Looking at the future of Churchill Falls

On May 11, the provincial government announced the appointment of an expert panel to make recommendations about the Churchill Falls generating station once the contract with Hydro-quebec expires in 2041.

The Upper Churchill power plant produces approximately 34 billion kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity annually. It is huge (the 10th largest in the world, with a rating of 5,428 megawatts) and has been mortgage-free for years.

It is a cash cow, at least for Quebec and not Newfoundland and Labrador.

Hydro-quebec owns 34.2 per cent of Churchill Falls Labrador Corp. (CFLCO) with

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro possessing the remaining 65.8 per cent.

Those numbers work out to about 11.3 billion KWH for hydro-quebec and 22.66 billion KWH for NL hydro yearly.

As I understand the situation, the ownership of CFLCO remains the same even after the expiry of the current contract in 2041. Hydro-quebec doesn’t ever (jamais, jamais, jamais!) pack its bags and retreat to the other side of the Labrador Peninsula.

I am sure Premier Andrew Furey, Industry, Energy and Technology Minister Andrew Parsons and NL Hydro president Jennifer Williams (no relation to the former premier Danny Williams) know that representatives of Hydroquebec will be here in about 10 years’ time for preliminary talks and putting out feelers about the future.

The future is a foreign land and no human has ever set foot there. An important question for the expert panel to answer is: What will be Hydro-quebec’s position and attitude at any negotiating table?

Will it be neighbourly and treat NL Hydro as an equal?

Will Hydro-quebec be adamant the current rental payment to the resource owner of one-fifth of a cent per kilowatt hour is way more than enough for the descendants of the thieves in the Canada and Newfoundland boundary dispute culminating in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of the British Empire decision of 1927?

Another question for the panel is: What will electricity generation look like as we (yes, me too!) approach 2050?

Will solar panels and wind turbines dot the landscape and seascapes?

Will hydrogen from the electrolysis of water be the world’s main source of motive power? Will synthetic methane (carbon neutral from the combining of hydrogen from the above method and carbon dioxide extracted from the atmosphere or ocean) be the much cleaner replacement of coal, oil and natural gas?

Here is another question on a very technical matter: Will research scientists and engineers in Asia, North America and Europe have solved the problems of controlled nuclear fusion?

That will be a real world changer and may make remote hydroelectric sites and attending long transmission lines as extinct as cart horses and dog teams in doing the world’s work.

Tom Careen Placentia