VARDY PUTS MINISTER’S NORTH SPUR POSITION ON PUBLIC RECORD

Obviously, because we allow ourselves to be led.
Bruno is calling for strident political action.
How about a promise letter we can all sign that says we will never to pay one cent of MF power increased consumption bills, ever.
The cash shortfall will bring it all crashing down, the consequences will not be pretty but what are they going to do, sue 200,000 fee payers, how long would that take to run its course through the courts? Cut off our electricity and allow us to freeze to death in the dark, the old Alberta adage about oil? Resettle the whole province to Cambridge or Gault or Leaf Rapids or Fort McMurray.

There is a solution out there, we just have to push for it as a people, as a former nation, undivided and strong.
Rise up, lambs, rise up.

Hell no, we won't pay, Muskrat Falls can go away.

Shut it down, stop it now, we don't want it anyhow.

Any sloganeers out there more facile than me, please feel free to start shouting, we need anthems and marching songs and a few good rabblerousers to step to the fore.

Anything but baaa, baaa, baaa which is all we hear to date.

Hear…Hear!! We are LONG PAST THE POINT…WHEN ALL THE RHETORIC SHOULD BE ACTION!! THE LIKES OF THIS ATROCITY WREAKED ON NL…IS UNFATHOMABLE! !
THERE NEEDS TO BE ONE DAMN CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT ON BEHALF OF EVERY NL'ER AGAINS THE PERPETRATORS OF THIS OBSCENE MESS THAT WE HAVE BEEN VISITED WITH!!
THE TIME FOR TALK IS OVER..ENOUGH IS ENOUGH !
MY CAP LOCKS HAVE BEEN LEFT ON FOR A REASON PEOPLE!! I AM DAMN MAD AT WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO US !!

WA:

I promote completion and 're-analysis' to avoid default, as you know. In the event a decision was made to sell off, I am not sure what we could assess as a value—I know in situations where I as the EOR have taken on infrastructure partially completed I always assess $0 so I could be conservative and recoup remedial works, especially if I were expected to take on the warranty of completion.

More to Vardy's point, I don't expect any changes in the current plan to push ahead until the 11th hours. I believe we will then see some movement towards reconsideration on a number of issues where the background engineering is deficient.

PENG2

PENG2 —- that would be consistent with the Nalcor playbook (wait/delay releasing new cost estimates, new work/cost needs, etc. until it is too late to stop).

Liberal or PC action — what's the difference? Both dismissing the best interest of the people so as to comply with the demands of the financial supporters of the party.

Jim, NALCOR are not very good Project Managers.

Their cable TV background experience is about putting up antenna and cable, flogging commercial TV signals, collecting dough.

Any expectation that they can be made to understand geotech is folly.

Very good to hear from you again. Enjoy your retirement, and the best of the Season.

JG:

Exactly—geotechniques is not dealing with engineered materials (ie steel or concrete) where the properties are known, rather soil properties are assumed based on real world experience in a region and the investigation info is usually somewhat lacking.

Now what conclusion is correct is TBP 'ie to be proven'.

I would suggest if this were my design, there are things I would have done differently to give me a better sense of confidence.

PENG2

If you want to do something constructive Winston give the Labrador Land Protectors the $50,000.

You don't think that those who assure us that the North Spur is safe , should put their money where their mouth is?
And, I do not think I would lose such a bet, but could win 12,500. Maybe you are less certain,and consider I would lose?
I had considered that parties to the bet might agree to donate winnings to the residents of the first flood from the boondoggle, those at Mud Lake in May 2017…….that would be up to anyone taking the bet.
But the Land Protectors is a good cause.
But also, I figure an essay on the value of your solar generation for Nfld can be constrctive, say 1000 words, for 500 dollars, to expose or support your view, which I suggest is a myth.
But the MF North Spur risk I assess at 100 times more important: so to life safety and the lost of the asset…..so this can be constructive, I suggest.
Meanwhile have the Land Protectors contact me and email me a copy of their financial statements for consideration.
Winston.

As usual your tortured logic escapes me.

