Energy

Photographic postcard of a miner operating a long wall machine. (Source: Beaton Institute Digital Archives https://beatoninstitute.com/)

A Short History of Blame: Accident Reports from NS Mines

August 16, 2017 at 11:40 am

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of essays by Susan Dodd on Nova Scotia’s history of blaming coal mining accidents on the miners themselves — a history that finally changed in the wake of the Westray disaster. You can read second and third and fourth essays by clicking theRead More

CB Post Downplays Donkin Safety Issues

CB Post Downplays Donkin Safety Issues

August 9, 2017 at 12:04 pm

News that the owners of the Donkin Mine have been hit with 29 safety violations and 10 compliance orders since operations began in February received markedly different coverage from the CBC and our local, pro-coal, daily newspaper. Here’s the story as it appeared on the CBC website: And here’s theRead More

Mushroom cloud above Nagasaki after atomic bombing on August 9, 1945. Taken from the north west. Charles Levy from one of the B-29 Superfortresses used in the attack. (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Heeding the Message of Nagasaki

August 9, 2017 at 12:03 pm

At 11:02 A.M. on 9 August 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped a single bomb on the Japanese port city of Nagasaki. The bomb, nicknamed ‘Fat Man,’ contained a baseball of plutonium surrounded by 64 packs of high-explosive, timed to compress the warhead to a critical mass. As Susan SouthardRead More

New Waterford No. 12 Colliery/Westray

Donkin Mine Violations: Failures of ‘Learning?’

August 9, 2017 at 12:02 pm

“It was tragedies like that, unfortunately, that led to better health and safety regulations in the mines and made it a lot safer for generations to come,” said Bob Burchell, the United Mine Workers of America’s (UMWA) interim international representative for Canada, on the eve of a July 25 ceremonyRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 9, 2017 at 9:00 am

Ban the Bomb If Spectator contributor Sean Howard has raised your awareness (and the hairs on the back of your neck) about nuclear weapons and the need for disarmament, you may well be wondering, “But what can I do?” (Other, of course, than dismantling your own stock of intercontinental ballisticRead More

Why Muskrat Falls Could Make Newfoundland Hate Us

Why Muskrat Falls Could Make Newfoundland Hate Us

June 7, 2017 at 12:20 pm

I’ve been trying to educate myself on the Muskrat Falls issue and if I’ve learned nothing else, my fellow Nova Scotians, I’ve learned this: Newfoundlanders are probably going to hate us by the time this thing is through. Yes, all that resentment currently focused on Quebec, which has been buying powerRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

May 5, 2017 at 10:15 am

Economic Development I heard CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke discussing economic development with Steve Sutherland on CBC Cape Breton’s Information Morning on Thursday [The interview is no longer available online]. The mayor raised a number of issues I will write about in greater detail in next week’s edition — chief among them, hisRead More

By Frank J. (Frank John) Aleksandrowicz, 1921-, Photographer (NARA record: 8452210) (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

That ’70s Crisis

March 22, 2017 at 12:50 pm

“Tartan and coal” proclaimed the front page of the Cape Breton Post, rather cryptically, on Saturday and I couldn’t resist trying to guess what the headline referred to before I actually read the article: the world’s worst ice cream flavor? Sydney Academy’s Class of ’57 prom theme? Alexander Graham Bell’s terriers?  Read More

Bernie Sanders, Cape Breton's Magazine, Maggie MacDonnell

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

March 22, 2017 at 12:30 pm

Bernie in coal country McDowell County, West Virginia is coal country. Although they got into the game a little later than we did here in Cape Breton — their first large-scale mines were developed in the mid-1800s — they made up for lost time and by the 1950s were regularlyRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

March 1, 2017 at 12:30 pm

Old King Coal I was so puzzled today when I reached into my mailbox and pulled out a 1720 edition of The Cape Breton Post.  “King coal” screamed the headline on the front page. Hallelujah, a coal mine has opened on the island! I searched excitedly to see what otherRead...