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Site C as bully politics. Rural citizens are sick of seeing what they love ruined to satisfy ungrateful urbanites. Last of five.
A local aversion to immersion. Photo: Wayne Sawchuk, Northern Images.
Hinterland activists are using art, satire and theatre to protest Liberals' cuts. Here's a front row seat, courtesy of a long time local.
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Infuriated landowners rally to regain control of their property. A special report.
This week I have shared what I learned when I asked hard questions about whether building the massive Site C Dam in British Columbia's Peace River region was really necessary. I laid out the case made by locals for preserving a vital breadbasket and fostering in their region job-creating wind and geothermal energy projects instead of killing a river valley. I shared the analyses of expert academics, who calculate Site C's potential energy production is not necessary to meet B.C.'s ongoing clean energy needs.
Still, there is one final factor at play behind the push to build the Site C Dam, and it's one that should be only too familiar to anyone who has spent more than ten minutes trying to understand Canada's political culture. Regional conflict has long defined politics in Canada, and whole forests have been felled in the production of reports, analyses, and studies that document this phenomenon. Perhaps the most famous example of regional conflict in Canadian politics was the Trudeau government's creation of the National Energy Program in the early 1980s, a decision that sought to force Alberta to share some of its petroleum-related wealth and protect eastern Canadians from the skyrocketing price of gasoline but ultimately ended up alienating western voters and sowing the seeds for the creation of the Reform Party.
'What's happening here is incredibly unfair'
In the effort to build the Site C Dam, the provincial government is re-enacting a scale model version of the National Energy Program that the Trudeau government implemented in the early 1980s. On the one hand, you have a comparatively small and politically insignificant minority in possession of a valuable resource, and on the other, a politically powerful majority interested in exploiting it for what it perceives as the greater good. And while it's unlikely that the Site C Dam will make the BC Liberals as unpopular in the Peace Region as the National Energy Program made the federal Liberals in Western Canada, the injustice of the proposed Site C Dam might be even greater than that of the National Energy Program.
BC Hydro is proposing the construction of a project that will flood a valley, submerge thousands of hectares of class one soil, destroy the mating grounds and migratory passages of hundreds of different animal species, and leave an economic legacy that will consist of just a few full-time jobs. All of the power and the money that flows from it will accrue in, and to, those who reside in the southwestern corner of the province. Yet they will not share in the burdens associated with the dam, from its environmental and ecological impacts to the social and economic chaos associated with living near the construction of a megaproject.
"What’s happening here is incredibly unfair," Ken Forest said. "To flood a valley for profit, so that people somewhere else can enjoy that profit, and leave a mess up here is unconscionable."
Out of sight, out of mind
This injustice is only exacerbated by the fact that those who stand to benefit most from the Site C Dam, the residents of Greater Vancouver, refuse to even consider sharing in the responsibilities of energy production. The only meaningful source of power generation in the Greater Vancouver area is Burrard Thermal, a natural gas fired power plant, but it has been all but mothballed by the provincial government because of the pollution it generates. Despite the BC Utilities Commission's recommendation in 2009 that it consider increasing Burrard Thermal's operating capacity, the provincial government reaffirmed its commitment to using the plant only on an emergency basis, and with an eye to phasing it out completely by 2014.
"We've committed since 2001 to ending BC Hydro's reliance on Burrard and to only using it for emergency back-up capacity," Blair Lekstrom, energy, mines and petroleum resources minister, was quoted as saying in an October 2009 government press release. Burrard Thermal's 900 MW of capacity will only be used in emergency situations, and its generating potential will not be counted in BC Hydro's calculation of sources of firm energy in its portfolio.
The government's unwillingness to even consider utilizing Burrard Thermal's capacity irks Sandra Hoffman. "It's okay if we flood and destroy our river valleys, because they don't have to see it," she said, "but they don't want it near them." Worse still, she says, that's where it needs to be. "That's where the load is; the load is down south. They lose up to 13 per cent in transmission just to get the energy down there, so it makes sense to be doing the energy generation close to where the load is, but they don't want to see power lines."
