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NEWS RELEASE: Sandy Lake First Nation Energized by Wataynikaneyap Power (Watay Power – June 21, 2024)

https://www.wataypower.ca/

(June 21, 2024 – Fort William First Nation, Ontario) Wataynikaneyap Power is pleased to announce the energization of Sandy Lake First Nation. The northern Ontario community was connected to the provincial power grid on April 18, 2024.

“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the community’s connection to the power grid on Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” Sandy Lake Chief Delores Kakegamic comments. “The Wataynikaneyap Power transmission system means more than reliable electricity for the community. It means we can build new homes and buildings, such as our new Health Centre, and connect them to power.

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Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power – by Evan Halper (MSM.com/Washington Post – March 8, 2024)

https://www.msn.com/

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.

In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

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Drought in Western Canada means two provinces are having to import power – by Amanda Stephenson (CTV News/Canadian Press – January 29, 2024)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

Two hydro-rich provinces are being forced to import power from other jurisdictions due to severe drought in Western Canada. Both B.C. and Manitoba, where the vast majority of power is hydroelectric, are experiencing low reservoir levels that have negatively affected electricity production this fall and winter.

There’s no risk in either province of the lights going out anytime soon. But scientists say climate change is making drought both more common and more severe, which means more pressure on hydroelectric producers in the years to come.

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Michael Sabia’s grand plan to make Quebec a green-energy powerhouse – by Nicolas Van Praet (Globe and Mail – December 16, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Sabia blueprint will see Hydro-Québec spend as much as $185-billion to transform the province’s energy landscape from now until 2035

The village of La Romaine sits on the northern flank of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in a wind-swept place that the Innu people call Unamen Shipu, or “ocher earth” – a reference to the red colour seen on the banks of the nearby Oloman river snaking upland. Some 400 kilometres north-east of Sept-Îles, it’s reachable only by air and water except during the coldest months, when the government carves out a snow road to nearby communities. Locals like to say it’s their winter freedom.

It’s here, in this reserve of 1,200 Innu inhabitants, that Hydro-Québec chief executive Michael Sabia landed on a Wednesday in late November. Greeted at the community’s political offices, Mr. Sabia shared a lunch of caribou and traditional bread with local leaders and later spoke of his desire to rectify the past and make the Unamen Shipu Innu partners in the nearby Lac-Robertson power station, built on their territory in the early 1990s without any compensation. He handed a letter to the community’s former chief that apologized for the affront.

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Indigenous groups lead the renewable transition in northern Canada – by Jesse Chase-Lubitz (Yahoo News – February 28, 2023)

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/

A solution to climate change is emerging in one of the regions most affected by it. In Nunavut — the northernmost territory of Canada — a coalition of Indigenous communities is transitioning the region away from diesel and toward renewable energy.

In 2018, Nukik Corporation, which was formed by individuals in the Indigenous Inuit population, started planning the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link, a set of electricity and fiber-optic transmission cables. The link would connect the vast regions of rural northern Canada to a southern Canadian renewable energy grid in the province of Manitoba.

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Ontario Power Generation urges province to move ahead with new power projects – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – February 14, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ontario Power Generation has urged Ontario’s government to move forward with new hydroelectric generation plants in Northern Ontario.

In a report released Monday, the province’s largest utility told the provincial government that the region contains up to 4,000 megawatts of untapped hydroelectric potential. OPG recommended that planning for new facilities begin immediately, given the long lead times involved.

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News Release: Kingfisher Lake First Nation Energized by Wataynikaneyap Power (November 24, 2022)

The ‘line that brings light’ connects Kingfisher Lake First Nation to the provincial power grid

FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION, Ontario, Nov. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Wataynikaneyap Power announces the energization of Kingfisher Lake First Nation, a remote northern Ontario community, which was connected to the provincial power grid on November 8, 2022. Upon grid connection and onto a reliable power source, the community turned off its diesel generators which had previously provided primary power to this remote community.

The Wataynikaneyap Power transmission system connects the Kingfisher Lake community distribution system to the Ontario grid through a total of 250 km of line and two substations, originating from its Pickle Lake Substation. Kingfisher Lake will continue to be served by Hydro One Remotes Communities Inc. (HORCI) for the local distribution of electricity.

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Told ‘no’ 37 times, this Indigenous-owned company brought electricity to James Bay anyway – by Fatima Syed (The Narwhal – October 20, 2022)

The Narwhal

Twenty-five years ago, five First Nations brought power to their remote, underserved communities, defying skepticism, scorn and swampy terrain

For the Indigenous communities along northern Ontario’s James Bay — the ones that have lived on and taken care of the lands as long as anyone can remember — the new millenium marked the start of a diesel-less future.

