Site C Inquiry Coming to Prince George
Prince George, B.C. – The BC Utilities Commission Inquiry will be coming to Prince George at the end of September to gather public input on the Site C project.
The inquiry has been called for by the Provincial Government, and will examine the financial impact on BC Hydro ratepayers associated with continuing, suspending, or terminating the Site C project.
The BCUC will be holding a number of Community input sessions, including one in Prince George on the evening of Friday September 29th at the Ramada Hotel. The session is set to start at 6 pm and run until 10 that night.
Similar sessions will be held in Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops, Nanaimo, Hudson’s Hope, Fort St. John and Fort Nelson.
Members of the public wishing to attend, need to register in advance, and if they want to make an oral submission, will have to add a request to do so. Only oral submissions will be accepted
Registration opens on Wednesday September 6th either online or by phone at 1-844-815-6190
Written submissions will be accepted before October 11th. Written submissions can be emailed to sitecsubmission@bcuc.com Faxed to: 604-660-1102 or mailed to 410-900 Howe Street, Vancouver BC V6Z 2N3
Separate sessions will be scheduled for the Panel to hear First Nations submissions. Details on the First Nations sessions will be provided at a later date.
Comments
Carry on with it.
Show a need for it.
See a need, fill a need. BC is a net importer of electricity 7 out of 11 years leading up to the business news Vancouver article in March of 2016. There is your need, stop the inquiry and build it Rodney has spoken
For those who don’t know of Rodney Copperbottom you should take a trip to Vancouver with 3 kids in the van and only one movie to entertain them with. Didn’t actually get to watch it but have a lot more quotes if you need them, Robin Williams voiceovers are hilarious but do lose something after the 4th and 5th time. “Nobody likes a chatterbox” is another line that got a chuckle. But back to the discussion Y’all
Show me some information that we don’t need it, like we didn’t WAC
And what is a tour going to do, really? They are to examine the financial impact on ratepayers – so everyone is to bring in their current bills and they will have a time machine set up so we can all go into the future and see what the impact will be. Lucky for us they have a alternate reality time machine that can go into both futures – one with and one without a dam
Aren’t we all so lucky that we “elected” Horgan so he can guide us through this tumultuous time
You miss Clark lying to us?
No Horgan has that part well covered, even his kin in the Greens are peed
The UN report on Site C is focused on the accusation of racism as the claim was made that First Nations were not properly consulted. The NDP apparently will explore alternate energy sources if Site C is mothballed or eradicated. This indicates that even the NDP/Greens know that needs for electricity will increase as the province grows in population and economic activity, all of which MUST have a reliable supply of renewable green power! This begs the question, what are the alternative power sources that the NDP/Green is talking about? Coal, natural gas, nuclear? When weaver was a personal adviser to Gordon Campbell he was apparently very much in favour of Site C.
I believe that the whole controversy is about political vendetta!
Weaver says he is against it now because costs have risen since he was in favour of it. Wait a few more years and he maybe expects costs to go down? That is the Green dream, money for nothing and your chicks for free
good one
Would be an enormous joke if they stopped now, but a typical NDP move.
Yes a toatal waste of money 💰 as above get on with it.
welll it WAS a make work project… was not going to last forever… Even after completion, it will only employ coupe hundred while our hydro rates go through the roof
Wonder if the subject of the 65 billion in very expensive IPP contracts driving up our current rates will come up.
As for renewable power excluding hydro, everywhere in the world it has been a disaster drastically driving up prices.
The meetings will become a b* fest for why all the land in the Peace will feed the world and we are going to flood it and deprive the world of the cure for hunger in our attempt to provide cheap affordable power for everyone in BC
Your sarcasm is on solid footing! Little is said about how foreign companies have bought B.C. farmland and planted trees on it to get carbon credits! The land that they took out of agriculture is far in excess of the land that would be flooded by Site C.
I compare the building of Site C now to building my retirement funds.
