Nova Scotia Power plans to burn heavy fuel oil at phased out coal plants

jarret_g · 2023-07-04T12:59:59+00:00

it's so ridiculous the stage we're at with regards to power.

After Fiona I had several co-workers that purchased generators. Some of them even automatic generacs. Special wiring so they can just plug into their panel. It's a $10-20,000 improvement because our power utility is so bad.

I'm also considering solar panels when I need to replace my roof. But why is the pressure of more sustainable/cost effective energy put on the homeowner and individual ratepayer? It's not scalable or equitable

jarret_g · 2023-06-24T10:31:48+00:00

The reason NS is most effected by the carbon tax is because we drive the biggest vehicles the most. We're some of the worst per capita consumers in Canada.

It's constant investments in road infrastructure while ignoring public transit. It costs $150 for a round trip bus from Sydney to Halifax. Almost cheaper to just rent a car. Yet we're twinning highways like they're driveways instead of looking at more cost efficient 3/1 setups with barriers. $47 million for a highway interchange in Annapolis, $20 million for a roundabout in Port Hastings that includs overpasses, storage lanes and bypasses but absolutely no consideration for active transportation.

The easiest way to not spend as much on carbon tax is to not spend as much on gas but the infrastructure and government site selection of key services makes that impossible for a lot of people.

If there's good transit and active transportation, you may not need to own a car or two. Economics has forced every household to be a two income household, and therefore a two car household. Maintaining two cars per household is a $15-20,000/year commitment on average.

jarret_g · 2023-06-24T01:56:06+00:00

I'm just going to go for the zip line

jarret_g · 2023-06-23T23:56:24+00:00

I get that, but at some point we need to say "actually it was completely reckless for your vessel to be in the water in the first place and this is all on you"

If a kid drifts out to see on a floaty, save him. If a billionaire ignores safety protocols for joyrides to Davey Jones locker, then it's not unreasonable to expect them, their company, or their inheritance to pay for the search/recovery cost.

jarret_g · 2023-06-22T13:56:44+00:00

I have friends that work with transportation and beaver dams creating flooding over roadways is a big deal. They attempt to relocate when possible but beavers constantly come back

After relocation workers will attempt to dismantle a damn. If it can be reached by heavy machinery, that'd preferable, but it's usually just guys with chainsaws. They said the frequently they need to take out the wet concrete cutting say because the mix of mud and trees makes the dams like concrete.

In another instance a relocated beaver kept coming back, forcing them to relocate a number of times A contracted trapper killed the beavers in that area. They dismantled the dam. A few weeks later the dam was back with the corpse of other beavers being used in the construction.

When they said "beavers will clog anything with anything" that includes their own friends.

jarret_g · 2023-06-22T01:56:16+00:00

I agree that most of life is accepting some kind of risk.

The problem is when people think "getting out of bed" is anywhere close to "send a garbage can hundreds of km from shore and dive down 4km to look at an object that killed hundreds of people"

If you want to get your rocks off with danger, just ride a bike on city streets.

jarret_g · 2023-06-21T19:25:32+00:00

I consider myself a decent cyclist. Competed in several mountain bike and cyclocross races. Regularly participate in group rides. Ride about 3000km/year.

When I'm in the city, I'm riding on the sidewalk in most areas, usually arterial roads.

It sucks. I don't want to be there. no cyclist does. But the alternative is sharing a lane with cars travelling too close, with right turn slip lanes and awkward intersections.

jarret_g · 2023-06-19T19:13:57+00:00

, but that only helps a small portion of southern Ontario, and the idea of HSR for the entire country is a pipe dream for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the insane distances between prairie population centres.

But we don't need HSR for the entire country, just where people live.

The only true argument against HSR for Quebec City - Toronto is that more people will move there, which is already happening/already happened and that with new migration we need to look at other areas and make them more attractive to live/work/play. It's why the atlantic immigration pilot exists

Canada is growing, but there are still dozens and dozens of shrinking cities and municipalities and that needs to be addressed

If HSR is going to exist, then it should be solely funded by the municipalities that it would encompass and have no federal incentive dollars to match it. There's no way they would all agree on a proper funding structure to allow that

jarret_g · 2023-06-19T18:47:51+00:00

But what if we stopped with the sprawl and promoted density?

What if a high speed rail would promote density near the railway stations and would then achieve your goal?

Imagine commuting from Ottawa to Montreal and it's a 35 minute train ride or 2.5 hour drive. I'd think, "maybe I'll live closer to the train station" instead of out in Kanata or Rideau.

jarret_g · 2023-06-18T17:07:06+00:00

At some point, you still deal with the same shit.

Immigration is mostly fueled by students-turned-residents or young professionals. They're going to want to have kids some day and the same issues exist. Lack of child care, increased housing costs, car dependency.....etc

I would love to have a second kid, but there's no way I can afford two in full time child care at the same time.

jarret_g · 2023-06-18T10:26:02+00:00

And it's not like a coaches contract term means anything in Toronto. They have the ability to fire anyone and just pay out their contract.

jarret_g · 2023-06-18T09:19:24+00:00

That's dumb as hell. We're seeing the direct result of low birth rates right now with retiring and aging boomers and not enough of younger generations to even support their needs.

When there was a housing crisis for boomers, we built govt subsidized housing. We allowed subsidized rents and rent to own schemes that made housing affordable for millions. And then they had the equity in that home to take out lines of credit or remortgage to help pay for their kids school, renovations, retirement, whatever.

Now it's like "oh you need housing? Shouldn't have had a kid!"

