Plans are subject to change

Our Dear Energy Plan, which supposedly laid out Our Dear Energy Future between now-ish and 2041, when we “get Our Dear Upper Churchill back”, stated, on page 42 (.pdf link):

Two export routes are being investigated and pursued:

1. An overland route through the Province of Quebec, using Hydro-
   Quebec’s Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT) process into New
   Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New England and New
   York.


2. A subsea route from the Island into the Maritimes or Northeast
   United States, building on the transmission link from Labrador to
   the Island. This type of link would be similar in nature to subsea
   links currently in existence around the world. For example, the
   NorNed link between Norway and the Netherlands is a 700 MW
   capacity line stretching 580 km subsea, as compared to an 800
   MW line between Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick,
   a distance of 425 km.

[Emphasis added.]

The 425-km figure would mean a cable between the Cape St. George area of Newfoundland, and the Acadian Peninsula of New Brunswick, passing between Anticosti and the Magdalene Islands along the way.

This weekend, however, the Halifax Chronically Horrid reports:

Ed Martin, president of the provincially owned corporation Nalcor Energy, told The Chronicle Herald on Friday the plan is to bring hydro power from Labrador by cable to the island of Newfoundland before laying a line to supply grids in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the United States.

“It’s looking like somewhere in the Sydney area would be an excellent landfall for us,” Mr. Martin said of the proposed undersea cable.

“Not only is it distance-wise one of the closest points to Newfoundland, but it’s close to the Lingan plant, which is a significant emitter for Nova Scotia (Power) . . . but nothing is final yet.”

Firm decisions will be made within the coming months, he said.

No “firm decisions” having been made on anything — even though 2009 is supposedly the year in which “project sanction” takes place.

Any bets on how much closer to the 2011 election that press release will be moved back?

At the same time, it is heartening to know that Our Dear Energy Plan is merely written in PDF, not stone, what with all the mutation and speculation about which other provinces will be in line to receive Our Dear Lower Churchill Power by way of which routes. Our Dear Energy Plan isn't even eighteen months old, and is already subject to revision. Imagine how many more changes may come before 2041!

Just about the only thing that seems indelible in Our Dear Energy Plan is that, even though it is not economically feasible to transmit the power from Labrador to Newfoundland without externalizing the cost to the federal government, the provincial government continues to cling to economic feasability, or lack thereof, as its excuse why Lower Churchill power won't flow to the coast.

Yip. New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New England and New York may all be in line for Labrador power; the only place that Ed Martin and Danny Williams have no real interest in transmitting Labrador power is within Labrador itself.

As a former chairman of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro said in 2002, giving as an ostensible reason for resigning his post in the middle of the last round of Lower Churchill hyperbole, “Labrador is being marginalized by this deal. They would never have a steady stream of affordable power.”

Indeed, as a noted Rhodes Scholar once said, “It’s high time that Labradorians, instead of feeling like someone else’s treasure trove, started feeling like an integral part of our province. We cannot expect fair treatment from Ottawa if we don’t practise what we preach.”