 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. Many of the workers took early retirement and others were transferred to other sites. Some of the generators were operated as synchronous condenser
s to improve power quality in Toronto and the electrical control room and switchyard continued to operate until 1995, 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 incineration
and eventually gas turbine
combined cycle
plants as new technologies were developed.
In June 1987, Ontario Progressive Conservative Party
(PC) energy critic Philip Andrewes
pushed the governing Liberal government to have the Hearn re-opened as a "non-polluting" natural gas power plant. In October 1988, PC member of provincial parliament Donald Cousens called for the addition of scrubber
s to the Hearn and proposed to return the station to service.
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 . Work on the restart was well underway when the new New Democratic Party
government of Premier Bob Rae
cancelled the project.
- 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 plant, opened in 2008 sits next to Hearn.
In 2002, Ontario Power Generation 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 square metre 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. , Studios of America still has long term lease obligations for the Hearn site (32.5 years, according to the City of Toronto’s Waterfront Secretariat, or 20 years, according to Studios of America).
The Ontario government announced in April 2005 that the Portlands Energy Centre would not be part of the approved 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 are not added by 2008, with an additional required by 2010. However, in February 2006 this decision was reversed, a new plan emerged proposing a new plant be built next to the Hearn site. Toronto mayor David Miller
lobbied to have Hearn restored in some capacity to provide that power rather than build a second plant, while nearby residents opposed any kind of power generation plant in the area.
A proposal was made by Enwave
(the former Toronto District Heating Corporation) 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, filmmaking and education centre. The Minister of Energy, Donna Cansfield
rejected the 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. The Portlands Energy Centre
opened in June 2008 with simple cycle production and combined cycle operation scheduled for mid-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 2006, proposal to build a 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 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.
On June 21, 2010, architecture firm Behnisch Architekten
presented a proposal for converting the Hearn site into a three-pad arena.
s" 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. On June 15, 2008, an urban explorer trespassing in the plant fell three storeys into a coal chute, and was trapped for three hours when he became pinned under a steel plate. He suffered serious injuries and died two days later in hospital.
The station has served as a backdrop for scenes in the film RED
and episodes of the television series Flashpoint
. Some interest has also been expressed in developing a 3-D virtual reality model of the station for film production and computer games.
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. The plant was originally fired by coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
, but later converted to burn natural gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
. It is still owned by Ontario Power Generation
Ontario Power Generation
Ontario Power Generation is a public company wholly owned by the Government of Ontario. OPG is responsible for approximately 70% of the electricity generation in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Sources of electricity include nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind, and fossil fuel...
, a publicly owned electrical generation company. The plant has been described as "Pharaonic in scale", and encompasses cubic metres of space—large enough to fit 12 Parthenon
Parthenon
The Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their virgin patron. Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although...
s inside.
The plant is located at 440 Unwin Avenue in Toronto's Port Lands area, directly south of the foot of Carlaw Avenue, across the shipping channel and next to the recently opened Portlands Energy Centre
Portlands Energy Centre
The Portlands Energy Centre is a 550-megawatt natural gas electrical generating station on the Toronto waterfront at 470 Unwin Avenue – next to the site of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station.-Corporate Support:...
. The Richard L. Hearn Generating Station, together with the nearby Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant
Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant
The Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant is the city of Toronto's main sewage treatment facility, and the largest such plant in Canada. One of four plants that service the city of Toronto, it treats the wastewater produced by some 1.3 million of the city's residents and has a capacity of...
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 three smokestacks are no longer in operation, and only one still stands).
History
The R. L. Hearn Generating Station was the site of Canada's first steam turbo-generator set. The station was officially opened on October 26, 1951 by Leslie FrostLeslie Frost
Leslie Miscampbell Frost, was a politician in Ontario, Canada, who served as the 16th Premier from May 4, 1949 to November 8, 1961. Due to his lengthy tenure, he gained the nickname "Old Man Ontario".-Early years:...
, Premier of Ontario, with the first two units in service. Four units were in operation by 1953. The plant originally burned coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
which was transported on ships through the Saint Lawrence Seaway
Saint Lawrence Seaway
The Saint Lawrence Seaway , , is the common name for a system of locks, canals and channels that permits ocean-going vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the North American Great Lakes, as far as Lake Superior. Legally it extends from Montreal to Lake Erie, including the Welland Canal...
