Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton speaking at a public meeting in Moncton
Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton told about 80 people in Moncton Saturday she remembers reading a book on economics called It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way.
“That title stuck with me,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to build a gas plant,” she added, referring to NB Power’s proposed 500 MW gas/diesel generating plant on the Chignecto Isthmus.
“It can feel really difficult to have hope, but I’m in politics because I do have hope,” she said, adding it’s a hopeful sign that the public intervener, the lawyer hired to represent the public interest, will be arguing against the proposed gas plant during Energy & Utilities Board hearings next month.
“So, there is a possibility that the Energy & Utilities Board will say this is not prudent, this is not a good idea,” she said.
“We need to keep up the pressure on our premier, on government and on NB Power to say ‘We don’t want this.'”
Mitton was speaking at a public meeting organized by the Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition and the New Brunswick chapter of the social and economic justice group ACORN Canada.
Cheaper battery storage
Moe Qureshi of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick
“Some experts are saying that we’re using 20th century technology when it’s the 21st century,” said Moe Qureshi, director of climate research at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.
“Wind and solar and battery technologies are getting cheaper and cheaper every year,” he added, “but oil and gas plants…are getting more expensive.”
He noted that NB Power will be buying gas piped in through the United States at great financial risk.
“Fuel prices are volatile. Who knows what the fuel price is going to be in 2040, right? You can’t even predict it from week to week,” he said.
He referred to the 250 MW Oneida battery storage project in Ontario that cost $700 million, but was supported by federal subsidies and tax credits that came to $100 to $120 million.
Qureshi pointed out that batteries can turn on instantly and because they don’t burn fuel, NB Power could save billions over 25 years.
“We have better and cheaper alternatives available, and the ratepayers deserve better,” he concluded.
Rising power bills
“The gas plant could add 5% to NB Power bills,” said Nichola Taylor, chair of the social justice group NB ACORN, referring to a recent CBC report.
She added that many low-to-moderate income families, the elderly on fixed incomes, single-parent families, renters with no control over the energy efficiency of their homes and First Nations communities already can’t afford to pay their power bills.
Nichola Taylor addressing the meeting as Megan Mitton & Moe Qureshi look on
“New Brunswickers are paying more than they should to heat their homes,” she said. “Two thousand, eight hundred and thirty dollars per year is the average household energy cost in New Brunswick, which is 25% higher than the national average.”
Taylor added that people skip meals and lower their heat to unsafe levels and still fall behind on their bills.
“People who have health conditions, lung, breathing and heart conditions are extremely vulnerable to climate change,” she said, referring to out-of-control wildfires in the Moncton area last summer.
“So, how bad will those fires be if there is a gas plant here?” she asked.
“A gas plant burning fossil fuels, polluting our air, polluting our water, is putting us all at risk,” she said.
“ACORN says no to funding the oil industry while we bear the burden. ACORN says no to ever-increasing bills. ACORN says no to dirty energy. ACORN says no to subsidies for the big businesses while people are starving, freezing in winter and overheating in summer in their own homes. ACORN says no to the pro-Trump, PROENERGY, gas plant.”
‘Dumb Old Utility Guys’
Darcie Lanthier, director of the Energy Democracy Now Co-Operative on Prince Edward Island, said her group is organizing a province-wide fight against two PROENERGY diesel-burning turbines that the privately-owned utility Maritime Electric wants installed in Charlottetown.
“And the question I keep hearing here is so interesting,” Lanthier said.
“Why are they doing this? Why are they so stubborn, so locked in the past? And the answer is because they’re all DOUGS. They’re Dumb Old Utility Guys, and this is the way they’ve always done it, and this is the way they’re always going to do it.”
Darcie Lanthier of the PEI co-op Energy Democracy Now
Lanthier said the Canadian company NRStor Inc. has made cost-effective proposals for both PEI and New Brunswick to install battery and energy storage systems
“NRStore almost always works with an Indigenous partner to have 50% ownership in the plant. So you look at Indigenous ownership, you look at, you know, the lack of emissions, it’s much more affordable, [it turns on] perhaps within milliseconds, and it works with every future technology,” she said.
