Coal Revival: “What a reason to celebrate,” Moe says at IBEW barbecue for rejuvenating coal

 

ESTEVAN – The bright blue sky was in sharp contrast to the dark clouds Saskatchewan’s coal-fired power workers have been under in recent years, with the impending shutdown of coal-fired power generation by 2030, as per federal mandate. But on June 18, Crown Investments Corporation Minister Jeremy Harrison sent a letter to SaskPower workers, telling them the Crown corporation would be rejuvenating its coal fleet, instead of shutting it down.

So the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2067 decided to throw a party – two actually. One in Estevan on Aug. 26, the second on Aug. 27 in Coronach.

And there’s much reason to celebrate, for as long as the Saskatchewan Party government carries through with that plan, in defiance of federal coal regulations and the Clean Electricity Regulations, it means they get to keep those jobs. Most of those jobs pay over $100,000 per year. It means they won’t be forced to leave their homes, selling them for pennies on the dollar in towns that would soon look like ghost towns. When you add up the in-scope and out-of-scope power workers and coal miners, between IBEW and United Mine Workers of America, that’s around 1,100 direct jobs between Coronach, Estevan and Bienfait, never mind the thousands of other jobs and lives that would be impacted by the shutdown of coal.

And on cold winter nights, when its too cold to operate wind turbines and the sun is on the other side of the planet, those 1,100 workers provide up to 44 per cent of the power in Saskatchewan.

Harrison came to the barbecue, as did Estevan-Big Muddy MLA and Minister of Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Seniors and Rural and Remote Health Lori Carr and Canora-Pelly MLA Sean Wilson. But the surprise guest turned out to be Premier Scott Moe, upon whose desk the buck ultimately stops when it comes to the coal decision.

Union leadership handed out hats bearing the IBEW logo, creating a most incongruous sight to see right-wing politicians and their premier wearing union hats. But then again, there was a bouncy castle for the kids at this family event, and bouncy castles are almost a political statement too, these days.

And speaking of politics, as Pipeline Online reported extensively, there’s currently a legal action underway seeking to undermine that coal decision by way of injunction in Court of King’s Bench.

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Pipeline Online spoke to Moe, wearing his IBEW hat, after he had an opportunity to circulate and talk to most of the attendees. Here’s that interview, verbatim:

 

Pipeline Online:

IBEW is holding a celebration that their jobs aren’t going to disappear in four years, four months and five days.

 

Scott Moe:

Right? And what a reason to celebrate. And you know, for good reason. IBEW has been part of who has provided Saskatchewan families and industries with affordable, reliable power for decades until now, and are going to continue to provide that same affordable, reliable power for the foreseeable future.

And there’s going to be lots of changes in the next number of years, in the next couple of decades. And I think as we’re able to continue to use our primary fuel source here, those changes, then are able to be very, very positive for the workers, for the community, and more and more broadly, everyone in the province. You know, the effort and the initiative, initiatives and the focus is for our power grid to be reliable and affordable. This is going to provide that.

Pipeline Online:

So right now, there’s an injunction before the courts that wants to shut down to the whole concept of rejuvenating the coal fleet. What are your thoughts on that?

Scott Moe:

Well, we’re going to do it. That’s about all of the thoughts I have.

Pipeline Online:

We’re going to rejuvenate the coal fleet?

Scott Moe:

Absolutely.

We need to, you know, whether it be for, you know that very fact, to provide affordable, reliable power. Whether it be for us to, you know, retain our workforce throughout the many decades that Estevan, the foreseeable future that Estevan is going to provide power, not only for our province, but quite likely even beyond that. And so without a doubt, this is the path forward for Saskatchewan, and we’re working very closely with the federal government to ensure that they’ll have the opportunity to support it as well.

Pipeline Online:

The people are bringing this injunction, you know, they have a website against nuclear. The lawyer is suing the province against expansion of natural gas, and they’re suing against coal. So without those three baseloads, how do you deal with people who don’t want really keep the lights on at all? I mean, I don’t know what their answer is?

Scott Moe:

You can’t worry about it too much. I mean, anybody can launch a lawsuit. You know, we’re, we’re going to be moving forward with plans that are realistic, providing and aspiring to the goals that we have as a province, which is that reliable, affordable power, but also ensuring that we have the workforce in place for the coal fired power that’s here today, the nuclear power that will be here tomorrow, and any of the other opportunities that may associate with that.

For example, opportunities for things like data centers and others. You know, the future looks pretty bright for, I would say, not only IBEW and those that work in the in the power industry in Estevan and Coronach, for that matter, but look pretty bright for us as a province, the opportunities that we have to keep our power grid affordable for families as well as businesses that are industries that are locating here in larger numbers than what we’re seeing anywhere else in the nation.

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Pipeline Online:

You’re talking about goals, and you have talked about a million barrels per day …

Scott Moe:

Yeah.

