Canada moves to 2% GDP end of FY25/26 - PMMC

[Kirkhill]

Looking at that 1905-1912 map above I am reminded of something - The HBC company's charter was a monopoly on trade between the lands surrounding Hudson Bay and the lands of the British Crown (England, Wales and Scotland at the time). It established trading posts. It discouraged settlement.

What, exactly, did Canada buy?

 

[KevinB]

It would be interesting to see if some of that might be obviated by running in parallel with the piping proposed.

Some other thoughts

• electrical lines require heat dissipation? oil lines benefit from heating.
• electrical lines benefit from insulation? CO2 in a great insulator.
• electrical lines suffer from size constraints - oil lines are typically 48" diameter
• costs, as noted, some of the costs can be defrayed by employing existing/shared infrastructure
• EMF - this does have to be carefully managed. An early failure (circa 1980 PLC) involved using a common run with compressed air lines, 120 VAC, 5 VDC and coax cables in a single enclosed tray. The flexing of the airlines as they operated valves flexed all the other lines. Splitters and junctions came loose. Currents leaked, intermittent failures abounded. Running separate conduits for the 120 V and 5 V as well as for the CoAx and the airlines solved the problem.

FWIW most of the power lines in Virginia are now being dug in - including new HV lines.
Due to the recent ice storms and crazy winds we are having here - it is a necessary cost - as the cost of the down lines was killing them.
They are noticeable larger than the overhead lines they replace (clearly some shielding and running it looks like 6 or so lines parallel where two or three were before. They are also teaming with the Telecom companies and rerouting Telephone, and Broadband lines underground too - with access/junction boxes ever few hundred meters.

 

[KevinB]

POTUS is happy too
NATO allies agree to boost defense spending to 5% at The Hague summit

 

[foresterab]

My guess at what the development corridors may look like.

View attachment 94265

I'm a little confused by the western corridor which seems to track the Athabasca and the Mackenzie river. There is work in progress to bring a second highway to connect Fort Mac to the the West...and if you go to either Highway 88 (middle of the province running N/S) or Highway 35 (from Peace River to NWT) you start to align with paved highway. Makes more sense than trying to build straight north from Fort MacMurray via poor access. river deltas, national park and Lake Athabasca.

Once you go west and hit the highway there is also the railway to Hay River on the south shore of Great Slave Lake which should aid some movement (although it's another line in need of a major rebuild). From Great Slave Lake north it makes much more sense and has alot of work already done...more just connecting the few remaining stretches and then deciding what the final road quality would be. .

 

[Navy_Pete]

The CAF, and the RCAF in particular, need to accept that CAF FF are really just an expensive, but necessary, insurance policy. I have had FF work for me on two different Wings, and in Alert. What they can provide in an emergency is a critical requirement. There is no argument there. They are a relatively small trade (although are at about 103% PML currently), spread across too many Wings, and therefore deployments add up quickly, but no more than several other Construction Engineering trades.

However, take all the complaining about not getting equal pay, getting screwed on leave, etc, etc with a grain of salt. While they have equivalent, and in most cases, because they are also airfield qualified, higher training levels than local fire halls, that is where the comparisons end. Their call volume is a fraction of most full time firehalls, and they respond to real fires an even smaller fraction than that. Most calls on Wings are either for false alarms, or responding as first responders/paramedics.

And don't get me started on DND FF. Except for those filling inspector roles, and policy positions, they are overpaid for the actual amount of work they have to do, and calls they need to respond to. And they are constantly tainting uniformed FFs with how they are being screwed, right out of the schoolhouse.

The call volume is a fair point for sure, but if we are going to pay the DND FFs that rate, but pay the CAF FFs a lower rate for the same job, the weasly excuse that the job doesn't have a civilian equivalent so can't use it to set pay against doesn't work.

The low rate of calls has a lot to do with the fire prevention efforts (which the FHs are a part of), and other things in place to prevent fires starting so is a good thing really. I'd rather not have something like the Bonhomme Richard fire disaster in one of our coastal bases for example. Similarly, civilian airport FFs don't have to think about responding to emergencies in hangars where the planes have missiles/bombs hanging off the wings.

On the flip side, the Pet FFs were a big part of the response to the Chinook crash into the river, and their SAR was impeded by lack of things like a proper boat, so if we are going to set them up for an insurance policy, we should give them the tools and necessary people to do the job. Not having that kind of thing happening regularly really isn't a reason to not have them though, and we have a lot more expensive things as insurance policies that almost never get used for real, that also hope never to have to use them for real (like CBRN).

Military by definition isn't cheap or efficient, as most of what we do is an 'in case shit' scenario. We also have a lot more expensive and irreplaceable airframes and other equipment, so there is a reason we exceed national building code to protect things critical IT, airplanes etc.

