"We accept it as normal that people who have never been on the land, who have no history or connection to the country, may legally secure the right to come in and by the very nature of their enterprises leave in their wake a cultural and physical landscape utterly transformed and desecrated.......We take this as a given for it is the foundation of our system, the way commerce extracts value and profit in a resource-driven economy. But if you think about it, especially from the perspective of so many other cultures, touched and inspired by quite different visions of life and land, it appears to be a very odd and highly anomalous human behavior."
-Wade Davis in The Wayfinders

Oct 12, 2009

Romaine-1 Construction at the Grand Chute






Hydro Quebec Strategic Plan 2009-2013

Here are some excerpts from Hydro Quebec's Strategic Plan 2009-2013 concerning rivers along the North Coast.


-The Romaine Complex will enable Hydro Québec Production to increase its exports to markets outside Québec.


-One of these projects is located on the Petit Mécatina, some 250 km east of the Romaine. The company has already carried out the preliminary studies and some field surveys. Draft-design studies are set to begin in 2009.  These will allow us to determine the final configuration, features and cost of the facilities, and carefully assess their environmental impacts.  The working hypothesis calls for two generating stations (Petit-Mécatina-3 and Petit-Mécatina-4) with a total capacity of 1,200 MW. 


-Other projects totaling more than 1,750MW round out this first group.  They include Tabaret generating station, which is planned near Kipawa dam in the Témiscamingue region, and another project to be built on the Magpie; both of these have yet to undergo a detailed environmental assessment. The addition of a third generating unit at Sainte-Marguerite-3 is also being considered, along with refits that would yield capacity gains at Manic-2 (commissioning: 2013 to 2016) and Manic-3 (commissioning: after 2015).


-NORTHERN PLAN

3,500 MW BY 2035 

3,000 MW of hydropower 

300 MW of wind power 

200 MW of emerging renewables


-Hydro-Québec Production has been present on wholesale markets in the Northeast since 1999, and now wants to extend its sales activities to the U.S. Midwest.  


 
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