My conversation about BC Hydro with Chris Cook for CFUV 101.9 FM radio in Victoria. Chris regularly addresses issues not well covered by corporate media. BC Hydro’s difficulties definitely fit in that category.
North American Megadam Resistance Alliance
Before forming the Horgan Government in 2017, BC NDP was a frequent critic of how BC Liberals managed BC Hydro, our largest and most important crown corporation. NDP promised radical improvements. Those promises were empty. The only substantive changes were the appointment of Chair Ken Peterson and multi-billion dollar increases in capital spending.
Curious deal in BC’s pay-to-play economy
In early 2014, BC Hydro awarded SNC-Lavalin a contract to design, build, finance and maintain the John Hart Generating Station Replacement Project on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.
BC Hydro salaries
BC Hydro withheld its Financial Information Act Return for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 until September 30, the final day before failure to publish the report would have offended provincial law…
Lies cost BC citizens billions
To gain public support for massive spending, BC Hydro is untruthful. To avoid taking responsibility for bad public policy, the Horgan Government pretends not to notice…
BC Hydro Annual Report
In the fiscal year ended March 31, to its residential, commercial and industrial customers, BC Hydro sold 1.6% less electricity than in the previous year. The volume in 2019-2020 was slightly less than the 15 year average…
Energy policy undermined by special interests
Difficulty justifying billions of dollars spent to meet a need that has not existed is no real problem for people who benefit from the expenditures. After years of arguing falsely that more electricity has been needed to serve population growth, now they contend that vastly more capacity is required for electric vehicles…
Population change, economic growth and electricity consumption
It seems logical that a growing population and an expanding economy would need greater supplies of electricity. But de-industrialization and lighting, motor and other efficiencies changed the proposition. Reality over the past 15 years is something difference…
Good advice ignored
More than ten years ago, economist Erik Andersen and famed commentator Rafe Mair warned that BC Liberals had planted seeds of destruction in the bowels of BC Hydro. Indeed, the seeds germinated, spread invasively and debilitated the once proud utility. Citing five vectors, Andersen concluded the financial position of BC Hydro was headed dangerously downward…
Errors and alternatives
Three years ago, John Horgan’s Government promised the $10.7 billion budget for Site C would be firm, final and effectively managed. Three years before that, Liberal Energy Minister Bill Bennett provided assurance that the $7.9 billion dam budget had been fully reviewed by the world’s top experts. With an overly generous contingency, he said It was final, with nothing left to chance.
In 2020, BC Hydro admits it is uncertain how the dam can be made safe from catastrophe. Consequently, the amount of money needed to complete Site is unknown…
Site C losses will be massive
With domestic demand in 2020 below that of 2005, the lies of BC Hydro’s spin doctors about demand growth are exposed by the company’s audited sales numbers. Site C power seems promised to natural gas producers and processors at less than 6¢ per KWh, which would result in operating losses at Site C approaching $500 million a year. Those could double if BC’s surplus power is dumped in export markets that are taking advantage of low-cost solar and wind power. With certainty of billions to be lost by completing Site C, the obvious choice is to suspend the project immediately. It would be the least-cost option…
Sarah Cox on CO-OP RADIO
Co-op Radio’s interview with Sarah Cox, the preeminent journalist covering issues surrounding British Columbia’s effort to ensure that NL’s Muskrat Falls is only the second worst hydro-electric project in Canada.
Site C: Government failure to safeguard the public interest
That Ralston, Horgan and colleagues knew about cost pressures and risks three years ago and chose to proceed shows the NDP wholly owns this fiasco. Had Site C been stopped in 2017, the loss would have certainly been less than the difference between the initial budget and the final cost. Probably far less, if lessons from eastern Canada apply…
Private profits but public risks – Updated
Commercialization of small-scale nuclear power has turned out to be far more difficult than investors expected a decade ago. Even one of the world’s richest entrepreneurs cannot finance a multi-billion-dollar program with an uncertain future. Nuclear may play a role in the 2030s but solar, wind and geothermal are viable power sources today…
Absolute disregard for transparency and accountability.
Had BC Hydro executives chosen to, the annual report and financials could have been released one to two months ago. Much of the report is boiler plate that is substantially reused each year and key business information is created internally within days of period end…
Simple facts about BC Hydro
Despite flat electricity demand since 2005, BC Hydro increased dollar value of IPP purchases by 185%, added 17% to its own generating capacity and bumped total assets from 12 to 38 billion dollars and is spending 15+ billion more on capital expenditures…
Billions lost – bad luck, incompetence or fraud?
Electricity ratepayers, mostly residents and small to medium sized businesses, suffer because of failures by politicians and major media. The public was badly informed and that has enabled losses that will ultimately measure in the tens of billions of dollars. This should be British Columbia’s largest ever political scandal but the people responsible for it will never be held to account. On the contrary, the scoundrels have departed or will one day retire in unsullied comfort…
BC Hydro, provider of social and corporate welfare
The $12 billion utility delivered more power to its BC residential and business consumers in calendar year 2005 than the now $38 billion utility delivered in 2019…
Our BC Hydro bills subsidize fossil fuel industries
You will find evidence at In-Sights proving government policies and subsidies have cut public revenue from petroleum and natural gas producers to a tiny fraction of what it once was. This despite substantial increases in natural gas production. But, gas producers have hands in our pockets in less obvious ways…
Fighting climate change with slash and burn
Right now they’re destroying two amazing landmarks on the river, tall rock pillars called “The Gates” in an attempt to cut a channel of the river off and use the rock for their mad earthworks. We hear that even locals who support the dam are becoming restive when they see the profligate throwing around of money and environmental destruction…
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