Bute twice the cost of Site C

From

http://publicpowerissues.blogspot.com

The Bute inlet project costing $4 billion produces 3000 Gwh annually at an average annual cost of to ratepayers of 400 million dollars or 13.3 cents a kwh.This type of project has a negligible ongoing maintenance cost so running that $4 billion through a simple mortgage calculator at the BC Governments 4% 30 year bond issue rate comes out to 200 million a year - half the cost. This Plutonic contract alone represents a 8 billion dollar loss to the ratepayer over the forty years of the project simply because Plutonic's Wall street hedge fund financiers are a hurtin' these days.

Compare Bute to BCHydro's Site C which for $5 billion produces approximately 4,600 GWh a year. That comes to 5.4 cents a kwh less than half Plutonics price. Site C produces high value baseload power available year round unlike Butes low value freshette power that BCHydro has to sell on the spot market for a fraction of its cost. Despite being the same size as Site C, Bute was able to breeze through environmental assessments in months. Site C is not covered by Gordo's innovative new fast track environmental assessment scheme and will spend years looking for approval.

Of course Westinghouse just started construction on 4 gigawatt class nuclear reactors it sold to China with a 2013 in service date. Those reactors at about the same cost as site C will produce 35000 gwh's of baseload capacity every year - 9 times the electricity at the same cost.

Are we really that stupid?

bring nukes to bc?

So, besides building hundreds of coal plants, the Chinese affinity for nukes is a model for bc to start building them too? Too bad the Liberals and NDP both seem wary of uranium mining in BC. Back in 1968, BC Hydro chair Gordon Shrum did promise Victoria our own little nuke plant. Maybe we should get cracking on it, eh? If BC Hydro was staking out run of river sites to build, would it be any better for the environment than if Plutonic does it?

Tidal energy should trump IPP

Building power projects in remote wilderness areas to build spring-based reservoirs or generate spring-only power is not a progressive, but a retrograde step in this province's energy history, and makes no economic sense unless you are a company shareholder or a workie. Some trade-off.

A viable option to mega-scale run-of-river like the one planned for Bute Inlet is Tidal (current) energy.

As an industry tidal is presently where wind energy was at around 20 years ago, with the first commercial projects being deployed and coming on-grid. Adjacent to Campbell River, in the tidal currents sloshing through Johnstone Strait and Discovery Passage, is the equivalent of Niagara Falls or Alberta's tar sands to generate ultra-high density, emission-free FIRM (predictable) tidal energy.

If you want to learn more about this burgeoning industry go to the (BC-based) Ocean Renewable Energy Group website: www.oreg.ca

there is definitive information on one thing

What is clear is that this civilization can no longer freely emit greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Something like 80% of the power presently delivered to civilization is based on fossil fuels. All this has to be replaced as soon as possible.

The "lifeblood" of the province isn't the watersheds. This is a political construct that ignores where the water comes from: the atmosphere. You can't change the composition of the atmosphere the way this civilization is doing and expect this age of life to survive. People are going to find out that not cutting the watersheds down or not building dams on some rivers isn't going to preserve anything.

Any debate that pretends we've got all the energy we need already ignores what is known about carbon dioxide emissions. So these arguments that not enough is known to proceed just sound obstructionist.

Bute project NOT APPROVED (yet)

Seth is spreading some of that misinformation one of the subjects of the article was on about.

The Bute project has not "breeze(d) through environmental assessments in months", but has recently submitted its Draft Terms of Reference, which is the guiding document under which the Enviro Assessment will be conducted. The Terms of Reference have to have that "draft" removed from the title by going through reveiw and consultation. At that point, the project will begin its environmental review.

The Bute Project was entered into the EA process in April of 2008, that's right, 13 months ago, and it submitted the ToR in January of this year - four months later (aka "a few months"), they have not yet been approved. And again, these are the Terms of Reference being approved - not the project.

