Latest news with #Ledwidge
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Province promises more wood heat, wood buildings in wake of Northern Pulp selling off assets
Days after Nova Scotia's forestry sector was dealt a major blow, the province is promising to use more wood to heat and construct public buildings — although officials deny any connection between the two developments. Two cabinet ministers made the announcement Thursday at Ledwidge Lumber, a sawmill in Elmsdale, N.S. Public Works Minister Fred Tilley said every government department is being directed to look for opportunities to use wood products that are leftover after trees have been harvested and milled for lumber. The products could include mass timber, wood pellets, biomass and biofuels. Tilley said the move was driven by the province's desire to become more self-reliant, reduce fossil fuel use and produce more locally-made construction materials. "Local wood products are going to be a big part of our solution," Tilley said. The announcement came three days after news that officials with Northern Pulp were abandoning plans for a possible new mill and bioproducts hub that would have been constructed near Liverpool around the site of the former Bowater paper mill. Until its original mill shut down five years ago, Northern Pulp bought up large quantities of low-grade wood products from woodlots across the region. The mill's closure left the industry searching for new markets, and hoping the operators would restart. Earlier this week, Northern Pulp officials said they had completed a feasibility study of a proposed project in Liverpool, N.S., and found it would not achieve the targeted 14 per cent rate of return. "This is not in response to the announcement of Northern Pulp," said Natural Resources Minister Tory Rushton. "This is one of many things that have been in the breadbasket to work on for low-grade wood fibre and our forestry sector. This has been worked on for some time," he said. The province said it will launch a procurement in the near future to get new wood-fired heating systems for buildings and district heat projects, which are multiple buildings using a shared heating system. It's also promising to review its policies to ensure wood heat and construction are considered in all projects and that there are no barriers to their use. Rushton and Tilley could not say how long this work would take or what it could cost. Doug Ledwidge, the president of Ledwidge Lumber, endorsed the province's efforts, noting the challenge the Canada-U.S. trade dispute has created for his industry. Forest Nova Scotia estimates the industry exports about $600 million of products to the U.S. every year. "Local is a good place to sell our products," Ledwidge said. Ledwidge Lumber is working on a new biofuel project that would use shavings, sawdust and pulp chips from its sawmill to create a liquid heating fuel. Ledwidge said he would be "pretty happy" to see the province buy the product for hospitals or schools. He said it's difficult for the forestry industry to practise ecological forestry — a system adopted by the previous Liberal government — without the market that Northern Pulp provided, but projects such as this help. "By no means is it the same volume, but it's chipping away at it," said Ledwidge. Ledwidge Lumber is also a partner in a startup called Mass Timber Company, which is aiming to build a plant in Elmsdale to produce mass timber — an engineered wood product — to be used in building construction. Patrick Crabbe, Mass Timber Company's president and CEO, said the plant could be built in two to two-and-a-half years. It is still contingent on financing. He lauded the province's new commitment to wood products, calling it "an exemplary effort." Court documents shed light on Northern Pulp's plans Meanwhile, lawyers for Northern Pulp were in a British Columbia courtroom on Thursday where they received approval for a plan to extend creditor protection while preparations continue to auction off the outfit's Nova Scotia assets. Documents filed as part of that process include the pre-feasibility assessment for the Liverpool project, which ultimately led to the determination the idea was not viable. According to the document, the project capacity would have struck "a balance between the available wood resources in Nova Scotia and the critical scale needed to be competitive on the pulp markets." A conventional pulp mill would have a rate of return below six per cent, according to the document. Northern Pulp said a new project needed to generate a rate of return of 14 per cent. "Instead, the Liverpool Project would need to monetize the full value of fibre and become a state-of-the-art biorefinery producing pulp, electricity, biochemical byproducts and capture carbon," reads the document. The price tag would have been $3.7 billion and that would not have been enough to reach the 14 per cent rate of return, according to the report. The project would have been a "first-of-a-kind for Canada and the rest of the world." "Furthermore, recent developments in global pulp markets point to a prolonged downcycle risk that would make the assumed selling price in the financial model unattainable, at least for the first years after the potential commissioning." Of Northern Pulp's assets in this province, perhaps the most significant is almost 200,000 hectares of timberlands. MORE TOP STORIES
France 24
18-06-2025
- Politics
- France 24
What Iran's reprisals against Israel reveal of its ballistic missile capabilities
