About 170 people attended a public gathering on the Mount Allison University campus Wednesday evening as New Brunswick Power fielded questions about the proposed 500 MW gas/diesel generating plant on the ecologically sensitive Chignecto Isthmus.
Doug Bliss, chair of Tantramar council’s Climate Change Advisory Committee which organized the meeting, asked pointedly about the overwhelming public opposition to the project that NB Power refers to as RIGS.
CCAC Chair Doug Bliss
“Given what you know about our home and the opposition of our people to this fossil-fuel- burning gas turbine plant,” Bliss asked, “can you tell us how social licence or public support fits into your decision-making process and whether public support or lack of it can change the course of the RIGS gas turbine project?”
“Of course social licence matters,” NB Power Vice President Brad Coady answered before making it clear that the provincial utility considers Centre Village to be the best site for a project that he said is needed to help integrate intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar while preventing grid blackouts because of electricity shortages.
“I cannot maintain energy security and bring the project to a different location,” Coady added, referring to his earlier comments about the threat of blackouts.
“Bad things happen when we have those blackouts,” he said. “People are very upset and distraught, it’s not a good place to be.”
Global warming
Penny Mott, Seniors for Climate Tantramar
“When it is operating, does a 500 MW gas-powered plant emit harmful local air pollution and generate greenhouse gases contributing to the warming of the planet?” asked Penny Mott, a member of the group Seniors for Climate Tantramar.”
Yes or no?” she added.
“I think the answer is no on the harmful side,” Coady answered, adding that although carbon dioxide emissions are warming the planet, the gas itself isn’t a poison.
Coady also explained that the natural-gas-burning plant would reduce NB Power’s reliance on heavy-oil-burning facilities such as Coleson Cove while helping the utility reach its goal of “net zero” carbon emissions by 2035.
NB Power VP Brad Coady
“Methane is terrible for the climate,” Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton told Coady. “The data is showing that batteries with solar or wind cost less than doing this,” she said.
“So why not choose the less costly option that doesn’t burn fracked gas and pollute our air and make us sick and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and asthma and miscarriages, among many other things?” Mitton asked.
“I accept that the [battery] prices have come down,” Coady answered. “That’s why we issued another solicitation before Christmas to say let’s go back and sound the market,” he added, but he continued to argue that batteries would be “a more expensive solution than we’re proposing with the RIGS project.”
AI data centres
“I’m a Sackville resident from a family that carries a fatal genetic lung disease, pulmonary fibrosis, which is triggered by poor air quality,” said Shary Boyle.
She added that the Trump administration has merged with Big Tech to push ecologically destructive AI data centres powered by gas turbines.
Sackville resident Shary
Boyle
“Recent reporting by CBC shows that a proposed data centre in Lorneville, Saint John could require almost half the electricity the Tantramar plant is meant to supply,” Boyle said.
“This is not a surge for people, this is a surge for AI.”
Her reference to AI came up again later with two other questions that were submitted in writing.
“Is this new energy facility to generate power to be used for AI and how much base load planned is due to new data centres coming online?”
Coady responded that none of the power from the gas plant would be going to data centres.
“There was a project proposed in southern New Brunswick,” he said referring to the Lorneville project.
“I can tell you now, if that project doesn’t have its own generation or some other way to keep its operation going, there’s no way NB Power can serve it with the amount of infrastructure that we have today, inclusive of the RIGS project. So it’s not a part of our plan,” Coady said.
‘Two kinds of people’
Jean Nye, an Elder from Fort Folly First Nation said she had a question for everyone in the room.
“In this world, there are two kinds of people,” she said.
“There are people who live on the land, and there are people who are of the land. The people who live on the land see the land as a resource, something that they can harvest, something that they can use.
Jean Nye, Fort Folly Elder
“People who are of the land see ourselves as connected to everything, rocks, trees, fish, birds, all the animals, all the plants.
“I want to know, what are you? Are you of the land or are you on the land?” she asked.
“It’s a tough question to answer,” Coady replied, adding that he and his family spend a lot of time in the New Brunswick wilderness.
