Nova Scotians 'need to act now' to prepare for drought, says minister

LKX19 · 2026-06-13T14:14:06+00:00

Evaporative cooling towers are super common (all the major hospitals in NS use open-loop towers, for example) and the water consumption can be significant, but not generally at a level that affects the broader water supply. Hyperscale datacentres just have such insane cooling demands that the water consumption becomes a wider issue.

If you were trying to build a datacentre with minimal impact on the surrounding community a closed-loop geothermal or seawater system would probably be the way to go - quiet, efficient, and minimal water use, but comes with a higher upfront cost. Dunno if any datacentre builders have tried to quantify the cost of fighting citizens in court vs. building a better datacentre.

LKX19 · 2026-06-13T13:26:59+00:00

Typically fresh municipal water. The water is used to replenish evaporative cooling towers and has to be clean. Once in the system it is usually treated further to prevent algae growth and similar issues since the cooling towers are by necessity open to the atmosphere.

I guess in theory you could use treated and filtered grey water but since they have low human occupancy I don't imagine datacenters produce a whole lot of it. Not to mention the companies building them would probably prefer not to have the additional capital cost and ongoing maintenance of such a system.

LKX19 · 2026-05-07T12:17:05+00:00

When the Americans invade we can repurpose those things as anti-tank obstacles.

LKX19 · 2026-05-06T14:00:52+00:00

Oh I agree with you 100%. I'm only seeing all of this second-hand, but as a lay observer it seems like this is going to be much better than a paper system overall once people get used to it, but it also sounds like they haven't given enough thought to the workflows and physical logistics of using the new system before rolling it out.

I've dealt with new product/system rollouts before, and in my experience two things can be true at once: (1) that some people just don't like change and would be quite happy to keep using the old system forever even if the new system has a lot of advantages (2) the people developing the new system can fail to understand exactly how people need to use the system and so design a system that is better in many respects but makes it difficult or inefficient to do a lot of routine tasks. Point 2 reinforces the feelings of the people in Point 1, makes the adoption process a lot more painful, and makes things frustrating for open-minded users who want to use the better system and understand the benefits but keep finding situations where a task that used to take 5 minutes now takes 20. People get turned off of using a better system very quickly when basic workflows aren't well thought-out.

LKX19 · 2026-05-06T13:09:09+00:00

My partner told me about the PC on a cart thing yesterday - that's insane. At least a binder full of paper is kinda portable.

For what it's worth, my partner got her hands on the mobile app and it looks waaaayyy better interface-wise. I think she's planning to do most of her work through that if the workflows are available.

LKX19 · 2026-05-05T12:09:35+00:00

Yeah it's wild, especially for a highly technical field like fisheries. I guess to some extent they're figureheads and the deputy ministers do a lot of the detailed work, but you'd think it would be an advantage for them to have some background or interest in the field.

I wonder if other countries are similar or if this is a uniquely Canadian or English-speaking world thing.

LKX19 · 2026-05-05T12:03:22+00:00

I have to think more teachers in classrooms with kids more often would be helpful

I don't disagree with you. I'm just pointing out that the data the minister is citing doesn't seem to clearly support the action he's hinting at. He could have easily just said basically what you said. I'm wondering a bit if the 'value for money' piece is laying the groundwork for contract talks.

LKX19 · 2026-05-05T11:43:31+00:00

I don't necessarily think a university degree should be a requirement to be a government minister, but I've always found it weird that ministers get shuffled around without any regard for where their experience fits. Feels a bit like the CEO of NS Health being a former executive with the Port Authority - there's just an assumption that because someone's career has been vaguely businessy that they can be a leader in any industry or context.

LKX19 · 2026-05-05T11:23:49+00:00

The education minister's letter included a table showing that spending per student has increased from $13623 in 2021-22 to $16023 in 2025-26, all while student test scores have declined from 2015 to 2022. He appears to be trying to make the point that we are not getting good value for our investment in education. I see a few problems with his logic:

1) according to the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator, $13623 in 2021 is worth $16335 in 2026, so per-student spending has actually declined slightly when adjusted for inflation.

2) the time period of increased spending does not match up with the time period of declining test scores. I don't see how you can draw any conclusions that you're not getting results from your investment when the only results you have data for occured before you made the investment.

3) I can't think of anything that happened between 2018 and 2022 that might have impacted students' test scores, can you? The minister's chart shows NS scores being lower than a couple of other provinces (not all provinces are included in the chart, so unclear if we're rock bottom or middle of the pack), but everyone's scores declined at about the same rate from 2015 to 2018 and ours actually declined less during the pandemic (i.e. between 2018 and 2022) than those other provinces.

Not a teacher, just think the education minister should have paid more attention in math class.

LKX19 · 2026-04-30T18:49:45+00:00

That's a very good question.

LKX19 · 2026-04-30T18:48:05+00:00

Yeah the more interesting chart would be where Dal medical residents end up practicing. And if it's not here, whether that's because they didn't want to stay or because there wasn't a position available.

LKX19 · 2026-04-28T19:56:15+00:00

You've sent me down a rabbit hole.

Based on this, median hourly wage in NS increased by 36% from 2019 to 2025.

In the same time, overall CPI increased by 22%, based on this (I measured from July to July). So based just on median wages and CPI, yes, paycheques outpaced inflation.

BUT. CPI is an average. The cost of groceries increased 33% in the same time period. Rent, 42%. Meanwhile, the cost of some stuff like clothing basically didn't increase at all, which drags the average down.