Tehran reportedly planned to rain 1,000 missiles down on Israel in response to the launch of military strikes on Iran. So far, Iran has managed to fire around 350 missiles, according to estimates published by the Israeli media citing the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). 'As of now, Iran's counterattacks don't seem to be very effective … I think the missile threat turns out to be, to some extent, overstated,' says Pieter Wezeman, a researcher with the Arms Transfers Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Before Israel launched its offensive, Iran's missile arsenal was considered one of its principal sources of deterrence. '[Iran's deterrence] was very much based on two legs. One leg – which had been significantly, let's say, disturbed or destroyed by Israel – was the so-called proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas and their ability to fire missiles and do other things. And the other significant leg was the missile force,' says Wezeman, who has written about the threat posed by missile proliferation throughout the Middle East. Estimates vary, but 'Israeli intelligence – the best information on this subject – had put the number [of Iranian missiles] at 3,000 or so before the war', says Frank Ledwidge, a specialist in military capabilities and strategy at the University of Portsmouth in the UK. This impressive number of missiles would mean that Iran had 'the largest stockpile in the Middle East', Australian public broadcaster ABC News reported, citing the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But this new war with Israel has shown a gap between theory and practice. First, the Israeli army targeted the infrastructure necessary for Iran to fire its missiles right from the start of hostilities. 'I would say that [Iran's arsenal] has now significantly been reduced – at least 50 percent,' Ledwidge says. Second, not all of Iran's missiles have the capacity to reach Israel, which is more than 1,000km from Iran. This means that only the longest-range missiles can strike the Jewish state, according to an analysis by Dutch researcher Ralph Savelsberg for the BreakingDefense website on June 13. Variants of Soviet-era Scud missiles developed by Iran are able to reach targets at a maximum range of less than 700km. Among the devices capable of hitting Israel are those "based on collaborations with North Korea, such as the Ghadr and Khorramshahr [medium-range ballistic missiles], but also advanced solid-propellant ballistic missiles,' Savelsberg writes. These are the missiles that are most dangerous for Israel and its famous air defense systems. But the nec plus ultra of Iran's ballistic arsenal does not represent the majority of missiles available. "Most are older-generation [missiles]. We're talking a few hundred of the modern ones," says Ledwidge. 'Haj Qassem' and 'Qassem Bashir' It's difficult to assess the extent to which Iran has deployed its most effective missiles so far. One thing is certain: Iran has been deploying both drones and missiles in tandem to increase their effects. "The drones essentially serve to distract Israeli defences to improve the missiles' chances of getting through," says Ledwige. 'It's a bit more complex than decoys, but [the drones] essentially soak up Israeli air defense capability,' Ledwidge says. Among the missiles that hit their targets, "those that struck Tel Aviv on Monday were likely the most modern versions of Iranian hypersonic missiles", Ledwige says. These include the "Fattah" models, which are among the fastest, as well as weapons that Tehran had apparently never used before. Iran has claimed since Sunday to have fired two relatively recent models – the Haj Qassem and Qassem Bashir missiles – that are capable of defeating the world's best air defense systems, including Israeli missile shields and the US-made Patriot system. The former was developed in 2021 and named in honour of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards' elite Al-Quds Force who was assassinated in a 2020 US drone strike. The Qassem Bashir was unveiled in May. These new missiles offer more advantages: their speed – they can reach Mach 5, or more than 6,000 km/h – and the fact that they are powered by solid, rather than liquid, propellant. Having engines running on solid fuel "makes them easier to transport, hide, and faster to deploy', Wezeman says, because the missiles don't need to be fuelled up just before firing. Theory vs. Practice These new missiles offer another advantage. 'The hypersonic missiles (which go beyond speeds of Mach 5) of course have a manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle," says Ledwidge. In other words, they are harder to intercept, in that they can adjust their trajectory – either because they are remotely controlled, or because they are partially autonomous, meaning they can change course just before reaching the target co-ordinates based on the defensive measures deployed to counter them, Wezeman explained. In theory, then, this type of missile could indeed defeat any anti-aircraft system – but everything depends on execution. "As of now, Iran's counterattacks don't seem to be very effective, or as effective as they said. Israeli defenses have intercepted most of them," Wezeman says. Analysts are sceptical that Iran is saving its most powerful missiles for later in the conflict in the hopes of not further escalating tensions. 'Iran is not making a strong impression [militarily] at the moment," says Wezeman. "It cannot afford to look weak. So we could assume they are using their best missiles." Ledwidge says that, strategically, saving the best for last makes little sense. "it's better to use your best weapons at the beginning – before Israel destroys them – since they are priority targets," he says.