I am a couple of years away from retiring, but I starting buying RRSP’s for that day 40 years ago because I had no idea of what my future requirements would be.
Who knows what our electrical needs will be in the next 10 – 40 years, so I feel that if Site C has proceeded this far, continue to build it. It will not be any cheaper to finish it in the next decade or two.
What a waste of Taxpayers money but that is what the NDP does best Get on with the project.
Cost to go ahead seems like it will be higher to move forward with it than to stop. Carbon, methane $, land, loss of farmland, disruption to rivers. Hydro power was far better than old-style coal plants, but there are better alternatives.
We need to let go of old ideas. Building new coal plants or damming rivers is extremely invasive and far from carbon neutral. The methane production alone (methane is a greenhouse gas) from new dams makes them less attractive than modern natural gas generators.
Thorium powered fluoride cooled reactors were proven to work back in the 50’s and potentially could generate far more energy at far less cost. Hazardous waste is far reduced, 0 emissions, far lower risk of meltdown. Their development was not pursued back then because you can not produce fissible weapons grade material from them. (this is a good thing in terms of nuclear non-proliferation.)
Windmills and solar panels will never be sufficient, even if we could cover the planet with solar panels. Because it gets dark sometimes. (why this is obvious to everyone I’ll never understand.) Likewise, the wind is not always blowing.
A distributed network of small nuclear generators could reliably power our planet for thousands of years with far more reliability and cleaner energy.
I guess I am in the minority on this matter, but as far as I can tell, nuclear is the ONLY power source that is even close to allowing us to avoid a catastrophic climate collapse due to runaway greenhouse gas emissions. Which incidentally is already underway, and may be unavoidable at any cost now.
My 2c.
*should read: “why this is NOT obvious to everyone”
Jane Fonda would disagree.
Why are you concerned about carbon or methane? Is there some verifiable proof some where there is a problem and not just some money sucking scientist or politician or some Soros fan making things up?
I agree with most of what spidey says although I am not a big fan of nuclear generation.
Lets look at some facts:
1. The Shepard Energy Centre officially opened just outside of Calgary in 2015.
This plant generates 800 Megawatts of capacity. (Site C will Generate 1,100 Megawatts of capacity) Cost for the Calgary plant $1.3 Billion (Cost of Site C $8/9 Billion)
2. The Shepard plant is jointly owned by the City of Calgary and ENMAX. The Mayor of Calgary states that “Fundamentally, all of Calgary’s power consumption is now generated close to home, in a way that is clean, that is green, and that is efficient, and one that will accelerate us away from coal-based power generation in this Province.
3. There is another Natural Gas plant planned for West of Edmonton that will generate 1000 Megawatts of capacity. Cost would not be much more than the Calgary plant.
4. These plants can be built and producing electricty in approx 3 years.
5. When you consider that BC planned to build 10/20 LNG plants and export natural gas to Asia so they could build natural gas generating plants, you have to come to the conclusion that there is sufficient natural gas in BC to supply a huge plant like that built in Calgary.
6. Once you build one plant in BC you have solved your electricity problem for a significant amount of time, and you also have the option of building a second plant. Alternatively you have the option of closing the plant if other sources of electricity should become more efficient.
7. Transmitting over long distances results in a loss of 7% of what is produced. Having plants located close to huge population areas, gets rid of the producing and wasting of energy, because of the short distance between production and usage.
8. There are many benefits to building a natural gas plant, not the least of which is not having to flood the Peace River Valley, or exproptriate peoples property, further pollute the Peace River, upset the eco system of this area, etc; etc;
So lets quite bull s……g ourselves. Site C is an insult to the intelligence of the people of BC. A project that was initiated for political reasons, and should be brought to a halt immediately.
9. People who want work and contracts can work on the natural gas plants, and major infrastructure projects for years to come.
Lets not cut off our noses to spite our face.
So yes there can be upto 7% loss in long distance electical transmission but how does that relate to the energy required for production, and transmission of NG?
