tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post880103788741422251..comments2023-10-25T07:29:40.789-02:30Comments on UNCLE GNARLEY: MARITIME LINK: THE UARB HEARS AN INCONSISTENT TRUTH Des Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566013585647491614noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-42755648074255384892014-08-03T15:52:02.844-02:302014-08-03T15:52:02.844-02:30Why do we want to give away the natural beauty of ...Why do we want to give away the natural beauty of this province? Why are we willing to sell our connectedness to this beautiful land that our families have enjoyed for thousands of years, for what? to line the pockets of some greedy b*@$T@%D# who do not care about us or anything else except themselves! My land is not for sale, my heart is not for sale, my history is not for sale, my heritage is not for sale!!! Protect the land that we have because you can rest assured they are only out looking here because they have depleted their own, they don't care about us and they will deplete until we have nothing for our people and what then? We sold out fisheries, we sold out minerals, we sold out our water, we sold out our fur bearing animals, we have sold out everything for rock bottom dirt cheap prices! They fooled us once, they fooled us twice, they fooled us three times, this is no longer about them!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-75270989535638037462013-11-23T21:53:09.200-03:302013-11-23T21:53:09.200-03:30The Water Management Agreement is not based on the...The Water Management Agreement is not based on the Upper Churchill resevoir storing water for the Muskrat Falls plant. It is stored "energy". The UC will produce energy from all water, but under the terms of the WMA it is transferred to NL (as Energy) when it is required by us, and when not required by Quebec. The last part is what is not clear to most. <br /><br />Simply put MF is a run of the river plant. It has limited ability to control flow based on the market. When MF is producing more energy than is required for NL needs, it will be transferred by Nalcor MF Ltd. to Nalcor CFLCo to fulfill the requirements of CFLCo's contract with HQ. As this energy is available, the generation at the UC facility can be throttled back. There is more water in the resevoir, as the energy from MF will displace it. <br /><br />When NL needs more energy than MF can produce under the limited flow, then UC can produce more power (using this stored energy) and CFLCO will transfer this energy to MF under the terms of the WMA. Water will not bypass the UC plant without going through the turbines. <br /><br />The extra 100MW of turbines will only provide peak capacity (MW) as the amount of energy (MWH) is totally dependant upon the amount of water which flows. HQ pretty much have the right to all the energy from the natural amount of water which would be at the UC location. Thus additional turbines would not result in more output, only the ability to increase the peak delivery. <br /><br />The issue with the WMA is that this ability to take power from the UC when we need it is very much in doubt. HQ have rights to essentially all capacity from the UC, when they want it especially in Winter under the GWAC contract. The 1000 MW of additional turbines (if true) would alleviate my concern about the ability of MF to meet the peak winter demand. <br /><br />Without the WMA MF is ineffectual. Power is generated in months we dont need it. Nova Scotians are also not aware. But if the WMA is not upheld in the courts, they are getting their 1.6 TWhr of energy in the months of May to October....\<br /><br />We will be talking about Muskrat Falls for a long time in the future. We will also be talking about Holyrood for many more years as well Without a WMA, there is no way Holyrood can close. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-83464637130796875172013-11-22T20:25:33.204-03:302013-11-22T20:25:33.204-03:30If most of the water for Muskrat originates from t...If most of the water for Muskrat originates from the Smallwood Reservoir and Quebec Hydro does not have a strong market demand in winter then would they have a strong environmental card to play in their court case for water rights? Consider that the drop (head) into the Upper Churchill turbines is about 7 times that of Muskrat and therefore produces 7 times more energy with the same water why lose all that potential emission free energy when there is no market for it. In addition if they wished to drain the stored water faster the better environmental way to do it is to add the extra 1,000 MW of turbines that are designed into the Upper Churchill system (as I understand it). The environmental arithmetic is that 6,500 MW can be extracted from this water flow or 824 MW. Which is more environmentally friendly.<br /><br />I think their plan is to build wind capacity and utilize primarily that in periods of lower demand (winter) and store the water when the wind is blowing. Quebec Hydro's largest market is the air conditioning load in the summer.<br /><br />If we lose that case and have to service a $10 Billion debt (and lucky to get it done for that) with 170 MW of power in winter which is the only time we have any need for it plus have to generate additional cheap energy to service Nova Scotia in winter what will it mean for this province. Is it really that risky or am I missing something that the Premier and Ed Martin are seeing. What is it. I would love to know aside from the rhetoric about lowest (unproven) cost. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-53488800821561105322013-11-22T17:37:49.165-03:302013-11-22T17:37:49.165-03:30John: To give added certainty to my comment regar...John: To give added certainty to my comment regarding sworn testimony, I wrote the UARB and received the following reply:<br /><br />"To answer your question directly, all witnesses are sworn when giving oral testimony in hearings. That would include an intervenor where they are providing direct evidence or being cross-examined.<br />We hope this information has been of some assistance.<br />Yours very truly.<br />Paul Allen<br />Paul Allen, CA<br />Executive Director<br /><br />Since I am not a lawyer, I cannot answer your question. However, one thing is clear matters like Muskrat Falls are best subjected to the scrutiny of a semi-judicial process.Des Sullivanhttp://www.unclegnarley.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-74110333860191605322013-11-22T12:36:52.657-03:302013-11-22T12:36:52.657-03:30With technical questions of this nature, Winston, ...With technical questions of this nature, Winston, it would appear that proof will be easier to determine, once we are able to actually get the PUB or a Commission of Inquiry to look at the entire mess and gain unfettered access to all of the data. <br /><br />I truly believe the government and NALCOR are obfuscating, at best, and possibly lying to ensure the project goes ahead, despite the mountain of evidence indicating that this is a doomed project. Unfortunately, the people of the province will be the ones who have to jump off that fiscal cliff in the wake of their intransigence and utter incompetence.