You want an essay on an issue you have declared a myth? All parts of the planet get equal sunlight in the course of a year. In central NL and Labrador domestic (rooftop)solar plus battery storage cost 9 cents KwH. This is cheaper than post MF NL hydro cost of 22 or 17 (if Dwight reaches into another of your pockets for the cash). Please send the 500 bucks.

The only one unwilling to put their money where their mouth is is the author of this bizarre challenge. Help the LLP if you have money to spare.

Bruno:

I will state/cede a few facts:
1) solar / wind will become increasingly important to our generation supply
2) supply management will also BII
3) alternate energy forms have been important for decades, now the focus is there more than ever
4) caring for the enviro has always been important

From your arguments, what I cant understand is how a community in a northern clim (say Nain, Nanasivik, Whitehorse, Baker Lake etc) can survive with a solar/wind system? I do understand the concept of storage, but can grasp how to generate/store sufficient energy to provide an area with 7-8 months of deep freeze.

I accept that in certain conditions alternate energies are cheaper, but I believe over the longterm (ie over several seasons) the transmission grids we currently have are better suited.

PENG2

Too bad, Bruno, you consider my logic to be tortured, but even tortured logic is better than little or no logic. Logic of science and math has been my strong point from childhood, but is now impaired somewhat, but I thought still adequate. Maybe it takes highly logically thought, like yours, which you suggest is very transparent, that it should not be contested.
1. As to that the Spur will fail, if you agree it will fail, you can share my winnings if you wish to partake, unless you fear Nalcor is right as to stability.
2. As to the cost benefit of electricity by solar: you stated this to be cost effective for Nfld, now you do your jackrabbit jump to suggest you perhaps mean only for central Nfld and Labrador. Most of our population is on the Avalon, and other coastal areas.
You think your idea is worthy of 500 dollars without challenge!
And you call the challenge bizarre. But as Dave Vardy says, and Robert Holmes, we need to plan our energy future. If MF never operates and shuts down, what do we do, we are back to needing 500MW peak thermal…….unless your idea is an important part of the future. Surely, 500 dollars is a token amount to get insight into your idea. There is considerable technical ability among Nflders, who all stay silent. Is there no one to accept this challenge? If not, I may have to expose the myth of solar for Nfld myself, and keep the 500.
But first put some more logic and facts and truth into your 1000 word piece and forward it to UG.
To say we get equal daylight is, in substance, like saying the Spur is stabilized to 1.5 safety factor…… re-think , least you need to be on the defensive like Nalcor. We don't need another boondoggle…… the Solar Solution…….we are not Australia, nor Arizona.
Winston

PENG2, you're right, remote communities cannot survive on wind/solar alone but they are the best place in NL to roll out more renewables, wind in particular, in order to offset diesel usage. This will give the biggest bang for the buck in reducing GHG emissions in those communities and reduce the cost of electricity for users (and the rural subsidy for interconnected grid users).

Nalcor/MUN have experimented with a wind-hydrogen system in Ramea with mixed results. Last I heard they were replacing the hydrogen generator with a fuel cell as the generator performed poorly. I have not heard much of anything since though.

I looked at adding a 5kw solar array and inverter to my house under the net metering policy. It would take 35 years to pay off, long past the life of the panels and inverter. No thanks. I'll keep an eye on the prices but I don't see it making economic sense for some time yet.

Merry Christmas,

PENG3

If you follow the whole string you will see my comments were for central NL. The only one to shift the playing field is you with your silly requests.

I expect that $500 for easily establishing my proposition.

I would never benefit intentionally from someones misfortune when I could have acted to prevent the harm. Keep your filthy money on the risk of failure. If you had honorable intentions you would contribute to LLP. You want their prospectus?? Are you investing in a stock or trying to facilitate social justice? Seems you are all hot air Winston.

