It's hard to tell just exactly where we are when it comes to the proposed development of hydro power on the Lower Churchill - but if the latest comments from Premier Danny Williams are anything to go by, it sure doesn't look like anything will be happening right away.

"We're still advancing, we're finding ways to bring this to a head," Williams told The Telegram. "And we can get the power built, and we can generate it. But unless we've got a pipeline to put it on, a pipeline in a general term, it doesn't go anywhere."

Williams has said that regulatory authorities in Quebec are dragging their feet on allowing access to the Quebec grid, and that, as a result, this province's energy company - Nalcor - isn't out hunting for customers.

Nalcor has also expressed concerns to a joint provincial-federal environmental panel, suggesting that the panel is improperly suggesting the company's environmental submissions on the project have been deficient.

In years past, the premier had hoped the project might move forward this year. Now, he admits the development isn't close to being started yet.

"This matter here is not going to resolve in the short term ... not by a long shot. We're not looking at a Lower Churchill deal in the near term. I'd love to get the project sanctioned in the next couple of years, and then get it moving after that."

In other words, there are a legion of problems to be dealt with, and even Williams has said they are not likely to be dealt with soon.

He's even gone so far as to suggest that the project won't go forward if it becomes apparent that the government is flogging a dead horse.

What's it all add up to? Well, it sounds like an effort to dampen expectations.

It also adds up to a heck of a lot of money.

Something that hasn't been discussed about Lower Churchill in any meaningful way yet? Sunk costs. Or, if you like, long-term investments.

This government, and governments before it, have sunk millions upon millions of dollars into proposed Lower Churchill development.

There have been consultants for engineering, there has been environmental work and legal work and even design work. There are even drill crews taking core samples alongside the Strait of Belle Isle - but at the moment, there is no project, just the potential for one.

Hopefully, the government and Nalcor can find a way to bring the project to fruition - a fruition that has to include fair return, a huge fiscal investment, customers we don't even have yet, and some means of getting power to those future customers.

All and all, though, it's a large order.

If the signals we are getting now are right, the government and its Crown corporation are having a very hard time aligning enough of the planets to even be close to announcing the plan's going ahead.

And about that dead horse?

It would be one very expensive carcass indeed.