Le Penseur,

Not half-bad (meaning very good) a post from your evil twin, Pear3 SH poster. Got to give him an excellent rating for being able to see right through the veils.

Yup, somebody and his government are in a tight situation, "rock and hard place". He had good words for CLF all along, and are still generously spinkling that name in his discussion of the plan for RoF development. It would appear that this could be part of the veils he is using to protect some sensitive private dealings with CLF. Reportedly, one of the deals was the matching fund of $600M from the governemnt to build CLF private road for monster trucks on KWG claims. The other is the subsidized electricity rate for CLF proposed electric arc furnace, link below.

http://www.cliffsnaturalresources.com/EN/NewsCenter/factcenter/Documents/FC_CliffsChromiteProject_042013.pdf

Electric arc furnace is an electricity guzzler, hence CLF would require some kind of subsidy from the government (or else, CLF would pack up and move the furnace to Quebec or Manitoba). Electricity rate subsidy has been openly discussed by the responsible Minister and there has been indication that the government would go along with CLF request for low rates. Since the power requirement is in about 350MW (about 300 wind turbines would be required to generate this amount of power assuming the turbines can generate ~1 MW/each). More on wind turbines/green energy later.

Let's assume for discussion purposes that the Ontario consumers are now paying $0.07/kWh and CLF has a subsidized rate from the government is $0.05/kWh (i.e. a subsidy of $0.02/kWh), then the cost to government (read taxpayers) would be ~$50M/year for 350MW capacity. Math: 350,000kW (350MW) x 7200hrs/yr (300 days/yr) x $0.02/kWh =$50M/yr (Is my math OK?), or $0.5B over a period of 10yrs.

The above is for a 2 cents/kWh subsidy. If we bring in wind power in the equation (Ontario Hydro is paying green power producers exorbitant rates, as directed by the government. Take 85 cents/kWh as an example, the "subsidy" to support CLF smelter would amount to $0.5B x (85-5)/2 = a whopping $20B over a 10 year period (compared to the government $1B comitment for the RoF infrastructure development over the 10 year period).

Green energy would add a bit more complexity to the subsidy discussion, see a recent (2 June 2014) Financial Post article below.

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/06/02/ontarios-power-trip-irrational-energy-planning-tripling-power-rates-under-the-liberals-direction/

To wrap up, not sure if all these sweetheart deals with CLF were documented in some e-mails (which may someday surface). If so, the government would want CLF to go belly up, so that the proposed chromite project would die along with it, ... then the "problem" involving electricity subsidy/private road matching fund commitments to CLF would just go away. During the meantime, for legal protection somebody just keeps on sprinking CLF's name and would avoid mentioning KWG.

Just my take.

goldhunter