“And yet I work for an energy utility and it does create tension,” he said.
“I have two young kids, two young daughters, and I’m trying to say how do we make this place better for them when we pass it on, but yet I’m here in front of you talking about a gas turbine project,” Coady added.
” I lived through a blackout event,” he said in an apparent reference to the 2013 blackout in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“Three people died in that event because they were trying to protect their families and coming up with alternative heating sources for their homes. We had a lineman killed in that event as well, as they were trying to restore power. That’s the other side of the reality of this,” he said.
“So if you ask me what kind of a person I am, I guess I’m on the fence, aren’t I? I’m on both sides of that coin and that’s not a fair answer to you. I’m going to ponder that one probably the rest of the night figuring out what truly am I in my soul,” Coady concluded.
For Erica Butler’s CBC coverage of the meeting, click here.
Blah blah blah, it’s better to build it instead of having long lasting blackouts. Grid security comes first. I don’t like the gas plant, but the other option hurts a lot more.
Brad Coady talked about 2 people dying in a blackout. This is very sad and can unfortunately happen when the power goes out. But his comment feels like a scare tactic. It is not a case of this plant or people will die. A nurse talking to a member of the NBpower team after the meeting told them that people living near these kind of plants get sick from toxic emissions. What about their health? I saw at least 4 medical doctors in the crowd. Two of them are members of CAPE ( Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment that published a summary of the many studies on the devastating health impacts on people living in proximity to gas plants.
I black out when I’m at home
Drinking too much wine alone
Though oil and gas may run amock
They won’t be there to pick me up.
“Finally, some straight talk from NB Power. Brad Coady is right—this RIGS plant is essential for energy security in New Brunswick. With renewables like wind and solar growing but intermittent, we need reliable backup to avoid blackouts that have killed people in the past. Replacing heavy oil plants with cleaner natural gas is a practical step toward net zero by 2035, and batteries alone aren’t cost-competitive yet. The site makes technical sense for grid integration. Ignoring the risk of power shortages isn’t ‘environmental’—it’s reckless. I’m in favor of the Isthmus gas plant. Let’s keep the lights on for families and businesses…
If batteries were a solution, why don’t we just buy them for our own homes? They are too expensive for us and even the best only last a day or two with minimum drawdown. But they too are a problem. They require lithium. Would we accept a lithium mine in the area instead? I can imagine not. How many people have gas stoves and gas fireplaces in their homes burning this same gas? Do you turn on the exhaust fan when using? It is not a magic tube that makes it go away. Why did most people drive cars to this meeting, contributing again to global warming? We are a town that never wants fracking. We are asking that two set of rules be applied, one for a public utility and one for ourselves. We are upset by utility rates, and question their costs yet we probably will not install solar panels on our own homes because of the up-front expense. How many of us have backup generators for when the power goes out? Isn’t that the same as a small gas plant? Is it really fair to neighbours with the exhaust and noise they produce?
Until we personally assume responsibility for our impact on the planet, we have little credibility to demand it of others.
My wife & I attended the meeting last night & all I have to say is ; I would rather sit & shiver in the dark than let an American company like ProEnergy anywhere near our energy grid.
I also felt a bit better after Elder Jean Nye put a question to NB Power’s Brad Cody that seemed to leave him off balance for a few minutes and thank CCAC Chair Doug Bliss for allowing Elder Nye to address all those present with out interruption.
We are soooo beyond the ‘green people’ in 2026.. time to wake up ..
boomers… https://www.youtube.com/@GlobalBEM/videos
I’d love Bruce Wark to cover the Global Breakthrough Energy Movement.
Perhaps one day he might do that.. if he is allowed to by his advisors.
“I’d love Bruce Wark to cover the Global Breakthrough Energy Movement. Perhaps one day he might do that.. if he is allowed to by his advisors.”
I don’t think it’s the Illuminati who stop Wark Times covering pseudoscience.
The nefarious secret societies have better conspiracies to spend their time on, like listening to you from inside your walls and putting mind-control devices in your teeth. So don’t worry about Wark Times.