'We don't get anything back'
Karen Anderson, the mayor of Hudson's Hope, thinks that the decision-makers behind the latest push for the Site C Dam haven't fully considered the costs that they are asking the people in her community to bear. "We don't feel that we should be ruining our valley, and our part of the province, in order to sell energy to the United States," she said. "They take our oil, they take our gas, they take our power now, you know? We don't get anything back from it, really." Bruce Lantz, the mayor of Fort St. John, is more pragmatic about the political calculus informing the decision. "If they [Liberals] lost every vote in northeastern B.C. because of Site C, they'd lose 22,000 votes," he said in an interview with The Georgia Straight's Matthew Burroughs last year. "If you put a major project elsewhere in the province, you could lose that many votes in an eight-block radius. So this is kind of an area that is acceptable losses, maybe, in terms of votes. And, of course, the communities are split. And I think that the deep thinkers in Victoria have figured that this is a good way to go."
As with any conflict that is defined by a conspicuous imbalance of resources, it's tempting to compare the dispute between BC Hydro and people like Ken Forest, Sandra Hoffman, and Ken and Arlene Boon to the biblical story of David and Goliath. Certainly, sitting at the kitchen table of the Boon's homestead-era house, listening to them talk about the connection that they felt to the land, the river, and the valley, it was an analogy that I was prepared to draw.
But David, as Forest reminded me, at least had a few rocks with which to work. While BC Hydro arrived at each consultation meeting armed with glossy brochures, information pamphlets, and a small army of engineers, environmental consultants, and other suitably informed experts, those opposed to the project were forced to make their case without any financial or organizational support. "In the spring," Forrest explained, "we were picking up bottles on the highway to try to get funds to combat Site C, when BC Hydro has not only over $80 million in the last several years but they also have access to board rooms, corporate jets, engineers, lawyers, access to the media, and access to politicians. We have access to nothing."
No done deal yet
There is still hope for the Site C Dam's opponents, though. The comprehensive environmental assessment that is the next stage of the process may yet prove to be a deal breaker, particularly given the fact that environmental concerns contributed to its most recent demise in the early 1990s. More importantly, there's still the always thorny issue of First Nations consultation, and given the fact that Shawn Atleo, the new national chief of the Assembly of First Nations has expressed opposition to the project in the past, that may be too stiff a challenge even for a skilled negotiator like former Socred cabinet minister Jack Weisgerber, BC Hydro's point person on First Nations consultation for the Site C Dam.
For now, the Site C Dam's opponents are just holding out for another stay of execution. If they can jam the process up with procedural delays or legal challenges, they might just be able to run out the clock. "Gwynne Dyer has told us to stall for two years," Sandra Hoffman said. "By then the need for arable food-producing land will be a viable argument to not do Site C." Ken Boon remembered that the late Leo Rutledge, one of the dam's most outspoken opponents during its first incarnation in the early 1980s, leaned heavily on the same strategy the first time the dam was defeated. "Leo, that was always his argument," Boon said. "Delay, delay, delay."
A barnyard fable
The last few chapters of the Site C story have yet to be written, but as writer Steve Roe noted in "Down the River," a regular column in the Northeast News that explored the issues that informed the debate about the Site C Dam, those looking for a preview of what they could look like would do well to re-read their copy of George Orwell's Animal Farm. In Orwell's famous political allegory, the construction (and destruction) of a windmill plays a central role in the conflict between Snowball and Napoleon, the two pigs that helped engineer the takeover of the Manor Farm. While Snowball (the good pig) sees the windmill as a means to a common good, the production of electricity, his rival Napoleon (the nasty one) instead uses it to exploit the work of the other animals in order to turn a profit for himself and his cabal. To that end, and despite the more pressing need for basic shelter and food, Napoleon convinces Boxer (a horse with a particularly strong work ethic) and the other common animals to perform backbreaking labor in order to build the windmill.