Miami Herald
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Has Russia Moved Strategic Aviation Nearer to Alaska? What We Know
Russia has likely not moved one of its nuclear-capable heavy bombers further from Ukraine, analysts and satellite imagery indicate after reports suggested Moscow had transferred one of its hefty Tu-160 supersonic aircraft closer to Alaska following extensive Ukrainian strikes on Russian airfields. Ukraine said it hit 41 of Russia's expensive, hard-to-replace warplanes on June 1 in a meticulously timed operation across three different time zones using drones smuggled over the border. Ukrainian outlet Defence Express reported on Thursday that Russia had relocated one of its Tu-160 strategic bombers to the Anadyr airfield in Russia's far eastern Chukotka region, citing satellite imagery captured by the European Space Agency's Sentinel satellites on June 4. Satellite imagery provided to Newsweek by Planet Labs, captured of Anadyr on May 26 - prior to the audacious Ukrainian strikes - showed three aircraft lined up on the main apron. The image, while low quality, does not indicate the presence of the distinctively shaped Tu-160s, analysts said. A separate image from June 3 showed four aircraft on the main apron of the base, but none of the aircraft - including the one that appeared since May 26 - appear to be the world's heaviest operational bomber, experts told Newsweek. It is fairly standard practice for militaries to move aircraft around and may not indicate anything more than a "sensible approach to looking after your aircraft," said Frank Ledwidge, a senior lecturer in Law and War Studies at Portsmouth University in the U.K. and a former British military intelligence officer. Under the New START Treaty limiting nuclear weapons, strategic bombers have to be kept out in the open, Ledwidge added. Russia will likely move around its aircraft more following the success of the Ukrainian strikes, retired Air Marshal Greg Bagwell, a former senior commander in the U.K.'s Royal Air Force, told Newsweek. Kyiv said after the strikes, it had targeted at least one of Moscow's scarce A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft and several long-range, nuclear-capable bombers across four air bases thousands of miles apart. Russia reported drone assaults on five bases, including strikes on a long-range aviation hub in the country's far east that Kyiv did not publicly acknowledge. One Ukrainian official said 13 aircraft had been destroyed. Satellite imagery from the Siberian air base of Belaya and Olenya, an Arctic base in Murmansk-just two of the targeted bases-showed several destroyed Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers. Ukraine said it had also attacked the Ivanovo airbase northeast of Moscow and Dyagilevo in the Ryazan region. The Belaya airfield sits just shy of 3,000 miles from Ukraine. At least six Russian Tu-95MS and four Tu-22M3 aircraft appear to have been destroyed, Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow for airpower at the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said in recent days. While unlikely to hack away at how many aerial assaults Russia can mount on Ukraine, the simultaneous strikes known as Operation Spiderweb caused roughly $7 billion in damage, according to Kyiv, and exposed how vulnerable airfields and their aircraft now are to drone strikes while landing an embarrassing slap on the Kremlin. U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin had "very strongly" insisted he would retaliate for the strikes. The main base in Russian territory where the operation was masterminded was "directly next to" an FSB regional headquarters, Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said as he praised the "brilliant" operation. Russia's FSB domestic security agency is the main descendant of the Soviet-era KGB. Russia used a Tu-160 in intensive overnight missile and drone strikes across Ukraine, Kyiv's air force said on Friday. Moscow fired more than 400 attack drones, six ballistic missiles, 38 cruise missiles and one anti-radar air-to-surface missile at the war-torn country overnight, according to the air force. Ukraine's military separately said on Friday it had hit Dyagilevo in fresh strikes and the Engels long-range aviation hub in the Saratov region. Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email. Related Articles G7 Invite for Modi Signals India's Growing Weight for Democratic AllianceRussia Offers Political Asylum to Elon Musk Over Trump FeudRussia Reacts to Trump's 'Young Children Fighting' CommentUS Demands 'End' to Military Cooperation Between North Korea and Russia 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