Robert Holmes often speaks of Bell Island, for geothermal or geothermal/solar combined…….
I have not given it much thought, but the mines originally came out at sea level, but later went underground under Conception Bay. I have no figures on volume or depth, but that they eventually flooded after the mines closed.
It would appear to me that they may have potential for wind storage: the wind generation power, on good wind days pumping out the water creating a underwater reservoir, then when the wind is light, letting water re-flood the mines going through turbine/genertors, feeding back to the grid, conserving other water from rainfall.
The depth defines the head pressure, and the volume can determine the overall capacity. Someone said such storage is about 80 percent efficient. Solar is about 20 percent efficient, but overall costs matters.
I am not sure the concept of solar/ geothermal for bell Island, perhaps others can comment?
Perhaps we need another 500 dollar challenge for the Bell Island asset?
Winston

PENG3:

I am checking out other sources same as you—but haven't pulled the trigger yet, I expect soon taking into a redesign and reno of my current house.

To me, with a disconnected transmission system the biggest costs is providing redundancy to multiple areas (or areas with special considerations of access). This is a big reason for my assessment that Churchill (whatever the source: MF/UC/LC) power should never travel the Anglo-Saxon route and the island should be considering more stand-alone options.

Not sure your background PENG3, but if you have an opinion I would certainly ponder it.

PENG2

Bruno,
1.Perhaps my memory is failing, but I recall you referred to Nfld, not central Nfld?
2 The challenges are to stimulate serious opinions backed by reasoned arguments, facts,and data, rather than hare brained schemes and off the cuff remarks…….we have had too many boondoggles in Nfld, do we need more? So, yes lets move the playing field. I propose to encourage it with such a challenge.
3 My intend is not to benefit, I wound rather lose the money and the Spur stand solid. My intend is to show the shallowness of those that say the Spur is solid. There is little solid between Spirit mountain and the the TCH. I have proposed any winnings go to Mud Lake victims……so how do I win? I either lose 50,000, or lose 12,500. I win nothing neither way. You distort my intentions, deliberately it seems, with your "filthy money remark"….what filthy money? You seen rattled that your silly solar solution scheme should be challenged.
4. As to the Land Protectors,I asked for their financial statements , not the prospectus. Many charitable or non profits are poorly run. I consider them good if 80 percent or more go to the causes intended, and no more than 20 percent for overhead and expenses.
I have regretted, somewhat, donations to others (such as VOCM Cares, where money went for other purposes that they prefer.
Winston

1. Read the string. You owe me $500.
2. When someone meets your dumb challenges YOU move the goalposts. Stop pivoting.
3. you want to bet on failure of the dam. I find that repulsive.
4.You show just how much hot air you emit with this BS. Give the LLP money to stop the dam. They show much more integrity than you do. They are good to their word.

Bruno,
1.you think you deserve 500 dollars for a silly idea and that no one should challenge it. You might claim your sting goes back 5 years…….but it was just recent that I responded, and challenged your equal daylight amateur suggestion for solar for Nfld.
2. What goal post did I move?
3. I have long questioned the stability of the North Spur, and stated I believe it is unsafe. I just upped the ante to those who say it is safe, make huge profits off this scheme, and ask them to put their money where their mouth is. That is different then wanting the Spur to fail to profit, and you know the difference. I have stated the independent report on Mud Lake flood is wrong to put no blame on Nalcor. My record in comments on UG is public .
3. The solar scheme, I submit is mostly BS, and hot air, but would allow you to better articulate your position and others to oppose it.
4. Land Protectors, you, and all anti Muskateers has been unable to stop Muskrat. Their good report to the PUB got no results. Hunger strikes got no results. what will get results is double or more power rate hikes. Or mother nature may take down the Spur with help from Nalcor.
5. Words are words, like these, and have little effect,and are opinions, some are more valid than others.
6 A prise for words that have value, and stand up to scrunity, that are not false assumptions I suggest is of value. I suggest it would eliminate much of the hot air, that promotes false assumptions. I would not judge whether you are the winner or an opposing view the winner.
Will you write your 1000 word piece for UG to assess if suitable for publication? Or just continue to attack the character and intentions of others. Your ideas may be good or bad, what are you afraid of?
Winston

You write whaTEVER IT IS YOU WANT ME TO WRITE. It is as silly as most of your ideas.

That you are welching on both my proof and the LLP funding tells it all. You are tiresome Winston.

