Viewpoint
Kerri Breen
Great big wind, but where are the turbines?
Last Updated: Friday, July 3, 2009 | 8:52 PM ET
By Kerri Breen, special to CBC News
Ask someone who has visited the aptly named Blow Me Down provincial park, or anywhere else in Newfoundland and Labrador for that matter. This is a windy place.
In fact, Newfoundland and Labrador is outrageously, annoyingly, but potentially lucratively windy most of the time. But you wouldn't know that from the government of Canada's nouveau riche province, which is letting one of its best natural resources simply blow away.
A wind speed map of Canada published in the June issue of Canadian Geographic magazine indicates that the province has the highest winds in the country.
And meteorological data confirms the anecdotal evidence: most of the province has average wind speeds of between seven and 10 metres per second at 50 metres above ground. This hard rock of a place, it seems, was made for wind farms.
A wind farm off the coast of North Hoyle, Wales. Britain has become one of the world's leading experimenters in harnessing wind power. (Vestas Wind Systems/Associated Press) The raw resource — and it is pretty raw at times, I can tell you — isn't the only advantage.
Apart from the consistent winds, there are plenty of places to tuck the turbines away from human complaint.
Plus, on the coasts, where the winds are generally higher, we have crumbling rural communities that would welcome the new jobs.
With these factors combined, it's unbelievable how little progress has been made in turning the province into a proper wind-topia.
Made for wind farms
This world-class resource is dramatically underused. Nova Scotia, for example has 41 turbines whirring away. Newfoundland and Labrador has a mere 24 turbines (on three farms), and they are all recent developments.
Between them, they have the potential to serve fewer than 20,000 homes. One of these, though, the NeWind farm in St. Lawrence, means the Holyrood Thermal Generating Station in Conception Bay can forego burning an estimated 160,000 barrels of oil a year, which is not insignificant.
Holyrood provides about one-quarter of the electric power capacity on the island of Newfoundland. It burns heavy fuel oil and, on average, emits 1.3 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses a year and significant amounts of other pollutants.
Admittedly, turbine technology — at least the kind needed to power modern cities — is barely out of diapers. Though surely it has to be seen as a handy complement to the great, green hydro power that we are sometimes able to wrangle from our great neighbour, Quebec.
But is the Danny Williams government listening?
It's hard to say. Late last month, at the first annual meeting of NALCOR, the new crown corporation set up to manage the province's energy needs, a presentation suggested the environment was the corporation's number two goal. (Number one was safety.)
This number two goal includes reducing dependence on thermal energy, for example, the heavy oil used at Holyrood, as well as promoting wind power development.
As a result, there are now a couple of new potential wind projects in the works, including one large project in Labrador, but that's it.
Coming from a government that has publicly acknowledged how vast our resource is, the current wind progress seems very weak, especially when compared to the efforts of other provinces.
Oil vision
Newfoundland and Labrador today is much more diverse than it used to be. But the current government's heavy dependency on the offshore oil industry — a distraction from the problems of sustainable, long-term development — fits in with hundreds of years of mono-resource economic culture.
There is more than a whiff here of the cod-fishery days.
A few weeks ago, the provincial government reached a memorandum of understanding to expand the Hibernia oilfield, a $10 billion deal. On that same day, the main Hibernia project reached payout, entitling government to receive 30 per cent of the royalties.
Two big events, both very well received, but they were also a catalyst for debate.
In introducing the topic of the new oil money, one call-in radio show host questioned the government's focus on oil as opposed to other industries that are starving for public investment. While host Randy Simms mentioned the fishery and forestry, wind power could easily be added to the list.
An irate Premier Williams called into the show and told the host that his line of questioning was inappropriate.
"We don't need that kind of pessimism and crap coming out of your mouth in the mornings," Williams told Simms just before hanging up on him.
Right under our noses
Petulance and politics aside, the premier is sending a dangerous message here, but thankfully one that's easy to consider critically.
Now, more than ever, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians need to see through the short-term influence of oil money and demand a more diversified economy.
The people who get to make the decisions today about the oil industry won't be around to see the oil dry up.
Much like our parents, who lived through the moratorium on Atlantic cod in the early '90s, we young Newfoundlandlers will be the ones to wave goodbye to this newest economic saviour.
The difference is that this time we can predict the death of the industry. Oil has a deadline.
Government has a while yet to figure out a long-term strategy, but it surely has to get past its single-minded focus of making sure companies keep drilling the ocean floor for more oil.
Meanwhile, one possible answer is blowing in the wind. And for once in our long, have-not history, a government actually has the money to give it due consideration.