. The station was designed by Stone & Webster
Stone & Webster
Stone & Webster is an American engineering services company based in Stoughton, Massachusetts. Stone & Webster was founded as an electrical testing lab and consulting firm by electrical engineers Charles Stone and Edwin Webster in 1889. It was acquired by The Shaw Group in 2000. The company...
. The turbine
Turbine
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...
generators were built by Parsons in England and the boilers were made in Canada by Babcock & Wilcox (Cambridge, Ontario) and Combustion Engineering
Combustion Engineering
Combustion Engineering was an American engineering firm and leading firm in the development of power systems in the United States with approximately 30,000 employees in about a dozen states at its peak. Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, C-E owned over two dozen other companies including...
(Montreal, Quebec).
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.
Operation as a coal-fired plant
The Richard L. Hearn plant reached full capacity of for the first time on March 22, 1961. At full load the boilers burned about 400 tonnes of coal per hour, and the turbines and other equipment required about gallons of cooling water from Lake Ontario per hour. Total construction cost was . The turbine hall was almost 300 metres 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 had one turbine-generator each. The 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 people. Many Ontario HydroOntario Hydro
Ontario Hydro was the official name from 1974 of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario which was established in 1906 by the provincial Power Commission Act to build transmission lines to supply municipal utilities with electricity generated by private companies already operating at Niagara...
(later Ontario Power Generation) 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 units added four more chimneys. The last three were a bit taller than the first five. The eight short chimneys were a source of air pollution
Air pollution
Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....
in local neighborhoods and downtown Toronto and also fly ash
Fly ash
Fly ash is one of the residues generated in combustion, and comprises the fine particles that rise with the flue gases. Ash which does not rise is termed bottom ash. In an industrial context, fly ash usually refers to ash produced during combustion of coal...
and other particulates. The station contributed to Toronto's smog problem.
The eight chimneys were demolished and electrostatic precipitators were added for the units when the large smokestack was built. The new single tall smokestack was built in response to pressure to reduce smog in Toronto by the emerging environmental movement in the late 1960s. It stands 215 metres tall and was one of the tallest in the world, costing when it was completed in 1971. 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.
Conversion to natural gas
In 1971, the entire plant was converted to burn natural gas with four units retaining the option to burn coal. In December 1972, AlbertaAlberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
Premier Peter Lougheed
Peter Lougheed
Edgar Peter Lougheed, PC, CC, AOE, QC, is a Canadian lawyer, and a former politician and Canadian Football League player. He served as the tenth Premier of Alberta from 1971 to 1985....
called the billion cubic metres of Alberta natural gas the station was burning annually "an appalling waste of natural gas" at the price of about $0.035 per cubic metre, 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 units 1–5 were mothballed between 1978–1979. Conversion to natural gas reduced pollution but increased operating costs and the plant's efficiency was much lower than today's combined cycle
Combined cycle
In electric power generation a combined cycle is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem off the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy, which in turn usually drives electrical generators...
and cogeneration
Cogeneration
Cogeneration is the use of a heat engine or a power station to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat....
plants. The last three 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. Many of the workers took early retirement and others were transferred to other sites. Some of the generators were operated as synchronous condenser
Synchronous condenser
In electrical engineering, a synchronous condenser is adevice identical to a synchronous motor, whose shaft is not connected to anything but spins freely. Its purpose is not to convert electric power to mechanical power or vice versa, but to adjust conditions on the electric power transmission grid...
s to improve power quality in Toronto and the electrical control room and switchyard continued to operate until 1995, with a staff of about 10.
In October 1985, Premier David Peterson
David Peterson
David Robert Peterson, PC, O.Ont was the 20th Premier of the Province of Ontario, Canada, from June 26, 1985 to October 1, 1990. He was the first Liberal premier of Ontario in 42 years....
'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
Cogeneration
Cogeneration is the use of a heat engine or a power station to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat....