Yet in the end, the windmill that these common animals sacrificed so much to build isn't used to improve their lives but instead to enrich the pigs who have taken control of the farm. BC Hydro isn't run by a pack of scheming pigs, of course, but there are some striking similarities between Orwell's allegory about a small farm in England and the proposed Site C Dam project on B.C.'s Peace River. The residents of the Peace River region, some of whom have spent most of their adult lives fighting against the Site C Dam, can only hope that their story doesn't end the same way as Orwell's does. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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bluerev
3 years ago
It is unfair
We urbanites need to understand where our resources come from and the destruction that is being caused. If we did, maybe we would start to live more sustainably. We don't see where our food comes from, so we are ok with paving good agricultural land for sprawl and highways, we don't see where our energy comes from, so we dam rivers, expand oil sands, look for places to hid nuclear waste. We may technically have a smaller per person environmental footprint, but our footprint isn't stamped where we can see it, rather far away in another world for someone else to fix. Out of sight out of mind... what I am worried about in the future is the fact more people are coming to the city, depopulating the rural land making easier to destroy and as long as there is no one to see the destruction, no one will think it's happening.
Stonebreaker
3 years ago
Oppressed by other people's energy use?
I'm sure there are many reasons to not like Site C dam. However Canadians, including high-fossil consuming rural folks, whining about being burdened by other people's energy impacts is just pathetic.
Canadians climate pollute at the very top levels globally. We just love our fossil fuels. In BC we burn FOSSIL FUELS for 75% of our energy. In BC we IMPORT more OIL energy than we produce in all our clean electricity. Canadians are top 10 in the world in total climate pollution ever and in per-capita climate pollution today.
Our dirty energy use is trashing the ecosystems that most of the world's people (mostly poor) depend on for survival basics. Half of humanity uses almost no fossil fuels, but suffer from our downstream energy piggyness.
What can we do about our energy-impacts on others? Well number one is to cut back on how much fossil fuel we burn. Too bad that isn't even in this version of the Site C discussion. Talk about forcing others to live with the downsides of one's unexamined energy addictions.
Some opponents of Site C even have the nerve to suggest burning more fossil fuels instead! Burrard Thermal is a fossil fuel plant where BC Hydro buys all the energy from dirty-energy IPPs, burns it all and distributes what energy is left as dirty electricity. And this solves the energy injustice issue somehow?
BC has a huge energy dilemma that many are refusing to face. Our primary energy source is climate thrashing oil...not electricity. We import over 75,000kWh of oil every year. This is far more than BC Hydro generates in all electricity. This oil guzzle is neither energy self-sufficiency nor climate sanity.
The energy-impacts injustices being inflicted on others from our massive fossil fuel use are huge and oddly left out of this discussion of Site C. In fact our entire fossil fuel gluttony is being left out of this energy discussion. Why?
Maybe we don't want site C as a society...but we should at least have the honesty to discuss its pros and cons in the context of our piggy and dirty fossil-fuel dominated energy usage.
The most Orwellian thing about many such discussions these days about Site C and other clean energy options is the double-speak where our "energy" doesn't include our "fossil fuels" anymore.
Please re-read this article with the basic fact that we burn climate-thrashing fossil fuels (mostly imported oil) for almost all our energy in BC...and ask yourself how we can possibly meet our own goals if we ignore most of our energy impacts in the context of Site C tradeoffs.
Stonebreaker
3 years ago
Out of sight, out of mind?
What the article said -- "This injustice is only exacerbated by the fact that those who stand to benefit most from the Site C Dam, the residents of Greater Vancouver, refuse to even consider sharing in the responsibilities of energy production"
What it left out -- Injustice is only exacerbated by the fact that those who benefit the most from living off eco-thrashing fossil fuels refuse to even consider discussing how to eliminate them in debates over new energy projects.
Maybe the parable that is most relevant here isn't david-v-goliath but something about people living in glass houses throwing rocks.
If we want to meet our environmental, justice and sustainability energy goals we have to include in our discussions our massive and destructive fossil fuel use too.
mikev
3 years ago
how about we look at it this way
If we don't need the energy now, there's no use talking about enough power for x thousand homes.
How about we talk about enough power to convert x thousand vehicles from burning imported climate changing gasoline to using locally produced clean electricity.
Feel any better?
rubiconchase
3 years ago
missing the point
The concept of using the Burrard Thermal as a source of energy is a distraction. It's nasty and shouldn't be considered for anything but dire emergencies.
Ignore it, focus on the Site 'C' by itself. The dam starts to seem like a foolish thing to do when we could put the development money into geo-thermal infrastructure development instead of yet another dam.