Bruno
Let me get this straight: You want me to write what should be your rational explanation of why solar generated electricity is a sound idea for Nfld, which I suggest is a silly concept, and contrary to my view (that it is not cost effective).
And you want me to write it for you because you are unable to write a logically piece based on sound science and facts! Now that is, perhaps, the most silly thing you have said so far, and you say some dozzies.
You say I am welching on your proof! What proof? I am sure you have convinced readers here that you have really proved your silly statement.
And you say I have welshed on funding the Labrador Land Protectors. I challenged the Nalcor believers in the North Spur stability that their assurances is misplaced. I have had no contact with the LLP to welsh on. I share their concern for failure and flooding.
What type of weed do you use, Bruno, that enables such good reasoning? I am on the waiting list for some medical grade stuff that may help pain from a twisted spine. But having never smoked, I fear some bad quality stuff, that may make my arguments no more lucid than yours. So I am not optimistic on weed, and may, seeing your inability to back up your proposition, think it prudent to reject the doctors recommendation.
I see PENG3 puts little stake in your proposal, but think wind has potential, but solar….a 35 five year pay back.
PENG3 could easily write a 1000 word piece to discredit your proposal. If so, and you made no better defence, than the 500 could easily go to him, by default. Try to engage someone else to write your piece for you, some solar panel supplier perhaps.
Good to see the the original Nalcor engineer on this blog who wrote of false costing, followed by PENG2 and now PENG3 engaged. But most all are still silent.
I am of the old school,in the 1970s, when Nlfd Hydro prudently spent our energy dollars. But I think there are still good engineers there, if allowed to voice their views.
WInston

PENG2, you're right that providing redundancy in an isolated system is a substantial cost. Liberty in its reports stated multiple times that NL Hydro relied on outages more so than other utilities it had worked with. Well, to provide the redundancy needed to get NL to the same reliability standard as the main interconnections in North America would have been prohibitively expensive. To me this stood out in the Liberty reports as a failing on their part, a failing to recognize the fact that NL is not interconnected with North America. I have some experience with the grids in the Yukon and NWT, where outages are more common, and I wonder if Liberty has ever worked in a system that small before.

Anyway, onto to the Labrador-Island Link. The length of the interconnection doesn't particularly bother me, provided it is built strong enough. I know there are some questions regarding the standard to which the LIL has been built but Nalcor does have experience building transmission lines on the island (not in the Long Range Mountains as such though) so I tend to give them some slack on this one. Also, if you're going to be importing power you have to have redundancy in supply in case the import fails. That must be in the form of another import path, the Maritime Link, or on island generation. The latter is what the list of planned thermal generation presented as part of the MF project was for. As load on the island grew, new backup would be needed. In the future as wind/solar/batteries/small modular reactors, etc improve perhaps those are installed instead of diesel.

As an import example, the HVDC Pacific Interie is 1400km long and rated for 3100MW. It covers close to half of Los Angeles capacity during peak and imports power from hydro in the Pacific NW down to LA during the summer. In winter power is sometimes sent north to power heaters in the PNW.

This movement of power is another method of increasing renewable penetration levels. You can install a lot more wind if you have somewhere to move the power to. Texas is a prime example. They have spent billions installing transmission in order to move wind power around the state and maintain stability.

Some have suggested we should have built the LIL and not MF. In my opinion that doesn't make sense, at least not until closer to 2041 when the UC contract is up. Hydro Quebec has little to no capacity to send us during peak time. I believe Nova Scotia has a little but it's coal based, though they are closer to the New England market from which we could have purchased power. Saying that, I think the Maritime Link was a good move. It would also have enabled us to more quickly ramp up the amount of wind generation we installed, though if your goal is to replace Holyrood we would have needed thermal generation to act as standby/balancing.

A bit of a rambling post, but there it is. Now to help wrap some presents before I get in trouble with my wife.

PENG3

This comment has been removed by the author.

PENG3 you are added to a growing list of MF engineers that do little to honour that ring.

