Hearings into power rate increases are on again, and the talkback lines crackle with the usual dismay. "When will it stop?" comes the plaintive cry.

"I can't afford to both heat and eat."

"Business will be crippled."

"Why can't the government do something?"

Some answers. First, it's not going to stop. Not until we're into another mode of energy and things stabilize.

And the government is, in fact, doing something: caving in to public and business pressure to keep rates from rising faster. But that just damages its policy of moving Nova Scotia to the world of energy efficiency and alternatives where we need to be.

We should ban these outside energy experts. Every time one shows up at a Utility and Review Board hearing to remind us how muddled our energy practices are, it makes us look bad. This time it's about the planned $200-million-plus wood-burning power plant at Port Hawkesbury.

As if it wasn't enough that the project will devastate the forest even more than it already is, that burning wood is apparently as bad as burning coal and won't reduce greenhouse gas, and that a similar plant in New England was apparently built for half the projected cost, along comes U.S. renewable energy consultant Barry Sheingold to tell us that Nova Scotia Power Inc. hasn't done its homework on the project.