If we can't get our power from Site C, then we will get it from the rest of the grid, which will increase your rates.

And those lower cost contracts you complain about, they also say that we get power before you do, so if the grid is maxed out and someone in Yaletown wants to plug in their electric car, Vancouver gets rolling brown outs before my drills, pumps, and mills stop turning. Why? Because we are the biggest customers, we supply the resources, jobs, and create the tax base that governments know they need to survive, so we get first choice on these things.

Saskatchewan Power's coal-fired generator with CO2 sequestration cost $1.2 billion for 160 megawatts of capacity. Site C proposes 1,100 megawatts. So the equivalent capacity using coal with CO2 sequestration would come in at $8.25 million, all things being equal. Just throwing it out there. Not necessarily endorsing it although there is coal nearby.


The facile argument:
Wealth creation is good --> Site C creates wealth --> Site C is good


taken to its logical extreme means we should be enthusiastically endorsing all manner of pipelines, oil/tar sands, fracking, tankers, wind farms, tailings ponds, uranium etc.


The problem with that argument is that it ignores the non-monetary costs some of which cannot be mitigated.


The government is off-base with Site C approval. There was never an attempt to evaluate alternatives. Christy rode to power promising mega projects and she is delivering. No, we need more dialogue.

MY suggestion would be for folks to audit an energy policy course at UBC so that you can get up to speed with reality.

Rolling brown outs, where do you even get that stuff from? There are so many protocols that are set up to avoid that, but even above and beyond that, lets say there is NO energy for sale in all of western north america...they would NEVER allow for a brown out. Ask an electrical engineer why.

@Steventy, yes we buy coal energy at night when its cheap, that wont change - we trade power for money, which complicates the net importer of energy statement. But you are right, we are just under the amount we need to not import at all for our consumption.

@stoked, there is NO such thing as clean natural gas generation unless you believe politics over science.

@Xj, NO that is WRONG about the birds - Think about how much of this earth is covered in glass buildings and feral cats, and the number of wind turbines. It is a silly statement and you should avoid repeating it.

@XJ, IF site C goes ahead (big IF) - there will be NO MORE IPP's constructed. Hydro will not sign 20 year contracts and IPP's will not risk building sites with the ONLY customer saying maybe maybe not.

@XJ, we import power cheaper than we can make it or buy it, so again that is incorrect
when you say we import expensive power. In fact, we actually get paid to take power from the grid. When the columbia gorge 6000 mw get going...we help them out for a fee. However, we are LOSING big time on ALL the IPP power we sell.

@XJ, you are right we pay the cheapest around for power which is why we use so much. IF we charge more, time of use etc...then through the conservation of power we currently have, we have near enough for industry and increase in population. More power is not necessarily the answer.

@Rishi, I agree with the private firms risk with project being beneficial, but we lose $50+ a MW every time we sell it. We can get more from wind since it is green, so we maybe only lose $20, but Hydro is not green according to the folks who buy and sell green energy so there is no green energy credit there.


We do every day XJ. Two more wind farms to come very soon in BC.

I agree that commercial takes the majority of power but it's not as big a discrepancy as one might think with them taking maybe 30% and residential close to 20%. Again though why should I pay for others to profit? If a business has a poor plan and is going under another takes its place with a more effiecent business plan.....this applies to commercial as well.

I also agree with Stoked that there needs to be more discussion about alternatives. Germany's renewable energy is at 30% with most of that coming from solar power.

The BC Govt says BC's power demand will grow by 40%. Why not generate electricity by burning natural gas, instead of building the ridiculously expensive Site C dam?

BC Hydro can't do that - the BC Clean Energy Act limits the amount of fossil fuel energy sourced by BC Hydro.

But apparently it's ok to send lots of BC natural gas to Asia as LNG, where some of it would be burned to generate electricity. After tons of CO2 is spewed by LNG production and transport. Go figure.

Quote:
"Sourcing power from IPPs, at least under the standard offer scheme that BC Hydro has used in the past, reduces risk for the tax/rate payer since the power purchase agreement would fix the price paid for its duration."

Bullshit. Don't get me started.

You might start by taking such a course yourself. Then you will be disinclined to produce the kinds of misstatements you are doing. There is so much error in what you have said that the time to refute it all is not at hand.

However, anyone who suggests that USA wind power farms are not killing thousands of birds and bats takes the cake for falling prey to a maelstrom of propaganda. Avian mortality from wind power generation is indeed severe. In fact, President Obama signed into law further exemptions under the US endangered species act for wind/solar power generation. Otherwise their proprietors would liable for prosecution by the US Fish and Wildlife service. There are numerous media links for this but here's just one from the LA Times

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec...agles-20131207

And from the literature here's only one of many studies by wildlife ecologists on the subject:

In the Journal Of Wildlife Management, (published online Dec 2010), "Bird Mortality in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, California" (Smallwood, Thelander) discussing avian mortality at Altamont, CA wind farm in periods from several months to a few years

the study states "...Many birds residing or passing through the area are killed by collisions with these wind turbines.."

