The last time I said “I told you so,” I was having fun.  

This time, I brought the paperwork.

Because there is an obvious problem with writing an article called I Hate to Say I Told You So. Actually, No I Don’t.

Eventually somebody gets to ask:

Okay. What exactly did you tell us? 

Fair question.

So I went back.. Not even to the launch of Bayman’s Paradox in its present form.

The intellectual trail begins in April 2022, when I encountered The Local Paradox in Grand Policy Schemes: Lessons from Newfoundland and Labrador.¹

By October 13, 2024, the central argument was appearing in my own Bayman’s Paradox material.

That date matters.

Because an “I told you so” means nothing if you start the clock immediately before the thing you claim to have anticipated.

So let's look at what was actually written — and how it aged.

RECEIPT #1: The problem was bigger than the project

2022 → October 2024

The Local Paradox identified a basic contradiction in Newfoundland development policy.

Large strategies depend on local governments and institutions capable of implementing, adapting and sometimes correcting them. But Newfoundland's local governance landscape has often lacked the resources, institutional capacity and autonomy required to develop strong strategies of its own.¹

By October 2024, I was applying that problem to international climate policy.

The early Bayman’s Paradox material asked what happens when decisions made at much larger scales arrive in rural communities with limited ability to shape what those decisions become locally.

That was before Fischells.

Before compressed-air storage.

Before salt caverns.

Before Bottom Brook entered this story.

The question was already there:

Does the place hosting development acquire greater capacity to determine what happens next?

VERDICT: SUPPORTED

Not every line from that early work has aged perfectly.

The central governance problem has.

RECEIPT #2: Stop staring at the turbine

2024 → August 2025 → September 2026

By August 2025, Behind the Green Curtain made the argument much more bluntly:

“This isn't about turbines — it's about the deals behind them.”

Bayman’s Paradox argued that Newfoundland's emerging renewable-energy economy could not be understood simply by debating turbines or individual developers.

You had to follow the markets, agreements, infrastructure and policies surrounding them.

That wasn't speculation.

Newfoundland and Labrador had lifted its Crown-land wind moratorium in 2022 while explicitly identifying industrial development, electricity export, hydrogen/ammonia production and supply to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro as possible uses for new wind generation.²

Canada and Germany subsequently signed their hydrogen alliance in Stephenville, seeking a transatlantic hydrogen supply corridor.³ Newfoundland and Labrador pursued additional relationships with Hamburg and Rotterdam around renewable-energy exports.

Then came Fischells.

The September 2026 environmental-assessment resubmission combines salt production, solution-mined caverns, compressed-air energy storage, wind generation, marine infrastructure and a transmission connection at Bottom Brook.

And the province explicitly says the new filing contains revisions to the project's “intended market focus” and exploration of potential future electricity exports.⁴

That does not establish an export contract.

It doesn't tell us who might buy the electricity.

It doesn't establish that exports will become the project's primary market.

But it establishes something Bayman’s Paradox has been asking for years:

Where the energy goes matters.

VERDICT: SUPPORTED

I didn't predict the destination.

We still don't know it.

I predicted that we should be asking the question.

RECEIPT #3: Follow the money — and the infrastructure

2025 → 2026

Bayman’s Paradox eventually moved beyond markets to another uncomfortable question:

Who actually controls the machinery that makes development possible?

When the Bank Calls the Shots focused on financing. Other articles followed ownership, ports, transmission, government policy and institutional authority.

The argument was simple.

Knowing where a project sits isn't enough.

You need to know who finances it, who owns the productive assets, who controls the infrastructure, who receives the revenue and who carries the downside if the assumptions fail.

Fischells makes those questions considerably more interesting.

This is not simply a salt mine or a wind farm.

Put its components together:

salt formation → solution mining → caverns → compressed-air storage → wind generation → transmission → Bottom Brook → Newfoundland electrical system → potential future exports.

That's an energy system.

And some of the most important commercial questions remain unanswered publicly.

We do not yet have enough information to establish the final financing structure, ultimate revenue arrangements, complete allocation of commercial risk or the eventual importance of export markets.

VERDICT: PARTLY SUPPORTED / UNRESOLVED

Bayman’s Paradox was right to say:

Follow the money. Follow the infrastructure.

We just haven't reached the end of either trail.

RECEIPT #4: Consultation is not authority

2024 → 2026

This question also predates Fischells.

The October 2024 material questioned whether stakeholder consultation necessarily amounted to meaningful local participation.

Later Bayman’s Paradox articles pushed the argument further: being invited into a process is not the same thing as possessing leverage over its outcome.

Here, the audit requires a correction.

A public consultation is not inherently fraudulent.

An opportunity to comment is not evidence that the decision has already been made.

Some of my later rhetoric occasionally pushed that argument further than the available evidence could prove.

But the narrower distinction remains important.

The environmental-assessment process gives people an opportunity to participate.

That answers:

Were people allowed to speak?

