Susan Holt speaking in the NB legislature last month
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt appears to have thrown her full support behind NB Power’s proposed gas/diesel generating plant near Centre Village.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Holt said the province had tried, but failed to find an alternate location for the plant, adding that New Brunswick risks running out of electricity unless the 500 MW facility gets built and that alternative solutions such as grid-scale batteries would be too costly.
She made similar arguments today during a Q & A session on CBC Radio.
“Access to stable electricity is a key condition for economic development,” she said.
“So growing our economy and having the energy we need to grow the economy is one challenge that we’re tackling, at the same time as making sure we have enough energy for New Brunswickers’ demand,” she added.
“We don’t yet have the kind of utility-scale battery solutions that we can deploy at a cost that New Brunswickers can afford,” she said.
Coalition response
Pam Novak at the Atlantic Wildlife Centre
In a news release that responded to Holt’s earlier comments rejecting alternatives Barry Rothfuss and Pam Novak of the Coalition to Protect the Chignecto Isthmus write:
“Wind, solar, and battery systems are available now. Batteries, in particular, could be installed quickly in industrial areas such as the Scoudouc Industrial Park without disturbing wetlands or wildlife habitats — and without needing a gas pipeline at all. That fact alone proves that the push for the Tantramar site is completely unnecessary.”
Rothfuss and Novak, co-founders of the Atlantic Wildlife Centre in Cookville, also write that wind, solar and battery storage are four times more energy-efficient than fossil fuel plants.
“Battery energy storage systems can be deployed faster than gas plants, respond instantaneously to peak demand, and do not require proximity to pipelines — the real reason Tantramar has been selected,” they write.
Minister’s response
Meantime, provincial Environment Minister Gilles LePage has responded to a letter from Rothfuss and Novak without answering their argument that community members were not given any opportunity to comment on the selection of the Centre Village site. They argue that site selection is “a critical, foundational component of any environmental impact assessment process.”
Instead of commenting on site selection, LePage stresses the merits of what he refers to as an Environmental Impact Assessment Determination review.
“Determination reviews are an interactive and iterative process through which the environmental impacts potentially resulting from a proposed project are identified and mitigation efforts are proposed to avoid or minimize significant impacts early in the planning stages of a project,” he writes.
To read LePage’s letter and a similar one from Lori Clark, president and CEO of NB Power click here and here.
To read a recent New York Times article headlined “Once a Gamble in the Desert, Electric Grid Batteries are Everywhere,” click here.
The premier claimed “We don’t yet have the kind of utility-scale battery solutions that we can deploy at a cost that New Brunswickers can afford,” but has anyone offered a price range for a battery facility equivalent to the proposed gas plant? There must be data on the costs.
If the premier, or NB Power, are cherrypicking high prices for a battery facility, there must be available figures for the price per unit of storage that could verify or counter the claims.
This is just appalling. I’m so disappointed in our Premier. Somebody convince me we aren’t getting shafted because we elected a Green Party MLA. What the residents want — or don’t want — doesn’t seem to matter one bit.
This from the chap who wants to add water fluoridation to our society. SMH.
Holt is a member of a gang called a gov’t party Liberal. I wonder if there’s any member of the Prov Liberal Party who has the guts/courage/healthy conscience to step away from the gang/tribal influence of a gang and realize that what Holt and partylackies are doing is so wrong on so many counts? In years to come, when Tantramar wetlands become a desert because of the gas plant, Liberals will walk away without penalty. Democracy is not about the few deciding, it’s about the many public voices.
There are lots of legitimate questions and problems with the proposed gas plant, but making crazy claims like that it “will turn Tantramar wetlands into a desert” only discredits legitimate opposition to the plant.
I note that the premier says they looked elsewhere but cannot find a suitable place for it. May I suggest that they contemplate re-using the site at Milbank. A previous government allowed the 8 units there to be sold ages ago, but chances are the switchyard remains, ready to hook up to. The site is laid out for these units, so why put them in a swamp that is under threat from rising ocean levels within a century?
The Milbank facility was not built to mitigate local blackouts, but rather to replace large amounts of baseload generation during refits of Pt Lepreau and Mactaquac. Coincidently, they are proposing the same power output again – suggesting that Pt Lepreau or Mactaquac is going down and they have not told us yet.
The manufacturers of these units have openings available in their delivery schedule for gas turbine units starting in the early 2030’s so unless someone is selling our own Milbank standby units back to us, there is absolutely no urgency.
Would they do that? You bet they would!
If it is true that the originally planned Scoudouc site was dropped because of “evidence of pileated woodpecker nests in Scoudouc,” why is the evidence of pileated woodpecker nests in the Centre Village area not reason enough to discard this site? ((https://warktimes.com/2025/10/29/awi-says-nb-power-is-wrong-there-are-pileated-woodpeckers-on-proposed-gas-plant-site/)