Further, even allowing for scavenger removal of bird carcasses the study found:

"Using mortality estimates adjusted for searcher detection and scavenger removal rates, we estimated the annual wind turbine–caused bird fatalities to number 67 golden eagles, 188 red-tailed hawks, 348 American kestrels, 440 burrowing owls, 1127 raptors, and 2710 other species"

This was just one study of one wind farm and only sampled 50m2 around each turbine. This does not thoroughly account for the large number of birds hit and injured by turbines who fly off and die elsewhere

This is a serious problem, particularly as a result of loss of threatened species and the disproportionate mortality of top level predators. Recent estimates indicate about 4700 birds killed annually at this facility. This continues despite a large decline in golden eagles in Northern California, with almost no golden eagles found nesting near the facility, although it is a prime habitat.

You state : "We do every day XJ. Two more wind farms to come very soon in BC." On this one item you have stated the truth and they should be stopped, now.

No, we do not need more dialogue. After 40 years we need a decision. We have one and it is the right one.

You have severely simplified the wealth creation argument for the purposes of rendering it absurd. This is facile, not the argument itself. Nobody is so credulous as to suggest that power generation and subsequent benefits can be defined in such a trivial manner. Of course there is an ecological cost, and an economic one. That is true of all power proposals.

Alternatives do have a role to play. Geothermal has been ofttimes proposed as an alternative but where is the discussion of what this actually looks like? I have been to Iceland (for work purposes), and seen some of their geothermal facilities with total capacity of about 750 Mw (I think), although majority of their power is still hydro electric.

That 750 Mw is provided, as i recall, from SIX power plants and they are generally imposing, large facilities not little, innocuous pipes popping out of the ground. Each one of these requires its own infrastructure, its own set of roads, its own in-situ heat/water transfer piping system and its own power line corridor.

So, let's extrapolate that to BC, assuming we'd need TEN plants to replace Site C capacity. Where would they go? Would we start at Meagher Ck near Pemberton, with some of BC's highest Geothermal potential? Who among us would not bristle at the idea of that magnificent wilderness and superb Grizzly habitat having a major industrial footprint imposed upon it, let alone the habitat disruption and monetary cost of the transmission corridor. Yes, troubling that is. Now do that for ten plants across the province.

There are no simple answers to this issue. Site C has its monetary and ecological costs but so do all other alternatives.

Anyone curious about this subject can simply google for "birds killed by wind turbines vs cats". You will be hard pressed to find support for the idea that wind turbines are high on the list of threats to birds. And few have considered the perspective mentioned in the bold text below.

Here's a small sampling

http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-...000000000.html
"Wind turbines kill between 214,000 and 368,000 birds annually — a small fraction compared with the estimated 6.8 million fatalities from collisions with cell and radio towers and the 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion deaths from cats, according to the peer-reviewed study by two federal scientists and the environmental consulting firm West Inc."
"A recent peer-reviewed study, which itself looked at 116 other studies from the U.S. and Canada, confirms that wind turbines are waaaay down the list of problems for birds; in fact by displacing fossil fuels they are helping birds, as well as everything else that is alive on the planet. A recent report confirmed that "hundreds of bird species in the U.S. — including the bald eagle and eight state birds, from Idaho to Maryland — are at 'serious risk' due to climate change. It said some species are forecast to lose more than 95% of their current ranges."
"And that's not even looking at some of the other biggest bird killers out there: building and vehicles. That's probably millions, if not hundreds of millions or billions, of other birds right there. In the grand scheme of things, wind turbines are probably lost in the margin of error."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...-millions.html
"The U.S. Interior Department loosened restrictions designed to reduce the threat from wind farms that annually kill dozens of federally protected eagles.
That’s a small figure compared to the hundreds of millions of birds killed every year by cats, cars and mobile-phone towers. Wind farms killed about 573,000 birds in the U.S. last year, according to the Wildlife Society.
“In 2002, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimated that communication towers kill 4 million to 5 million per year, cars kill roughly 60 million, cats kill hundreds of millions,” Amy Grace, a wind industry analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said today in by e-mail.
Almost 1 billion are killed annually from flying into windows, and “no one is protesting about bird deaths outside your new home,” she said."

sgrant

There are hundreds to thousands times more linear dimension and point location of power lines, comm towers and other structures in the world, than there are linear dimension and point location of wind farms. Simply put, that means there are a lot more of these structures so they afford vastly greater opportunity to kill birds than do wind farms. which is why many more birds are killed by them than on wind farms. The basic arithmetic of proportionality is what's missing in your post.

