Here we go again. The City of Fredericton announces something and puts absolutely no information about it on their web site. This time, it’s a plan to redevelop the run-down exhibition grounds. The only information about the project is a newspaper article with a vague description and a low resolution image. How can they expect any decent comments with that?

I’d also like to note this article which outlines the need for high density urban environments. Hopefully they took that into consideration when coming up with this plan. We’ll never know as they don’t have any details available on-line.

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The debate about NBPower is a fast-moving one. In today’s age, information travels quickly. I’ll review how well each of the parties did.

The CBC – A+ Again, the CBC does a bang-up job. Not only have they been on top of the deal, they’re also using social media in the two way format that it was designed for. It’s good to see a local news source well ahead of the curve.

Twitter user @JoeFitzIII – A+ From what I can tell, Joe FitzPatrick is a Fredericton based lawyer. It almost looks like he is planning to enter politics. Of all the knowledgeable people in the group, he is the only one that is actually responding and interacting to concerns and questions (excluding the CBC). If he is going into politics, he’s on the right track.

The Liberals – F – They use Twitter and Facebook, but they fail at actually using it to engage. Many people have posted valid questions on Twitter, but have received nothing but silence from the Liberals. In fact, rahter than use the established hashtag of #nbpower4sale, they went ahead and started using #lowerrates. That actually leads to less discussion.

The Conservatives – F – They seem to be very disorganized.  Shortly after the deal was announced, they made some noise on Twitter, but it was closer to the quips yelled on the Legislature floor rather than anything of any actual substance. They had a great opportunity to engage and come up with a strong opposition front to the deal, but they missed the boat. They didn’t even respond or attempt to defend this disastrous video of their leader refusing to answer a question.

“NO to Sale of NB Power” Facebook group – B – Doing a great job, but they seem to be having some problems separating the loons from the valid concerns. Despite that, they’re actually having productive discussions and getting things organized to protest the sale.

For A Better Tomorrow, Sell NB Power – F – Another example of failing to engage. The Facebook group has been renamed several times, gone to invite-only and then gone back to being public. This makes it hard for anyone to join. Their loon-control policy is to delete everything that opposes the deal. This also removed a lot of legitimate debate. Most of the activity has been from the admins. Many of the legitimate complaints aren’t actually getting addressed, they are just being ignored.

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I’m not going to go into much detail as that’s already been covered before. There are a few points that I feel are important and are getting drowned out in the noise:

• There really isn’t much to gain in the long term. The value of the assets is about the same as the amount of the debt. Sure it erases the debt, but you lose assets that have potential to generate revenue.
• The 5 year rate freeze won’t be free. The loss of revenue for the frozen rates will have to be made up somehow. Presumably it will be made up from the revenues generated from exporting power to the US over NB’s transmission lines.
• Outside of the rate freeze, there appears to be little long-term benefit to NB. NB Power’s debt does not affect the borrowing capabilities or the interest rate for any other debt.
• In the long term, there will be no choice but to close down the thermal plants. Building replacement power plants will be expensive and difficult as they will have to be non-carbon plants (like nuclear). The easiest option is to purchase power from Quebec. In fact, they are currently supplying the power to replace the power that would have been generated by Pt. Lepreau.

NB Power’s reputation has been tainted recently due to some high-profile blunders. Rather than solving the real problem of incompetent executives that got their jobs through patronage appointments, Shawn Graham has opted to walk away from it.

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You keep hearing of more “progressive” cities getting hybrid transit buses. Maybe Fredericton should get some too? Let’s first run some numbers:

Cost of a bus: $400,000 for a regular one, $600,000 for a hybrid.

As with hybrid cars, you need to change the batteries every 6 years. As Fredericton keeps its buses until they are about 24 years old, that means 3 battery replacements (at 6, 12 and 18 years) 3x$66,000 = 200,000

That essentially makes it double the cost over the 24 year lifespan of the bus.  Now, don’t forget that there would be some fuel savings. Unfortunately, under real-world testing, a hybrid bus only got 15% more mileage. (3.86 vs 4.58 mpg).

With a limited budget, that means Fredericton Transit would be able to buy fewer buses if they switched to Hybrids. To compensate, they would need to keep older buses for longer, which won’t be as fuel efficient as a newer conventional bus. They also wouldn”t be able to expand service, which would mean more cars on the road.

The truth of the matter is that hybrid transit buses are just for greenwashing and serve no actual purpose other than scoring political points.

Reference: http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/WVU_FTA_LCC_Final_Report_07-23-2007.pdf

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