, tri-generation, garbage incineration
and eventually gas turbine
Gas turbine
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of internal combustion engine. It has an upstream rotating compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion chamber in-between....
combined cycle
Combined cycle
In electric power generation a combined cycle is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem off the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy, which in turn usually drives electrical generators...
plants as new technologies were developed.
In June 1987, Ontario Progressive Conservative Party
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario , is a right-of-centre political party in Ontario, Canada. The party was known for many years as "Ontario's natural governing party." It has ruled the province for 80 of the years since Confederation, including an uninterrupted run from 1943 to 1985...
(PC) energy critic Philip Andrewes
Philip Andrewes
Philip W. Andrewes is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1981 to 1987, and was a cabinet minister in the governments of Bill Davis and Frank Miller...
pushed the governing Liberal government to have the Hearn re-opened as a "non-polluting" natural gas power plant. In October 1988, PC member of provincial parliament Donald Cousens called for the addition of scrubber
Scrubber
Scrubber systems are a diverse group of air pollution control devices that can be used to remove some particulates and/or gases from industrial exhaust streams. Traditionally, the term "scrubber" has referred to pollution control devices that use liquid to wash unwanted pollutants from a gas stream...
s to the Hearn and proposed to return the station to service.
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 . Work on the restart was well underway when the new New Democratic Party
Ontario New Democratic Party
The Ontario New Democratic Party or , formally known as New Democratic Party of Ontario, is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961, a few months after the federal party. The ONDP had its...
government of Premier Bob Rae
Bob Rae
Robert Keith "Bob" Rae, PC, OC, OOnt, QC, MP is a Canadian politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....
cancelled the project.
Redevelopment plans
The site was designated as protected for future electricity development by the Mike-HarrisMike Harris
Michael Deane "Mike" Harris was the 22nd Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He is most noted for the "Common Sense Revolution", his Progressive Conservative government's program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and cuts to government...
- and Ernie-Eves
Ernie Eves
Ernest Lawrence "Ernie" Eves was the 23rd Premier of the province of Ontario, Canada, from April 15, 2002, to October 23, 2003.-Beginnings:...
-led Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. This was also done with all other existing publicly owned electrical generating stations during the deregulation
Deregulation
Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or...
of the Ontario electrical power system. The plant had all of the asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
insulation removed and site remediation work was done in the 1990s. Former premier Mike Harris
Mike Harris
Michael Deane "Mike" Harris was the 22nd Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He is most noted for the "Common Sense Revolution", his Progressive Conservative government's program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and cuts to government...
later mentioned his plans to build the Portlands Energy Centre
Portlands Energy Centre
The Portlands Energy Centre is a 550-megawatt natural gas electrical generating station on the Toronto waterfront at 470 Unwin Avenue – next to the site of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station.-Corporate Support:...
on the site of the Hearn, but the actual plant, opened in 2008 sits next to Hearn.
In 2002, Ontario Power Generation 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 square metre 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. , Studios of America still has long term lease obligations for the Hearn site (32.5 years, according to the City of Toronto’s Waterfront Secretariat, or 20 years, according to Studios of America).
The Ontario government announced in April 2005 that the Portlands Energy Centre would not be part of the approved 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 are not added by 2008, with an additional required by 2010. However, in February 2006 this decision was reversed, a new plan emerged proposing a new plant be built next to the Hearn site. Toronto mayor David Miller
David Miller (Canadian politician)
David Raymond Miller is a Canadian politician. He was the 63rd Mayor of Toronto and the second since the 1998 amalgamation. He was elected to the position in 2003 for a three-year term and re-elected in 2006 for a four-year term...
lobbied to have Hearn restored in some capacity to provide that power rather than build a second plant, while nearby residents opposed any kind of power generation plant in the area.
A proposal was made by Enwave
Enwave
Enwave is a private corporation jointly owned by the City of Toronto and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and is one of the largest district energy systems in North America...
(the former Toronto District Heating Corporation) and Constellation Energy
Constellation Energy
Constellation Energy, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is an energy producer, trader, and distributor. The company operates over 35 power plants in 11 states under its operating company Constellation Commodities Group and/or Constellation Generation Group...
