The BC Energy Plan will

The BC Energy Plan will result in BC Hydro having to purchase an excess of IPP power.

These private wind and run-of-river projects produce a lot of variable, or non-firm, energy.

Non-firm energy gets a lower price in the export market.

So, is it a case of BC Hydro needing Site C to provide the extra reservoir backup (firming) capability, in order to make power exports profitable?

The main demand for more

The main demand for more power is caused by forced urbanization, and to replace a few workers with huge inputs of other forms of energy, like electric, or oil. Look at the increased power demands by lumber mills alone, in the past 30 years, so they could fire workers and become "more efficient".

In the addled brains of economists and politicians, humans are "expensive", but other forms of energy are "cheap"

They never heard of the guy called Newton, who discovered 300 years ago that increased energy inputs cause increased reactions, therefore, nothing is gained. The more energy inputs, the bigger the reactions and damage.

As we can see our world being destroyed with pollution and covered with garbage.

The simple fact is that human labour doesn't cost anything to an economy,- businesses are not the economy, only a small part- because humans already exist and their lives must be protected and supported, confirmed by thousands of laws and logic.

Which should be the sole and only purpose of an economy and not the multimillion salaries of some jerk executives.

When you look at the power and water demands/use of cities, on a per capita basis, compared to rurals, anywhere on Earth, you can see why we have power shortages ?

E.g. The official water demand of a city dweller, given to me by the BC Ministry of Environment, some years ago, is 1.400 US gallons per capita, per day.

Electricity is about the same distorted figure. Yet the planned depopulation of rural areas and communities is going on full blast, with services and schools closing all over to fit the idiotic economic theories of our "betters".

All forms of life on Earth have certain ecological purposes, with the exception of humans, who always managed to screw up their local environments, and now the whole globe, on the demands of priests and their faith based theories, as they're doing it now on the orders of the Priesthood of the Money God, our so called "economists"

Ed Deak.

to Hugh

Yes, the IPPs variable power is worth more paired with firm power. The IPPs very much want more reservoirs.

Myth of conservation

This story makes several references to Hydro's mandate to find 70% of future electricity demand through conservation. I thought it was 50%, but either way it presents a difficult problem.

The last Earth Day, in which we were all encouraged to turn off the lights,TVs, etc for an hour, generated a demand reduction of 1.04%, That follows a 2009 saving of 1.1% and a 2008 saving of 2%. Of even more interest was the fact that this year, Burns Lake had the high point of a 7% saving, while heavily-populated Vancouver and Victoria hit 1.4%.

If that's the best we can do for one hour of a heavily-promoted Earth Day, can someone explain to me how we expect to generate a 70% (or 50%) conservation hit for incremental demand in the next few years? I realize that the 1% Earth Day reduction is spread over the entire baseload, but I have trouble seeing that extrapolated into 70% saving for incremental growth.

It strikes me that the only two options to make this happen would be an arbitrary and sudden tripling of electricity rates -- like right now -- or a government fiat that tells you what you can and can't use electricity for.

Designs of a neo-liberal/neo-conservative state: Part One

"They want to dam everything and exploit every river valley, and I can't for the life of me understand it." - Peace River farmer Ken Forrest

The above quote illustrates IMO a common lack of political and economic literacy regarding the situation we as citizens find ourselves in within this Province.

Before the next BC election a political & economic/environmental literacy campaign is needed in British Columbia to educate and engage people about the following matters and their implications - then perhaps a more clear informed choice can better be made in the next election. This is a daunting task, the Tyee plays an important positive role, whereas existing mainstream media and existing political parties who primarily ascribe to TINA (there is no alternative) to neo-liberalism/conservatism are not going to do this - in fact they are a large part of the institutional structure propping up the 'gordian knot' of our collective dilemma.

Here are facts whose implications we need to understand, consider the implications for developments in the hydro, mining, education, medical, housing, labor law, women rights, indigenous rights, environmental sectors of life, etc. Debate, make clear choices about where you stand and where we stand as a collective class of ordinary/average people in this province. To not do so is to abandon the political playing field to the continuance of our situation and the most powerful and destructive form of capitalism in the modern era.

1) we live in a neo-liberal state that strongly favours individual rights over social/community rights, individual property rights over collective or state owned property rights, and the institutions of the marketplace and 'free trade' - which support the theory that a rising tide will lift all boats or that 'trickle down' economics will eliminate poverty.