Nobody is suggesting avian mortality does not occur via mechanisms other than wind farms. However, on this thread the suggestion has been made that wind farms pose no meaningful harm to avian populations. This is false, as you have also pointed out.

As of now, the proliferation of wind farms pales in comparison to comm, power and other structures but as these spread they will add to what is unquestionably a serious avian mortality problem. I suggest that Site C will kill very few birds and it will transmit power by the existing (albeit upgraded) grid, so its impact will not increase avian mortality. However, Site C will deplete known terrestrial habitat and farmland so there's no free lunch.

However, over the century of its likely existence Site C is the lowest cost lunch, both economically and environmentally.

[QUOTE=Stoked;568809]Saskatchewan Power's coal-fired generator with CO2 sequestration cost $1.2 billion for 160 megawatts of capacity. Site C proposes 1,100 megawatts. So the equivalent capacity using coal with CO2 sequestration would come in at $8.25 million, all things being equal. Just throwing it out there. Not necessarily endorsing it although there is coal nearby.

The figures I found were a cost of $1.4 billion for 110 megawatts indicating that site c is considerably less expensive.

The problem with that argument is that it ignores the non-monetary costs some of which cannot be mitigated.

Good point. One of the few large economy countries that is willing to acknowledge that fact is Germany. Their decision on using more renewables is coming at a big cost. It will be interesting how this gamble pays off in the long term.



I found that the build cost for the the Port Hardy windfarm to be less per unit of energy than site C-accounting for the intermittent availability of energy from a windfarm. This seems odd to me , so maybe someone will uncover different data.
I share your concern about bird mortality. It seems likely that wind energy will only become more widely used. The Altamont windfarm is one of the oldest in The US and was located with little concern for birds and would not be located there these days, and should be shut down. They are upgrading the old turbines to larger ones that supposedly will reduce mortality.
I am interested in mortality (particularly, peregrine falcons and even Sandhill cranes) at the Port Hardy site.
As for nuclear, I agree. I think the reward vastly outweighs the risk with conventional technology, and further believe it might be the key to the future. Some companies(Lockheed Martin for ex.) are making bold statements about nuclear fusion which is supposed to be a vast improvement in energy return and safety , over nuclear fission.

So, what do you have to say about :
why site C is being built if we don't need it?
Why was there not more consultation on alternatives or was there actually enough, and who was consulted?
What info do you have to show that Site C or equivalent is not needed for future needs.

Saskatchewan Power's coal-fired generator with CO2 sequestration cost $1.2 billion for 160 megawatts of capacity.


From last month's Globe and Mail, Report on Business.

@seasider, I have a lot of mixed feelings as do most folks on the issue. I am sure most folks understand the need to secure energy for the future, relying on the markets may not be the best plan. Although currently the energy market is quite cheap.

The joint review panel on the project concluded that hydro did not produce enough evidence for building the dam (Pg. 306).

The alternatives are IPP's, which as far as RoR goes is not working out that great under todays energy market. Wind energy is at least green and demands a higher cost than hydro so the losses are mitigated somewhat.

I can dig up some reports, but if we paid the TRUE cost of power, then we would conserve enough to avoid site C. Unfortunately people dont want time of use billing, they dont want to pay more....they just want to leave the xmas lights on all night.

My suggestion would be to pay more for power, conserve and start investing more in solar, wind and storage.

The issue of wind turbine avian mortality is a serious and growing problem and not just at Altamont where indeed, the turbines are smaller and older. For example, in the time since the wind farm was established at San Girogino Pass near Palm Springs, the endangered Golden eagle population has collapsed to the point where there are almost no nesting pairs left in the area, with mortality attributed overwhelmingly to the wind farm.

More recent studies, some as yet unpublished are indicating avian mortality from USA wind farms somewhere between 1/2 million and 600k per year, often in populations that are already endangered. Wind Farms tend to be located in rural places where bird populations thrive, like Altamont, San Giorgion etc. As these facilities proliferate the problem will increase proportionately.

That the environmental movement is so quiet on the issue, beggars belief. In what has to be the crowning achievement of ideological grand-standing, do you recall Greenpeace boldly declaring the following in Oct 2010?:

It's official: Syncrude is a tar sands criminal in relation to their liability for the death of 1600 ducks http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/...al/blog/26758/ For a real laugh, try calling up Greenpeace and ask them why they are not holding wind/solar farms accountable for their orders-of-magnitude greater slaughter of birds than at the tar Sands(Actually, they can't really hold them accountable as Obama exempted wind/solar from endangered species act prosecution).

As for nuclear, Canada has the means, with CANDU Thorium or CANDU recycled Uranium technology to vastly increase world power production while simultaneously slashing C02 output, reducing atmospheric contamination while also yielding little impact on terrestrial habitat.

Barring that, the next best option is Site C plus a mix of alternatives.

Time to get on with it