HAPPY NEW YEAR IN VERSE, OF COURSE

HAPPY NEW YEAR

An open stove -

Wood-junks burn

Red-orange-yellow

In flickering flames -

A rosy glow.

Scent of smoke,

And ghostly faces

In coals and soot.

REFLECTIONS AND THE TOP TEN POSTS 2018

Not surprisingly, the Muskrat Falls Project took centre stage — again — in 2018, while in the last quarter the Commission of Inquiry stole the spotlight, including among the mainstream media.

The Inquiry heard a sordid tale and irrepressible proof that that the project was based on false premises. The integrity of the sanctioning process was undermined by a number of disclosures including confirmation that other options (power from Hydro Quebec and LNG) in addition to the Isolated Island option (small hydro, wind and thermal) offered the province less risk and possessed greater viability. Estimates for the project were “low-balled” (a long-standing claim of the Anonymous Engineer). The Commission exposed myriad instances of official interference with the very consultants whose compromised Reports Nalcor and the Government used to justify Sanction. 

DUNDERDALE DROPS TWO BOMBSHELLS ON INQUIRY

Readers of the Uncle Gnarley blog have probably heard enough of the Muskrat narrative since the Inquiry began in September. Likely, most have broken out the Christmas cheer — including the legal weed — which is sensible, as long as the car keys are buried.  Sobriety may not be good for your health right now. 

In what other way, I wonder, could the drip-drip-drip of mind-numbing testimony extracted by Commission Co-Counsel be suffered by a decent citizenry, however necessary? 

Fortuitously, O’Brien and Learmonth have been gifted the skills of interrogation, each one displaying the painstaking artistry of the dentist’s drill. It is a useful tool, too, so many of their subjects having exhibited excessively large memory cavities. Poor mental dentition was repeatedly the politicians’ escape. Ignorance of cavernous proportions was also on display, overlain with unbridled hubris. Ed Martin even elicited from the Commissioner an unscheduled interim report — actually a tongue-lashing — which described him as “rude”, though I expect an even harsher assessment awaits.

THE BARD ON MUSKRAT, MARIJUANA AND CORRUPTION

SUITS?

Do “Suits in Boots”* with greedy hand

Plunder freely projects grand,

And Shills attest the sleight-of-hand

As arrogance and hubris brand.  

Muskrat? Marijuana land? Et al, all demand

The question: who commands?

Who’s biggest suit from Newfoundland?

Democracy’s a thin veneer -

Lip service only, leads the cheer.

Dishonesty comes with curling sneer

As strings are pulled for elite sphere.

Does Province vie in corruption van

With Stans, Somalias, and Sudan

As numbers veil the anchorman?

John Tuach

Pynn’s Brook

December 23, 2018

*- Quote: Andy Wells, The Muskrat Falls Inquiry

MUSKRAT ENERGY COST – ANOTHER MEASURE OF FAILURE

Guest Post by PlanetNL

PlanetNL22: Muskrat Energy Cost – Another Measure of Failure

Several leading electricity industry research organizations compile annual estimates of utility scale generation options.  These reports roll up the expected lifecycle costs relative to energy output to provide a single energy cost figure known as a Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE).   LCOE allows alternatives with high capital cost but low operating cost to be directly compared to options with low capital cost but high operating cost.

The energy industry consistently selects projects that can deliver competitively low LCOE numbers, however, Nalcor avoided this technique in favour of a customized and burdensome Cumulative Present Worth analysis that avoided illustrating the true economic merit of Muskrat Falls.  Although the LCOE metric was front and center in the Nova Scotia regulatory hearing for the Maritime Link, it was avoided by Nalcor and Government here.  Little wonder, as Muskrat’s LCOE is nothing to be proud of. 

DOES DUNDERDALE KNOW MORE NOW THAN SHE DISPLAYED AT SANCTION?

Former Premier Kathy Dunderdale is scheduled to appear as a Witness at the Commission of Inquiry into the Muskrat Falls Project today. The question that should be in the public's mind is whether she will display any  more knowledge of why her Administration sanctioned the scheme than she did in 2012. At that time she ought to have known that Nalcor was headed by unsuitable and inexperienced leadership and that it was driven by ego (her own and Danny Williams') as well as recklessness underpinned by several unfounded (possibly contrived) assumptions which included some 50-year forecasts. 

A few weeks after the Government sanctioned the project (December 17, 2012) this Blog featured a piece entitled "What the Members Opposite Don’t Understand" which had nothing to do with their ignorance (though it could have been about that, too). At issue was the lack of knowledge displayed by Dunderdale, herself.

Now, the former Premier will have to convince Judge Richard LeBlanc that she comprehended the complexity of  the project and enormity of its implications - apart from the justification for giving it Sanction. 

We await greater illumination from the former Premier in the coming days. Here is the January, 2013 piece:

ED MARTIN’S OVERDUE COMEUPPANCE

A comeuppance for Ed Martin was as predictable as the certainty that Muskrat Falls would become a $12-15 billion project. But it took nearly three full days of evasion, obstruction and “attitude” from Martin for the Commissioner, Richard LeBlanc, to run out of patience. Less tolerant Judges might have reined in the former Nalcor CEO during the first hour of his examination by Commission Counsel, Kate O’Brien.  

Like a spoiled child beyond even coddling, this grown-up couldn’t discern that his behaviour, every bit as much as his decisions, were under a judicial microscope. Contrition was never an expectation.

Triggering the Judge to intervene late Wednesday afternoon was the cross-examination by Geoff Budden, lawyer for the Muskrat Falls Concerned Citizens Coalition (this scribe is one of the Coalition’s three interveners along with David Vardy and Ron Penney). But the moment was not his as much as it was Kate O’Brien’s. Budden had merely continued a line of questioning which Martin interpreted as a licence to obstruct and to void the Inquiry of the requirement of basic civility.

ED MARTIN'S HYDRO PURGE OF 2005

Guest Post by Ron Penney

In my guest post of October 4th I explained how the 2002 Gull Island deal was scuttled by then Leader of the Opposition, Danny Williams, aided and abetted by the then Chair of the Board of  Newfoundland Hydro, Dean MacDonald, and board member Mark Dobbin.

When Mr. Williams became Premier in 2003 he proceeded to commence a series of personnel changes at Newfoundland Hydro which has led directly to the Muskrat Falls boondoggle.

The first was the appointment of Gilbert Bennett in 2003 to oversee the Lower Churchill project. Mr. Bennett formerly worked with Rogers Cable, whose work experience is in telecommunications. He is no doubt a bright and competent telecommunications engineer but it is hard to see how that experience readied him for his current role.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN: LOWER RATES NOT HIGHER

PlanetNL21: What the Isolated Island Option Could Have Been

In deciding to proceed with Muskrat Falls, Nalcor and Government could not see the low-cost alternative staring them in the face that was available to eliminate Holyrood and keep electricity rates stable and low.  

First, they could not identify that the Isolated Island System had no load-growth potential.  

Second, they would not recognize that there was great inefficiency in allowing high seasonal electric heating requirements to persist.  

Third, they resisted changing consumer rates to include marginal pricing that would sell Holyrood energy for what it cost to produce.