This article points out some great concerns we should all have when debating the stringency under which these projects are approved and their potential impacts - let's just speak about them honestly, okay?

clarity

This issue has unfortunately been discussed through the election on a very rhetorical level and not at a level of detail which makes it easily understood as a voter.

The way I understand the reporting, the NDP moratorium is on IPPs; which is a much larger umbrella than RoRs- and includes bio, solar wind, and geothermal. The reasons for the moratorium are being argued as being necessary for issues of water rights and lax environmental assessment standards. The public isn't explained which specific aspects of the current EA process are overly lax, nor is it explained why it would be necessary to delay the development of all of the other green power projects to protect the public from issues which appear to be primarily relevant to RoR development.

I would feel confident voting for the NDP if they were able to show a detailed plan for green power development in the next 4 years in the province which differs from the current plan; yet at the same time recognizes the urgency of need to be harvesting renewables as a responsible alternative for labour and economic development in the province to the arguably more destructive harvesting of mineral and wood resources which our economy is currently dependent on. There is no greater certainty than the increased need for electricity as our society is not going to be weaned from our digital means of production, consumption and communication.

My fear is that a moratorium will put our province significantly behind other jurisdictions in the establishment of a diversified energy source portfolio. Is the current plan so dramatically wrong that it cannot be fixed with a number of critical parts? and if it is so dramatically wrong I would expect an alternative model outlined with a timeline in great detail so that we can make an informed choice.

Its critical that we transition our economy from the exploitation of depleted low grade material resources to the exploitation of un-tapped high grade renewables. This is the most responsible way to move our economy forward.

It is saddening that the debate is still at the big picture level, not at the detail level of how do we do this urgently with the greatest level of responsibility.

Skookum1 on Bute Inlet ...

I'd like to share one of Mike's marvelous discourses on the province we love. It was prompted by this Tyee article. Nobody can write quite like he does, from both the historic and the personal perspective.

The Bute Inlet RoR article I'd make a quick comment on, if somebody would care to relay it, that one thing that's been completely passed over in discussions of this project is the heritage significance of the locations of the project. Which is that the Homathko Canyon was the scene of the opening battle/massacre of the Chilcotin War.

The site is, so far as I know but I have received no corroboration other than the hint provided by the geo-name, is a place called Murderers' Bar. Whether it's set to be inundated or otherwise altered as a result of the project remains unclear, as also is the fate of the remaining sections of Waddington's Road between there and what would have been Port Waddington, at the head of Bute Inlet.

Given the Homathko's incredible power and size it's likely that the river has done its own landscape alterations, and the old cliffside boardwalk that was part of the construction has also been swept away, like certain stretches of the Cariboo Road in Fraser Canyon, parts of the Old Cariboo Road between Lillooet and Pavilion, and the eastern Seton Lake portion of the Lillooet Cattle Trail, boardwalks were built out from the cliff face with timber.

I'm surprised that the Tsilhqot'in have had nothing to say about the matter, given that the battle over the Homathko route is considered their great victory over the forces of colonialism.

Back in the earnest days of my idealistic-environmentalist phase in the early '80s, I'd amassed various reports, simply by asking for them in those halcyon days of open government, on the Taseko-Chilko-Homathko megaproject which the Plutonic Power project is a remnant of....the Taseko-Chilko diversion got nixed, likewise the Chilko-Homathko diversion, though that one's still possible and not fully nixed, so I'm given to understand), and only the Homathko Canyon dam-locations remained on the books.

[continued below ... ]

Skookum1 continued ...

In those reports, I was shocked - "shocked" - to read that in the "heritage issues" section there was nothing, zip, nada, on the Chilcotin War or on Waddington's Road, or a mention of the later CPR survey of the route. I'll save the gory details of the "battle" as they're in various published works now. But Hydro, in its multi-volume study, had nothing at all on it. This set of volumes took up about 2.5 feet of shelf space, by the way....

