By Cassandra Kyle, Saskatchewan News Network; Canwest News Service March 21, 2009
Gov't pledges $950M
The provincial government will spend more than $950 million this year to upgrade Saskatchewan's electrical system -- SaskPower's largest investment in its grid to date.
Standing in Saskatoon's 50-year-old Queen Elizabeth Power Station, Crown Corporations Minister Ken Cheveldayoff said Friday the spending is needed to provide a growing population with power, ensure businesses have the electricity they need to operate, and upgrade an "infrastructure deficit" left by the previous NDP government. Of the $954 million set to be spent this year, nearly $400 million will go to new-generation projects.
NDP responds
NDP wants to know how rates affected
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
But some commentators (Richard Wolffe of Newsweek, Chuck Todd of NBC News, etc.) have likened this to "what Republicans tried to do to the Democrats with Michael Moore." Perhaps. But there is one central difference: What I have believed in, and what I have stood for in these past eight years - an end to the war, establishing universal health care, closing Guantanamo and banning torture, making the rich pay more taxes and aggressively going after the corporate chiefs on Wall Street - these are all things which the majority of Americans believe in too. That's why in November the majority voted for the guy I voted for. The majority of Americans rejected the ideology of Rush and embraced the same issues I have raised consistently in my movies and books.
In the midst of the craziness, conservatives are busy trying to blame this epic economic catastrophe — a conflagration of their own making — on the new president. Forget Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and George Herbert Hoover Bush and the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth and Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich and all the rest. The right-wingers would have you believe this is Obama’s downturn.
Miracles Take Time
Miracles Take Time
Friday, March 6, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Emissions project started
By Bruce Johnstone, Leader-PostMarch 4, 2009
The first phase of a $200-million project to produce activated carbon to reduce mercury emissions at coal-fired generating stations is underway at Bienfait, east of Estevan.
Sherritt International Corp. and Norit Canada Inc. are building the first of four 15,000-ton activated carbon units, which is expected to be in operation by February 2010.
"It's a good environmental product,'' said Kevin Mueller, vice-president of mining operations for Sherritt Coal in Edmonton. "It's going to pull mercury out of flue gases (from coal-fired generating stations). And we're doing it in Bienfait, Sask.''
Mueller said the plant will be the first activated carbon plant in Canada, but similar to one being built by Norit in Marshall, Texas, which is in the commissioning phase. "It's definitely the first of its kind in Canada,'' Mueller said.
Mercury is a neurotoxin, which is particularly damaging to the development of the fetus and young children, and is considered an extremely dangerous contaminant of air and water.
READ MORE
The first phase of a $200-million project to produce activated carbon to reduce mercury emissions at coal-fired generating stations is underway at Bienfait, east of Estevan.
Sherritt International Corp. and Norit Canada Inc. are building the first of four 15,000-ton activated carbon units, which is expected to be in operation by February 2010.
"It's a good environmental product,'' said Kevin Mueller, vice-president of mining operations for Sherritt Coal in Edmonton. "It's going to pull mercury out of flue gases (from coal-fired generating stations). And we're doing it in Bienfait, Sask.''
Mueller said the plant will be the first activated carbon plant in Canada, but similar to one being built by Norit in Marshall, Texas, which is in the commissioning phase. "It's definitely the first of its kind in Canada,'' Mueller said.
Mercury is a neurotoxin, which is particularly damaging to the development of the fetus and young children, and is considered an extremely dangerous contaminant of air and water.
READ MORE
Saskatchewan a jobs 'hot spot' in Canada
By Mallory Simon CNN
(CNN) -- Normally, "hot spot" isn't the first phrase that comes to mind when talking about Saskatchewan, Canada.
But with most of Canada suffering from devastating job losses, this cold province is becoming exactly that.
It's an asterisk to the entire country when it comes to the economic climate, and Premier Brad Wall is shouting it as loud as he can.
"It's a great time to come to Saskatchewan," said Wall, who even called the Toronto Star newspaper to tout his province's economic success and let Ontarians know there were jobs for the taking.
"For those who are losing their jobs, we need them to know we have thousands of jobs open right now in both the private and public sector," Wall said. "We have a powerful story to tell, a story of success and that's something we want to share with those who are struggling."
Wall's province is one of the exceptions to the unemployment increases battering provinces across Canada. Saskatchewan's unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent in January from 4.2 percent in December, making it the only province recording a decline. In Ontario and the city of Toronto, unemployment rates rose to 7.2 percent and 8.5 percent respectively. To the west, British Columbia shed 68,000 full-time jobs in January.
READ MORE
(CNN) -- Normally, "hot spot" isn't the first phrase that comes to mind when talking about Saskatchewan, Canada.
But with most of Canada suffering from devastating job losses, this cold province is becoming exactly that.
It's an asterisk to the entire country when it comes to the economic climate, and Premier Brad Wall is shouting it as loud as he can.
"It's a great time to come to Saskatchewan," said Wall, who even called the Toronto Star newspaper to tout his province's economic success and let Ontarians know there were jobs for the taking.
"For those who are losing their jobs, we need them to know we have thousands of jobs open right now in both the private and public sector," Wall said. "We have a powerful story to tell, a story of success and that's something we want to share with those who are struggling."
