Tuesday, 15 August 2017

A dodgy dam in Canada’s east

A LOT depends on the convoys of lorries now rumbling through the rugged interior of Labrador in eastern Canada. They are carrying equipment to be installed at Muskrat Falls, a hydroelectric project on the Churchill River. The 824MW dam, scheduled to begin operation in 2020, is supposed to reduce Newfoundland and Labrador’s dependence on fossil fuels and produce a surplus for sale to neighbouring Nova Scotia. But it is shaping up to be the latest in a long series of failed schemes to improve the economy of Canada’s slowest-growing province.

In June the provincial government revealed that the project, including a transmission line to Newfoundland, would cost C$12.7bn ($10.2bn) to build, more than double the original estimate of C$5bn. To pay for that, electricity rates will nearly double to 23.3 cents per kilowatt hour by 2022, twice what Canadians now pay on average. Indigenous groups that live near the dam and other people downstream worry that rotting vegetation in the...Continue reading

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