Archive for: October 2009
Atlantic Superstore, Quinpool Centre, Halifax, 31 October 2009.
A sad day for the sleepless
To the dismay of insomniacs and shift workers across the country, CBC Radio One has quietly dropped an unassuming but prized corner of its schedule: the carousel of highlights from public broadcasters around the world that ran from 1 to 5:30 am. CBC Radio Overnight offered listeners welcome—and rare—insight into the perspective on other countries on world news. A few remnants remain, including a half hour of the BBC at 4 am, and something called The World, at 1 am. Contrarian counts this a big loss.
A bad deal for NB? – feedback
Contrarian reader Cliff White writes:
I’m in Quebec at the moment and, as you can imagine, the deal with New Brunswick is playing very well here. I can’t see how this won’t turn out to be a very bad deal for New Brunswick in the long term, similar to, but eventually worse then, the one Newfoundland agreed to under Smallwood.
At the time Smallwood signed the Churchill Falls deal, it looked pretty good, given the cost of energy at the time. The problem arose when energy prices went up dramatically and Quebec refused to renegotiate. The length of the agreement meant that Newfoundland was getting fleeced, while struggling financially, for many decades.
In New Brunswick’s case, of course, the deal is permanent. One of the things this latest deal highlights is the continuing inability of Atlantic Premiers to work together in their own interest.
One last thing I’ve wondered about for some time is why our energy resources aren’t being use here at home rather then exporting it. It has always seemed to me a better strategy to use any excess energy supplies as cheap energy to attract business rather then shipping it off to other jurisdictions. I realize this is a complex issue, but there have to be better strategies then the ones we’ve followed to date. One would hope that the NDP government will take a more innovative approach in the future.
The short answer to the last question is that intermittent supplies like wind and tidal work better as part of a large system—one that can absorb their ups and downs. Also, intermittent energy sources need backup supplies that can be summoned in a hurry when the renewables go down. And since, as a practical matter, electricity can’t be stored, it’s helpful to have someone you can sell it to when there is an excess. Hopefully, those sales will balance the cost of buying backup power from time to time. All three needs argue for robust interconnections with regional suppliers and customers. This is why a Quebec Hydro monopoly poses so much risk for the est of Atlantic Canada.
As to Cliff’s main point, five years goes by in the twinkling of an eye. From that point on, the deal’s downsides may look bigger and bigger.
As Frank Corbett’s off the cuff comment in Question Period Thursday shows, the Dexter Government is dismayed at Graham. Dexter’s comments have been appropriately muted because he has to deal with things are they are, not as he might wish them to be.
Half way through its mandate, Dexter’s task force on renewable energy, headed by Dalhousie University’s David Wheeler, faces a daunting challenge: many of the assumptions it has been operating under are out the window.
Hydro Quebec deal is bad for NS & NL, but how good is it for NB?
As Contrarian has noted, the Hydro Quebec-NB Power deal poses huge for problems Nova Scotia. What’s more surprising is how shabby the deal seems to be for New Brunswick:
- NB sheds $4.8 billion in debt, but also loses critical long-term strategic assets, including its transmission grid and a potentially lucrative energy portal into the insatiable New England electricity market.
- NB remains saddled with the ballooning costs for refurbishing the aging Pt. Lepreau power plant, but Quebec Hydro gets the plant. NB does get some relief in the cost of replacement energy while Lepreau is offline.
- NB remains stuck with NB Power’s thermal stinkers—one dirty coal-fired plant and two oil-fired peaking plants—with no guarantee Hydro Quebec will continue to buy power from them.
- Existing NB industries get an immediate 30 percent reduction in power rates, but the new rates are not frozen and will increase in step with industrial rates in Quebec. After five years, all bets are off.
- Moreover, new industries, or existing industries that expand beyond historic consumption, will pay market rates.
- Customers get a five year price freeze. Rates thereafter are theoretically capped to increases in the Consumer Price Increase, but this capping provision goes out the window if Hydro Quebec’s costs go up.
- Graham argues that NB has avoided the huge cost of rebuilding or decommissioning the Mactaquac dam, which is approaching the end of its life expectancy.
- NB essentially surrenders regulatory authority over electricity.
- Hydro Quebec will pay no taxes in NB.
Globe and Mail sat on NB Power story for six weeks
A source tells Contrarian the Globe and Mail had the Hydro Quebec-NB Power story six weeks ago, but didn’t get around to running it until last weekend. Speaks volumes about how much Atlantic Canada has slipped off the national press corps radar. Initial man-on-the-street reaction in NB seems negative; one can only wonder at the outcome had the Globe alerted its readers before negotiators sorted out all the details.
