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Home  Opinion The Real River Story
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Written by Rafe Mair
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Tuesday, 22 September 2009 |
The Campbell government, in 2002, privately and in secreet meetings
with the private power industry rewrite our longstanding provincial
energy policy to Industry's liking which will allow Corporate America
to reap tens of billions \iof our hard-earned dollars in the process
(I'll tell you how in a moment) . It was not preceded by a “white
paper” or any public consultation Whatsoever but is a
government/industry document that mirrors perfectly what the industry
heavyweights like Alcan, GE, the Dupont family and Accenture (the
reincarnation of Arthur Andersen Consulting of Enron fame) wanted. At
the heart of this policy is that all new renewable energy in BC
henceforth must be produced privately. The exception was allowing BC
Hydro to upgrade its facilities and do Site “C” which the premier
calculated would create enough heat and smoke to obscure the main
consequences of his plan.
What the government has told us about the plan is remarkably consistent
– consistently untrue. Let me follow that path before we get into the
consequences that will flow from this plan.
1. BC is a net importer of electricity. NOT true. This statement is contrived by counting only BC Hydro and ignoring the power generated by other components of our public power system such as Alcan, Teck-Cominco and Fortis. The government, in customary government flim flam, also ignores that the power we do import is by choice, to trade energy with our neighbours at a profit for the people of BC. We import from Alberta and the US cheap power at night when the demand is less and “flip” it during the day to Washington at very handsome profit. Even with that, the National Energy Board and StatsCan show BC as almost always being a net exporter. You can see the full documentation at www.saveourrivers.ca <http://www.saveourrivers.ca/>
2. These private projects are “small run of river projects which don’t impede the flow of the river". Again, this a blatant fib. See for yourself – go to www.saveourrivers.ca <http://www.saveourrivers.ca/> and see the Powerplay series by Damien Gillis. No matter what size the river these plants, by dam and diversion, take the water out of the river, pump it through pipe and tunnels for many kilometers leaving as little as 5-10% in the river bed. Some projects, Glacier-Howser for example, never do put the water back in the river bed but dump it in a convenient lake.
3. We’re told that these are small businesses, “Mom and Pop” so to speak. Another falsehood. The main players are Plutonic in partnership with General Electric, the huge construction company Ledcor, and Axor owned by the Dupont family.
4. It’s said that these plants are just a tiny environmental footprint. Again, look at Damien Gillis’ Powerplay series and see for yourself. Not only are they immense in terms of the river involved, construction involves heavy silting of the water (anathema to fish) impedes and diverts the river, and requires roads and transmission lines meaning huge swaths of clear cutting.
5. Campbell tells us we need the power and this plan will make us self sufficient by 2016. This fib truly takes the breath away. As our public energy regulator, the BC Utilities Commission recently concurred, there are many better ways to meet our energy needs. All the power we will need for as far ahead as is reasonable can be provided with some conservation, updating the existing generators, adding generators especially to flood control dams and taking back the power we now send to the US under the Columbia River Treaty as we’re entitled to do.
Here is the breath stopper – even if we did need power, these private plants can’t supply it and guess why? The vast majority of their power comes during the spring run-off when BC Hydro’s reservoirs are full and it doesn’t need it! Whatever plans Campbell has for more power in BC it's not going to come from his private power plants!
6. The Campbell government says it’s either private power or Site “C”. This is simply not true. For the reasons above we don’t need Site “C” power. This is simply a “red herring” to draw away investigation of the private scheme and its calamitous consequences for our province.
The Campbell government looking like Little Jack Horner with his plum, proudly asserts that it will get rid of the Burrard Thermal plant and criticizes the BCUC for wanting to increase it's capacity. Note this carefully, BCUC did not say increase it's use, but it's capacity, quite a different thing. You see Burrard Thermal is only used a few days a year when Hydro's reservoir's are low. It's much like many of us who have small gasoline fired Generators to give us power during outages. What BCUC is saying is that this backup should be able to produce more energy, not produce more energy.
Now let’s see what the government doesn’t tell us.
BC Hydro is compelled to buy all the private power produced on long term contracts (30-40 years) at vastly inflated and Indexed prices and this is what happens:- because BC doesn’t need the power as I indicated above, Hydro must export the private power at somewhere between 1/3 and ½ what they were forced to pay! Evidently The Fraser Institute has taught Campbell a new business maxim – buy high and sell low! At present with about 40 projects signed on, BC Hydro - that's you and me - through our much higher future power bills, is on the hook for $31 BILLION! It’s not hard to see that BC Hydro, carrying an $8 BILLION capital debt and unable to create its own new electricity, won’t be able to survive.
Let me close with this – every year BC Hydro pays a dividend of many hundreds of millions of dollars into the provincial treasury where it goes for schools, hospitals and the like. When this energy plan takes effect that money will be gone, and guess where it will go? You’ve got it - to shareholders of the large corporations with those sweetheart deals.
As a postscript, with the editor’s kind indulgence I would like to announce that Damien Gillis and I have formed a partnership (called Gillis-Mair Productions) to build a new media project - a website to bring you common sense, solutions-oriented reporting and commentary on the issues that matter to Canadians featuring Damien's award winning videos. As we've seen from the woeful coverage on vital issues from our mainstream media, there is a real need for a new media outlet that can be a voice for the public interest. The site will focus on just four issues: Water, Energy, Food, and Democracy - and will feature video reports, articles by myself and other contributors, and a host of multi-media tools to ensure the public is informed and engaged on the important challenges that face us.
We do need financing – not kind donations but more serious financing than that. If any who reads this is they can contact me at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or 604.913.3655.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 28 September 2009 )
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