2.) Neo-liberals/conservatives are particularly keen on downsizing government and privatizing public assets or enabling via deregulation/re-regulation of the incursion of private for profit corporations into sectors of the economy where public not-for profit enterprise had previously flourished (ie. BC Hydro, ICBC, for profit health care centres, private schools, etc)

3) A neo-liberal/conservative state uses its power to impose or invent market systems - as BC has done via subsidy of the IPP "green" power sector, as it is doing by facilitating for profit health care centres, etc.

Part two

4) Individuals are held more and more responsible and accountable for their own actions and their own well-being - and this principle applies to the education, health care, pensions, welfare, housing)...that is 'hyper individualism is stressed, we are all in the game of life alone, social solidarity, unions and class interests are deliberately set upon, cut backs diminsh the capacity of sectors serving the public interests.

5. The free mobility of capital between sectors, regions and countries is primary, profit maximization of capital from labor and by capital from the natural environment is encouraged by legal reform and all barriers to that such as taxes, tariffs, planning and environmental controls or local impediments are removed in the 'provincial/national' interest.

6. Neo-liberals/neo-conservatives (such as Harper and Campbell) are suspicious and do not fundamentally trust democracy. They prefer governance by elites and experts, non-elected officials, and most importantly their is an extremely strong preference to govern by executive order rather than through democratic parliamentary decision-making. They tend to put strong limits on democratic governance rather than expanding the means by which citizens can participate in the political life of their country/province.

Part Three

7. The political institutions of the existing Canadian state, provincially and federally excessively concentrate political power in the executive, and only by changing the rules of who decides over what matters can outcomes be substantially changed.

Essentially that is the 'operating system' software that designs the outcomes that are possible. This design of the neo-liberal/conservative state and the concentratiuon of political and economic power by a minority has led to substantial poverty, inequality, exclusion, environmental degradation, unfairness and injustice. Regions and municipalities are essentially cut out of the main decision making loop by the Execuitive elites - whether in business or cabinet, legal and taxation powers are centralized and unfairly distributed, and the regions and their peoples of this province -as they have always been - are reduced to colonial status, exploited for their natural resources for the benefit of private buccaneers or the centralized state.

That is the situation...and the answer to the question as to why is the Province intent on damming or industrializing hundreds or rivers/creeks in BC, including Site C, is because the market rules and there is money to be made by exporting power to a continental market - an export market that will soon diminish as US states themselves become more self-sufficent in 'greener' energy and as Seth will no doubt say - cheap nuclear power. Through incompetence, mismangement, cronyism and corruption the BC government is financially and ethically broke - the meme of the day is "anything for a buck'. or as John Lennon said ' the lights have changed'. Finally if you think the NDP, a highly centralized political party whose elites and leader, CJ, refuse to campaign on policy (such as their sustainability platform) democratically adopted in Convention offers a viable, hopeful alternative, IMO, you're dreaming.

From the destruction that is occuring, something must arise from the ashes to renew not only hope, but this Province, IMO, that something must pose a radical challenge to the existing meme, and the challenge for the Left is to clarify the values, principals and practical goals of such a movement - without engaging in self-destructive ultra-radicalism or destructive disunity. Indeed a modern socialism, an eco-socialism that facilitates participative democracy and economic democracy.

Vaughn Palmer

'As the Vancouver Sun's Vaughn Palmer wrote in a March 12 column, his job will be to enforce the message that Premier Gordon Campbell believes isn't being heard by the various government ministries and agencies with overlapping jurisdiction for developing and approving green power. That message, Palmer writes, is "his determination to make the province self-sufficient in electricity, to develop new sources of emissions-free generation, and to prepare the way for building power to export." '

If this is the next shoved down our throat message, then these journalists are way off. My gut tells me that all this private ROR power is to hand over all rights to our crown owned rivers, and the water in them to private control. Anyone feel proud to say that the backwoods of BC is owned by General Electric? The only long term goal of these thieves is to control water in hopes of one day that will be the ultimate prize. Private ownership of water, for you and I to pay through the nose for.

Argh! Editing!

Who is Sandra Hoffman?

What does "linkages between people and the power that they use" even mean? Oh, of course, it means "programs for doing renovations" and "rooftop sun collectors". Obviously!

What paper? Where was it published? It would be best if the author provided a link. Is it this one? Also, according to this (Hoberg's website),

not a professor.

amerikan empire loyalty

Of course we already have enough capacity for provincial consumption; the issue is export to amerika. We need to improve energy efficiency, reduce consumption. Do not feed the monster.