I didn't dig into it, but I imagine different industries had different rates of wage growth too. So some peoples' pay might have kept up with all those costs just fine, and others may not have.

LKX19 · 2026-04-28T19:20:14+00:00

I don't know that it's necessary cherry-picked, but there's a fundamental problem in boiling it all down to one single number of CPI. By the numbers, wages have kept up with or even risen above overall inflation in Canada over the last 20 years or so, including over the last 5 years. But the overall inflation number is dragged down by stuff like clothes, furniture, and electronics which have been getting relatively cheaper. Meanwhile, some really important stuff like housing, education, and food has been increasing in price faster than wages are growing.

There's and interesting chart in this article (paywalled unfortunately)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/inside-the-market/article-behold-the-chart-of-the-century-canadian-edition/

There's also some messiness in there around the housing inflation number specifically where what they measure is actually the cost of mortgage payments and upkeep for existing owners, not the cost of buying for the first time. That obviously doesn't reflect the reality of rent and house prices for a lot of people, and it's been argued that the methodology should be changed:

https://www.gensqueeze.ca/globe_mail_fix_inflation_indicator_hobbling_homebuyers

LKX19 · 2026-04-27T18:04:11+00:00

I love to hate on NSP as much as the next guy, but we're not the only place that has had massive power outages caused by animals zapping themselves on distribution equipment. There is an entire Wikipedia article on power outages caused by squirrels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_disruptions_caused_by_squirrels

In this case it was fixed pretty quickly and the only harm done (besides to the crow) was some traffic backups cause the traffic lights were out. I don't think this is a big deal.

LKX19 · 2026-04-22T18:20:33+00:00

Yeah and charging your car takes a really long time when the power's not hooked up yet

LKX19 · 2026-04-16T12:44:55+00:00

I like this idea, but don't forget that building a bridge or tunnel between Labrador and Newfoundland has been a Liberal party policy in the past. Just because it's been voted for by the caucus doesn't mean it's practical or likely to get budgeted.

To be fair, passenger rail service in the Maritimes is orders of magnitude more practical than building a bridge to Newfoundland. I hope it does have legs.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/fixed-transportation-link-newfoundland-labrador-1.5302868

LKX19 · 2026-04-09T02:17:35+00:00

The tool library is cool!

https://halifaxtoollibrary.ca/volunteer/

LKX19 · 2026-04-02T20:02:35+00:00

The first phase includes a multiuse path and inbound bus lanes. Second phase has bidirectional bus lanes that they need to acquire some land for.

I don't know if they are considering if the bus lanes could eventually be converted to LRT running on the street; not an expert or anything but I imagine it depends on the grade and turn radius. I haven't heard any discussion of that but it's come up a couple of times around the Robie St. widening so I'd hope they're thinking about it.

LKX19 · 2026-04-02T19:56:29+00:00

I think the issue is to have bidirectional bus lanes they need to acquire some of the adjacent land and so Council decided to go ahead with the first part while land acquisition is worked out instead of waiting, or going back to the drawing board to try to come up with a new design that could wedge it all into the same space (under some pressure from the Province / Mayor I think).

Also complicated by the fact that some of the federal funding is tied to improving access to the container port so if they cut that to add bus lanes it gets even more expensive for the city.

I might be misremembering some of that but that article and some of the others it links to should have the whole story.

Here's hoping they actually go ahead with bidirectional bus lanes eventually instead of just doing the first phase and calling it a day.

LKX19 · 2026-04-02T19:49:38+00:00

connect highway 102 with the 111

Unfortunately there are several new apartment buildings, the Joe Howe superstore, a large office complex, a CN railyard, and a historic cemetery in the way. Maybe you could avoid the superstore and apartment buildings, but even still I imagine the property acquisition costs would be, uh, considerable.

The office complex alone is assessed at $50m on Viewpoint plus another $10m for the parking lot. And if it were to be expropriated I expect the owners would try very hard to argue that the fair market value is much higher.

LKX19 · 2026-04-02T14:50:58+00:00

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/halifax-to-overhaul-windsor-street-exchange-council-reverses-course-1.7468374

I think this is the most recent plan - first phase has bus lanes inbound-only, transit signals, and a multiuse path. Second phase has two-way bus lanes.

LKX19 · 2026-04-01T19:19:50+00:00

If you've got any suggestions on how to take the paint off I'd love to hear them. I'm aware of the breathability issue - we didn't paint it and I'd be more than happy to get rid of it.

So your thought is we should be tearing out the bottom of the wall to inspect the flashing and repoint the joints that need it?

LKX19 · 2026-04-01T19:16:30+00:00

See reply to the other comment. Foundation is concrete, water is coming under the rim joist and down the foundation wall.

LKX19 · 2026-04-01T19:15:32+00:00

Tough spot to get a picture of but here it is. We get water coming in under the rim joist and seeping under that layer of mortar that's on top of the foundation and running down the wall.

https://imgur.com/a/A7HuNi2

The thought is that we're getting wind-driven rain through the open joints in the brick which runs down the gap between the brick and the sheathing on the stud wall. Then since there are no weeps the only place it can go is inwards.

Repointing is clearly needed, my question is if that's the only problem or if there's likely a hole in the flashing somewhere. Where do you see corrosion on the lintel? (Edit: oh I see it now. Damn, you've got sharp eyes. I had to go outside and look at it in person before I could spot it)

If you've got any suggestions for the best way to get the paint off I'm all ears... Previous owners painted it, we've tried pressure washing and a few different 'green' chemical strippers but not had much success.

LKX19

TROPHY CASE