So you want us to buy that the expertise Nalcor hired to review NL Hydro reliability and maintenance standards did not know what they were talking about, is that it? Comparing the isolated system to utility standards set by the industry is unfair and uninformed? When we have swallowed that mouthful do you have ocean frontage in sunny Florida to sell us?

MHI warned Nalcor to build transmission to 1 in 500 year standards. They blew the advice off and bragged they upgraded to a 1 in 200 standard in some areas. What experience do they have that trumps their own consultants advice? They have plenty of experience ignoring their own consultants recommendations. Is that what you mean?

The willingness to dance with the devil and rationalize unprofessional, undemocratic, life and treasury threatening decisions made by unqualified political appointees is a disgrace.

How much are those that know and do not speak responsible for the corruption and secrecy? Scrooges all.

Merry Christmas.

And a bah humbug to you, Bruno.

I don’t work for Nalcor though you seem to like painting anyone who may disagree with you as such.

I don’t discredit Liberty or MHI’s advice or expertise. I have worked with MB Hydro in the past and believe there are good people there. Now, you will proceed to tell me they are all clueless morons because they proceeded with Keeyask and bipole 3.

NL Hydro has 50 years of building lines here on the island.

Don’t question my integrity as an engineer. You have no clue who I am. All it does is hurt your argument.

What does your fear to publish your name say about your integrity? You could be a 400 lb guy sitting on a bed.

You defend MHI despite the unfolding Keeyask boondoggle and defend Nalcor ignoring the 1 in 500 year advice from MHI. You have mastered what Orwell called Doublethink believing both contradictory propositions at the same time without cognitive dissonance.

Congratulations and give my best to big bro.

PENG3
I have much respect for Liberty, but for the Jan 2013 outage, I soon became aware it was caused by salt contamination, as I suspected. Soon after I discovered that the report appendix by Nfld Hydro engineer had listed the event sequence with repeated flashovers by salt on the lines near Holyrood and at the terminal station. But by the time of the next year large outages, Liberty seemed too anxious to put all the blame of both outages on lack of mainteneance etc.
It took 2 years in Liberty's final report to state that the 2013 one was indeed caused by salt flashovers, which Hydro knew and documented within hours of events.
My assumptions why Nalcor did not press this was because salt was a problem they said would not exist on the Labrador infeed line…….which is BS, and was content to stay quiet on that.
It remains to be seen how successful that line is, as on existing 69 and 138 kw, it has been a big problem, as it was in my days at Hydro. I doubt if the line you make comparisons too has that problem. As to icing loads ……we will see…..there may be problem areas, such as Sunnyside was that eventually got upgraded.
MF biggest problem is the project cost, and the stability of the North Spur.
Do not ignore family issues of this season to respond, but when time allows.
Cheers to the UG gang, even Bruno, to enjoy this season. Merry Christmas and a happy New year.
Winston

Good morning Winston,

I have a lot of respect for Liberty as well. Salt spray was the initiating event but old breakers and aged transformers added to the overall event. A proper breaker fail protection scheme would have sensed the stuck breaker phase and opened other breakers to isolate the fault. Hydro has since gone and implemented such a scheme. An older transformer is certainly more prone to failure in a fault as it’s windings and insulation weaken.

Hydro had recognized the need to replace the air blast breakers, which are all problematic in my experience as they age, and transformers. In this instance, while they had started a program to replace them, they were too late to prevent #DarkNL.

Insulator washing is a fairly common practice and I wonder if Nalcor has had to add that to the LIL operating costs. It would explain some of the large increase in O&M costs announced back in June.

I had someone tell me that if the LIL were built to a 1-500 year event standard it would be the only thing left standing on the island after such an event and so it wasn’t worth the extra cash to build to that standard up front. I can see some logic in that compromise but would still have built to the higher standard. If I’m busy rebuilding other transmission lines after a big storm I don’t need to add to it by repairing the LIL as well. I don’t criticize as I’m not the one with all the info at hand to make the call. Good is good enough, I guess.

Same thing with the tube failures at Holyrood. Hydro knew they were close to failure so why not preemptively replace them instead of waiting for failure to happen? Perhaps time and money didn’t permit it.

