February 26, 2026 | Bill MacCuish | Glace Bay, Nova Scotia | Frequency News
Retired professor says former Glace Bay coal mines could produce green energy. Photo: jannoon028 (freepik.com)
A retired Dalhousie University professor says a community in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality could be a hub for producing green energy.
Larry Hughes and a former student have released a paper outlining the possibility of developing thermal energy in Glace Bay from idle mines.
He says the technology would bring a number of benefits like jobs, not to mention it would be more affordable than oil heating.
Hughes says the infrastructure would be based out of the former No.2 and No. 9 collieries , giving the system the potential to provide energy on a large scale.
Hughes says this method of producing energy is gaining popularity in Europe, and the former coal mines of Springhill N.S. are used as a model.
The paper is titled: “A Performance Evaluation and Feasibility Study of Mine Thermal Energy Storage in Glace Bay”.