 

[Kirkhill]

I'm a little confused by the western corridor which seems to track the Athabasca and the Mackenzie river. There is work in progress to bring a second highway to connect Fort Mac to the the West...and if you go to either Highway 88 (middle of the province running N/S) or Highway 35 (from Peace River to NWT) you start to align with paved highway. Makes more sense than trying to build straight north from Fort MacMurray via poor access. river deltas, national park and Lake Athabasca.

Once you go west and hit the highway there is also the railway to Hay River on the south shore of Great Slave Lake which should aid some movement (although it's another line in need of a major rebuild). From Great Slave Lake north it makes much more sense and has alot of work already done...more just connecting the few remaining stretches and then deciding what the final road quality would be. .

I cheaped out and did exactly what you said. I had already traced and highlighted those rivers for another purpose and simply copied and pasted. The routes as shown should be taken as trendlines and not detailed routes.

In the west the "trend" is Edmonton-Ft McMurray-High Level-Yellowknife (ish) splitting into the existing route to Inuvik and Tuk on the one hand and the Diavik - Gray's Bay route on the other.

The actual route, which you know better than I, will likely follow existing infrastructure to the greatest extent possible.

I probably should have just drawn a straight line as I did from Rupert to Churchill etc. That actual route will likely follow the Yellowhead and bend south before heading back north somewhere around the SK-MB border.

 

[foresterab]

I cheaped out and did exactly what you said. I had already traced and highlighted those rivers for another purpose and simply copied and pasted. The routes as shown should be taken as trendlines and not detailed routes.

In the west the "trend" is Edmonton-Ft McMurray-High Level-Yellowknife (ish) splitting into the existing route to Inuvik and Tuk on the one hand and the Diavik - Gray's Bay route on the other.

The actual route, which you know better than I, will likely follow existing infrastructure to the greatest extent possible.

I probably should have just drawn a straight line as I did from Rupert to Churchill etc. That actual route will likely follow the Yellowhead and bend south before heading back north somewhere around the SK-MB border.

Cool..I saw the straight lines on the other projects and figured as much but wasn't sure. I'd never heard of Gray's Bay until fairly recently and it's a severely under rated project....plus has all the local buy in already from the Indigenous communities as I understand.

There's the Highway to Tuktoyaktuk but I never realized how far of a detour it is compared to traffic from Yellowknife. It's like driving the two far sides of the triangle route, via very twisty roads, instead of the straight line. But an all season road is a true game changer for the northern communities and offers many more options than a pure fly in community situation does.

For comparision...direct line route is ~1300 km between Yellowknife and Tuktuyuktuk. Driving there actually takes ~40.5 hours and 3,300 km. Or for another scale....Yellowknife to Thunder Bay, Ontario is roughly the same distance.

Even living and working in northern Alberta and BC most of my life I lose sight of how big the Artic and NWT is.

 

[Kirkhill]

Cool..I saw the straight lines on the other projects and figured as much but wasn't sure. I'd never heard of Gray's Bay until fairly recently and it's a severely under rated project....plus has all the local buy in already from the Indigenous communities as I understand.

There's the Highway to Tuktoyaktuk but I never realized how far of a detour it is compared to traffic from Yellowknife. It's like driving the two far sides of the triangle route, via very twisty roads, instead of the straight line. But an all season road is a true game changer for the northern communities and offers many more options than a pure fly in community situation does.

For comparision...direct line route is ~1300 km between Yellowknife and Tuktuyuktuk. Driving there actually takes ~40.5 hours and 3,300 km. Or for another scale....Yellowknife to Thunder Bay, Ontario is roughly the same distance.

Even living and working in northern Alberta and BC most of my life I lose sight of how big the Artic and NWT is.

And mind the Pingos as you go by?

Pingo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[foresterab]

And mind the Pingos as you go by?

Pingo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 94268

My first thought was Cool...gravel. Then I read what they are.

Dang it....gravel might be an issue. It's out there but that's alot of muskeg/permafrost to cover without rock. Reminds me of past work where any time we found consistent rock we had to flag it for possible road building gravel sources...or they had to truck it hundreds of km at $$$$

 

[Kirkhill]

FWIW most of the power lines in Virginia are now being dug in - including new HV lines.
Due to the recent ice storms and crazy winds we are having here - it is a necessary cost - as the cost of the down lines was killing them.
They are noticeable larger than the overhead lines they replace (clearly some shielding and running it looks like 6 or so lines parallel where two or three were before. They are also teaming with the Telecom companies and rerouting Telephone, and Broadband lines underground too - with access/junction boxes ever few hundred meters.

Related?

Submarine power cable - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Kirkhill]

My first thought was Cool...gravel. Then I read what they are.

Dang it....gravel might be an issue. It's out there but that's alot of muskeg/permafrost to cover without rock. Reminds me of past work where any time we found consistent rock we had to flag it for possible road building gravel sources...or they had to truck it hundreds of km at $$$$

Would this help?

https://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/gran/33254.pdf

Territorial Dredging Regulations

Federal laws of Canada

laws-lois.justice.gc.ca

I would think that gravel on the Gray's Bay route would be less of a problem.



