There’s an election today in Manitoba, so all bets are off if the NDP forms government. But on the off chance that the Conservatives hold power, here goes. The conservative premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been talking about building a new port at Port Nelson, Manitoba, on Hudson Bay. They would build a corridor of pipelines running oil and natural gas to said port, as well as rail, allowing potash exports. Maybe grain, too? And Power from Manitoba could run west. Anyhow, here’s an alternative way to look at it, probably for a lot cheaper than building over 1,000 km of pipeline through some of the hardest rock on the planet.
And on the topic of energy, any business in Saskatchewan who wants to get in on building multi-billion dollar nuclear reactors should get someone down to Regina Wednesday morning to attend this conference.
And the Energy Transition Podcast talks about France’s Macron going full Trudeau.
And the Coastal GasLink Pipeline is now 98 per cent complete.
Sure. Piece of cake … soon as it’s cleared with the Indians. (Eye roll)
That’s why the Indians have Leaky Canoe as their leader.
Maggie leads the Indians?
“It’s a hell of a lot easier to dig through dirt than Canadian Shield granite”
The Alaska Pipeline didn’t need to dig through either, what am I missing?
https://www.wildnatureimages.com/photo/trans-alaska-pipeline-3/
The Canadian Shield, the granitic craton, does not extend to Alaska. I can’t speak to Alaskan geology, but the shield is immensely difficult. And generally speaking, you do not want pipelines built above ground for all sorts of issues, from wildlife to thermal expansion, if you can avoid it.
– to eco-warriors randomly blowing it up; just sayin’…
Brian, Hudson Bay is only open to shipping 7 months of the year. That’s fine for grain and potash which can be stockpiled. But useless for an oil or LNG shipment point.
There was a pipeline being built in northern Ontario (Beardmore) in the late 80’s when I was putting up power lines.
Pretty much iconic Canadian Shield.
Maybe I’m missing something.
Rock-anchoring supporting structures would be a piece of cake but I am guessing that the pipe would need to be insulated and or have some system to heat the oil periodically to keep it flowing. But the risk of an NDP government in Manitoba is game over for anything that trends toward prosperity. Rock and dirt can be overcome but not political stupidity and evil.
Brian:
Love your stuff; but on this one you missed something important: the right of way for the Churchill railroad was secured via acts of the federal and provincial legislatures in order to by pass both treaty and local gov’t rights. As a result an energy corridor built to replace that line (pipes, roads, and rail on the same right-of-way) would face no effective legal or treaty challenges – so the left, using indians as their proxies, could slow it down but not stop it.
Except that this doesn’t go to Churchill. Whereas the Hudson Bay Railroad makes a left turn near Gillam, this would continue straight down the Nelson River Valley to Port Nelson. Maybe the legislation you refer to covered that, as it was the original destination. I don’t know. But I doubt it.
Port Nelson is being discussed in part because it has a much longer shipping season. It would effectively be a greenfield construction of an entirely new major port.
The railway is built on muskeg. It cannot take very much weight and trains have to run incredibly slowly. Plus the multiple native bands along the route will not allow it. The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline approval process was lightning fast compared to how long this Port Nelson monstrosity will take.
“…so the left, using indians as their proxies, could slow it down but not stop it.”
You a betting man?
I would think that Oceans and Fisheries and a myriad of other federal government departments would tie up a new port for decades. The physical construction would be the easy part.
Do not like – do not want.
Why not? – simples. Despite the keenest caterwauling of our resident eco-loons and global-warming-alarmists, the Hudson Bay / Davis Strait / north-North Atlantic shipping season ain’t getting any shorter, nor any safer. It’s already closed for a lot of the year, and chunks of floating multi-year ice give the Canadian Shield a run for its money, for hardness. A big oil tanker that argued with a growler would lose – and would pollute a very pristine wilderness that can’t be cleaned; nope.
Extend AlSaskitoba through Northern BC to the coast; they’re as sick of the virtue-signalling clowns in Vancouver as they are of their own “money-for-nothing” chiefs and would happily join it. Or build Keystone X…
I bet it would be faster and cheaper to build 2 terminals, and 200 feet of rail line across the border, than spending the time and effort to get FedGov on board
Port Nelson was abandonded as an unfeasable port in 1918, with Churchill the new chosen port in 1927. There is still a built but never used rail bridge and manmade island seen on google images/maps, long abandonded at Port Nelson.
Why not just ship railcars of oil to Churchill on the now native owned railway? Build a new storage facility, railcar year round to Churchill, make use of the summer shipping season. Easy into the east coast bypassing Quebec as well.
https://www.arcticgateway.com/
There used to be a port at the mouth of the Nelson River. That was the original destination of the Hudson’s Bay railway. Today there is a man-made island and dock connected to the mainland by a rail bridge, which has fallen into severe disrepair since it was abandoned. There is a broken dredge beached on top of the dock.
The reason the port was abandoned was because the Nelson River would silt up so quickly that the dredge could barely keep up and ships could only get in at high tide. The mouth of the Churchill River was deeper so the rail route was switched.
It is interesting how Port Nelson was abandoned as the original site for the Hudson Bay port. With modern technology – massive earthmoving equipment, pile drivers, and, picture this, hydraulics, it would be much easier to build something further away from shore. But if you take a look at Google Earth at the site, you will notice that where they built the island and the causeway, that portion of the river has largely silted up. So it is a very significant issue. And ships are much, much larger with deeper drafts today. We could put much larger dredges to work. After all, China built islands out of reefs. But that costs money and effort. And how far would you need to dredge out?
FYI, both my late stepfather, and his father before him, worked on tugboats at Churchill in their young days.
What do you plan to do about Hudson Bay being unnavigable 5 months of the year?
Store onsite, railway runs year round, like they do with the grain and other commodities, ship during shipping season.
I have it on good authority that Hudson Bay will soon be ice free twelve months of the year due to Glow-Bull Warming. Canadians should be investing heavily in this project. I’m willing to pull a roll of wooden nickels out of my safe mattress to invest in this project as I’m sure by the time this project comes to fruition that investment will pay-off to my great-great-great-great-grandchildren, then again maybe not!
If NDP is elected, as it looks better than 50/50, this proposal is DOA.
Because, that’s how the commies roll.
If this goes forward, I fully expect the #Libranos to ban oil tankers of all types from Hudson Bay.
If AB bought one of the Russian built nuclear powered ice breakers, the #Libranos would then declare the Canadian sections of the arctic to be “nuclear free” and ban those too.
Had enough of bullshit Canada yet? It’s not going to get better. Frog… boiling water, etc…
Because, that’s how the commies roll. And the #Libranos
The late Dr Grant MacEwan (former Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta) was always enthusiastic about the potential of Port Churchill. I was honoured to take a course he gave on Western Canadian history. While not neglecting economics, he gave us a very real sense of the struggles and the human aspects of living back then. Which very much contrasted to an extremely disappointing lecture I attended while taking a history of BC course back in Vancouver days. A young woman stood up and gave a toneless recital of a series of statistics on early Vancouver. Nowhere was there any indication of the passions or other issues which might have influenced the early inhabitants of said city; her world was cold statistics and she could not see beyond that.
Looks like the commies have taken MB so any progress with MB on board just ain’t gunna happen. Hope their happy stuck in the rump of canuckistan as AB and possibly SK leave.
Indian Land…it wont happen.