A brave mother’s plea
Friday’s Globe and Mail carries an extraordinarily brave and wise letter from Emily Mitchell, mother of Taylor Mitchell, the talented 19-year-old folksinger who died Wednesday Morning from injuries sustained in an extremely unusual coywolf attack on the Skyline Trail.
This passage bears special note:
I’ve noticed that the media have often mentioned that Taylor was hiking alone when the coyote attack occurred. I want people to know that Taylor was a seasoned naturalist and well versed in wilderness camping. She loved the woods and had a deep affinity for their beauty and serenity. Tragically it was her time to be taken from us so soon.
We take a calculated risk when spending time in nature’s fold—it’s the wildlife’s terrain. When the decision had been made to kill the pack of coyotes, I clearly heard Taylor’s voice say, “please don’t, this is their space”. She wouldn’t have wanted their demise, especially as a result of her own. She was passionate about animals, was an environmentalist, and was also planning to volunteer at the Toronto Wildlife Centre in the coming months.
Now we have a little insight into some of the influences that helped make Taylor an exceptional young woman.
Hydro Quebecwick unveiled
Inter-provincial power grid diagram shows the startling degree to which Nova Scotia is an energy island. This is a big obstacle to the development of local renewable energy supplies like wind and tidal, which are intermittent and therefore require robust interconnection with nearby power porducers and users. The Hydro Quebecwick deal means that any increase in our connectivity with the rest of the world will be at the mercy of the new monopoly owner of the grid, the Government of Quebec.
Premiers Shawn Graham (NB) and Jean Charest (QC) have unveiled the details of the Hydro Quebecwick deal. Quebec gets a monopoly on eastern Canadian access to US power customers; New Brunswick gets a mess of short term pottage and some debt relief, but gets to keep two white elephant dirty coal power plants. This may one day turn out to be as big a fleecing as the one Quebec gave Joey Smallwood 40 years ago.
It’s hard not to see this as a dark day for the rest of Atlantic Canada. Bye bye, Green Grid, a critical element in developing promising renewable but intermittent local Maritime energy sources like wind and tidal. Bye bye, fair access to US electricity markets, an equally critical element in developing those resources.
David Wheeler take note: This is very bad news for anyone anxious for action on climate change in Atlantic Canada. Considering he was blindsided, Premier Darrell Dexter’s response has been appropriately dignified, but make no mistake: this presents his administration with a huge challenge. Like Newfoundland, Nova Scotia’s influence on the national stage has reached such a low ebb that hardly anyone there will give it a thought.
See also: News release. MOU. MOU summary. (All are PDFs.)
H1N1: Baddeck breakdown – feedback
A health worker who reads Contrarian weighs in:
You can add to your post that the line-ups should have been triaged—the elderly, frail or disabled, and those with infants or children under five, should have been moved to the front. Or, if you smartly use the polling stations, set up a few specifically for these groups. I am appalled at the description of anyone carrying an infant or using a walker having to stand in the same line I would be expected to stand in. Poor planning indeed.
Memories of Kandahar
Who said this?
There is no piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another. Nevertheless much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centers, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory we seize.
Our soldiers are not to blame. They’ve fought incredibly bravely in adverse conditions. But to occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such a vast land where the insurgents can just disappear into the hills…
About 99 percent of the battles and skirmishes that we fought in Afghanistan were won by our side. The problem is that the next morning there is the same situation as if there had been no battle. The terrorists are again in the village where they were — or we thought they were — destroyed a day or so before.
Are these the words of some Canadian or American soldier-turned-dissident? Or perhaps a US General pushing President Barack Obama for more troops?
Nope. This was Sergei Akhromeyev, commander of the Soviet armed forces, speaking to the Soviet Politburo on Nov. 13, 1986. Two years later, the Soviet Union abandoned Afghanistan after nine futile years. US and Canadian troops, who have been there almost as long, will inevitably do the same. The only question is when.
Victor Sebestyen, author of “Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire,” recalls the remarks in today’s edition of the New York Times. He points out that humiliation in Afghanistan began the rapid unravelling of the Soviet dictatorship. The US, too, is likely to pay a lasting price in lost prestige and power as a result of the humiliation that awaits it in withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Contrarian is one who believes the US and Canada went into Afghanistan for good reasons: in hot pursuit of those who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks. The US relied too heavily on air power, thereby forfeiting any chance of an early success in that narrow goal. Then the Bush administration stupidly allowed itself to get distracted in the senseless invasion of Iraq.
Our current effort to occupy Afghanistan is doomed.