It does not necessarily answer:

What authority did they possess?

The Local Paradox makes essentially the same distinction. Meaningful local governance requires resources, institutional capacity, knowledge, legitimacy and enough autonomy to influence higher-level initiatives.¹

VERDICT: PARTLY SUPPORTED

Consultation does not necessarily equal authority: supported.

RECEIPT #5: Jobs aren't the same thing as development

2025 → today

This may be the most important argument Bayman’s Paradox hasn't yet been able to test.

Jobs matter.

Especially in western Newfoundland.

But construction employment, permanent employment and durable economic development are not interchangeable measurements.

Green Land, Empty Hands asked a different question:

What remains?

Who owns the assets?

Where do profits accumulate?

What locally owned businesses remain after construction?

What expertise stays?

What revenues continue?

Does new infrastructure make subsequent local development easier?

Does the region possess greater economic capacity afterward?

Jessica Hogan's 2025 Newfoundland wind-energy research found something remarkably compatible. Residents around existing wind developments generally showed high acceptance, but approached future development with what she calls “sceptical optimism.” Their questions included ownership, control, purpose and local benefits.⁵

Her work also complicates the argument in a useful way.

Development doesn't need thousands of permanent jobs to matter. Stable municipal revenues, a smaller number of lasting jobs, useful infrastructure and predictable economic activity can be genuinely valuable.

So the test isn't:

Did we get enough jobs?

It's:

Did development leave the place stronger than it found it?

For Fischells, nobody can answer that yet.

VERDICT: UNRESOLVED

And unresolved means unresolved.

Not “I secretly think I'm right.”

Put this receipt back in the folder.

So how did I actually do?

Pretty well.

Sorry.

But the interesting thing isn't that Bayman’s Paradox predicted Fischells.

It didn't.

I did not predict solution-mined salt caverns.

I did not predict compressed-air energy storage.

I did not predict Triple Point.

And I certainly wasn't sitting here in 2024 waiting for EA 2436.

What Bayman’s Paradox identified was the architecture around developments like this.

External markets matter.

Energy destinations matter.

Financing matters.

Ownership matters.

Infrastructure matters.

Consultation and authority aren't necessarily the same thing.

Jobs and durable economic capacity aren't necessarily the same thing.

And the ultimate measure of development isn't simply whether somebody successfully builds something.

It's what the place being developed possesses afterward.

Some of those arguments are now strongly supported.

Some are only partly supported.

Some remain wide open.

And a few of my earlier claims needed narrowing once I went back and looked at the evidence again.

Good.

That's what happens when you actually keep the receipts.

The one that matters

There is one line from the previous article worth repeating:

Bayman’s Paradox is not an argument that development must fail. It is an argument that we should know what success means before declaring that development has succeeded.

Fischells may work.

It may provide useful long-duration energy storage.

It may strengthen Newfoundland's electrical system.

It may create valuable employment and durable revenues.

Its infrastructure may eventually support economic activity that hasn't even been proposed yet.

If that happens, Bayman’s Paradox should say so.

But success cannot simply mean that somebody managed to build the thing.

After decades of operation, Newfoundland should be able to point to something more than a facility on a map:

more capacity,

more expertise,

more durable wealth,

more useful infrastructure,

stronger communities,

and greater ability to determine what gets built next.

That question was hiding inside the Local Paradox in 2022.

It was in my own work by 2024.

It ran through Bayman’s Paradox in 2025.

And now a project involving wind generation, underground salt caverns, compressed-air storage, transmission infrastructure and potential future electricity exports has managed to put almost all of those questions into one environmental-assessment file.

So yes.

I told you so.

Just not about the salt cavern.

Related Bayman’s Paradox Reading

The Local Paradox in Grand Policy Schemes: Why Resets Fail in Newfoundland — August 4, 2025
https://baymansparadox.com/post/the-local-paradox-in-grand-policy-schemes-why-resets-fail-in-newfoundland

Behind the Green Curtain: How Global Contracts and Climate Branding Drove the Wind and Hydrogen Push in Newfoundland — August 8, 2025
https://baymansparadox.com/post/behind-the-green-curtain-how-global-contracts-and-climate-branding-drove-the-wind-and-hydrogen-push-in-newfoundland

When the Bank Calls the Shots: How Paris-Aligned Finance Exploits Newfoundland’s Governance Gap — August 9, 2025
https://baymansparadox.com/post/when-the-bank-calls-the-shots-how-paris-aligned-finance-exploits-newfoundland-s-governance-gap

Green Land, Empty Hands: How Resource Governance Leaves Locals With Symbolic Wins — September 23, 2025
https://baymansparadox.com/post/green-land-empty-hands-how-resource-governance-leaves-locals-with-symbolic-wins

The Invisible Playbook: How Bureaucrats and NGOs Script Both Sides of the Fight — December 9, 2025
https://baymansparadox.com/post/the-invisible-playbook-how-bureaucrats-and-ngos-script-both-sides-of-the-fight

References