Site C: Unfortunately 4 Billion Dollars already committed by Liberals was too much to ignore

Some people don't really understand the energy trading provisions of NAFTA, do they? 

Whenever energy is sold to the U.S. we are obliged to continue selling it in the same proportion and at the same favorable rates in perpetuity.

Sounds like you support damming Canadian rivers to forever serve American needs. I don't.

We don't need the power. Why flood valuable agricultural land just so more power can be exported to the US?

from the article linked above:

Quote:

"We're willing to flood the entire valley, throw people out that have been there since the 1900s, and are taxpayers and have never had a problem, we're going to displace First Nations again, we're going to eliminate our tourism and wildlife and agricultural abilities in the valley, in exchange for 70 to 100 years of power, all of which will be exported to the United States or the tar sands.

"The result of that," Forrest continued, "is profit for the province, 90 per cent of which ends up in the Lower Mainland, and we end up with the mess. What do we get in exchange? We get five to seven years of jobs, most of which will be tendered and given to people outside of this area."

Damming the Peace River is not the "green" option.

Like all major dam projects, the goal is not energy, or green power, or jobs, or sustainability. The goal of large-scale dam projects is always, always, the enrichment of a connected political elite at the expense of the local residents, first nations communities, and downstream ecosystems. 

Have you been in the Peace River valley that is slated to be destroyed to enrich BC Hydro and its shareholders? I doubt it. Northreport sounds like a typical privileged urbanite whose solutions to [i]entirely fabricated problems[/i] will always come at the expense of those people least able to defend themselves.

Those people will lose their homes, the valley ecosystem will be destroyed, downstream communities will face water shortages and lower river levels, First Nations communities will be displaced and further marginalized (White people want "clean" power, Indians have to deal with the consequences without any voice or recourse). 

Let's stick a nuclear power plant in North Vancouver, and see how juiced BCers are for "clean" power.

The only purpose for Site C would be to export energy. From the Georgia Straight:

"[Fort St. John Mayor Bruce] Lantz pointed to electricity trade statistics, compiled by Statistics Canada and the National Energy Board, that show that B.C. was a net exporter of energy (measured in megawatt-hours) in seven of the past 11 years—from 1998 through 2008."

...

"Vancouver-based Site C opponent Joe Foy, national campaign director with the Wilderness Committee, told the Straight by phone that “the [B.C. Liberal] government is bending over backwards to create a phony shortage.” Foy claimed that B.C. Hydro’s own 2007 Marbek Report contradicted government, stressing conservation measures and stating “we need not be using more power in 2027 than we used in 2007”. Foy said the Marbek Report has been shelved for now."

Yes I have noticed. I have also noticed that BC is a net exporter of power. Therefore neither the IPPs or Site C are needed.

from http://wildernesscommittee.org/news/industry_questions_power_export_scheme

Quote:

The industry committee notes that the government is using a worst-case scenario to determine the amount of new power needed to meet the self-sufficiency target -- based on the single driest year in the past six decades.

The industry committee says that in most years Hydro will have a substantial electricity surplus.

Analysing BC"s power balance of trade is not easy. BC buys cheap coal fired power from Alberta so it can sell hydro power on the spot market to California at a higher price. If BC Hydro was operated in the interests of British Columbians we could stop both exports to the US and imports from Alberta.

The Columbia River Treaty allower the flooding on severl BC valleys in exchange for (anong other things) "downstream benefits" which could have been taken as power, but instead was taken in cash in the form of the Columbia Basin Trust. The Province has a choice to import power generated by the flooding of it's own valleys but it chooses to build even more dams instead.

Maybe people will stop voting against their own interests soon?