There are natural gas pipelines all over BC. Most of them are operating under capacity. They will continue to operate under capacity for years to come, because Alberta, and the USA are all using their own natural gas to produce electricity. If Asia and Europe continue to purchase their Natural gas from Austrailia, Brunia, and other Countries that have been supplying them for over 30 years, then there will never be a shortage of natural gas in BC, or a need for further pipelines.
Pipelines and huge amounts of gas are only required if you build LNG Plants. (Which doesn’t seem to be happening at the moment) LNG plants pollute approx 4 times more than a natural gas electricity generating plant.
There is no coherent argument for Site C. Never was, never will be. Time for people to take some responsibility for Governments that thrive on huge amount of propaganda not supported by any facts.
**You can lead a Site C supporter to water, but you can’t make him think**
So then in your reasoning there would be no transmission cost of NG to a powerplant? Hint have a look at your gas bill and read the list of charges.
Hey Palopu,
Let’s assume that Site C gets mothballed and it is decided that we need to build 2 or 3 of these Gas fired Thermo Plants.
Do you for one second believe that the Greenies and the rest of the snowflakes down south will want them polluting their airshed?
No, they will want to build them up here in the north so that we can get the pollution while they get the power!
I for one will be first in line to insist on any new thermal plants be built close to where the power is needed. Fraser Valley, Downtown Vancouver, and Victoria would be my first choices for plant locations!
Get this in regards to the Calgary plant. According to the Mayor.
**This plant is an extraordinary user of water. It uses a lot of water through evaporation because of course as the steam is cooled, water can evaporate. That said, one of the greatest things about this plant is, there’s two really interesting aspects to make the plant more efficient. One is that we have a relationship with the City of Calgary’s Bonnybrook Treatment Plant, which brings us about 14 million litres of water a day, of treated water, of water from Bonnybrook Treatment Plant so it’s a very efficient way of using that water and the second is that we also use the waste heat that is generated by the big turbines to power smaller turbines to continue to produce even more electricity.**
So it seems they have no problem with having one of these plants close to Calgary, and I am sure Vancouver would be no different.
I like you choice of Victoria being one of the locations.
The snowflakes down south got Burrard Thermal shut down in Ioco a NG generating plant, nimbies.
So much for Palapu’s having generation close to load.
Shutting down Burrard Thermal was part of the Governments strategy to make a case for Site C. I see you have drank the cool-aid.
Burrard Thermal was old and past its lifetime, plus when they did have to run it it was very expensive power to generate and contributed 7% or more of BCs total greenhouse gasses. That is why the greens lobbied it to be closed for good. That is what happens with natural gas plants, they have to be decommissioned and a new plant built about 3 (or 4) times for the lifespan of a concrete dam structure.
Why build something when it is not needed? Was site c invented to pay off the contractors who heavily supported the Liberals in this last election? Take this money and build new much needed highways in this province.
Site C was invented when they built the WAC Bennett dam
oldman1, you suggest that Site C was invented to pay off the contractors who heavily supported the Liberals in this last election. You then suggest that we take this money and build new much need highways in this province.
When you say that we take this money and build new highways, are you talking about using the money to hire only union contractors who supported the NDP in this last election? Isn’t that how the Vancouver Island Highway was built, built by only union labour and union contractors as a reward to those Unions that heavily supported the NDP?
We, the taxpayers, sure got good value out of those rewards to the unions, didn’t we! NOT!
Goldman, read the retirement fund analogy again. You don’t start saving for retirement the day you work your last shift. You start well in advance of the need. In BC with growing population and the inevitable move away from fossil fuels you can not dispute that we are going to need additional sources of clean power within 10 to 15 years. Do we build now and have it available when we need it? Or do we wait for rolling brown outs and black outs before we start planning to meet those needs?
What am I missing here? The BCUC is having seperate sessions for First Nations input
I would like to know how much land is turned from agricultural to residential in the lower mainland annually .
