The waters are becoming somewhat un-muddied on our Hydro plant situation.
I was reluctant to speculate before, yesterday a spokesperson for Hydro offered up some confirmation of my speculation.
Situation at moment: We have two portable generators from St. Anthony [now in Nain] and another portable on the way from southern Labrador.
Once these portable generators are up and running the Hydro plant will be shut down and work will proceed in repairing any damage to motors, generators, wiring, replacing one generator etc.
Not said is dealing with any structural damage caused by the heat of the fire.
Now here is the kicker, this work well see the plant shut down well into next summer. I’m sure some people will be taken a back by that.
The situation is what it is, but I for one am not a happy camper knowing we only have portable generators to rely on over the coming winter.
Christ, look what happened to a brand new plant, it could not be monitored and protected for Christ sake, and it was summer.
The spokesperson did say that all of the above will most likely cost as much as a new generating plant.
Best case scenario would be for this weather to last for another 6 months or so.
It was up to 19 yesterday, down to 11 overnight.
Yesterday was amazing with a warm wind, only spoilt by the wind blown dust.
The pictures show the first two portables at the dock. It should take about 2 weeks to get them up and running.
3 comments:
Hello Brian,
I admit that I don't know what it takes to build and keep a hydro plant running, especially in a remote location such as yours. But I cannot help but wonder why the "powers that be" failed to CONSIDER and PLAN for just such a failure event occurring. It’s called disaster recovery planning. In my books, that means building a duplicate hydro station , regardless of the added costs resulting from the “remote” factor. Given the population size of Nain, it isn’t as though the additional plant would be supporting a large urban population. Ultimately, it’s a small amount given that this is a life necessity.
Isn’t it OBVIOUS to the hydro/gov’t types that if the Nain residents lose their power for any length of time in the dead of winter, that it will be disastrous?
Hoping that all get through the winter in Nain without any outages.
Having two diesel generating stations in every remote communtity is neither practical or feasible. Ideally communities like Nain would be included on a grid with the source being Churchill Falls. But apparently towns within the boundary of one of the biggest hydro generating stations on earth can't have access to it. Instead in these times of increased environmental awareness, communities of coastal Labrador rely on one of the dirtiest of all power sources.
Whats wrong with this picture?
Miranda,
Thanks for the best wishes; I think we will need all the good vibes people can give. As to what is the best scenario? Mealyman mentions one, a power line from Lake Melville to the coastal communities, with the present attitudes this is as about as feasible as a back up plant in each community.
Another source of energy is wind, and or solar. NLHydro apparently owns the wind and the sun, they do nothing to promote either, one has to ask why?
One also has to ask why local power brokers are doing nothing to promote localized power producing entities like wind generation as a back up to diesel generation.
Post a Comment