No one doubts that in coming decades, demand will grow, partly fueled by electric vehicles. But that growth will be more modest than claimed by BC Hydro’s agents. It could be easily met by conservation and efficiency programs, upgrades to existing facilities and creation of clean, non destructive renewable sources.
NDP Cabinet needs a reality check
Harry Swain, having served as chair of the federal-provincial review panel for Site C, is qualified to provide a project analysis. The BC NDP caucus should pay attention because Premier Horgan has mishandled Site C at every step. Doing the right thing now involves Premier and Cabinet admitting to a years long series of blunders. That’s not likely to happen without severe pressure from their enablers…
Non-standard accounting creates imaginary profits and hides failure
Future BC Hydro ratepayers will be paying excessive rates for electricity and BC Hydro financial statements have been distorted by non-standard accounting methods. These allowed the provincial government to direct payments of dividends funded by borrowing, not by real profits of the utility. But other failures and mismanagement at BC Hydro are apparent…
Falsehoods and misinformation, government specialties
Never has the government of British Columbia stood behind a larger megaproject than the Site C hydropower project. Never have more falsehoods been used to justify BC Hydro operations and the spending of tens of billions of dollars.
Campbell Clark Horgan madness
While British Columbia has policies to prevent additions of solar power to the provincial power grid, Germany has been moving forward on this form of renewable electricity. It should be noted that the centre of Germany is at a latitude similar to that of Kamloops…
Electric shock
In a few words, over a 15 year span, total annual revenues (what we have paid as customers) have increased by 100% , over the same period and with inclusion of contract obligations the total capital deployed more than doubled but customer needs ( as represented by volume of annual sales measured in gigawatt-hours) remained unchanged.
Why we’re voting
It is easy to conclude why Premier John Horgan ignored BC’s established pattern of general elections every four years. The BC NDP was riding high in the polls but a threat to that popularity was looming. A threat not known to the general public…
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…
Site C per MW capex 7x that of Egyptian near-shore wind projects
Because domestic demand by BC Hydro’s residential, commercial and industrial customers has been flat since 2005, the need for Site C is doubtful. Because costs of alternative sources of electricity are substantially below the Peace River project, its completion is a mistake…
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…
Absent watchdogs
Most journalists, particularly ones occupying the BC Press Gallery, have spent little or no time examining Site C, the costliest public project in BC history. In contrast, I remember daily headlines and aroused commentary when Premier Glen Clark’s government thought ferry construction would invigorate BC’s shipbuilding industry. In financial terms, the bungled fast ferry project was 1/20 the size of Site C, destroyed no valuable farmlands and disrupted no cultural sites…
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…
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…
Next generation wind energy
Those of us who opposed construction of the Site C dam—including the BC NDP until May 2017—argued that rapid advances in alternative energy systems meant flooding the Peace River valley was inappropriate and unnecessary. That was true in 2017 and remains true today…
NDP energy promises now forgotten
Most business managers are drawn to new low-price means of production, particularly when costs of innovations are trending steadily downward and costs of conventional methods are rising. Not at BC Hydro.
They think we’re stupid
For decades, BC Hydro’s leadership has been predicting demand for electricity in BC will grow about 40% in 20 years. The utility continues to misinform citizens of the province even though sales records reveal something far different…
Unattractive risk
Every young person is taught that willingness to fail is empowering and roads to success are built atop failures. Such precepts are generally true but it is also accurate to say death-dealing disasters are usually reckless failures from which nothing good comes. Italian engineers were incautious when they chose to build a dam where the slopes of Monte Toc were unstable. Two thousand people died in the disaster that followed…
Open for business, at any price
Billions of dollars in the accounts of vested interests instead of the pockets of residents and SMEs. That’s will be the outcome after Clark Liberals and Horgan’s NDP greenlighted Site C, a $12 billion dam, which BC residential and SME consumers do not and will not need.
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