We're in one of the best places in the world to start to move to geo-thermal, it doesn't require flooding valleys, and maybe we could catch up to some of the more forward-thinking countries around the world (remember when Canadians used to take pride in that sort of thing?) We'd have power for today and tomorrow.
Lets try moving forward together for a change.
unhappyvoter
3 years ago
Site C
Max Fawcett's analogy, using Orwell's "Animal Farm" is spot on, perhaps even moreso than the NEP. And I like Gwynne Dyer's advice: just delay and stall, then delay and stall some more, until even the most thick-headed
politicians get it. Don't build the Site C Dam!
jimmy_laroux
3 years ago
Tyee Site C series...
No, you really didn't. The wind energy article was a joke.
False dichotomy. A bit childish, frankly.
No, you didn't do this either. The closest thing you did was to quote Shaffer, who "thinks that last year's unexpected ruling by the British Columbia Utilities Commission represented a rebuke of the belief that BC Hydro needs more production capacity in the system." But this is not really the true. Here is more of what Schaffer wrote:
Aside from one out-of-context quote, used in a misleading way, you've provided no analysis whatsoever concerning the necessity of Site C production.
Aside from the third and fourth articles, this series is quite good. Many many difficult questions went unanswered or even unasked in the third and fourth articles, and much of the "analysis" was misleading, or biased, or doubtful.
jimmy_laroux
3 years ago
@ Stonebreaker
Yeah, that's a really, really [SNARKY COMMENT DIRECTED AT ANOTHER COMMENTER REMOVED. -MODERATOR.] to write. The rest of your post is pretty much discursive [EDITED.].
Tbarnston
3 years ago
I agree...
...with Stonebreaker 100%.
Also, I have been sad to see the Tyee fail to bring up its level of journalism. I am tired of seeing these series that are heavily embedded with emotional analysis without balancing with well researched hard data.
This series raises a lot of red herrings, including the old rural/urban divide nonsense. It was also irresponsible to throw around the 5000 Hectare number regarding agricultural land. According to the Vancouver Sun, the total impact of the entire project including dam, transmission line, and highway reroute is around 5900 hectares. Seeing as Hydro's flood number for agricultural land is 50 Hectares, it would be insightful if Fawcett had actually got to the bottom of this and given us a hard number on what exactly is being sacrificed here. I may be wrong, but Fawcett also seems to be stretching it by equating class 1 soil with agricultural land in order to get to the "thousand of hectares" number.
Also, the Sun points out that only 10 families need to be relocated for the resevoir, so there is not a huge impact on residents. Lets not forget that residents on this river are already living in a valley that is heavily impacted already by hydro development upstream, and this project has been in the works for over 30 years - plenty of time for those households to adapt if they desire.
http://dogwoodinitiative.org/media-centre/news-stories/site_c_fighting_back_the_flood/
The Burrard Thermal idea reveals even more embedded contradictions in this series. Why is OK for the Lower Mainland to consume natural gas from NE BC, but not electricity from NE BC? Site C will be around in 100 years, still creating energy, but will the gas fields still be producing? Very doubtful. Is there an inherent bias in the north against public infrastructure? Do they prefer privatized resource exploitation a la Encana and other energy companies?
Another Fawcett fallacy:
"This injustice is only exacerbated by the fact that those who stand to benefit most from the Site C Dam, the residents of Greater Vancouver, refuse to even consider sharing in the responsibilities of energy production."
This notion is absolute garbage: the Lower Mainland has many hydro electric facilities: Buntzen Lake, Stave Lake, Hayward Lake, Jones Lake, Alouette Lake. All of these are BC Hydro installations. If you cast the net broader to incorporate southwest BC, you can include the Bridge, Cheakamus...overall there are 11 generating facilities in SW BC. http://www.bchydro.com/about/our_system/generation/our_facilities/lower_mainland.html
Again, it is too bad the Tyee doesn't have tighter editorial standards so that a series like this could actually inform instead of inflame.
jimmy_laroux
3 years ago
@ Tbarnston
You don't seem to know what a red herring is. The fact the those residents of BC benefitting from Site C will not have to deal with its impacts is important, and in fact one of the central issues.
So another one is no big deal?
