This is a genuinely huge deal, and I think it's worth appreciating why hydro makes sense here specifically, even though the headline cost looks steep. On paper, this project runs around $5M per megawatt of capacity, while utility solar can be built for roughly a fifth of that. But that comparison is misleading once you factor in capacity factor --Churchill Falls runs near 74% of its max output almost all the time, while solar in most places only hits 20-25%. To match the same annual output, you'd need to build solar at more than 3x its nameplate capacity. And even then, batteries only solve the day/night problem. Labrador can get stretches of overcast, snowy weather for a week or more at a time, and multi-day battery storage is still wildly expensive compared to a reservoir that just stores water until it's needed. Try this same approach somewhere sunny and cloud-free like Texas, and solar+storage would almost certainly win, especially when accounting for the land area that needs to be submerged by the reservoir. This project makes sense because it's matched to the geography.