While the southern part of the province took Ontario’s power grid for granted, the vast majority of these communities had never been plugged in. Their only source of power was a handful of very loud diesel-powered generators. Because of that, daily life in the Attawapiskat, Kashechewan and Fort Albany First Nations involved deliberating a series of tradeoffs.

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Ontario to aid northern industrial sectors with energy costs – by Sarah St-Pierre (CIM Magazine – April 22, 2022)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

With the Northern Energy Advantage Program, Ontario doubles down on a shift towards green industry

Through its recently unveiled Northern Energy Advantage Program (NEAP), the Ontario government is aiming to strengthen Northern Ontario’s industrial sector by bringing down its electricity costs and building towards net-zero emissions.

Under the program, which is a revamp of the former Northern Industrial Electricity Rate (NIER) program, participating companies will receive rebates of $20 per megawatt-hour on electricity costs.

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With an election in sight, Doug Ford once again ready to hop on the Ring of Fire ‘bulldozer’ – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – April 8, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Ontario premier appears in the Sault to charge up Algoma Steel and the critical minerals mining industry

Premier Doug Ford didn’t back down from his government’s commitment to invest in the development of a north-south road network into the Ring of Fire.

The premier and some provincial cabinet ministers were in Sault Ste. Marie on April 8, surrounded by steel coils on the floor of Algoma Steel’s Direct Strip Production Complex to unveil the province’s expanded Northern Energy Advantage Program (NEAP), a power rebate program for heavy industrial users in the North.

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Inside the Indigenous-led power line deal that put 17 First Nations on the grid – by Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – October 14, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

By the time Wataynikaneyap Power announced, in October, 2019, that it had locked in financing to start building an 1,800-kilometre transmission line to connect 17 First Nations communities to the Ontario power grid, Margaret Kenequanash had earned a chance to catch her breath.

A member of the North Caribou Lake First Nation, Ms. Kenequanash had been pursuing the transmission project for more than a decade, first as a community leader and, since 2017, as Wataynikaneyap’s chief executive officer.

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The Drift: Could the mining industry consider the nuclear option to power remote mines? – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – July 23, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Laurentian University research institute studies how small-scale reactors could replace diesel generation in the Far North

Is there a viable marriage between mining and nuclear power? Laurentian University researcher François Caron aims to find out. There are 10 off-grid operating mines in remote areas of Canada, most of them reliant on diesel generation.

That’ll be a no-go in the years to come as the mining industry faces mounting pressure from society, government climate change legislation, even environmentally conscious investors, to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions and carbon footprint.

To be able to power potential mining camps in greenfield areas where grid power doesn’t reach, the nuclear energy option is being increasingly examined.

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Failure of Eskom to be “the death knell” of SA mining sector, says Exxaro’s Mgojo – by David McKay (MiningMX.com – January 15, 2020)

MiningMX

EXXARO Resources CEO, Mxolisi Mgojo, said that without a properly functioning power utility company – Eskom – South Africa’s mining industry would cease to function.

“The current state of Eskom is going to be the one thing that is going to be the death knell of this industry,” Mgojo was cited by Bloomberg News to have said in an article republished by Yahoo Finance. Mgojo is also the president of the Minerals Council South Africa.

Mgojo was commenting at a conference organised by Business Unity South Africa, the country’s largest business lobby group. “Without fixing Eskom we don’t have a mining industry. It is as dire as that.”

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South Africa’s mining industry calls for action to end power crisis (Reuters U.S. – January 13, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s mining industry body on Monday urged the government to bring on stream new private sector power sources to ease the power crisis that has pushed the country to the brink of recession.

Struggling state-owned utility Eskom was forced to implement power cuts across the country last year and also last week even though many businesses and factories were closed for the holidays.

The power cuts have piled pressure on President Cyril Ramaphosa, who came to power with a pledge to revive investor confidence and boost economic growth.

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OPINION: Bringing an end to South Africa’s power struggle – by Sizwe Dlamini (Independent Online – December 17, 2019)

https://www.iol.co.za/

CAPE TOWN – South Africa remains one of the best mining jurisdictions in the world with more than $2.5 trillion (R36.2 trillion) mineral wealth still in situ.

This is according to Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, who told delegates at the Africa Down Under event earlier this year that as things stood no country could match South Africa in terms of mineral diversity offerings.

Data from Statistics SA show that South Africa’s mining industry is one of the key economic sectors in the country, contributing about 7.5 percent to gross domestic product (GDP), 30 percent of export earnings, and more than 450 000 direct jobs.

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