You might not know this, but the Lower Mainland already does consume electricity from North Eastern BC. And the the issue is who will bear the social and environmental costs associated with each power source. The Lower Mainland bears (most of) the costs in burning BC natural gas, and benefits from the electricity so produced. With Site C, it's the North East that bears those costs and uses none of the electricity.
For someone who doesn't know what a red herring is, you toss 'em like their going out of style.
[EDITED. MODERATOR.]
Do you think their cumulative impact approaches that of Site C, let alone the existing facilities on the Peace? It's particularly lopsided when you take into account that the Lower Mainland has almost 50 times the population of the entire Peace River Region.
Sandra H
3 years ago
Agricultural lands affected
According to BC Hydro's report "Site C Agricultural Resources Inventory: Status of Information and Recommendations for Further Study", May 1991, there will be 3173 hectares of class 1 and 2 soils that will be flooded. However, this is a low estimate of the lands affected as it does not take into account the lands up to the safeline which will also disappear due to sloughing. Maps showing the safeline, which extends back over 1.5 km at some locations, can also be obtained from BC Hydro. There is a lot of instability in the banks of the Peace Valley as witnessed by the massive slides that have occurred in this region in the past.
Stephanie
3 years ago
Red Herrings?
"This series raises a lot of red herrings, including the old rural/urban divide nonsense."
Tbarnston: please refer to my comments of 2 days ago, “Site C Would Drown a Vital BC Breadbasket” where I referred to the FACT that northerners are fed up with supporting Lower Mainland parasites.
The “old rural/urban divide nonsense” is most definitely alive, not a red herring (or even an eulikan!) and yes, we are fed up with having our resources stripped from our areas, shipped to the lower mainland and getting nothing in return except for a demand of “more, more, more”…
Enough said!
Tbarnston
3 years ago
Parasites eh
Stephanie, I think you mean shipped through the Lower Mainland, no to. Are you going to vilify Prince Rupert and Stewart as well since they are trading ports as well?
CanadianLatitude
3 years ago
The problem is the people in
The problem is the people in the Peace won't even protest vote. They won't send a Green, NDP or Ind. MLA and as usual will vote for the BC Libs in huge numbers again come next election in both Peace River ridings.
Federally or provincially whoever is the most right wing wins in that area. I used to live up there and it was frustrating. Threatening to join Alberta and whining about Vancouver is the favourite pastime for many up there. Yet so many drive huge gas guzzling v-8 trucks .....
Logical BCer
3 years ago
Costs
If you want to talk about destroying nature; when is the last time you saw a bear or elk in Vancouver? At least BC's interior still has some nature. Fortunately Vancouver is a high density population leaving more nature intact. If everyone in Vancouver had 1 acre lot like many rural BCers, there would be no nature left.
Also the energy consumption per capita of rural BCers is also much greater than urban BCers.
The per capita cost to serve rural populations is far greater than serving urban populations. This goes for the cost of all government infrastructure, telephone/cell infrastructure, and BC Hydro infrastructure. You don't need so much road, or telephone/power pole if everyone would live closer together. Ultimately the large tax base of the lower mainland helps to provide services to the rest of the province.
With that said, I agree that it is unfortunate that BC might choose to flood another valley for more power. I think tripling the cost of power would reduce consumption enough... Oh right, then everyone "up North" would complain and ask for an exemption due to their lifestyle choice... just like the GHG tax.
Ces't la vie.
lifeboat19
3 years ago
Pravda would be proud
David VS Goliath, good VS evil, Luke Skywalker VS Darth Vader and the Empire. Would you be shocked to learn that many northerners would love to see site C built.
RickW
3 years ago
I notice that those who denigrate alternate power sources....
... such as wind power, haven't tackled geothermal. That must mean that it is a viable alternative to Site C.
RickW
3 years ago
Addendum
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=cfbbf32d-4a3f-48d5-9b69-7ec6a82a3d5a
http://www.alternative-heating.com/geothermal-residential.html
YCSTS
3 years ago
Geothermal?
Iceland is the geothermal power center of the World – with decades of experience. They just completed a large 690 MW Hydro project with a 76% CF. So why didn’t they go geothermal instead? They only get 11% of their electricity from geothermal power, the rest from Hydro.