I’m glad to see now that TL201 is being replaced with TL266. That was the worst performing line due to age. It has served its purpose and served it well. Now it’s time to move on.

Cheers,

PENG3

Bruno, I think this quote is appropriate. The world seldom comes down to absolutes.

“The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up", Esquire Magazine (February 1936).

Merry Christmas,

PENG3

The problem of course PENG3 is that a spur failure will be an absolute disaster. There is no room for equivocation. The issue requires bold action to resolve the quandary to avoid disaster, not unprofessional compliance to unscientific and unreviewed science. There is no virtue in holding both views that the spur will fail or not.

Similarly your rationalization for the underdesign of the LIL demonstrates your lack of critical analysis. It is the weather events that will crash the towers in inaccessible stretches and leave the rest of the system intact that required building to 1 in 500 year standard. You invert the reality to rationalize ignoring consultants advice.

Dark NL was clearly outlined again by those pesky consultants to be the result of Nalcor ignoring recommended maintenance. If you are independent how can you consistently defend the shoddy practices by Nalcor and their abysmal maintenance record ignoring consultants warnings?

I maintain my proposition that your actions hold contradictory, not merely opposed ideas in mind. It is classic Orwellian Newthink. The stark contradictions still cause you no dissonance.

It's been said that open-mindedness is an important indicator of intelligence (recognizing of course that there are many kinds of intelligence and that traditional IQ tests are fundamentally flawed).

Bruno says failure of the spur is an absolute disaster, but the plant, at about 1/2 the project cost, leaves plenty more for unreliability of the transmission components to be a disaster. And add to this falling power demand, even if the spur holds and the line is ok. So, I suppose absolute disaster required failures on multiple levels.
1/500 is no doubt a large additional cost, maybe much like proper stabilization of the spur. But the line may prove vulerable in spots, and may require beefing up, as happened with our existing 230kv around Sunnyside.
What odds would Bruno state as to the spur failing, and all the line needing 1/500?
Darknl was for two years of failure. As mentioned, 2013 was initiated by salt contamination, an act of nature, but spread as outlined by PENG3. As I recall, Holyrood could not be restarted from the Hardwoods gas turbine, for some 6 hours, taking that long for the salt issue to disappear for feedback. Holyroods own gas turbine was obsolete and non functioning……so the 2013 event, triggered by nature, and spread due to other issues. An Amex study, if memory serves, says such a salt issue at Holyrood could occur 1 in 10 years on average. To me this goes to the core of one aspect of why Nalcor was saying salt was NOT a contaminant for the DC line, when the risk was higher than other areas of the province. Likely an event several times per year.
PENG3 wonders if insulator wash down may now be intended. I have never heard of that done by Hydro, but that Nfld power does so at times in the substations. Is this a practical thing for the GNP line, On what basis could salt be said NOT to be a contaminant for that line, in Nalcor documents? Where did that assumption come from and get by unchallenged?
Meanwhile Bruno says PENG3 is void of critical analysis. And yet his proposition of equal daylight for Nfld would justify large investments for solar electricity here……and he ridicules critical analysis to that! Pot calling the kettle……..
While Bruno is likely correct that weather events is the biggest risk for the transmission system, it is likewise mainly weather that makes his solar proposition of little practical use, except on a small scale. Did PENG3 say 35 year payback…..if so, that bit of critical analysis seemed to escape the mind of the Bruno proposition, and puts it too rest in less than 10 words.
Winston

Sorry I mixed my Orwell metaphors. I meant Doublethink. Does this not describe the curious contradictions you rationalize PENG3?

"Orwell describes doublespeak as being a part of newspeak, which is the method for control of thought through subtle language. Doublethink adds control that eliminates uncertainty and so the whole belief system seems coherent.

Doublethink is not hypocrisy as the person actually believes in both things, even though they contradict."

Fat chance!

This is a good summary of the themes this blog has struggled with and gives UG credit for daring to do what the MSM has failed to do for rate/taxpayers.

It ties together the political corruption by provincial governments to overdesign, overestimate demand, shutter regulatory oversight, and swamp helpless ratepayers denied transparency or accountability. This is the opposite of what a utility is supposed to be about.