Quote:

[i]And in a world eager for renewable clean energy, BC Hydro’s Powerex division is bringing in substantial revenues for the people of this province through energy trading with other provinces and states which puts BC Hydro in a stronger position than ever.[/i]BC Hydro booming

If BC Hydro was actually servicing the need of the electorate of British Columbia then "the progressive steps" would not need to address extra "expansionary efforts to maximize profits." The business of BC Hydro, as a public  company, is to serve that electorate not to fund electrical consumers in other places. It is about here at home. It is about statistical determinations as to the cost to these consumers in BC. Two tier systems my ass.

The rates increases are bogus attempts to profit off the backs of the people of BC when it should have been used to keep the cost of hydro down. Any privatization government would see that you pay according to the market consideration, like BC gas did to a conversion.

Ultimately, it sets up the company to be sold based on that profitability?

Quote:

BCUC Regulators Not Regulating
says pensioner Lynda Zorn / BCFORUM
March 9, 2010

[i]Kelowna The B.C. Public Utilities Commission (BCUC), whose mission,
according to their website, is to ensure that ratepayers receive
services at fair rates from the utilities it regulates, has allowed
Terasen Gas to increase its (Midstream) Commodity charges to Kelowna
customers an outrageous 75%, says Lynda Zorn, North Okanagan spokesperson
for the BC Federation of Retired Union Members (BC FORUM).

It has also approved a 12.5% increase in delivery charges for Terasen
Gas, and the 6% hike Fortis BC implemented and which the City of Kelowna
will pass along to its utility customers, and is now considering BC
Hydro's application for a 9% increase, which I have no doubt will also
slide through, said Ms. Zorn.

Add to that the Liberal's Clean Energy Levy, Carbon Tax, Innovative
Clean Energy Fund Levy, Franchise Fee, and the GST, soon to be HST, all a
percentage of the total of all the other charges, and you are almost
tripling the cost of energy you actually use  hardly an incentive to
conserve, she said.

Ms. Zorn points out that this year, Seniors CPP benefits increased less
than 1/2 % and their Old Age Security not at all. How then, can Seniors
manage to heat their homes when faced with these unrealistic increases?

Ms. Zorn would like British Columbians to know that the BC Utilities
Commissioners are appointed, and that, as the Commission asserts in its
website, its costs are recovered primarily through a levy on the public
utilities it regulates.

Don't think for a moment that these costs are not passed on to
the utilities customers. Further, is this dealing at arm's length or
is it a conflict of interest, she asks.[/i]

Anyway, run of the river projects and BCUC should be put under investigation. Descisions there are able to implement allowance for increases but it is not able to stop the BC Governement for the Run of the river rojects? These do not help the people of British Columbia and was nothing more then a profit scheme off the back of nature. "Inside government information" lead to a mass exodus of people who would invest to profit.

How many people of British Columbia knew of the contracts?

updated with correct link and special emphasis

IN a state of apathy....such a statement may seem appealling below?

Remind wrote:

[i]"Maybe people will stop voting against their own interests soon?"[/i]

Haven't seen to much interest in a defining of the "public services" other then Thanks trying to organize the thoughts in a framework.

Click on image for larger viewing

So, that is what my post was about. More in helping to reshape what pubic services can mean when we as citizens own that company.

If the dam was thought to create jobs,  it will never be about that no matter how hard you try to justify it. We know a profitable busness "can take care of it's own without adding hidden costs" to economy recovery.  Shall it be off the back of families and workers who are now sitting at home while our CEO's shall not be given any more preference then the workers that work to sustain this busness for the province.

Time to shake up the glass houses these people of busness think their in.

Alcan Makes Power an Election Issue by Heather Ramsey

“

It askes that we be shaken out of that apathetic state and to recognize now, it is not about being politcal anymore. It a matter of survival and their is no limit it seems when given a blank check,  what's left to fight with?

Friday, May 13, 2005 click on image

People need to give their head a good shake. Now you get some sense of what has been going on and where it was going. It doesn't have to be that way. You can "redefine what you want out of a public company."

