Hydro-Quebec press release, October 25, 2022;
“We are proud to contribute to the development of this network by hosting the first charging site for heavy and medium-duty vehicles. Ideally located near the municipal garage, it will allow us to accelerate our green shift started a few years ago for the eco-responsible management of our fleet of vehicles and motorized equipment.”
Hydro Quebec said that roughly 300,000 residents were still without power Saturday morning following Wednesday’s ice storm.[…] Some Pontiac residents are anticipating being in the dark for upwards of a week – the longest stretch without power since the ice storm of 1998. “We haven’t even seen a truck; we haven’t seen or heard of anything,” says Thompson “[Hydro Quebec] keeps telling us to be patient because there’s several thousand people without power.”
That’s the real reason for 15 minute cities.
Illegal to have a chainsaw running without a licensed…notice workers moving wood by machinery?
You don’t see chainsaws all over cutting?
How to control the whole population with just one blown fuse!
You can’t pump gas either.
If these imbeciles have their way, in due course you won’t need to pump gas; problem solved, high-fives all round.
Underground cables?
Now that would be a worthy long term project.
I learned a while ago that the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off the south coast of NFLD did this as a defence against high winds.
We’ve had more outages over 3 years in our new condo in the Kerrisdale neighbourhood of Vancouver than in the previous 24 years in our house in another neighbourhood.
You cannot put transmission cable underground in Quebec. The cost is prohibitive.
Portable generators have never been cheaper. Preventing one thawed freezer and losing 40lbs of beef will pay for it. A couple of hours running a day will keep them frozen. Elected sociopaths in charge of everything certainly won’t make things better.
Future announcement from your electric company.
Customers
Our electric hydro trucks need to charge their batteries. Anyone have a gas powered generator?
“be patient because there’s several thousand people without power”. That always calms the masses.
No Quebec politician would dare criticize Hydro Quebec; it is a central icon of Quebec nationalism.
In any event, it is time to remind the peasants that they have to accept whatever treatment Big Government decides to impose.
Don’t your utility companies have mutual aid pacts with other utilities, and contingency contracts with private utility contractors? Look at the response to US Hurricanes. Electric utilities in Florida get support from other utilities as far away as Texas and Virginia, as well as thousands of private contractors.
We do the same in the Midwest on a smaller scale for thunderstorms and tornadoes. The entire utility force is sent to the area, and neighboring utilities and contractors all send in their people too. Most of the tree removal people that are so necessary in these storms are private contractors in the US.
Same thing happens here, but Quebec Hydro probably prioritizes french speaking crews, where as the rest of the country doesn’t care. (in toronto, we had a NB power crew reconnect our power after a big outage)
Hi rd, I live about 15 miles as the crow flies from Quebec in the very tip of Eastern Ontario. There were more people in Ontario without power than in Quebec and Hydro One crews are still removing downed trees and replacing poles in rural Ontario so Quebec isn’t getting any help from Ontario. There are no private utility contractors, both provinces have monopolies with unionized workforces.
Also it’s the Pontiac region, which is north of Ottawa just across the river. This is the most English region of Quebec and gets neglected accordingly by the provincial government and it’s various organizations.
I got lucky, only 51hrs without power and it was cold enough outside that I could move my meat and cheese into a locked shed and not have it spoil. The only shortage I saw was that the gasoline ran out. Everyone decided to fill up their vehicles while also getting gasoline for their generators. My next major purchase will be a diesel or propane powered generator.
Government normalizing blackouts in 3 – 2 – 1…
I certainly can’t foresee any problems with putting all of our eggs in one basket. Where light/power, heating and transportation are all 100% electricity based. It’s not like heat, power and transportation (ambulance, utility repair, fire and police vehicles) are essential in winter or in emergencies. Do people really think that the electricity supply fails for quite a few days every year, especially with the move away from reliable baseload power and towards intermittent power sources? Those tin foil hat conspiracy theorists just need to listen to politicians, journalists and fact checkers since only they know the truth.
/s
Do you think gasoline pumps work when the power is off?
Do you know how easy it is to start a small generator to power those gasoline pumps? Or that above ground, gravity based fuel storage exists?
This was a serious problem when New Jersey lost its electrical grid in a hurricane. Gas stations couldn’t pump gas and even if they could they couldn’t make transactions because the electronic cash registers didn’t work. And they didn’t give it away.
That’s not a mechanical issue though, it’s a business issue. In a life or death emergency, the business issue would be resolved rather quickly, I suspect, and payments settled later. Pretty sure emergency response departments have the authority to commandeer essential resources.
Grids are dumb.