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, filmmaking and education centre. The Minister of Energy, Donna Cansfield
Donna Cansfield
Donna H. Cansfield, is a politician in Ontario, Canada, who has represented the riding of Etobicoke Centre in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario since 2003...
rejected the proposal.
On September 18, 2006 an agreement was signed between the Provincial government, Ontario Power Generation and TransCanada Corp.
TransCanada Corp.
TransCanada Corporation is a major North American energy company based in Calgary, Alberta, developing and operating energy infrastructure in North America. Its pipeline network includes approximately of pipeline and connects with virtually all major gas supply basins in North America...
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. The Portlands Energy Centre
Portlands Energy Centre
The Portlands Energy Centre is a 550-megawatt natural gas electrical generating station on the Toronto waterfront at 470 Unwin Avenue – next to the site of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station.-Corporate Support:...
opened in June 2008 with simple cycle production and combined cycle operation scheduled for mid-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 2006, proposal to build a 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 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.
On June 21, 2010, architecture firm Behnisch Architekten
Behnisch Architekten
Behnisch Architekten is an architectural practice based in Stuttgart, Germany, with branches in Venice, California and Boston, Massachusetts.The office was founded in 1989 by Stefan Behnisch, son of the well-known German architect Günter Behnisch...
presented a proposal for converting the Hearn site into a three-pad arena.
Other uses
The nearly abandoned plant attracted photographers and "urban explorerUrban Explorer
Urban Explorer is a 2011 horror-thriller film directed by Andy Fetscher.-Premise:Four young urban explorers from the USA, South America, Asia and Europe meet up in Berlin via the internet to explore the subterranean relics of Nazi Germany...
s" 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. On June 15, 2008, an urban explorer trespassing in the plant fell three storeys into a coal chute, and was trapped for three hours when he became pinned under a steel plate. He suffered serious injuries and died two days later in hospital.
The station has served as a backdrop for scenes in the film RED
Red (2010 film)
RED is a 2010 American action comedy film loosely inspired by the three-issue comic book series of the same name created by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, and published by the DC Comics imprint Homage...
and episodes of the television series Flashpoint
Flashpoint (TV series)
Flashpoint is a Canadian police drama television series that debuted on July 11, 2008, on CTV in Canada and ran on CBS in the United States for its first three and a half seasons. In 2011, Ion Television began airing new episodes of the series in the United States...
. Some interest has also been expressed in developing a 3-D virtual reality model of the station for film production and computer games.
See also
- Lakeview Generating StationLakeview Generating StationThe Lakeview Generating Station was an Ontario Power Generation coal-burning station located in Lakeview, a community just east of Port Credit, in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The former station was located just east of Lakeshore Road and Cawthra Road...
- Nanticoke Generating StationNanticoke Generating StationThe Nanticoke Generating Station is the largest coal-fired power plant in North America, delivering up to 2,760 MW of power into the southern Ontario power grid from its base in Nanticoke, Ontario, Canada. Previous to unit shutdowns, its generating capacity was 3,964 MW. It is owned by...
- Portlands Energy CentrePortlands Energy CentreThe Portlands Energy Centre is a 550-megawatt natural gas electrical generating station on the Toronto waterfront at 470 Unwin Avenue – next to the site of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station.-Corporate Support:...
- Toronto Port AuthorityToronto Port AuthorityThe Toronto Port Authority is a Canadian port authority responsible for management of the harbour of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, including the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport...
– Federal Government agency responsible
for port operations - Toronto waterfrontToronto waterfrontThe Toronto waterfront is the lakeshore of Lake Ontario in the City of Toronto, Ontario in Canada. It spans 46 kilometres between the mouth of Etobicoke Creek in the west, and the Rouge River in the East. The entire lakeshore has been significantly altered from its natural glaciated state prior to...
External links
- Charles Bodi's pictures of the dismantling of Hearn
- Hearn interiors, control rooms and other details from Kendall Anderson's Hearn photo galleries
- Vanishing Point
- The Photomat
- The Skies Above
- NTROPY's visit
- Another Hearn Photo Gallery
- Photography by Jay Morrison
- An urban explorer talks about the fatal incident and condition of the Hearn station
- Sketchup model of the R. L. Hearn station