“If I had one piece of advice, I would say ‘label this a boondoggle,'” she added.
“New Brunswickers understand that New Brunswick Power drops readily into boondoggles and are happy to throw your money away on mythical thinking and fictional deals in Florida,” Lanthier said to a round of applause.
“This is a boondoggle kind of story.”
I fully endorse the construction of the proposed natural gas power plant at the designated site.
Much of the opposition appears to rely on speculative objections rather than pragmatic, evidence-based analysis or genuine accountability to ratepayers and the broader public interest. NB Power bears not merely an obligation, but a statutory mandate, to deliver reliable, secure electricity supply across the province.
As intermittent renewables increasingly comprise a larger share of the energy mix, firming capacity—such as fast-response generation from dual-fuel turbines—remains essential to maintaining grid stability, preventing blackouts during peak demand or low renewable output periods, and ensuring long-term energy security for New Brunswickers. Dismissing this requirement in favor of unproven or insufficient alternatives risks compromising the very reliability that households, businesses, and critical infrastructure depend upon.
This is turning into a nice opportunity to turn it into a political issue, and is turning out to be very self serving. No wonder New Brunswick is years behind the rest of the country.
Glad to see so many people willing to take time to help NB Power see that there are far better solutions that the one selected two years ago. Solar, wind and storage just keep out competing fossil fuel power plants both on cost, the environment and stability. Unfortunately, NB Power seems to be more focused on the rear-view mirror rather than the huge pile of evidence coming from power grid companies and energy experts around the world.
I, for one, am glad that Billy Steele doesn’t sit on the utility board.
The Public Intervenor sees this proposal for what it is, a boondoggle: Alain Chiasson said, “The proposed combustion-turbine–based RIGS project is not required to maintain system reliability and is materially more expensive and less flexible than available alternatives, including utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS).”
Investing in fossil fuel infrastructure in 2026 is foolish. This plant is unnecessary and it will cost $Billions to run. The alternatives are cheaper, faster to install, more reliable and won’t leave another filthy legacy to our grandchildren.
After working for the better part of 30 years on heavy construction, mining and oil/gas projects around the globe, I find it ironic and humorous at the same time, that people are being swayed by a lot of half truths and innuendo about the proposed gas generating plant here. I’ve never seen the like of it. The rationale and literal fear mongering of a few folks who are in opposition to the project, seems to be their modern day equivalent of the Chicken Little story. Add to this is the unwillingness of these folks to give credit to the word of the experts, who studied the best options for the plant and are being second-guessed by them. Until this group can produce solid fact to back up their claims and contentions, they are merely words of fiction. Too bad they don’t understand that standards and regulations are in place that govern the way facilities such as this are constructed and operated. Process water, for example, is not allowed to be discharged back into the environment. It is typically stored as wastewater and then taken offsite for cleaning and or disposal. One would think in a university town such as this, these folks would take the time to read and understand, instead of sowing fear and discontent. I fully and without hesitation, support the construction of this facility.
You say:
“Process water, for example, is not allowed to be discharged back into the environment. It is typically stored as wastewater and then taken offsite for cleaning and or disposal. One would think in a university town such as this, these folks would take the time to read and understand, instead of sowing fear and discontent.”
Ok. Let’s apply the university town’s scientific method.
The estimated water use for this plant is 7,000,000 litres of groundwater per day.
The capacity of a tanker truck is about 34,000 litres.
Ergo, if you’re claiming that the water used by the plant isn’t going to be discharged into the environment, but taken away for cleaning or disposal, that means that 206 tanker-loads of water will be taken away, daily.
Apart from the massive cost and diesel consumption to do that, there’s the problem of draining the aquifer leading to drought in the area by wasting this much water. The scale of water use alone is enough to make this plan dangerous and unfeasible.
Whatever the merits of both sides of this issue, those taking part in the debate could do better than using insults and sexist, ageist slurs like Darcie Lanthier’s “Dumb Old Utility Guys”. It reduces her credibility that she has to resort to insults like that instead of sticking to rational argument.