Dimitrov is right on the

Dimitrov is right on the need for change if more "rational" decisions are to be taken. But how to get the majority to stop accepting that their welfare (health, freedom, quality of life) isn't necessarily identical to, or even highly correlated with, the interests of the wealthiest 2% who control most of the assets (and media, and politicians.....)?

Electricity will dominate Energy Sources

The point missed by the article is that Electricity will & must dominate our Energy Supply for the next century. Much talk about Energy Efficiency - by far & away the biggest jump in Energy Efficiency is the Electrification of Transport. That means replacing Oil with Electricity. That means increasing Electricity Demand.

Improving Building Heat Efficiency means using Heat Pumps which means Electricity replacing mostly Natural Gas. Supplying Process & Building Heat from Green Electricity rather than GHG, Radiation & Toxic Emissions Belching Oil & NG means greatly INCREASING electricity supply.

And there is only ONE method of generating SIGNIFICANT increases in Green Electricity. That is Nuclear Energy.

And Fiat Lux your anti-Nuclear / pro-Coal link is pure garbage - arguments that are easily torn to shreds. Like here:

http://depletedcranium.com/why-you-cant-build-a-bomb-from-spent-fuel/

Learn the Truth about Energy & Nuclear Energy here:

http://www.terrestrialenergy.org/

An Excellent Education on Energy Issues:

http://tedrockwell.typepad.com/files/factsreport2010apr.pdf

What Everyone needs to know about Energy – no hogwash:

http://coal2nuclear.com/energy_facts.htm

You can whine and you can cry. The politicians can put their blinders on and bury their head in the sand. They can avoid reality by using the phony Cap & Trade SCAM. Oil, Gas & Coal can pump billions into Disinformation Campaigns, and buy politicians like Hogs at the Auction. But I'm afraid it is INESCAPABLE - GHG emission reductions means ONE THING - and Very Little Else - replace all Fossil Fuels with Nuclear.

Face Reality people, preventing Runaway Global Warming & Peak Oil Economic Catastrophe, means build the Nukes. It's by far the best way, and in fact it's the only way. Remove the phony Instituted-by-Fossil-Fuel-Interests regulatory roadblocks, quit throwing precious capital down the Sewer on Renewables, stop the tax-and-blame-the-people charade. Put Canada back to work with clean, permanent, productive, high paying jobs. Save our Oil & Gas to sell to the American Suckers – even Arab countries have figured that out, and are starting a major Nuclear Power building boom.

Nuclear Energy - the Power to Save the World.

Seth, going back to Newton,

Seth, going back to Newton, and I never took physics after highschool, all energy inputs cause equal reactions.

Which means that the energy inputs of nuclear energy will automatically wipe out the benefits. As is the case with all forms of energy and we can see it in climate change, worldwide poverty and starvation.

Therefore, the solution is not to produce more energy, but to develop production systems using the most efficient energy inputs to provide humanity's and not the stockmarkets' needs. Which would kill the obscene profits of big business and that's why we don't have them.

I was still around Cambridge, England, when nuclear power was first developed. Still have piles of magazines etc. predicting a fantastic future under nuclear power. The usual harebrained claims that happen with all religions and ideologies.

Electric power was promised to be so cheap that it wasn't going to be worth reading the meters, etc, etc., the roads full of nuclear powered vehicles that never needed to be refilled and so on and on.....

How about radioactive golf balls the players could find in the grass with Geiger counters ?

So, what happened? The prophets fell on their faces, as usual. As it happened thousands of times in history, destroying the lives of millions, just as the present day prophets are falling.

Cut back on criminally overcapitalized and wasteful, but highly profitable industrial procedures and forced urbanization, and much of the energy problems will be solved.

In 10 years time I would be 93 and so, my concern has nothing to do with self protection, or promotion, but that I have seen and heard all the fantastic promises, but also how all ideologies and futuristic hysteria fell on their faces. Now, when I hear the new promises, I can only smile.

I haven't read Amory Lovins for 30 years, but in the meantime I have had lot of experience with and ran a few circles around people who had all kinds of diplomas on their walls, yet remained ignorant jerks apart from very small slices of memorized specialties.

In short, I don't think nuclear power will ever be widespread, unless the so called democracies and the whole world falls under the heels of the dictatorship of the corporate mafia, who won't give a damn about the dangers, but will have the power to force it on humanity.

