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Posted

This is really interesting but this part of the story was sure a kick in the nuts to this poor girl 

In one patient's case, his family was able to get a crucial answer to an important question in their lives. The patient was asked if he approved of his daughter marrying her boyfriend. The patient answered "no," nine times of 10.

Posted
1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Can't believe someone shouldn't be going to jail for the mismanagement of hydro 

Yeah and their names are Gary Doer and Greg Selinger!

Posted
1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Can't believe someone shouldn't be going to jail for the mismanagement of hydro 

How are they so much in debt, how are they not profitable, are we still selling power to the US for pennies on the dollar. Just seems everywhere you look in this city there is someone there to rip you off.

Posted
8 minutes ago, bustamente said:

How are they so much in debt, how are they not profitable, are we still selling power to the US for pennies on the dollar. Just seems everywhere you look in this city there is someone there to rip you off.

How are they so far in debt?  OK think of Investor's Group Field.  Now build something five times as big, 1000 times more complicated, in the middle of remote northern Manitoba.  In a river.

Posted
On ‎2017‎-‎02‎-‎03 at 7:02 PM, bustamente said:

How are they so much in debt, how are they not profitable, are we still selling power to the US for pennies on the dollar. Just seems everywhere you look in this city there is someone there to rip you off.

Fracking.

Ten years ago, it looked like clean, renewable energy was going to provide this province with a lot resources, the way oil and gas has helped Alberta.

A few years later, with huge investments in infrastructure and without any constraints, Hydro leveraged itself assuming the money would flow. Then, fracking comes along and vast amounts of gas becomes accessible and cheap. Now, no one cares about the environmental impact of fracking and burning gas, the price is right. Meanwhile, Hydro was an unable (or unwilling) to adapt and scale. Much of it was too late anyhow.

That's obviously oversimplified but an inability to project accurate revenues and unwillingness by the former government to say, 'no', and Hydro is where it's at.

This is definitely a case where the private sector would have moved faster to adapt but I'm still not convinced, it would have 'saved' Hydro.

Posted
2 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Is this massively expensive BiPole III project needed??  And if its to make it easier to supply power to the US, arent they already under-paying for our power?

It's hard to argue right now that BiPole III is needed at all. Based on projections 10+ years ago? Maybe but it was always speculative. If the market continued and prices for natural gas kept climbing by large amounts, they yes, Hydro would have been well positioned. The price of natural gas has dropped so much and with Trump in office, those prices are not going to rise for a long, long time.

We're going to pay a lot to cover the costs associated with all this expansion.

Posted
1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Is this massively expensive BiPole III project needed??  And if its to make it easier to supply power to the US, arent they already under-paying for our power?

Depends what the question really is here... the BiPole III project consists of many different smaller projects.

Is a third line needed?  Absolutely, yes.  Bipole I and II are right next to each other so it's not unlikely that both could be brought down by one disaster... and that's basically all the power to Manitoba, gone, until they can fix whatever the issue is.  Outside consultants hired to review the BP3 project commented that they've never seen a setup like this, where one event could potentially knock out power for 95% of the population.  And depending on the event we could be talking weeks, months without power.

Should it have been built on the west side?  Unequivocally, no.  This was a huge blunder forced on Manitoba Hydro by Gary Doer, Greg Selinger, and the NDP.  With basically no logical or scientific reasons for doing so.

Is the Keeyask generating station needed?  Yes.  What most people don't realize is that most stations in Manitoba were built around the same time period... and they're getting old.  These things need maintenance... in some cases more than others.  Some may need to be decommissioned.  In short, you can't necessarily assume that the power we're generating now will always be available.  Could Keeyask have been designed to be much smaller and cheaper?  Sure.  It didn't have to be built on such a grand scale but it would be disastrous financially to stop now.  You can't just leave a half finished station up there doing nothing.

Furthermore, you need to stay ahead of power demands.  Demand is fairly close to supply at the moment (relatively).  You can't just build a new station/line when power is required.  This requires lead times in terms of years.  Don't forget this is all based on waterflow as well.  If Manitoba faces a multi-year drought, power generation goes down with it.

Of course now you should understand that since power generation needs to stay ahead of consumption, there will always be a surplus of power generated.  Naturally, this is sold to the U.S. and Ontario.  What else would they do with it?  The price depends on several factors.  If the U.S. agrees to buy a certain amount of power for a certain amount of time, they get a discount because that's guaranteed money coming into Hydro.  If it is "just-in-time" sales, the price isn't far from what would be paid by ratepayers here (in some cases the US pays more).

And of course, Manitoba still has some of the lowest rates in North America, with the highest reliability, and the highest percentage of clean, renewable energy consumption in Canada.

TL;DR?  BiPole 3 was needed but the design and implementation were flawed from the start.

Posted
5 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

I always remember hearing that Manitobans would pay next to nothing for power because it would be sold for a profit to the US and across Canada...

OK go on?  Was there supposed to be more to this post?

Posted
1 minute ago, Atomic said:

OK go on?  Was there supposed to be more to this post?

No. That's all I remember lol

i don't like "bailouts" but this is going to break the backs of Manitoban's. NDP took a lot of money out of Hydro. Someone hasn't to put it back in. Should be the government. 

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