Wall's province is one of the exceptions to the unemployment increases battering provinces across Canada. Saskatchewan's unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent in January from 4.2 percent in December, making it the only province recording a decline. In Ontario and the city of Toronto, unemployment rates rose to 7.2 percent and 8.5 percent respectively. To the west, British Columbia shed 68,000 full-time jobs in January.
READ MORE
Who You Calling Socialist?
"We are all socialists now," proclaims Newsweek. We are creating "socialist republics" in the United States, says Mike Huckabee, adding, on reflection, that "Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff." We are witnessing the Obama-era phenomenon of "European socialism transplanted to Washington," says Newt Gingrich.
Well! Even as we all turn red, I've still encountered just two avowed democratic socialists in my daily rounds through the nation's capital: Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders . . . and the guy I see in the mirror when I shave. Bernie is quite capable of speaking for himself, so what follows is a report on the state of actual existing socialism from the other half of the D.C. Senators and Columnists Soviet.
First, as we survey the political landscape, what's striking is the absence of advocates of socialism, at least as the term was understood by those who carried that banner during the capitalist crisis of the 1930s. Then, socialists and communists both spoke of nationalizing all major industries and abolishing private markets and the wage system. Today, it's impossible to find a left-leaning party anywhere that has such demands or entertains such fantasies. (Not even Hugo Chávez - more an authoritarian populist than any kind of socialist - says such things.)
Within the confines of socialist history, this means that the perspective of Eduard Bernstein - the fin de siecle German socialist who argued that the immediate struggle to humanize capitalism through the instruments of democratic government was everything, and that the goal of supplanting capitalism altogether was meaningless - has definitively prevailed. Within the confines of American history, this means that when New York's garment unions left the Socialist Party to endorse Franklin Roosevelt in 1936, they were charting the paradigmatic course for American socialists: into the Democratic Party to support not the abolition of capitalism but its regulation and democratization, and the creation of some areas of public life where the market does not rule.
(Photo: Wired.com)
Monday, March 2, 2009
"Cap and trade" climate change plan coming in spring session, gov't says
By James Wood, TheStarPhoenix.com
REGINA — The Saskatchewan Party government will move forward with a climate change plan similar to Alberta’s levy on polluters, even as a national cap and trade system appears a near certainty.
The government’s own timeline for its plan — with a centerpiece “technology fund” — is to be released before the end of the legislative session in May.
“We’ll have targets and for those industries and companies that are unable to meet them, they’d pay into the fund and then that money would be turned around. Part of it would go into research and development and the rest would go back to industry to help them actually install or implement the technologies to reduce their emissions,” Environment Minister Nancy Heppner said Thursday.
Read More from WOODS HERE
REGINA — The Saskatchewan Party government will move forward with a climate change plan similar to Alberta’s levy on polluters, even as a national cap and trade system appears a near certainty.
The government’s own timeline for its plan — with a centerpiece “technology fund” — is to be released before the end of the legislative session in May.
“We’ll have targets and for those industries and companies that are unable to meet them, they’d pay into the fund and then that money would be turned around. Part of it would go into research and development and the rest would go back to industry to help them actually install or implement the technologies to reduce their emissions,” Environment Minister Nancy Heppner said Thursday.
Read More from WOODS HERE
Clean Coal Project Just Got A Little Bit Closer
By Norm Park of The Mercury
And then there were three.
The clean coal project at Boundary Dam's No. 3 unit took another major step toward becoming a reality last Friday afternoon when SaskPower announced that they now had a short list of three companies that were being invited to provide proposals to capture carbon dioxide at Boundary Dam Power Station.
Doug Daverne, manager of the SaskPower clean coal project, said the focus is now on upgrading Unit No. 3, a 100 megawatt power generating unit at Boundary, to modern standards while reducing greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, without causing an increase in power rates to the provincial customers.
The companies that have been selected to continue to a next stage of evaluation are Powerspan Corp. of Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Cansolve Technologies Inc. of Montreal and Fluor Canada Ltd., with a Canadian headquarters in Calgary.
Daverne said SaskPower's original call for proposals for the large CO2 capture project went out to 15 companies and five ultimately submitted proposals before the end of 2008.
Read More From Norm Park HERE
And then there were three.
The clean coal project at Boundary Dam's No. 3 unit took another major step toward becoming a reality last Friday afternoon when SaskPower announced that they now had a short list of three companies that were being invited to provide proposals to capture carbon dioxide at Boundary Dam Power Station.
Doug Daverne, manager of the SaskPower clean coal project, said the focus is now on upgrading Unit No. 3, a 100 megawatt power generating unit at Boundary, to modern standards while reducing greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, without causing an increase in power rates to the provincial customers.
The companies that have been selected to continue to a next stage of evaluation are Powerspan Corp. of Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Cansolve Technologies Inc. of Montreal and Fluor Canada Ltd., with a Canadian headquarters in Calgary.
Daverne said SaskPower's original call for proposals for the large CO2 capture project went out to 15 companies and five ultimately submitted proposals before the end of 2008.
Read More From Norm Park HERE
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