The timing seemed off. With the capital markets in crisis, access to easy money gone and credit collapsing, the announcement of a multibillion- dollar project seemed a little, well, odd. Nonetheless, New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham and Maine Governor John Baldacci told the press in March that they intended to put together one of the largest projects ever seen in Atlantic Canada. Their northeast energy corridor would originate in the Canadian province and flow through Maine, delivering power to New York and Massachusetts, a market of approximately 50-millon people.
New Brunswick and Maine aren’t just planning on selling electricity. That’s old. Rather, alongside the 1,200 to 1,500 megawatts of electricity would move a steady stream of renewable power, including wind, tidal and natural gas. Part of the plan calls for the construction of a natural-gas-fired co-generation plant to work in tandem with a New Brunswick liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant and which would supply energy during times when wind power wasn’t available. Fifteen-hundred megawatts sounds like a lot of energy, but ISO New England, the regional energy operator, has estimated the North-eastern region of the U.S. may require as much as 5,000 megawatts of electricity over the next decade.
The energy would originate from a variety of sources, many of them not yet built. Future wind power projects would supply some of the wattage, while further electricity would originate with the co-generation plant – a system that uses the same energy twice to generate heat and power (for example, by burning natural gas or coal, the plant can power a turbine but also heat the water to steam, using it to turn a turbine again to generate even more electricity). The electricity would flow over the transmission lines, while future stages would add pipelines to carry products such as natural gas.
One of the key pieces of the infrastructure would connect to the Irving-Repsol LNG terminal in Saint John (also known as Canaport), expected to begin operations in 2010. The Canaport LNG terminal – where liquid natural gas is converted back into a gaseous state after having been previously cooled and liquefied to shrink its volume to one-600th its size for transport in ships – would be the source of the natural gas to fire the co-generation plant.
Premier Graham told reporters that “through these challenging economic times, New Brunswick remains focused on a vision of economic self-sufficiency. The proposed energy corridor will help accelerate the development and deployment of clean, renewable and greenhouse-gas-free electricity resources in both New Brunswick and Maine, as well as provide leadership in helping address and support the overall North American security agenda.”
Irving Oil announced its intention to become the first private-sector partner. In an interview, Daniel Goodwin, a spokesman with Irving, echoed Graham and said the project is intended to deliver clean, secure and reliable energy. Both Graham and Baldacci stressed the need for the region to achieve “energy independence,” something sorely needed in an area battered with a severe downturn in the forestry pulp industry.
It all sounds fantastic, but will the corridor ever get built? That’s the problem. As wonderful as all these proposals are, that’s all they are at the moment – proposals. While no one is saying what the exact price tag of all this pie-inthe- sky is, energy analysts peg it in the billions. And while Graham and Baldacci talked a lot about securing energy independence and so on, the fact is they only committed to exploring the idea and its “great potential.” For its part, Irving Oil said it would start conducting commercial and technical feasibility studies on the first phase of development. Certainly, the announcement was one way for the province and state to test the waters for the project and maybe build a bit of excitement in slow economic times.
Goodwin conceded it’s not the best time to finance large-scale projects. “These are clearly challenging times and by no means has any decision been taken to proceed with this project. The availability of capital is obviously a real challenge we would have to work through,” he said.
John Kerry, director of the Maine state Office of Energy Independence and Security, said this summer the state will start to assess the framework for a public private partnership. Kerry said according to the state’s policies, any transmission line that crosses Maine should bring a tangible return to its citizens and rate-payers. That said, Kerry noted the state is eager to reduce its dependence on foreign petroleum products and other fossil fuels in favour of developing renewable resources such as wind and biomass materials. “Our hope is we will create a public policy that will encourage the transmission of affordable and clean power from our Canadian neighbour and develop a long-term sustainable relationship with our neighbours to the south, where there is a great demand for energy.”
