An atomic power plant in the Peace country may or may not have something to do with Cheney's visit. But it sure as hell has something to do with the Athabasca Tar Sands. It's going to take a lot of electricity to cook the oil out of that glop, and the Americans are going to insist on our cooking it and shipping it.
In the lecture referred to here, Maude Barlow recalls a Far Side cartoon in which dogs on a life-raft vote to eat all the rations right away--that's just how capitalist/consumerist society is treating the Earth's dwindling resources, she says. No more oil with which to destroy the balance of nature? Then we'll make some, the dirtiest way we know how.