Let them freeze in the dark.
Stupid policies have consequences.
Of note, it seems that only governments, at all levels, are greening their service vehicles, with our excessive taxes. Vancouver is obviously on board for that, as there are only left and far left people who run for council.
The next phase will be closing all gas stations by fiat. Watch for it! Of course, owners will not care, as property values are high.
I would rather have a can of gas in my garage than any fire-prone ev vehicle with crazy batteries.
Hey idiots. You can’t pump gas or even pay for it with a power outage either.
But you know what idiots? If you’ve got your own solar or even gas or diesel generator you can charge your EV.
As much as you boneheads hate EV’s, they are the most fuel flexible vehicles.
See ya meatheads !!! 🙂
You guys and your talking points. Not exactly problem solvers or capable of original thoughts.
As stated above, it’s very simple to power a pump with a generator to get fuel out of an underground storage tank. . Lots of places have above ground, gravity based fuel storage. Some additional methods: siphoning fuel out of another vehicle, hand powered pumping, a heavy pail directly into a ground storage tank, semi trucks and other trucks that haul fuel. Nothing beats gas/diesel/propane in fuel flexibility. As a bonus, the fill time is in minutes compared to hours, if at all, from a home solar system.
“…even gas or diesel generator you can charge your EV.” Looks like you understand the flexibility and importance of a *fossil fuel* power energy source in an emergency.
Not exactly great options there genius. Maybe if you live on a farm. But 95% of people live in cities. Use your brain
There aren’t gas stations with underground fuel tanks in urban areas?
Having worked in industrial facilities, you may be surprised at how many have above ground fuel tanks.
No opportunities for siphoning fuel from one of your vehicles into another to be able to travel to safety?
We are talking about power outage emergencies and the folly of having only one energy source – electricity- for heat, power and transportation I’m going to guess you are either very young and inexperience about life or a very sheltered adult
Can’t rule out basic Prog stupidity…
Certainly not the type of people who would be useful in an emergency. Total lack of survival skills. By the time their solar panels charged their car, the ICE car people would be at least 400km away from the danger zone.
“Total lack of survival skills.”
Yeppers. Always makes me smile, the thought of Progs pushing everybody off oil & reverting back to the Stone Age. The first people knocking on the door in the middle of the first winter night looking for food or heat or other essentials are going to be the Progs. Let’s just say they will be met with some…resistance. 😉
“But 95% of people live in cities.”
Sucks to be them.
“If you’ve got your own solar…you can charge your EV.”
LOL. How long is that going to take in the middle of winter with less than 8 hours of daylight? And before you even start you need to warm the battery (with electricity) to be able to charge it. Ain’t going to be much output during dawn & dusk. And, if it clouds over, again, you’re screwed. This ain’t an iPhone we’re talking here, it’s a massive battery w/ huge electrical requirements.
I’m going to assume that this is a joke or some form of sarcasm because no one could say something that stupid (and without correct punctuation, too – clauses are things and need to be separated with commas) and mean it.
I found the problem, the guy without power is a Thomson, in Pontiac, which I believe is a historically Anglo part of Quebec. I’m sure the Vachons and Bouchers of Lac St Jean aren’t without power.
But Justin is in Montana where there is plenty of electricity.
Quebeckers wanted to get screwed over by one of their own.
The right using a power outage to make political hay out of.
Is there really any difference between the Canadian right and left, other than who they want to swarm and/or denounce? Both sides are blatant authoritarians.
You misunderstand, I think. It’s not a political thing, it’s a common sense thing. A warning. Much like an adult telling a child to not touch a hot stove or to not run around the house with a knife.
You didn’t notice the FIRST TWO SENTENCES of the post where Hydro Quebec was talking about their “green shift” to electric trucks?
Which can’t charge during a power outage?
… When do you need a Hydro truck? When the power’s out…
Is it only authoritarians who notice when something so mind-bendingly stupid gets said by a crown corporation? If so, I’m on their side.
And by the way, for all the bleaters who keep bleating that you can’t get fuel at the gas station when the power is out. Yes, you can, with a hand cranked fuel pump. Annoying, takes a while, makes your arm tired, but yes, you can. Pay for it in cash too, because they measure the volume pumped. Unless you’re a pig-ignorant city soy-boy who can’t even look things up on Google despite being glued to your phone. Then you’re pretty well f-ed.
Left and right may both be authoritarian, the difference is from where the authority comes.
I prefer a small government libertarian approach, for one adult to tell another adult how to live is to reduce that other adult to a child in the mind of the teller, and to reduce the other adult to an idiot in the mind of the told.