How wind power enters the Just Transition debate in Newfoundland and New Jersey

 

“The day before [the Bay du Nord project was approved], the federal and Newfoundland and Labrador governments took the word "petroleum" out of the name of the regulatory body that has been overseeing the offshore oil industry since 1986. Once the legal niceties are done, the soon-to-be-former C-NLOPB will be known as the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Energy Board, or the C-NLOEB.”

Notice that the federal govt was involved in this name change.

I dug a little deeper into this odd coincidence. I found this article from Apr 5:

“N.L. government lifts 15-year ban on onshore wind farms” https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/nl-wind-moratorium-lifts-1.6409296

Also, on Dec 18, 2012, in order to ensure the economic viability of the Muskrat Falls Hydro Electric Dam, the province enacted legislation prohibiting any other electricity producers on Nfld. This de fact prohibited wind energy. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/researcher-calls-for-changes-for-wind-power-1.3926183

“In 2016, researcher Nick Mercer released a paper that looked at the barriers to the development of wind energy in Newfoundland and Labrador. He outlined several reasons the province was behind the country in wind energy development, the top of which were government legislation and political will….

…At the time, he said if the province was turned into a giant wind farm, it could produce 117 times the amount of electricity it consumes.”

That anti-wind law was lifted only 2 days before the Bay du Nord oil megaproject was approved in early April 2022.

See CBC article, “'Lipstick being put on a pig': Wind power researcher suspicious of government's motives for lifting ban.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/wind-power-nick-mercer-1.6411972

Here is a quote from that article:

'This can be a job creator'

Retired provincial politician Kevin Aylward has been a proponent of wind energy for years. Describing himself as an energy transition developer, Aylward says the lifting of the moratorium on wind development is a necessary and vital step for the industry.

Aylward is a partner with Beothuck Energy, which hopes to build a wind farm on the west coast of Newfoundland. In 2016, it secured Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners as a financial backer.

Aylward said wind development can be a job creator and diversify the rural economy.

"It's capital coming into the province that can create brand new jobs here and also, the existing workforce can be used," he said. "The other thing is that you don't have to sell the power to the grid. The new game-changer part of the market is that you can create hydrogen with wind power."

The US had already announced wind funding a year before Bay du Nord was approved.

On March 30, 2021, over a year before the Canadian federal govt approved the Bay du Nord project, the US announced major funding in wind power in places like New Jersey, which is only 2,000 km south of Nfld. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/30/the-us-announces-plans-to-ramp-up-offshore-wind-capacity-in-a-big-way.html

So where was Canada?

 

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