This transition, from a utility designed to provide a service at minimal cost, to a bloated instrument of political patronage and corrupt practices like untendered sole source contacts (vs competitive bids that in Alberta brought in wind at less than 4 cents KwH) is a classic example of what Jane Jacobs called "monstrous hybrids".

Robert NS has already used MF to claim a GHG reduction to ask for an exemption from shuttering our coal plants by 2030. Expect NL to follow the same slime trail.

NL anon sceptics should read the tealeaves. Think how to reduce dependency on fossil fuels say at Holyrood, MUN/Health Sciences/Aqua/Arctic vessel campus, Bull Arm, Long Hr. etc.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/brooks-solar-newell-elemental-energy-1.4458277

I don't quite get the deafening silence, intransigence, blundering, intelligence gap, push back against Renewable Energy Applied Science amongst Engineers in NL. Turn in your Iron Ring Ceremony certificates. "Sons of Martha" indeed! NALCOR, send your Hydro biased Engineers away to College!

http://www.pembina.org/blog/reflections-on-2017-renewables-remote-communities-conference

How come some of the "Bright Light" Engineers at NALCOR aren't attending well intended conferences, to learn how to turn the lights on say in Seldom Come By, Long Island, Makkovic, etc.?

Your thoughts are mine. I called it the Giggle Show (After the Australian silly group the Wiggles) since it appears all they can do is giggle about some cat and dog story. It appears that everyone in existence now needs a all suppertime newscasts with at least 5 separate explanations of the weather, a court report already done by the very courts themselves, a cat and dog session, a feel good story about some local charity or a pumped up, NL nationalistic, one sided story about a local entrepreneur who couldn't find work in the oil industry or government but is making it big as another businesses selling chocolates or another local arts and music scene report. Never is there a word about the disastrous economy in NL, the mass out migration or the failed industries that are abound here. I would like to know just how much tax money is being spent in Nl on the CBC and maybe we could have a debate as to weather or not it would be better spent on Health Care or something else OR not being spent at all.

Reliability factors heavily favour the Atlantic Grid route. Provided that NB Power gets off its ass, and develops its portion as a "Smart Grid". Emera, already owns the former public transmission lines in NS, and will do what is necessary to capitalize on cheap Hydro Quebec power.

I hope no Gnarley naysayer hopes the spur will fail. If it fails it would mean loss of life and loss of an expensive asset.
For my bet, if it stands I would gain 12500 dollars, if it fails I would pay out 50,000 dollars. So a failure would cost me 37500. I don't generally lose bets, and why would I be anxious to lose this, just to say I was right? Not so.
One side, Nalcor, says the spur has a safety factor of about 1.5, while the other says only about 0.5
The average of these is 1.0, which is no safety factor at all.
I am used to working with copper pipe heating systems. For a house with 50psi, a pipe rated for 150psi has a 3:1 safety factor that is a guaranteed working pressure. The burst pressure of that pipe is about 1000 psi, if a quick surge of pressure was applied.
Recently on a city building, the operating pressure was to be 80 psi. A 150 psi rating did not make a 2:1 safety factor. The engineer thought it prudent to use the next heavier gauge of copper, and I agree.This met USA standard, and not the cheap China product. The rating was for 400psi working pressure , so 5:1 safety factor and it had a burst pressure of 2200psi.
So, anyone contented with what seem likely a safefy factor of no more than 1, for a natural dam…….go live downstream.
Further, even a natural loss of the spur whether in a hundred or 500 years, means a loss of the natural bottleneck in the river there, that affords downstream a modest spring elevation rise. Without the spur the spring runoff would make matters much worse in Goose Bay and Mud Lake.
So this is one naysayer who wants the spur to stay.
Winston Adams

I have advocated a modified approach to Bloggers here. Accepting that it is already too late to redirect the "Finish Strong" crowd; Be part of the "Best Use" collaboration. A concerted effort to determine the merits, or not, of running the Muskrat asset, with inherent risk failure characteristics, (Technical and Economic), is long overdue. Mothballing, may be the "Best Use", as some have already proposed on UG.