Bute Inlet: New Video and Multimedia Page

Quote:

[i]If Gordon Campbell is re-elected the enormous Bute Inlet project of Plutonic/General Electric will be approved – 17 rivers involved – and with that precedent there’ll be no way to turn down future private power applications. BC will be in the business of being the biggest supplier of energy in the western United States and river after river will become suppliers of that power. The profits of that power will not go to the people of BC but to shareholders, like Warren Buffet at General Electric......See:River Privatization Just Produces Power That We Don’t Need[/i]

Quote:

Peace River folks might want to consider how to put all the coming dammed up water to productive use, instead of crying over spilled milk, er water

Goddamn right! They can sell that water to the Bellagio! Who needs functioning river ecosystems and sustainable water use when we can have this:

I guess if the real life situation can be played out in myth, so can it's cultural end game?

Must the 'Big Smoke' Always Get Its Way?

Quote:

[i]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.[/i]

I like you Jingles.

This is a typical NorthReport thread. S/he's come up with a grand theory and will defend it in the face of all history, logic or cogent arguments.

You don't even have permission to live in BC. Don't you think that you should clear up that little detail before you start telling people which valley you're going to flood? Typical white-supremacist settler mentality.

NorthReport wrote:

 

Alaska is the richest state in the union, giving $1,000. each year to its residents. BC perhaps might want to aim for that so that its Lower Mainland residents could at least pay for some kind of down payment on a home.

-----------------------------------------------

Money talks, and bullshit walks! So what else is new, eh.

Lets see a single detached home in Vancouver costs over $1,000,000 so at a thousand dollars a year it would only take a hundred years to get a 10% down payment. Of course you could buy a condo in Burnaby for a mere $500,000 so you could get a down payment in a mere 50 years at a grand a year.  Wow I think we should sell everything off at those prices.  H

Why are we Importing Hydro for BC?

It's an important question since the question of importing has provided the BC Liberals with the smoke screens they are most famous for, and there too, the consultations with the BC electorate they are most famous for. The BC Liberals have a plan "hell or high water."

Quote:

Quote:

[i]

Importing Electrical Hydro to British Columbia?

COMMENT:

This is the same unoriginal refrain from BC Hydro - we're running out, we're a net importer, we need to build more generation capacity. Come on, Mr. Elton. Let's go over the basic arithmetic again. [1]

In BC, we presently use about 55,000 GWh per year according to BC Hydro. This will rise to about 58,000 GWh in 2013. With "heritage" hydro and thermal capacity, plus existing and new contracted capacity, plus conservation and efficiencies, our generation capacity will exceed consumption until 2013. This is pretty much as it is laid out in BC Hydro's 2004 Integrated Electricity Plan

The "net importer" story that Mr. Elton and Energy and Mines Minister Richard Neufeld never seem to tire of telling, is a different story. The government expects a revenue stream from BC Hydro. In the 2004/2005 budget, it budgeted for about $400 million to net back to provincial coffers. How Hydro does this is clever, it's good busines, and it usually ends up with BC being a net importer of electricity, but an overwhelmingly successful winner on the bottom line, year after year.[/i]

A thought occurred to me. Does Alcan and all electrical producers sell power at day rates, or night rates?

I don't know if most of you seen this article written and reported in the news of Global. But to say I was dismayed was the least of my thinking and I will tell you why in a minute.

In 2005 I wrote the article above, that more or less explains what has always been happening. You as a BC resident only get a half baked truth to supported the media view sanctioned by Global news. You see, they have already incorporated the Run of the River into the everyday view, while the BCUC has already made it's determinations about that part of the process. Now with the IPPBC view firmly implanted in your minds, we are going to go one step further too support the illusion of not having enough energy for the province?

Peace River power play over potential Site C dam

Quote:

[i]

Strumming an acoustic guitar in his unofficial mayoral digs, the Whole Wheat ’n Honey restaurant, first-term Fort St. John mayor and former journalist Bruce Lantz knows more than most municipal politicians about Site C. In 1999, he was short-listed (and subsequently overlooked) for a position as northern communications rep with B.C. Hydro. The interview process required intense study of corporate documents pertaining to, among other topics, the wholly-owned subsidiary and trading arm of B.C. Hydro known as Powerex.