There are a number of hard rock mines along the route.

 

[Kirkhill]

FWIW most of the power lines in Virginia are now being dug in - including new HV lines.
Due to the recent ice storms and crazy winds we are having here - it is a necessary cost - as the cost of the down lines was killing them.
They are noticeable larger than the overhead lines they replace (clearly some shielding and running it looks like 6 or so lines parallel where two or three were before. They are also teaming with the Telecom companies and rerouting Telephone, and Broadband lines underground too - with access/junction boxes ever few hundred meters.

Further to ... (thanks)

Pluses and minuses.

Going Underground: European Transmission Practices

Demand management is growing more complicated for power utilities. Rising global and regional electricity consumption is speeding the need for investment in expanded or upgraded networks.

www.renewableenergyworld.com

https://europacable.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Europacable-Brochure-FINAL_Web-File.pdf

German agency says underground power cables more costly, damaging to environment

www.cleanenergywire.org

Most countries go for overhead system – apart from Germany

IRELAND is not unusual in erecting the vast bulk of its high-voltage power lines overground.

www.independent.ie

 

[Colin Parkinson]

My first thought was Cool...gravel. Then I read what they are.

Dang it....gravel might be an issue. It's out there but that's alot of muskeg/permafrost to cover without rock. Reminds me of past work where any time we found consistent rock we had to flag it for possible road building gravel sources...or they had to truck it hundreds of km at $$$$

Cough NW BC Cough If Loonshit was worth money, they be rich. If you have a rock quarry on your property in the NW BC, then you should be rich.

 

[lenaitch]

So no one else can use Not Withstanding other than Quebec…

If a Province separates into two or more provinces, if they really any other province’s jurisdiction?

The NWS Clause only applies to certain elements of the Charter. it does not apply to other parts of the Constitution Acts.

 

[lenaitch]

I've always been intrigued by the concept of a 'common economic corridor'. Any corridor would have to be designed to the least accommodating occupant, which would be rail. Roads, pipelines, power lines can all handle terrain variations - grade and curvature - much more easily.

Although not exclusively, it is much more common for long distance electrical transmission to be done via High Voltage Direct Current. Infrastructure costs have come way down over the decades and energy losses are lower than AC. Given the distances involved, burying transmission lines would likely send the costs into outer space. I suppose one way to grind such a project into scientific and regulatory purgatory would be to propose that electrical energy and fossil fuels be somehow transported in the same conduit.

Looking at that 1905-1912 map above I am reminded of something - The HBC company's charter was a monopoly on trade between the lands surrounding Hudson Bay and the lands of the British Crown (England, Wales and Scotland at the time). It established trading posts. It discouraged settlement.

What, exactly, did Canada buy?

Canada didn't buy anything. HBC surrendered their charter to Rupert's Land in 1869 to the British Crown which in turn admitted it into Canada by the Constitution Act 1867.

 

[CBH99]

POTUS is happy too
NATO allies agree to boost defense spending to 5% at The Hague summit

I'm glad he's a happy camper, and I think it will cause most members to spend a little more in defence...but I doubt a single NATO ally will hit 5%

(Even the US, with it's Trillion dollar budget, doesn't surpass 3.5% and even the US would struggle pretty hard to dedicate 5% of their GDP even if they intended to meet that goal)


But it will make countries like Canada, Spain, and a few others to finally get up to the 2% benchmark



(Carney can commit Canada to that 5% target all he wants, but he won't be around in 2035 to get us there. It's easy to make promises when they aren't due for a decade & he knows it)

 

[CBH99]

FWIW most of the power lines in Virginia are now being dug in - including new HV lines.
Due to the recent ice storms and crazy winds we are having here - it is a necessary cost - as the cost of the down lines was killing them.
They are noticeable larger than the overhead lines they replace (clearly some shielding and running it looks like 6 or so lines parallel where two or three were before. They are also teaming with the Telecom companies and rerouting Telephone, and Broadband lines underground too - with access/junction boxes ever few hundred meters.

Here in Alberta most of them have been buried underground since I was a kid.

Makes a big difference when it's -40'C and its windy out!!

 

[Prairie canuck]

Those power lines will likely have an access road attached to them

The construction of long distance high voltage lines are not accompanied by the construction of roads in Manitoba. The work is done during freeze up allowing equipment to travel on frozen ground. That being said a 4 season road from Gillam to Churchill is long overdue.

 

[Prairie canuck]

Manitoba recently completed Bipole lll, a 500kv direct current line from generating plants in the north to Winnipeg. Direct Current lines are more efficient and have much less line losses but do require converter stations at either end to go from AC to DC and then the reverse from DC to AC. The line is 1400 kms in length and cost just over 6 billion dollars. Roughly $4.3 million per kilometer. The cost of running this line underground could be up to 10 times the cost.