<br /><br />In my opinion, it is incumbent on any new administration, after the 2015 election, to allow a full and impartial review of the entire process. If the Liberals want transparency, let's start right there.....with the Muskrat Falls debacle. Billl 29 is just a symptom of a thoroughly rotten political system and it is high time some administration takes the high road. It is simply not good enough that people naturally want to be re-elected every 4 years. Somebody has to be principled enough to overcome party self-preservation and their own preservation and just do what must be done.Cyril Rogersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-14450681693444288332013-11-22T11:32:00.765-03:302013-11-22T11:32:00.765-03:30There are little fibs and big whoppers when it com...There are little fibs and big whoppers when it comes to untruths. In the USA there are lawsuits proceeding, civil and criminal as to the wrong doings of the bank crashes in 2008. The legal problem is to prove that there was "material misrepresentation" This suggests the onus to to prove a whopper instead of a fib. The word "material" means significant.<br /> In the USA, the Securities Commission and other bodies are involved including the Justice dept. Who would do this here?<br /> On a technical side , here, in my opinion are whoppers<br />1. Falsely claim that energy efficiency is approaching saturation for housing, to inflate the future demand for electricity.<br />2. Falsely promote reliability of power enroute over the Northern Peninsula, by<br /> a) Compare it to our existing 230 kv reliability ( which are mostly located inland) instead of comparing it to the 69kv lines now operating on the Northern Peninsula ( which have serious problems with reliability due to its location, exposed to wind driven salt air , which cause outages much more frequently than on our 230 kv lines.<br /> b) Falsely claim that salt is not a contaminant.<br />3. Ignore the risk of geomagnetic induced currents( which caused the big outage in Qurbec and the USA ,and resulted in a 1 billion cost to Hydro Quebec to upgrade to deal with this on long transmission lines. Of importance is the fact that Nfld has one of the highest GIC incidents in the world, and are cause problems at Solar Max every 11 year cycle<br />4. Ignore the investigation necessary to properly assess the North Spur quick clay problem before sanction. Winston AdamsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-81320782198298228482013-11-22T09:35:19.972-03:302013-11-22T09:35:19.972-03:30One day there will be a book written about the Mus...One day there will be a book written about the Muskrat Falls affair. Des, Ed and Cabot should do the introduction. It should simply be called "The Inconsistent Truth". For this phrase best decribes Nalcor's communication strategy for promoting the project, which with the lack of an unhindered public review is permitted to continue. From the 1) do we need the power , 2) lowest cost option the project was founded on spin. The 400 million a year which it will yeild Newfoundlanders was heralded, without telling them it was coming from their own pocket. The Labrador Mining, for which there is no ability to provide more than 100 MW of firm power due to other committments. Upper Churchill not being available to NL'ers, but it is available to Nova Scotia. Green but yet there is 9 thermal units to be added as part of Nalcor's plan. Gated management process, yet the decision was reach in November 2010. No issue with Water Management on energy, yet if HQ is successful there will only be 170 MW which can be garunteed at any given time and energy will be primarily available when we dont need it,. Nova Scotia is required for Market access, even though we currently have the ability to move 300 MW through Quebec. And finally my favorite, a demand in NL which will grow 50% in 50 yrs due to residential demand only, all the while the population will not grow. It is this demand which is carrying the freight in paying for the project, and underpinning the entire "lowest cost option" voodoo economics. <br /><br />Yes indeed... the Inconsistent Truth Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-89926997582341895542013-11-21T12:41:48.349-03:302013-11-21T12:41:48.349-03:30I truly believe that the only possible way for the...I truly believe that the only possible way for the government to wake up and give some thought to CANCELLING this atrocious deal is for the Opposition and for ordinary people to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they will be held accountable for "severe" damage to our economy. It will simply be not good enough, in my opinion, to just throw them out in 2015. <br /><br />Nothing else in the recent history of the province has such serious implications as those associated with this project and they need, along with NALCOR , to understand that. Only a fair and impartial review, with a complete and immediate halt to construction, will allay my concerns and satisfy me that they are at least open to revisiting their numbers.<br /><br />All of the recent developments point to a project that is completely off-base in terms of its projected costs, its revenue stream, its necessity, and the inability of the government and NALCOR to manage any construction project of this magnitude. Their utterly reckless behaviour is a sign of desperation...but for whom and for what?Cyril Rogersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-54672428113806569302013-11-21T10:31:04.578-03:302013-11-21T10:31:04.578-03:30Easy to address the power issues. Upgrade the cro...Easy to address the power issues. Upgrade the cross island transmission to HVDC, a more efficient way of power transmission, would give us just as much usable power than what Muskrat Falls would for here on the island at a fraction of the cost of this mega project. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235138415013046381.post-87326293305569962392013-11-21T08:58:41.593-03:302013-11-21T08:58:41.593-03:30Here a question for the legal types that read this...Here a question for the legal types that read this blog. When Nalcor and emera executives present to the UARB are they in effect testifying under oath? Are they committing perjury if they knowing say something untrue in their testimony. You can see where I am heading with this but I think we are owe some sort of accountability beyond the blanket statement of "this is the lowest cost option" nonsense. This whole thing makes Newfoundlanders look like a bunch of dumb asses out to spend the family inheritance as fast as possible.<br /><br />John D PippyAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03044966985727657714noreply@blogger.com