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Norm Farrell

Gwen and I raised three adult children in North Vancouver. Each lives in this community, as do our seven grandchildren. Before retirement, I worked in accounting and small business management. Since 2009, I have published commentary about public issues at IN-SIGHTS.CA.

Community-powered energy

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Over the years, clean renewable power costs have decreased steadily and efficiencies have improved. The British Columbia government and the main public utility offer few incentives for creation of energy near to points of consumption. Green electricity must displace fossil fuels but the NDP allows BC Hydro to maintain its near monopoly while it discourages local cooperatives seeking to create power for self-consumption. Provincial decision makers cling to business models rooted in the 1960s.

Carbon-free, non-destructive energy

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A pumped-storage hydroelectricity (PSH) facility moves water into a high-level reservoir during times of low demand, and then generates electricity by releasing water during times of high demand. Most storage occurs at night and most electricity is generated during the day. PSH is a proven method of energy storage with competitive round-trip efficiency and long life spans.

Western Canada refusing to limit a main cause of climate change

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Powerful people are willing to destroy us to enrich themselves. Governments are willing accomplices. Canada Energy Regulator says western Canadian fossil gas production hit an all-time high in November 2022, a year that included at least eight of the top ten producing months since January 2000. There are no plans to limit production. Instead, governments and industry plan major increases in fossil gas output.

Every alarm bell is ringing, but political reporters aren’t listening

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I looked at the writings of Vaughn Palmer, a person considered by many to be the Dean of the BC Press Gallery. The province’s production of fossil fuels is accelerating, and wildfires — with months to go in fire season — have consumed 450 percent of the average of the preceding 15 years, but Palmer is writing about any issue other than climate change. Not one of Palmer’s last 30 columns touches on the existential emergency.

Record setting wildfire burns – updated

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As of July 30, BC Wildfire Service is calling 2023 the worst year for land damaged by fire. In fact, with months to go in fire season, 15 percent more land has burned than in 2018, the second worst year BC has recorded. Three hundred and fifty-seven wildfires are burning on July 30, 188 of them out-of-control.

Will BC Hydro make another multi-billion dollar mistake?

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BC Hydro is preparing a call for power and expects to award new contracts to independent power producers in 2025. The 500 MW Revelstoke 6 is deferred again, even though it could produce electricity for about $1.2 million per MW of capacity, which would be less than one-tenth the cost per megawatt of Site C capacity. While BC Hydro has been buying private power, it has been exporting public power at market rates. If we value private power purchases at the same value the utility has realized from trade sales, the losses form 2010 to 2022 amount to $6.4 billion ($7.5 billion in 2022 dollars).

Methane, gas or liquid, is not clean energy

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Governments responsible for regulation of fossil fuels are also promoters of its production and consumption. British Columbia has committed billions of dollars to encourage liquified fossil gas and has extended subsidies by way of royalty credits worth over $15 billion in today’s dollars. Government’s commitment to growing the fossil fuel industry is in direct conflict with its role as protector of the public and the environment using fair and neutral regulation of a dangerous industry. Measuring escaped emissions of methane would make it impossible to meet political promises of emissions reductions for the oil and gas industry. So, it is not a priority.

Some are getting rich on pensions

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Times might be tough for many in British Columbia, but executives managing public pension funds are doing okay. Even better than okay. The British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCi) looks after public pension funds. It is the most rewarding place to work in BC’s public sector. Most rewarded is CEO Gordon Fyfe. According to the 2023 Annual Report, he scored a single-year raise of $947,146. That was better than his measly $510,589 raise in the previous year.

COP37

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A Conference of the Parties (COP) is held regularly to assess the effects of the measures taken by Parties and the progress made in dealing with climate change. Dubai, most populated city of the world’s seventh largest oil producer, will host COP27 in December 2023. Leaders of the top five oil producers — USA, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada, Iraq — are already planning to speak at COP37.

Unextractables

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Most Canadian politicians are blithe to climate science. The federal government is building or assisting construction of fossil fuel pipelines worth $45 billion. In the last few days, BC Premier David Eby joined Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at a Vancouver conference promoting production and consumption of fossil gas.

Jiggery-pokery in business

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On Twitter, Eudaimonia drew attention to a legal action involving the Province of British Columbia, BC Hydro and Conifex Timber Inc, a company that wants huge amounts of electricity for cryptocurrency mining. Eudaimonia sees this court case as a serious warning. If the 300 MW that Conifex wants is half of Site C’s capacity, he assumes BC Hydro is admitting the new dam may have capacity of 600 MW, not the 1,100 MW advertised.

British Columbians sold a bill of goods

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Wind and solar are zero-carbon energy sources. When used to produce electricity, these renewables are less harmful to Earth’s climate than hydropower. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a lengthy Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks. It shatters the idea that hydropower is clean energy, free of greenhouse gas emissions…

Accurate methane emissions not wanted in BC

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The Narwhal reported on peer-reviewed research that showed Oil and gas facilities in B.C. are producing 1.6 to 2.2 times more methane pollution than current federal estimates. But a wave of new satellite monitoring capability may change things. Soon, fossil gas promoters in industry and governments will have nowhere to hide.

The new abnormal

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As climate disasters become more common, motivations to address underlying causes will decline as the general public accepts them as normal. Add the normal inclination to diminish gradually deteriorating situations and we are unlikely to save humanity from extinction.

Protecting the protected, abusing the abused

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Amanda Follett Hosgood, northern BC reporter for The Tyee, has done a thorough job of detailing the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal examination of RCMP conduct after a staff member of a Burn’s Lake residential school was accused of sexually abusing an 11 year-old Indigenous child. Information from the hearings is troubling. . .