Offshore wind is the best bet for future clean energy and Nova Scotia's next century. But change is hard, people can find fault with anything, and everyone wants their cut. It's time to face the facts
An incredible analysis. A real tour de force. I agree with much, but some perhaps not ...
Like many older Nova Scotians I suffer from Big Fix Syndrome. Having lived through Clairtone, Heavy Water, Bricklin in New Brunswick, the Tomato Adventure in Newfoundland, I am somewhat skeptical when it comes to large projects which promise to transform our modest lives.
If our Premier is the strongest proponent, I wish he might have mentioned it at some point -any point - during his election campaign 6 months ago. Come to think of it, there are many things I wish he might have discussed at the time ....
Everything, all we are, and every new idea plays out against an historic cavalcade of failures and fiascos that any thinking adult has at least some memory of. And much of that disastrous legacy is not just truly legend but captured in a kind of wealthgraphic form in the layers of our public debt, wasted natural resources, billion dollar clean-up operations, lost lives, and even the stratified public service, much of it, in place specifically to respond to this mistake or that, and ensure we not do it again.
I will push back against the 'he didn't tell us', 'he doesn't have the mandate' lines of talk.
1/ Most simply, he has broad and increasing support among the public.
2/ We must do something to create the wealth we need and expect to continue to live the livestyle to which we, the current generation are accustomed, and to set up the rising generations beyond our grandparents expectations. If that is not our central purpose here what is? There was no world where a responsible leader didn't put new ideas on the table once elected. Maybe that's been our problem. No one since Dr. Savage has been such a leader, in this sense. But, we all know what happened to him.
3/ Focusing on the current wind subject of this essay — it's an opportunity that came along out of the chaos of America and world events. To my knowledge — and I pay attention to such things — it just was not on the menu before January 20th, 2025.
I fully agree that most of the "problems" with wind are political screed. I also agree it's a great opportunity for NS. I don't think we should export the energy though. I think we should attract and maintain a huge data centre here and power it mainly with wind (and batteries or some other form of storage). It's the value add propositions that give you real wealth. Dal used to have a decent computing centre and with AI coming on it's actually less the programmers you need (which AI can do, at least at the entry level, right now) and more the people that can run a large data centre, and AI itself will need many of these if it's ever to reach full saturation. Right now it's about 1/3 each for North America, Northern Europe (mostly) and China. But not many are located in Canada. I think we should maintain some. If nothing else Covid taught us that it's good to have some of your own stuff.
An incredible analysis. A real tour de force. I agree with much, but some perhaps not ...
Like many older Nova Scotians I suffer from Big Fix Syndrome. Having lived through Clairtone, Heavy Water, Bricklin in New Brunswick, the Tomato Adventure in Newfoundland, I am somewhat skeptical when it comes to large projects which promise to transform our modest lives.
If our Premier is the strongest proponent, I wish he might have mentioned it at some point -any point - during his election campaign 6 months ago. Come to think of it, there are many things I wish he might have discussed at the time ....
Everything, all we are, and every new idea plays out against an historic cavalcade of failures and fiascos that any thinking adult has at least some memory of. And much of that disastrous legacy is not just truly legend but captured in a kind of wealthgraphic form in the layers of our public debt, wasted natural resources, billion dollar clean-up operations, lost lives, and even the stratified public service, much of it, in place specifically to respond to this mistake or that, and ensure we not do it again.
I will push back against the 'he didn't tell us', 'he doesn't have the mandate' lines of talk.
1/ Most simply, he has broad and increasing support among the public.
2/ We must do something to create the wealth we need and expect to continue to live the livestyle to which we, the current generation are accustomed, and to set up the rising generations beyond our grandparents expectations. If that is not our central purpose here what is? There was no world where a responsible leader didn't put new ideas on the table once elected. Maybe that's been our problem. No one since Dr. Savage has been such a leader, in this sense. But, we all know what happened to him.
3/ Focusing on the current wind subject of this essay — it's an opportunity that came along out of the chaos of America and world events. To my knowledge — and I pay attention to such things — it just was not on the menu before January 20th, 2025.
I fully agree that most of the "problems" with wind are political screed. I also agree it's a great opportunity for NS. I don't think we should export the energy though. I think we should attract and maintain a huge data centre here and power it mainly with wind (and batteries or some other form of storage). It's the value add propositions that give you real wealth. Dal used to have a decent computing centre and with AI coming on it's actually less the programmers you need (which AI can do, at least at the entry level, right now) and more the people that can run a large data centre, and AI itself will need many of these if it's ever to reach full saturation. Right now it's about 1/3 each for North America, Northern Europe (mostly) and China. But not many are located in Canada. I think we should maintain some. If nothing else Covid taught us that it's good to have some of your own stuff.
We can easily do both and more for once the numbers are on our side and the wind is at our back