CBC quotes Toby Couture, an energy specialist with with London-based E3 Analytics:
"The investment case for selling that power to New England is actually not looking very good, partly because they have more than enough natural gas — cheap natural gas — to meet their own electricity needs for the next decade, at least," Couture said in an interview.
Nalcor boss Ed Martin disagrees but doesn’t say how he plans to overcome the economics of Danny Williams very expensive project.
You can get an idea of the expense of the project from earlier Bond Papers posts:
As for what sort of windfall Martin may be counting on, consider that taxpayers in Newfoundland and Labrador will be shouldering the cost of this enormously expensive deal and, in all likelihood passing on the savings to energy consumers elsewhere. That’s an idea floated around these parts before Danny Williams announced his retirement.
And in case you thing Couture is wrong, some very influential people agree with him.
Maybe this all doesn’t matter because the Muskrat Falls was a vehicle for Williams’ retirement and not a way to build a generating plant.
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