Alaska sitting on top of Volcanoes, hot springs & active fault zones uses 9.4% Coal, 14.8% Oil, 56.7% NG, 18.9% Hydro and a WHOPPING 0.2% for ALL OF Geothermal, Wind, Solar, Biomass etc
You would think Hawaii, sitting on top of active volcanoes, would be the Geothermal Power capital of the USA. Instead it relies on Coal for 13%, and Oil for 68% of its electricity supply, with 1.8 % coming from Geothermal, 0.7% from Wind Energy and not surprisingly has the highest power rates in the USA of 21.3 cents per kwh. I would say if Geothermal was so economical they would have figured it out in Hawaii decades ago.
Toxic metals, minerals, chemicals & gases leach out with the geothermal steam or hot water, as it is forced through rock fissures. Hydrogen Sulfide, Ammonia, Methane & CO2, Sulfur, Vanadium, Chlorides, Mercury, Nickel and Radon & other Radioactive isotopes are released. Hardly cleaner than Hydro.
Geothermal startup suspends drilling. See:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10344441-54.html
Dr. Gene Preston on Geothermal Power:
“…One geothermal project I recently worked on for determining the transmission access for looked like a good project until the geothermal energy extraction failed to work. Recently other geothermal projects have created human induced earthquakes. Geothermal energy seem less likely today than just a few years ago…”
Geothermal has been a terrible energy investment in the USA, considering what simple technology it is:
Subsidies for non-carbon emitting electricity, 1950-2006, renewable subsidies have increased exponentially since 2006:
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/09/federal-support-for-non-carbon-dioxide.html
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-98-A6yribs/SNv8a9g2FeI/AAAAAAAAAEA/NwhrEYhxeJA/s1600-h/Energy+R%26D+table+3.jpeg
Solar & Wind subsidies: $45B for 0.7% of USA Electricity production
Geothermal: $7B for 0.3%
Hydro: $81B for 7%
Nuclear: $65B for 19%
Thus Hydro received 3.5X the Nuclear Subsidies per TWh of Electricity produced.
Geothermal 6.9X the subsidies of Nuclear.
Wind & Solar 19X.
YCSTS
3 years ago
Heat Pumps are not Geothermal Energy
RickW, your second link is for Heat Pumps which is a form of Solar Energy (stored Summer Solar in the Soil), not Geothermal.
I'm all in favor of Heat Pumps. They mean greatly INCREASING Electricity consumption, to replace Oil & NG used for building heating.
Key to Heat Pumps is cheap Electricity. Wind, Solar, Wave, Tidal are all VERY EXPENSIVE electricity. Only Nuclear & Hydro are economical enough to supply clean Electricity for Heat Pumps. And judging from the cost of Run-of-the-River Pirate Power projects in B.C. and the site C Hydro facility, Hydro ain't looking too good.
Another problem is that the bulk of Heat Pump electricity usage will be in the Winter when Hydro is minimal.
So clean energy Heat Pumps mean Nuclear. No escaping that.
RickW
3 years ago
YCSTS
Obviously, I did not make myself clear - thinking that the connection between the two is patently obvious. My apologies.
Geothermal used to run heat pumps, as well as to fill in the gaps in intermittant wind energy. Get it now?
YCSTS
3 years ago
Land Area of Site C vs Nuclear
So 3173 HA of land used for Site C Hydro of 540 MW avg delivered power.
The Bruce power proposal for Lac Cardinal site in Alberta is 3.2-4.4 MW, 2.9-4.0 MW avg delivered power on 712 HA of fenced in land. (mostly unused or undamaged).
http://www.brucepower.com/uc/GetDocument.aspx?docid=2866
That's 6.5 X the energy per unit land area. Also the Nuclear Power is of higher value, constant baseload power, Hydro being lowest in Winter when energy demand is highest.
Also Hydro has 10X the water usage as the Nuclear, per kwh generated, due to increased evaporation from reservoirs.
RickW
3 years ago
YCSTS
Yes -- but would YOU want one in your backyard?
BTW, geothermal is constant as well, just driving those heatpumps.........
