Blackout

Back onto the subject of the the general sliminess associated with a government entering into a controversial and ill-advised deal without public input then claiming that it's too late to change anything, it's odd enough that SaskPower's announcement that it's locked itself into a 25-year contract to have Northland Power spend $145 million to build a natural gas power plant took two days to get reported on CBC (and appears to have been completely swept under the rug by CanWest). But it's even more strange that a few other threads to the story still don't seem to have surfaced in the media.

For example...

1. SaskPower is contracting out a significant amount of power generation without any explanation as to why that function is being privatized.

2. The Sask Party rushed to lock SaskPower into the contract just before what's supposed to be a thorough public review of its power options.

3. While Northland Power advertises its role operating wind and co-generation plants, there's no indication that it has any experience operating a stand-alone natural gas facility - making #1 look all the more problematic given that the task is being contracted out to a company with less experience than SaskPower.

4. While I haven't yet tracked down any definitive pricing lists, the construction cost looks to be out of whack with the cost of building natural gas facilities elsewhere: $145 million for an 86-MW plant, compared to recent costs (using the first two examples I found elsewhere) of $200 million US for a 150-MW facility in Montana and $479 million US for a 300-MW facility in Florida. Even allowing for exchange rates and other cost differences, the sticker price for the Spy Hill project looks to be well on the high side based on those comparators - and no, the fact that Northland Power is paying that price up front doesn't offer any comfort when SaskPower is on the hook to pay enough to make that initial cost profitable for Northland.

Now, it may be that there are at least relatively reasonable answers to these issues. But is there any possible explanation as to why they apparently haven't even been raised in the wake of SaskPower's announcement, particularly when projects in relatively similar price ranges have received front-page placement in both CanWest papers?

(Edit: fixed wording.)