Some observations: 1. Yep. It’s a crisis. When you have a major utility cutting electricity to people in a blizzard at random, for random periods of time because it cannot supply enough electricity to meet demand, you have a crisis. That’s what it feels like to the people in it.
Continue readingTag: Nalcor
The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Government Abandons Energy Plan … quietly #nlpoli
These days, you have to hunt around the government website to find the provincial energy plan. That’s despite the claim on the website – once you’ve found it – that the 2007 document “guides and defines Newfoundland and Labrador’s vision for energy resource development”. The first pillar of that policy
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Negotiating from Weakness #nlpoli
Markets in northeastern North America are already awash in cheap electricity, thanks in large part of the discovery of massive amounts of natural gas in the United States. They’ll be that way for decades to come. Current forecasts New England’s regional electricity transmission organization hold that improvements in energy efficiency
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Nalcor’s Complaints to the Regie #nlpoli
Last week, the Quebec Superior Court dismissed a motion to hear an appeal from Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro over decisions taken by the Quebec’s energy regulator in 2010. As NTV reported on Friday, “Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro asked for transmission access from Hydro-Québec TransÉnergie in January 2006. But Nalcor says
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Access denied: CFLCo and Hydro-Quebec version #nlpoli
Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation tried but failed in 2012 in an effort to see hundreds of thousands of pages of confidential Hydro-Quebec documents on the 1969 Power Contract between CFLCo and Hydro-Quebec. A decision by the Quebec access to information commissioner in November 2012 denied CF(L)Co access to the documents
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: History’s Bitch #nlpoli
A half century ago, a bunch of very smart fellows – some of the smartest fellows of any generation ever – wanted to build a massive plant in the middle of Labrador to make electricity. One of the problems the project faced was a combination of costs and markets. As
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Year of Living Dubiously #nlpoli
Conflict of interest is great thing to deal when there is a chance of stopping it or dealing with it, not six or seven years later. Back in 2006, conflict of interest was all the rage. Noting the problems with conflict of interest wasn’t. (Read more…)
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Get worried-er #nlpoli
Here are a bunch of stories all of which would deserve a post of their own but that are presented here cut down to the barest of bare essentials. King of the Keystone Kops Strikes Again: Not content to demonstrate his incompetence with his earlier budget shag up, justice minister
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Get Worried #nlpoli
Not surprisingly, a band of familiar faces turned up at Nalcor’s annual public meeting to put questions about Muskrat Falls to Ed Martin, the man more and more people are calling the de facto Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. And equally unsurprisingly, Ed Martin continued with the sort of uninformative
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The road not taken #nlpoli
Word that the Town of Badger is having problems with flooding – again – is a reminder of a couple of small hydro projects at Badger Chute and Red Indian Falls that would have helped relieve the flooding threat. -srbp-
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The vanished Labrador fibre optic plan? #nlpoli
A bit more digging has turned up a CBC story from December 2010 that first reported Nalcor’s plan to include fibre optic cabling with the Labrador-Island Link for Muskrat Falls. CBC reported that “Nalcor will use some of this [fibre optic] capacity. The rest will be for sale to companies
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Hydro’s Problem Questions #nlpoli
As the Telegram reported on Saturday, the Public Utilities Board has suspended consideration of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro’s 2013 capital works application. The company is having trouble answering a couple of questions. Here are the ones that are causing problems. The first one: PUB-NLH-1 Please provide an updated Generation Planning
Continue readingPressing Politics: A Mythbuster’s Rebuttal: Transmission Lines, Holyrood Oil and Renewable Resources
I have to give Ed Hollett credit… he is a sharp minded fellow. After my blog on Tuesday where I purport to debunk three myths on Muskrat Falls, Hollett responded with three captivating posts in response here, here and here. … Continue readi…
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Looking beyond the Hebron sandbox #nlpoli
ExxonMobil drew a line in the sand this morning, and the minister and I are here to draw another line in the sand, as far as this project is concerned. Premier Kathy Dunderdale, 21 June 2012 Premier Kathy Dunderdale and natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy spent more than a half
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: No stinkin’ knowledge required #nlpoli
Say one thing for Kathy Dunderdale, she tells it just like it is. In response to questions about the qualifications of four people the provincial government recently appointed to the board of directors at Nalcor, the Premier said they didn’t need to know anything about electricity, oil and gas or
Continue readingMeanwhile, next door…
Despite Premier Kathy Dunderdale’s best wishes to quash all legislative debate and public discussion of the development of the Lower Churchill, there will be a Standing Committee Meeting tasked specifically with examination of the project.Members of th…
Continue readingNow that the election is over…
Less than a week after her party’s re-election, Premier Kathy Dunderdale informed voters that the House of Assembly would not be re-opening until the Spring, in part because she deems it dysfunctional, and as she told the CBC’s David Cochrane:”We need …
Continue readingNoticed
My gosh but today’s Telegram editorial today has a few very, very familiar elements to it.
Continue readingNew Dawn II
Is nobody curious about this?From a column in today’s Telegram by Michael Johansen (emphasis added):The details of the New Dawn pact were finally released and, although they confused many voters before the referendum, leading to a situation described a…
Continue readingTwenty six cents.
Remember a few months ago when, to great public fanfare, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador announced in its budget that it would be giving consumers a break on their energy bills, by (somehow) eliminating the province’s portion of the HST …
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