In the name of "wealth creating competition" of course.

Ed Deak.

Ed

I would say they did their job, Ed - which was to sell the new technology with "pie-in-the-sky" promises.

That technique hasn't changed much in a half-century either. Just have to look at the promises G. Campbell has made and is still making - just to get his pet projects on the move.

barking up the wrong tree?

"Amory Lovins is the foremost among them - a man that has never even graduated from university."

Neither did I, so I usually find arguments about intelligence that keep score by the number of acronyms following ones' name to be a trifle suspect and a bit insulting to those of us who can grasp reasonably complex topics without the benefit of a university education. Einsten after all, was a patent office clerk and seems to have been able to decipher the power of the atom. So, not to compare myself to old Albert by any means, but one's education has no bearing on one's ability to understand things. It's possible to learn without formal instruction.

I think many of these arguments about what type of energy will fuel our way of life are predicated upon the assumption that we can continue to live in the manner we do (this argument mostly applies to the 'First World') with its attendant requirements for vast inputs of energy and materials, that are for the most part, used in the manufacture of temporary amusements. It seems unlikely IMO, and so I tend to think the discussion is for the most part pointless. We would be better off trying to imagine how we will power a much more spartan way of life, as it's both more likely to be a reality, and doesn't require quite as large a dose of blind faith in growth and progress as the answer to all our ills.

Sucking Energy Through Histrionics

Trash-talk only works after fact-checking :

Amory Lovins:

In 1964, Lovins entered Harvard College. After two years there, he transferred in 1967 to Magdalen College, Oxford, England, where he studied physics and other topics. In 1969 he became a Junior Research Fellow in Oxford’s Merton College, where he received an Oxford master of arts (M.A.) as a result of becoming a university don. However, the University would not allow him to pursue a doctorate in energy, as it was two years before the 1973 oil embargo, and energy was not yet considered an academic subject. Lovins resigned his Fellowship and moved to London to pursue his energy work. He moved back to the U.S. in 1981 and settled in Western Colorado in 1982.

Nuclear Fails

on costs:

"A 1954 advertisement from the General Electric nuclear reactor program:
We already know the kinds of plants which will be feasible, how they will operate, and we can estimate what their expenses will be. In five years – certainly within 10 – a number of them will be operating at about the same cost as those using coal. They will be privately financed, built without government subsidy."

Ahh - the good old days of boy-time daydreams.

Nuclear fails

on subsidies:

which effectively socialize the most intractable risks of nuclear energy:

damages from accidents
(capped in the US Price-Anderson Act /1957)

management of extremely longlived radioactive wastes
(the US federal government has guaranteed ultimate responsibility for management)

Uranium enrichment services ... were privatized in 1998, though not before providing decades of large subsidies to civilian reactor customers. The US Enrichment Corporation (USEC), as the privatized organization is known, inherited key assets of its public predecessor while leaving cleanup of the contaminated sites a taxpayer liability.

Capital formation ... the most sensitive of all energy technologies to the cost of capital ... to bring down capital and financing costs, either through direct subsidies (accelerated depreciation and various tax credits) or by shifting risks to rate payers (by including project and interest costs in a regulated non-nuclear utility ratebase during the period of construction).

Other subsidies involved support to uranium mining and stockpiling

more than half a century of government-financed research and development into reactor and enrichment technologies

waste management and cleanup; and special tax breaks for plant decommissioning.

Nuclear fails again

on safety:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,430164,00.html

Saved by the diesel engine back-ups.

So much for nuclear 'baseload' myth:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article6626811.ece
Can't run a nuke because it's too hot outside.

I'm mean ... too cold outside:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/new_jersey_nuclear_plant_shut.html

BC energy is electricity PLUS fossil

The writer and the people in this article consistently confuse our current "electricity" use with our far larger "energy" use. As a result they all make mistaken statements about what can and should be done to meet even their own stated goals.

BASIC BC ENERGY FACTS:

Fossil fuels are aournd 75% of BC energy consumption.

Fossil fuels are almost 90% of BC energy production.

Both the energy we buy and the energy we produce in BC are totally dominated by private corporate IPPs....and almost all of it is climate dirty.

BC Hydro sells just 9% of energy production in BC. Even some of that, like electricity from Burrard Thermal is really just an IPP-redistributing scheme where BC Hydro must buy every kWh from giant corporations in the form of climate-dirty gas...and then just redistribute half of that on its public grid.