Pipeline Online:

Are you telling (Minister Harrison) here and whatnot to look at the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery? Because one of the government geologists did a presentation in springtime that said, if we put CO2 capture on the entire fleet, we could add up to 73,000 barrels per day.

Scott Moe:

Yeah, those are opportunities, potentially, that we could have, and we work with industry on that, on what that might look like.

At the end of the day, what we really need in order to spur or to incentivize investment in the oil industry, whether it be in Saskatchewan, Alberta or other provinces, is some regulatory certainty from our federal government. You know, we’ve talked about port-to-port corridors, but there’s some other regulations that we’ve asked for that just, quite simply, need to be changed in order to provide the industry with a certainty that they’re going to be able to continue to move forward and attract that investment.

You know the tanker ban doesn’t impact Saskatchewan directly. However, it most certainly does impact us, from the opportunity we’d have to shrink or narrow the basis on every barrel of oil that is going south would provide the opportunity that, along with the emissions cap being removed. And Bill C-69 is still a challenge, but every barrel of oil that starts to head for the northwest coast from Fort McMurray provides additional egress opportunity for us into the U.S.

And so, opportunities abound for Canada. Prime Minister Carney has been saying some very positive things about the opportunities that lie before us. I would hope that in the next number of weeks and months, that the Prime Minister and his government start to make some real decisions, start to act on the words that they have. You know that they have said, if we do that, I’m pretty bullish on Canada’s future.

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Pipeline Online:

Did you ever think that you’d be here talking about rejuvenating coal, wearing a union hat?

Scott Moe:

(Laughs) No, I can’t say I ever pictured that, but I would say the phase out of coal and how it was changed close to 10 years ago now, never sat well with me. And it never sat well with me for a number of reasons. There’s one is, there’s families that work in this industry, and that single decision that came from the federal government had a very direct impact on families of Coronach and Estevan.

The second reason it never sat well with me is it’s not actually the way to bring a workforce through to, let’s say nuclear power.

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Pipeline Online:

What timeline are we looking at, for that? Because the first reactor, if you stay at the SMRs there’s 2034, 35 at the earliest. If you go big, what you’ve been talking about, it’s going to be longer than that. So can you give us some timelines at all?

Scott Moe:

No.

You know, SaskPower continues to work on the timelines of the SMR, which is the current plan.

But if there’s opportunities that open up, you know, partnering with other jurisdictions, and that makes sense. And I think we should always be looking at being rather robust, and have the ability to move around with that decision to the degree that we can, with respect to what’s in the best interests of, you know, providing power for Saskatchewan people.

There’s a huge, ambitious outbuild in the US of essentially data centers. And there’s no reason at all that Saskatchewan county start to play a more significant role in that space. And so, you know, like international relations right now, there’s a lot that’s moving in this field and in this conversation as well. I think it’s important for us to be very agile in all we do in, you know what the next 10 or 20 years look like and I think the fact that we’re going to refurbish our coal fired plants and continue to provide that certainty of cost and reliability is a good place, a good grounding place for us to start in Saskatchewan. So we should be thankful, you know, for the folks that are here today, for what they do and be thankful for the resource that we have.

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Pipeline Online:

One last thing here. So the day before you were in Yorkton to talk about those canola crushing plants, the wind in Alberta – I did a little thing standing in front of the crush plant. All 1700 turbines in Alberta could not have powered that crush plant…

Scott Moe: 

No.

Pipeline Online:

So you know, what do you say to that sort of thing, when people are such the Saskatchewan Environmental Society are saying we have to shut down coal and use wind, but you couldn’t power the corridor that you were speaking at with the entire Alberta wind fleet.

Scott Moe:

Oh, there isn’t enough wind mills, and there isn’t enough batteries to make it viable or even work, to provide reliable power. And if there was, they could provide it for 36 hours.

It just doesn’t work. It’s not sensible and it’s not realistic. So, and I would say that when it comes to what are, essentially, ideological or, to some degree, frivolous lawsuits, simply because you don’t like nuclear, you don’t like coal-fired power, you don’t like natural gas. We need to have power of some sort, and wind, and wind associated with batteries simply isn’t going to do it.

So we’re having a realistic discussion that is the best interest of the folks with IBEW and all of the folks that work with SaskPower here today. We’re having a realistic discussion that’s going to provide Saskatchewan families and our industries with reliable and affordable power for years into the future, and we’re going to continue to have just that realistic discussion on how we provide power for the next number of years, but also how we’re going to provide it for the next number of decades, and what that power is going to be used for. We’re going to need more in years ahead than we have today. So it’s going to be an exciting discussion to have.

The basis of it all, and the you know that what really gives us a core position of strength is to remain producing power the way we are today, to not transition power generation sources out early, and that’s what we’re going to do.

 

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