And just as a point of interest, to this day the shortest possible route to Prince George from the Coast is theoretically the same as what Alfie Waddington eyed as the shortest possible route from Victoria to Barkerville - via the Homathko. This was the route that Victoria was hoping the CPR would pick, even expected that they WOULD pick it. A bridge at Seymour Narrows (where Ripple Rock was) and I think two other bridges across the islands to the Mainland, then up the side of Bute Inlet and up the Homathko to the Chilcotin Plateau (engineering that might have rivalled the Fraser Canyon in its difficulty).

Road development for Plutonic Power's project implies eventual opening of the route, though it's unlikely a highway would be built up Bute Inlet from Campbell River, it seems inevitable that a port-town will emerge at the mouth of the Homathko, and that roads up that incredibly deep canyon will eventually reach the plateau.

Hydro construction never leaves living town in its wake - witness Mica Creek or Bridge River, which once had thousands of residents and now fewer than a few dozen each - but the roads always remain.

I've been putting off Wiki articles on the Moran Dam and Hat Creek coal-thermal/smelter proposals, but they're still "warm" so one day will "get to it".....side note, if Bennett had gotten the go-ahead to build Moran in the '50s, the likelihood is our family would have remained in the Lillooet area as Dad would likely have been involved in the project (he was construction super at Bridge River, for those who don't know). He did get offered general superintendency of the Peace project but turned it down so we could move with most of the other Bridge River folks down the Lower Mainland (he became production super for the Eastern Fraser Valley, Ruskin to Boston Bar)..

[continued below ... ]

Skookum 1 conclusion

He had a copy of a provincial government bulletin called "Water Powers of British Columbia" which I used to read, among everything else I would read (I was like a vacuum cleaner) and I remember even as a child, knowing about the salmon controversy to do with Moran, that I wondered about the complex environmental and climate damage a Chilko-Homathko diversion would cause; this was before the words "environment" and "climate change" were in the vocabulary.

It always amazed me how resource personnel could simply look the other way from obvious facts, or find ways to rationalize them...the damage was clear enough if you were raised in Hydro communities;

I used to ramble on the shores of Hayward Lake, which was full of standing timber left over from the inundation; only a four-mile lake, of lesser scale than many of the "mini" reservoirs on the books for run-of-the river, it did incredible damage to the Stave River, even more than had been done by the earlier Stave Falls Dam......but it was taboo to speak of.....

Dad had a conscience about the fish, though, and took a big interest in fisheries remediation projects on the lower Stave and up at Wahleach....I must have described before how we'd spend rainy days in the fish weirs on the creeks up at Wahleach, where Hydro had spent big money on fisheries-remediation efforts, sloshing around in the creeks watching the salmon die ...

Private Power Giveaway

Public servants profit from Campbell power giveaway.

Mark Grant, BC Liberal executive director, resigns December 12, 2008 to join Rupert Peace Power.

David Cyr, former Assistant to BC Liberal Minister Mike de Jong, is now a director at Plutonic Power.

Robert Poore, recently worked under the Provincial Revenue Minister of the Province of BC, now is a senior director at Plutonic Power.

Tom Syer, who has held a variety of senior positions in the BC Government including Gordon Campbell’s Deputy Chief of Staff, is now a director at Plutonic Power.

Bill Irwin, after holding key positions in the BC Ministries of Land and Water, and Crown Lands, now is a director at Plutonic Power.[4]

Bruce Ripley spent the last 2 of his 16 years at BC Hydro as VP Engineering, now is President and CEO of Plutonic Power.

Elisha McCallum (Moreno), after 7 years with BC Hydro as a media relations manager, moved to a directorship with Plutonic Power.

Bruce Young, has held several high profile positions with the BC Liberal party and lobbied his own party on behalf of Katabatic Power is listed as a director of Atla Energy.

Stephen Kukucha, former senior policy advisor for the BC Ministry of Environment, is now president and CEO of Atla Energy.

Bob Herath, former Assistant Regional Water Manager for the BC Ministry of Environment is now with Syntaris Power.[7]

Paul Taylor, after his work as President and CEO of crown corporation ICBC as well as high level positions in the BC Government, is now President and CEO of Naikun Wind Energy Group.