The arguments in this story about whether BC is "energy self-sufficient" are also muddled by ignoring fossil fuels. BC imports a massive amount of the energy we use. That is because the primary energy source we use in BC is oil. Oil...not electricity. BC oil production peaked years ago and has fallen off a cliff to just 20% of our consumption. We import over 75,000GWh per year in oil. That is far more energy than BC Hydro generates in total.

As a society we face huge energy choices about what to in the face of climate change, as well as our need to import almost all of our primary energy source.

The answer to both is to "fuel switch" from oil and fossil fuels to climate-clean electricity. And that will mean developing more climate-clean electricity somehow.

Climate change is clearcutting our forests, driftnetting our oceans, trophy-hunting our wildlife, draining our summer waterways, bulldozing our glaciers, dredging our spring riverbeds...ad naseum.

Our electricity discussions must be had in the full context of our energy use, energy production and energy impacts if we want to make decisions that hope to meet our own goals.

Please read this article again with the fossil fuel aspect of our "energy" in mind and see for yourself how confused the conversation is...

Detached approach to energy consumption?

Article: "More importantly, the construction of another major hydroelectric project postpones the inevitable reckoning that will have to take place between the average citizen and their detached approach to energy consumption."

Huh? It is hard to find a more wildly "detached approach to energy consumption" that what is displayed by this article and the people quoted in it when they just openly ignore our primary "energy" sources in BC: imported oil and natural gas? How exactly does THAT "detachment" help BC citizens make good choices about our energy use?

We definitely have an "inevitable reckoning" coming on our BC energy use -- namely how to we cut back on our FOSSIL FUEL binge-fest in time to save our environment and ourselves.

Maybe Site C is not needed in our energy future. But making a decision totally "detached" from our actual "energy" use doesn't even meet the authors own criteria for how we should proceed.

One person in the article says the "solution" is "the creation of linkages between people and the power that they use". Agreed. Too bad that person, and the article, decided to ignore the dominant link between BC power and fossil fuels.

------

Note to Tyee: articles like this that hide (intentionally or otherwise) BC's mega-corporate dirty-energy fossil-IPP reality are an embarrassment to your otherwise fine news site.

If you want to help BC citizens make good choices about our future you need to exercise more editorial control over energy reporting that so totally obscures and confuses people about the dominant and dirty role Big Fossil plays in our energy choices and options.

Here are three simple tests:

1) BC ENERGY PRODUCTION. If an article talks about BC energy production and ignores the fact that 90% is by climate-dirty Big Fossil IPPs...get out the red pen.

2) BC ENERGY SELF-SUFFICIENCY. If an article talks about BC energy self-sufficiency and ignores the fact that we IMPORT more OIL energy than BC Hydro produces...get out the red pen.

3) BC ENERGY FUTURE. If an articles talks about whether BC needs more climate-clean energy in the future and ignores the 75% of our energy use that is climate-dirty fossil fuels...get out the red pen.

Simple.

Easy.

And you will be helping to give BC citizens a fighting chance against the biggest, dirtiest and most powerful industry ever in history: Big Fossil.

Balance Wind

As mentioned, wind is so variable that it needs backup and balancing. The push to install wind is making hydro with reservoir storage more imperative. Only hydro can react quickly enough to balance wind without lots of lost production and water can be left in reservoir storage when wind is producing.

Run of the river also needs to be offset by some sort of energy storage, such as in a reservoir or in a pile of coal. But run of the river is much more reliable than wind since minimum energy is based on estimated low flows. But the greatest run of the river production is during high flow periods (spring runoff and fall rainfall periods)

So, essentially, wind energy introduces more problems to the electrical system than it solves. Also, wind cannot survive without high subsidies. In some cases, an electric motor turning the vanes of a wind mill would produce a profit for the owner.

Stonebreaker: Detached approach

Although you make some good points, the biggest, dirtiest and most powerful industry ever in history is big government not any specific industry. Governments develops and enforces regulations for the benefit of government and not its citizens. The hydro projects in BC were either subsidized and/or approved by the relevant government agency. Until recently, governments encouraged big projects and negotiated with other governments while running roughshod over the local people. Now the government has taken the flavour of the day to encourage variable supplies from wind, run of the river and biofuels, regardless of the economics or environmental impacts.

Governments intruding in everyone's lives worries me more than an oil company trying to sell me something.

Sask Resident

Corporations intrude into lives more than governments do.

But if one wants to sit around waiting for the profit-motive to save the world, good luck.