Ontario Converts Coal Plant to Biomass, Creates 200 Jobs

Atikokan facts.

It has rarely output any generation since summer 2011 (which was very dry in Ontario's northwest region).  
With an annual capacity factor of 3-4%, refurbishing it will save 90% of the almost nil emissions due to it not usually being fueled anyway.

Ontario Converts Coal Plant to Biomass, Creates 200 Jobs:

"Ontario is moving forward with the conversion of the Atikokan Generating Station from coal to biomass, creating 200 construction jobs and helping to protect existing jobs at the plant."

Ontario Converts Coal Plant to Biomass, Creates 200 Jobs:

Some background to put this announcement in a little different light.
The government's solution to resolve a lawsuit involving cancelling a contract natural gas plant in Toronto, last week, involved giving the private company rights to build adjacent to the Lambton public coal generation plant.

OPG has not commented on likely losing the chance to offer power from the Lambton site.
This conversion is a project OPG has been lobbying for.

Update 20/7/2012
Turns out this is announced quite often,
I was sent the link to an article from 1/4/2011: Thunder Bay coal plant to use natural gas," which included:

Last August, OPG announced Atikokan would also be converted, but it will exclusively burn wood pellets.

That would be August 2010 the project was announced. 
This is a pattern.  A recent post to Tyler Hamilton's Clean Break blog included:

The money is coming from a new Smart Grid Fund announced in the 2009 budget, which allocated $50 million to support the demonstration of new technologies that make the power grid more intelligent, efficient and robust.
The fund wasn’t formally launched until spring 2011, and at the time there was an expectation that money would start flowing by August of that year.
That date came and went. It was only this week that the first 13 projects were announced under the umbrella of the fund, representing half of the originally committed $50 million