Michael J. O’Conner, former President and CEO of Crown Corporation BC Transit, now holds senior positions at Naikun.

Jackie Hamilton, formerly held various BC Government environmental assessment and regulatory management positions, is now a VP at Cloudworks Energy.

Michael Margolick, held positions in resource and strategic planning at BC Hydro, now is the Vice President of Power and Transmission planning at Naikun Wind.

Robert Price, after a 30-year career at BC Hydro and Power Authority which culminated as the utility’s Vancouver Island transmission line construction, supervision and operations manager, now a member of the Hawkeye ‘team’ (website is not clear on Price’s position at Hawkeye).

Mr. Paul Adams, after a 33-year career with BC Hydro in which he held senior management positions, now is another ‘team’ member at Hawkeye.[13]

Doug Bishop, formerly 32 years with BC Hydro and Powerex, was contracted in 2004 by Plutonic Power.

Ron Monk former BC Hydro Engineer, now employed by Kerr Wood Leidal engineering firm used by IPPs.

Wayne Chambers, a former BC Hydro power plant and substation operator, now a manager at Cloudworks.

Alexander Kiess, after long career with BC Hydro in management, now works as a consultant to Syntaris Power.

Geoff Plant, former BC Liberal Attorney General, now chair of Renaissance Power.

What's next?

I don't see any need at all

I don't see any need at all for the Bute Inlet project.

BC Hydro had a surplus of electricity in 2008. There are an additional 7,000 GWh in power in signed IPP agreements that are yet to go online. BC Hydro is planning upgrades to its own generators. And BC Hydro says gains can be made with conservation.

All the IPP power will cost BC Hydro over a $billion every year, for up to 40 years. It looks like a lot of it will be surplus to our needs in BC. And, if it is exported, the export price BC Hydro gets may be lower than what BC Hydro pays the IPPs for it, meaning they will export it at a loss.

I don't get it.

and Skookum1 adds "a mysterious wax"

You might want to post this link

http://www.abcbookworld.com/view_author.php?id=2322

which is to a Bookworld review of Judith Reid's "High Slack" and it seems also "Slack Tide", which I hadn't heard of.

Not mentioned in the review is the reason I went looking for a link to the book - an account of a mysterious wax-ilke substance which floats down the Homathko at certain times, of unknown origin and unstudied composition;

I know little more than that other than of the existence of the wax phenomenon, which if it isn't of major environmental interest I don't know what IS.....I'd thought there was something online about the wax but I guess I'm thinking of the book only.

On the other hand, just recently while doing Wiki-research on this and that I found an account of "Major" William Downie's escapades in the area; he had the first survey contract for the route. The site linked here is more than a bit speculative in character and by the links at the bottom has some odd connections to cryptozoology, pterodactyls etc and the article includes an odd claim that botch-shaped marks on what look like to me ordinary quartz-type granitics are an ancient writing system; but the historical account is interesting and indicates that much more went on in the Homathko than just the slaughter of Brewster's work-party (or the opening of resistance by Tsilhqot'in freedom fighters, whichever way you need to look at it):

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8281/AAAbute.html

The Homalhco people are extinct now, their survivors blended with the Klahoose and/or Sliammon; according to the writer of that page's analysis, it's Maj. Downie's fault and design (though it was the Homalhco who helped the work party get started, and also sheltered the two survivors who made it out that way. Downie is the namesake of Downie Creek, in the Big Bend Gold Rush country up north of Revelstoke (where the infamous and tragic Dalles des Morts lie beneath the waters of Lake Revelstoke).....one of those adventurers who seemed to be everywhere in the Old West:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Downie
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcgn-bin/bcg10?name=14804
http://www.cwanswers.com/8921/william_downie (text same as Wikipedia but has pictures....)

And for those who don't know the story, here's the Dalles des Morts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalles_des_Morts

And back to the Homathko, here's something on "Old Waddy":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Waddington

thought it could use a lot of expansion re his career in BC.....

Skook