The energy minister cautions this is temporary — for now — while the Ontario Power Authority prepares a new plan for the North built around a doubling in capacity of the east-west tie line to 600 MW. If you add 680 MW available from the region’s hydro-electric operations, Atikokan’s 20 MW and 32 MW from the still-proposed Big Thunder Wind Park you’ve got just about enough, with a small margin, to supply the expanding mining industry’s needs by 2016 when much of it is expected to begin production

We’re willing to wait on the OPA report but we’re with Thunder Bay and Northwest leaders in saying that if those numbers aren’t rock solid in terms of supply, the Thunder Bay plant conversion must continue on schedule