Quote:
Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg
from FreePress today, #'s employees seems really high, but boy oh boy w the current environmental push, how does this not happen and soon
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/bu...nt-in-manitoba
The German company RCT Solutions GmbH wants to build North America’s largest solar panel manufacturing operation in Manitoba using the pure quartz silica that Sio Silica hopes to produce here.
Sio Silica — which has raised concerns of environmentalists in southeast Manitoba about its potential to harm local water supply — would require $150 million in investment and eventually employ about 100 people.
RCT’s proposed solar panel plant — which needs the pure quartz silica produced by Sio Silica — would be a $3 billion investment eventually requiring a workforce of 8,000 people.
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I read this article. Exciting on the surface, but to my uneducated mind a few red flags. Sio still needs $150 million in investment to build their plant, which seems to be necessary before RTC Solutions build theirs. If it's on the up-and-up I have no problem with the province ponying up some $$, as it seems to be the kind of development the province needs.
The RCT investors are apparently playing the "hurry up or we'll take our $$ elsewhere" card. Of course, this may or not be a bluff, but I always get a little ill when extortion is part of the process. Still, the potential benefits are enormous, and I think the Conservatives need to prove how "business savvy" they always
claim to be by doing some rapid but thorough due diligence.
As for the environmental review, on the surface the concerns for clean water are legitimate on their own, but I would hate to see a potentially huge financial
and environmental benefit be kiboshed by a handful of people who put themselves above the province and, in this case, the global evironment.