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/247987/Yellowknife_NWT_Abandoned_Mine_May_Become_Geothermal_Energy_Site?tp=1
YCSTS
3 years ago
Woops - Bruce Power is 2.9-4.0 GW avg not MW!
RickW - no problem they can build it in my backyard. I would have a nice wildlife preserve behind my home, with the fence on my property line. I guess I could probably make out the Cooling Towers off in the distance, but no racket from ugly Wind Turbines, producing Zip for power, which I definitely DO NOT want in my backyard.
The radiation dose being next door to a NPP would be at most 1% of what I already get from radon emitted from radioisotopes decaying in the earth beneath my house and being released into the Air.
According to the physics department at Idaho State University, household natural gas exposes people to 9 millirem a year. That's about 900 times greater exposure than the estimated exposure you would get living next to a nuclear plant.
Even Three Mile Island, extraordinarily unlikely it would be, with modern reactor safety culture and protection systems, would not have had any significant effect on my property.
YCSTS
3 years ago
NWT Mine Geothermal Heat Source?
That is another example of Renewables Hype. Most of the article is pure B.S. The mine didn't even have air conditioning. People worked at the bottom level, it was only 30 degC not 50 degC.
The morons took the total volume of the mine, assumed a ridiculous avg temp of 35 degC and somehow figured that heat could be extracted by pumping water through the mine. Won't work. You would have had to clear out the huge qty of debris from within the mine, block off hundreds of sections, mine new passages, in order to force water flow through all the mined area. Wasn't done and can't be done.
And every spring ice cold water will flow into the mine, and ground heat will VERY SLOWLY replenish heat recovered. Ground is a very poor heat conductor.
So all you would get is a VERY EXPENSIVE, long distance, ground source Heat Pump which uses Electricity @ 21 cents per kwh to supply low grade building heat - a stupid and ridiculous idea.
This is the same NWT that throws away 65% of the HIGH GRADE heat from diesel power generation, in the many non-hydro communities, rather than using it to supply building heat.
RickW
3 years ago
Cooling Towers off in the distance?
How big a backyard you got?
RickW
3 years ago
Waste
Hmmm.....just the same as we here waste 60% of energy generated through transmission inefficiencies, appliance inefficiencies, etc. etc.
Would your nuclear power fetish address this?
Chris Keam
3 years ago
Urban vs Suburban
"we are fed up with having our resources stripped from our areas, shipped to the lower mainland and getting nothing in return except for a demand of “more, more, more”… "
I would suggest that many of the 'big-city' conveniences enjoyed in rural areas, such as law courts, public works, educational institutions, health care, etc, etc are only possible because people were trained in urban areas large enough to sustain the universities and colleges that train and educate the people who supply those services to many small communities, in the North, and elsewhere. It's a symbiotic, not parasitic relationship.
Chris Keam
3 years ago
correction
My subject heading should have read Urban vs Rural
mgailthiessen
3 years ago
Site "C"
I LIVE in the Peace Country. I can SEE what the development of Site "C" would do to our area of the province. I really don't want to start expounding on my views except to say I thought the very last paragraph of the last of the series (Big Smoke) held one sentence that I feel says it all. The comment about "BC Hydro not being run by a pack of scheming pigs". All I would like to say there is -- NO COMMENT!!!!
cfvua
3 years ago
uUrban vs. rural
Or north vs. south. Too bad that the discussion slips down to this level.
As mentioned many of us who live in the cold dark winters and toil away at making natural gas flow and electricity available to whoever(the transmission lines do go south)don't get much choice on what we drive or that we use more energy heating our homes.
Money spent on twinning the Port Mann bridge won't help with road maintenance so our families can get safely to school or work without a four wheel drive. And I'm sure I spent more on insulation than most folks living in the single pane window area of the province do, so that I can spend less of my hard earned living on heating fuels. And I think that we also are punished financially every time we purchase gasoline or natural gas in that it costs more in the north. And I don't mind if you use natural gas in Burrard thermal as it is a peak load facility, that with upgrades could capture a lot of waste heat for community use. Almost like What Altagas is doing in the interior at a compressor site. check it out in the last so called "clean power call". Lets remember that we all live in this problem province and prefer to or we could leave. So lets focus on keeping our eye on the Campball.