As a result of the widespread and near-manic obsession with “green” energy, coupled with wilful ignorance of the true cost of that energy, Manitobans can look forward to paying markedly higher electricity rates for decades to come. Graham Lane takes the Pallister government to task in this op-ed for ignoring several elephants in the room when it hired former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall to undertake a review of some, but not all, of Hydro’s latest projects.
Lane notes that “Wall, limited to Bipole III and Keeyask, says the ‘boondoggle’ amounts to an over-run of $3.7 billion. But it is much, much, more. By comparing the initial projections for all of the expansion projects to current projections, the boondoggle could hit $10 billion.”
“With the PC’s gaining government in 2016, and after having pledged to suspend Bipole III and Keeyask and call a proper review, the Pallister government simply let Hydro continue spending on the two projects. As costs continued to soar, the Boston Consulting Group was commissioned to do a quiet internal review – conclusion, too much had been spent to stop.”
Privatization would be the sensible option, but if Hydro’s finances get any worse, investors are unlikely to pony up much for an insolvent asset.
Muskrat Falls
Site C
Ontario gas plants
Now this?
But no to Energy East, Northern Gateway, at no cost to the taxpayers.
Wut a gawdawful country.
The Liberal way, cancel de elicopters @$500M, cancel de gst (just kidding), buy used subs, jets, tanks, wasteful spending, a bajillion for one Navy ship? Just FO right there. Fire all the top dawgs in defence. And the defence minister, public works too.
Holey moley Batman, just hand WE a bajillion too, FFS and get SFA.
People need to understand that VOTING will never fix Canada. UCP/CPC/PC/LIB/NDP/BQ/GREEN is all the same pile of SHIT. They all have the same Policies. Bend the TaxPayer over and RAPE your ass.
Name any program of the hundreds they have enacted that they have ended. How many of the 4M plus Government Slugs have been fired or laid off.
They do not care. Their only objective is bleed you out, and your family.
Canada is finished. Bury the corpse already the DISEASED DOMINION IS ROTTING. The best the Canadian Serfs can pray for is the rapid destruction and break up of Canada.
The previous NDP government and Manitoba Hydro completely ignored the economic pressure of modern natural gas power plants down south. It has completely changed the game, and is the reason coal is declining faster than expected. These plants cost around $800-$1000 USD per kw.
Keeyask in comparison is around $13,000-$15,000 per kw. It isn’t possible to break even, it may not even pay the interest on the loans.
These numbers can be compared because both methods of electrical production have similar uptimes.
Did they build all these uneconomical dams as an excuse to foist electric vehicles on us? Or are they just stupid? (A: Both)
Oh well… Anything to keep the unions happy.
The premier thanked Wall on Monday for his report into what Pallister called a $10-billion scandal, “as far as I’m concerned the scandal of the century.”
“This is the largest and most significant mismanagement of taxpayers’ funds we have ever seen,” Pallister said.
“We are committed to ensuring that this will never happen again.”
Well, that’s all taken care of then.
This is what burns my ass as an Albertan. Manitoba is the second largest blood sucker after Quebec in the DISEASED DOMINION. They are hogs in the trough of Equalization so they do not give a Rat’s Ass. They assume Ottawa will extort more from Albertans. We have the same fake shit CON Party in Alberta. Send Billions we don’t have to Ottawa and borrow Billions and cut services in Alberta to Albertans.
Well over 20 years ago, the CEO and I had email conversations on how proud they had the largest turbines that the supervisor was able to push by hand.
I was studying particle power and inverted the traditional turbines.
I requested that he try the same force towards the core side with his supervisor.
Never got another email again.
Engineering is only as good as where you use the energy force to generate torque. Torque energy turns the turbine.
I was proving how energy bouncing back off the housing was creating more friction on the turbine blades.
By inverting a turbine by splitting the energy, they could line up on a circle and generate torque at all 360 degrees in a circle generating a tremendous amount of torque to much smaller energy flow.
That is very smart and logical.
Manitoba Hydro has never passed on a stupid idea yet. Remember this great invention they backed.
It was totally unrelated to their mandate of supplying power to the people of Manitoba?
https://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=220305&DisplayType=flat&setCookie=1
But… but… but… we never hear the end of just how cool their downtown Winnipeg headquarters building is. It was seemingly built to keep a couple of CBC website designers permanently employed based on the amount of news stories the building keeps generating. If only they could generate and transmit electricity with the same efficiency.
I’m ashamed. All we get are these grifter public hacks. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/08/san-francisco-public-corruption-defendants-charged-with-federal-crimes/
They could have saved a whole lot of time and money by reprinting “The Black Rod” blogs of the past several years.
https://blackrod.blogspot.com/2018/01/its-time-to-call-family-to-pay-their.html
Criminal negligence, but in canaduh nobody goes to jail for such.
Great headline Dennis; typical logic of idiots invested in a losing proposition. In fact, the very deinition of idiot.
Remember, they’re funding at least some of this with interest-only “century bonds” which pay 3% interest, and the principal isn’t repaid for 100 years, at which time it probably won’t be worth 1% of when it was borrowed.
That’s like getting free money. So if there are no constraints, why bother showing any restraint?
Financialization eats the world. (No, that’s not a good thing. Particularly if you’re stupid enough to buy the century bonds.)
Manitoba is in fine shape. Hydro brings in the equalization dollars. Whatever they spend, it won’t be Manitoba paying the piper.
The joys of voting for people just because “conservative” is in the name of the party. And the national socialist German worker’s party was “right wing”.
I think Kenney will win 37 straight terms. He has “conservative” right there in the party name.