Related content

Video: Potential windfall won’t sway opponent of Site C dam in northeastern B.C.

B.C. and Fort St. John chambers of commerce differ on Site C dam

Unlike his mayoral predecessor, Jim Eglinski, Lantz is opposed to Site C. Like many opponents, Lantz said the dam will not benefit local residents or even British Columbians provincewide. He said B.C. already has enough power, and he claimed that Site C will enable mass exports of “green” power to California, or even Alberta and (indirectly) the oil-sands operations. (“It could happen.”) Lantz also claimed that the B.C. Liberal government, including former Peace River North MLA and energy minister Richard Neufeld, has manufactured an “energy deficit” to suit this export agenda.

“When they started talking about this energy deficit [in 2005], I went to [B.C. Hydro northern communications rep] Dave Conway, Richard Neufeld, and the [B.C. Hydro] CEO, Bob Elton, at different times, and said, ‘Okay, I remember when we had this huge surplus. We used to buy and sell, and we would sell at peak price points, and we’d buy it back at low price points, and it was all good and we had lots of electricity,’” Lantz recalled. “And I said, ‘What has changed from ’99 to ’05 so drastically that now we were in this energy deficit?’”

According to Lantz, “Nobody gave the information.”

“I said, ‘Keep it simple, because I’m just a dumb Nova Scotian, but you should be able to provide that, because you are selling this on this concept,’ ” he said. “And they never, ever did.”

Lantz pointed to electricity trade statistics, compiled by Statistics Canada and the National Energy Board, that show that B.C. was a net exporter of energy (measured in megawatt-hours) in seven of the past 11 years—from 1998 through 2008.

Blair Lekstrom, the current energy minister and Peace River South Liberal MLA, did not return calls from the Straight.

Third-generation Bear Flat farmer Arlene
Boon and her husband, Ken, are happy to
share their thoughts about the Site C dam.
Matthew Burrows photo.

Vancouver-based Site C opponent Joe Foy, national campaign director with the Wilderness Committee, told the Straight by phone that “the [B.C. Liberal] government is bending over backwards to create a phony shortage.” Foy claimed that B.C. Hydro’s own 2007 Marbek Report contradicted government, stressing conservation measures and stating “we need not be using more power in 2027 than we used in 2007”. Foy said the Marbek Report has been shelved for now.

“When reasonable people accept that there is a shortage, then reasonable people begin to believe that we need to…do Site C,” Foy said.

[/i]

So where is the Marbek Report on Conservation?

Quote:

[i]
British Columbia Electricity Demand-side Management & Renewable Power Potential

---

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

CLIENT: BC Hydro
CHALLENGE: BC Hydro is a North American leader in the design and delivery of demand-side management (DSM) programs and in the integration of DSM in utility resource planning and corporate management frameworks. To support its DSM commitments, BC Hydro required a detailed assessment of how much electricity conservation and customer-side electricity generation is [...][/i]

So here's the thing since we are entertained with the Global news views supported by a media giant who seeks to support the plan as it is to unfold according to the FIBeral view, how about a little story then that will help to shape some of the perspective about this clandestine operation that the Liberals run in this Province and see if any of rings true to your ears.

Of course the Animal Farm is featured above.

See Also:

An Open Letter to BC Hydro
Economic Recovery 's Hidden Costs

A BC Liberal troll on babble how nice. This is a bad idea that i believe is designed to work in conjunction with the tar sands.  This is going to be the power source for the tar sands.  Once they have managed to ram this down the throats of the FN's and other citizens of the north they will turn their energies to building the pipeline over the dead bodies of other elders and activists.

So go pimp your globe destroying ideology somewhere else.