A few weeks ago, I swore to myself that I was not going to write anything more about the sale of NB Power to Hydro Quebec. The arguments, for and against, were boring and repetitive. People were fed up with the subject and more importantly, it appeared they had made up their mind as to whether or not they support or reject the deal.

The mindless opposition to the deal exhibited on Wednesday by a Coalition of New Brunswickers was a wake-up call for me. As Prime Minister Harper jets off to Copenhagen to defend the Alberta oil-sands and disrupt global climate change negotiations, people in New Brunswick are forming a coalition to reject green energy. It is green energy, more than anything else that Hydro Quebec brings to the table.

New Brunswick generates electricity by burning greenhouse-gas emitting fuels to produce heat to generate steam to spin turbines that drive generators to produce electricity. The fuels include crude oil from the Middle East, coal from Columbia; Orimulsion from Venezuela (until June 2010), uranium from Ontario, diesel fuel from lord knows where, natural gas from Nova Scotia and the Middle East and water from the St. John River. We are not energy self-sufficient and we have no energy resources except some natural gas near Sussex and the water in our rivers.

My good friend Yves Gagnon, Eng., D.Sc. holder of the KC Irving Chair in Sustainable Development and others suggest that we could replace the Hydro Quebec factor with a full scale wind-development strategy. He says the New Brunswick potential for wind-generated electricity is 4,000 megawatts. So far, he has ignored the capital cost of such development and where such capital might be found. As far as I know, he has also ignored the supplementary power requirement that would be necessary in an interuptable wind generation environment. That said, I applaud his mission and urge him to continue his pursuit of a wind-generated electricity scene.

NB Power’s current generating capacity, from all sources including Lepreau is about 3,500 megawatts. As I understand it, that capacity is utilized in full for about six days a year in the coldest months of the year – January and February. If we were buying our electricity from Hydro Quebec, we would not need that stand-by capacity.

People are concerned about the details attached to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) relating to the sale of NB Power to Hydro Quebec. I’m told that David Hay, the CEO of NB Power was not involved in negotiations leading up to signing of the MOU. In my opinion, he should have been involved and he should be involved in the negotiation of details relating to an agreement of sale to Hydro Quebec. I say this without first-hand knowledge of the man or his capabilities but with the knowledge that government has renewed his employment contract and therefore it must have confidence in his abilities. More importantly, he has first hand knowledge of NP Power’s operations and whether or how this deal could/will make sense for New Brunswick.

The more I learn about the NB Power deal, the more convinced I am that the principle benefits will not be found in five year residential rate freezes or industrial rate cuts but in the avoidance of future rate shocks that could result from one or all of the following: increases in the cost of imported fuels; fluxuations in foreign exchange rates, refurbishments of existing plant including but not limited to Mactaquac, construction of additional capacity or enforcement of carbon caps or cap and trade legislation.

My concerns with the deal continue to be: the Lepreau refurbishment, its potential for certification and whether or not it will ultimately be saleable; the perception that residential customers are being short-changed; the perception that somehow we are losing sovereignty over our energy policies; the apparent absence of provisions in the agreement to encourage the development of clean, renewable energy (wind, solar, wave, etc.); the decommissioning costs for NB Power's thermal generating plants and the costs and terms of getting out of the deal if need be.

None of the above is reason to close your mind to the sale. It is only reason to question the terms of sale. Tom Mann, Executive Director of New Brunswick’s Public Service Union and David Alward, leader of the Provincial Conservatives are adamently opposed to the deal but they make little or no defense of their opposition. Newfoundland union leader, Wayne Lucas travelled to Moncton this week to equate the NB Power sale with the foolish agreement Newfoundland signed with Hydro Quebec forty years ago. There is no comparison in either circumstance or content between the New Brunswick MOU with Hydro Quebec and the prostitution of Newfoundland’s development of Churchill Falls for dollars and its power-sale agreement with Hydro Quebec.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com