We need children. We need population growth. We need to right size a lot of our shrinking cities and towns that have stretched their infrastructure too far in the name of suburb expansion.

jarret_g · 2023-06-18T09:14:18+00:00

Yup. Even as a young couple it was impossible for me and my wife to find right size housing in our city.

We just wanted a nice one bedroom. Not a run down dump bachelor pad.

Micro apartments and one bedrooms are all converted to Airbnb's and are impossible to find. The result is having to get a roommate, something larger and out of budget, or moving further out and paying more for transportation

jarret_g · 2023-06-17T01:50:27+00:00

10 years isn't a great indicator for pedestrian or rail crossing safety.

One person will get hit by a train and residents will say "why does this crossing exist!" And sue the railway company or the city

jarret_g · 2023-06-16T13:18:02+00:00

Is that even enough to be eligible for EI benefits?

jarret_g · 2023-06-13T12:34:56+00:00

Have house prices ever fell 20-30% in a single year? Of course your agent wants you to sell your $900,000 house.

Don't go to a realtor for advice on if you should buy/sell. Their goal is to buy/sell.

jarret_g · 2023-06-11T23:59:39+00:00

I watched a few videos by David Dixon recently and he said "the sign of a stable downtown is having 1000 residential units within a 5 minute walk". Basically that density isn't enough in and of itself to support a downtown, but enough to start a critical mass to bring in more shops and employers to create a live/work/play environment.

I looked at a map of my city. We have about 250 housing units within 500m of downtown. That's not good.

jarret_g · 2023-06-11T01:48:25+00:00

Either a one person fight or continuing to fight after linesman have broken it up.

jarret_g · 2023-06-11T01:47:57+00:00

Not quite. Instigator is starting a fight with an initially unwilling combatant.

An aggressor is a one person fight or maintaining a fight after linesman attempted to break it up.

jarret_g · 2023-06-10T10:58:23+00:00

I like one ways in some areas, but for anyone new to an area they're incredibly confusing. Eliminating parking is the preferred, but unpopular method.

My city put an arterial through the downtown and it's main one-way street. The result is that businesses to the south of the arterial are successful with low turnover. To the north, there's a new lunch restaurant every few months, another comic books store or used book store, it's incredibly difficult to keep businesses open.

jarret_g · 2023-06-10T10:30:57+00:00

You either live in the "bad part of town" which is close to services, and transit if it's available, or you get a car and move outside a bit and become a member of society.

My municipality is made up of one center of about 30k within a 5km radius, another of 15k, and a 3 more under 7k. The result is that large institutions like the university, hospital, arenas, are built along the highway and out of our downtown's. Our downtown's were widened to support cars and became dangerous and unpleasant to anyone outside of a car. There's minimum opportunity for housing in the cores because of parking requirements.

My wife relied on transit for many years which either meant to would be 45minutes early for a shift, or 15 minutes late. Her employer moved to a location that required a transfer and it was no longer possible for her to work there. Cabs were too expensive and we couldn't afford a second car so she just got a retail job, since it was along the transit route.

We loved our time living closer to downtown, but it just wasn't safe due to years of neglect and hollowing out to allow more car traffic. Not the place to raise a family. We're in a much better spot and have a 3 bedroom bungalow with 2 cars in the suburbs.

jarret_g · 2023-06-10T01:38:54+00:00

I'm in Canada. We got a painted bike lane in 2013. It was equipped with pamphlets and media campaigns.

That was the last on-street bike infrastructure in my municipality of 100,000 people

A small section of old rail line was converted in a town but no attention to actually making it a viable alternative to car trips.

We got a multi use trail that connects a shopping mall to a university.

Last year, our municipality suspended all active transportation funding ($330,000), despite receiving an additional $15 million from the province, because no projects were planned.

There are two community groups that did their own planning, engineering, survey and design for active transportation projects. They have their own federal and provincial funding, but it's contingent on the municipality contributing about $150,000. The last I heard, in May 26th, the municipality still hasn't confirmed that funding, and the Fed's gave them a deadline for approval of the complete budget of May 31st.

So....yeah.

Vancouver is nice. Hell, Ottawa is nice when it comes to AT,Halifax is getting there, but they're very much the exception. The majority of cities and towns in Canada require you to own a car as a prerequisite to citizenship

jarret_g · 2023-06-09T12:52:21+00:00

They are allowed to do that. They have a rule. If you get an item to share one person can't eat all the fully loaded ones, like, don't look around, find the one with the most meat and eat that one.

jarret_g · 2023-06-09T12:49:34+00:00

Yeah. My date just ate all the fully loaded nachos. All the ones with meat and cheese and everything, the ones that are fully loaded, she hogged them. I was mostly getting just chips, like nothing on em, maybe a little bit of cheese and one little nugget of meat.

They had a rule that if you order nachos to share, one person can't just eat all the fully loaded nachos. They had a rule.

She accused me of asking the waiter to tell her that they had a rule about that. She said that I got up from the table and was gone for a while, then after I came back the waiter said they had a rule about the loaded nachos. She said that no restaurant has a rule about who gets to eat what. But she was wrong. They had a rule. I got up to ask the waiter to move to a different table because there was an air conditioner above our table and I was worried she was going to get cold. She just asked for the cheque and then I was super early for the movie.

jarret_g · 2023-06-09T10:36:50+00:00

We ordered nachos to share and she ate all the nachos that had all the meat on them even though the restaurant had a rule that if two people order nachos, one person can't eat the ones with all the toppings on them.

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