Managing Electricity Demand #nlpoli

Nalcor’s forecast for electricity demand on the island of Newfoundland doesn’t really show a massive increase over the next couple of decades.

Earlier this year, Memorial University economist Jim Feehan suggested that one alternative to Muskrat Falls was demand management.  That is, he suggested that Nalcor try some ways of getting people to use less electricity.

Wade Locke, Feehan’s colleague, and staunch supporter of Muskrat Falls, laced into Feehan. He dismissed Feehan at the time and, by extension, the role conservation might have as part of a comprehensive energy policy in the province.  Locke did change his mind.

Equally dismissive of demand management, Nalcor boss Ed Martin tried on some pretty vicious rhetoric about old people and freezing in response to Feehan.

The Can Opener II

Just in time for Halloween, there’s a remake of an old horrorshow:  the local economist who makes dubious assessments that seem a wee bit tinged by things non-economical.

Used to be Wade Locke was the regime-supportive economist of record.

Now it’s Jim Feehan, a guy with a record of producing dubious bits of research on partisan political subjects.  He also co-wrote a paper on another local partisan favourite, the 1969 Churchill Falls contract.  The article  was titled “The Origins of a Coming Crisis” but at no point in the article is the crisis ever described. That should make you scratch your head just a wee bit in scepticism.  

Anyway…

Jim Feehan told local CBC radio listeners Friday morning that while this New Brunswick power deal looks like a good one in that rates will be stabilised after a series of increases, public debt will be hacked down and pulp and paper mills will benefit from lower rates, this deal isn’t really so good because once it is sold, NB Power can never come back again.

In other words, even though this deal is great from the standpoint of an economist, people should maybe think twice because of things the economist commenting knows nothing about.

Like say law.

You see, as the Fortis expropriation in this province demonstrates, even in the worst possible case in New Brunswick, there is nothing like this that can’t be undone. 

But why would you want to expropriate or buy back a debt pig like NB Power if the new arrangement delivers all the economic benefits the economist noted but downplayed?

Well, there’s a question for us to ponder as we wait for the great news in Labrador Feehan’s predecessor once predicted. In the meantime, don’t hold your breath expect an answer to that one from Feehan.

-srbp-