What has that got to do with the the issue of Site C.
That is the main argument against Site C, where have you been?
Some interesting headlines.
Aug 1/2017. DTE Energy proposes 1,100 MW Gas Plant in Michigan. Cost $1 Billion.
July 31/17. Texas regulators approve Entergy’s 993 MW Gas Fired Plant.
July 17/17. Plans for $800 Million Gas Plant in Pennsylvania moving forward. 950 MW.
Aug. 21/17. 870 MW Gas Fired Oregon Clean Energy Centre began operation July 1st.
Cost $800 Million.
So we have 3913 MW in the USA either operating, being constructed, or proposed. Cost of which would be in the area of $3 Billion dollars, and produce 3 time’s more MW than Site C.
This is only the tip of the iceberg.
If we go ahead with Site C we will be sitting on the biggest most expensive swimming pool in the Universe. After spending $ 8/9 Billion or more. Having huge increases in the cost of Hydro, we will be stuck with this electricity because the world has moved on and no longer needs it.
With our energy agreements with the USA they can import as much natural gas from
Canada as they need. So at the end of the day we will be suppling the USA with cheap gas, to run their gas plants, and at the same time have the useless Site C plant sitting idle without any customers.
Natural Gas Generating plants are the perfect solution to solar and wind energy, because it gaurantee’s supply when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
Time to wake up and smell the flowers.
And last only a third as long as a dam, plus US dollar estimates. WE need the power, BC imports more electricity annually than it exports – see above 7 out of the last 11 years we were a net importer of electricity. Powerex handles trade in electricity and turns a profit annually – not a loss. Nice thing about dams is you can store the energy potential to when it is the most valuable as an export, you can import electricity when prices are low and ramp up production when it is higher, that is how trade works.
How many deep river valleys does Texas have, that are currently available for hydro-electric dam projects?
Texas is approximately two thirds the size of BC and I believe that it currently has 10 hydro-electric dams.
Perhaps Texas is going the natural gas generating route because they don’t have any other large rivers and valleys available for new dam construction?
In Paris the federal government agreed to reduce carbon emissions in Canada to a certain level. It cannot be achieved if the provinces do not do their part. The carbon taxes will increase steadily instead of all of a sudden. Alberta has legislated a cap on carbon and will raise the carbon tax to 50 dollars per tonne. Other provinces are doing similar caps and increased taxes.
Fossil fuels emit CO2 when combusting. They are taxed per tonne. Building heating, gasoline and diesel fuels are already subject to carbon taxes and the taxes are increasing. Hydro power is not a CO2 emitter, neither are wind turbines nor solar panels, wave, tide and geothermal sources of energy. How anybody can ignore the cost of carbon taxes now and in the future is hard to believe. How anybody can still promote carbon emitting power plants is even harder to believe.
Pal you will never convince these non believers that your posts make sense. The have one mindset that real doesn’t make sense.
Cheers
Last example.
LNG plants produce 4 times more emissions, than a natural gas electrical plant. So with these huge emissions why would the Government allow them to be built. Why would they allow 20 to be built.?
Part of the fabrication for this whole fiasco was the assumption that electricity from Site C would be used to run the LNG plants, however this has never actually been stated by the Liberal Government. LNG plants can produce their own electricity much cheaper than buying it from Hydro.
The only agreement in regards to using Hydro power was between Petronas and the BC Government where they agreed that Petronas would use Hydro power for their auxiliary needs.
So, unless you can show evidence to the contrary you are supporting a huge polluter by supporting the LNG industry, and at the same time you are flogging Site C because it pollutes less than natural gas.
In other words you do not have a clue as to what you are talking about.
I strongly suggest a number of Site C supporters do some serious research.
LNG has nothing to do with Site C, it was a bonus. We import more electricity than we export. We have required more power than we generate more years than we produce a surplus in the past. Low water years we need the generating capacity this year probably being one with the lack of rain to keep reservoir levels up.
I strongly suggest you do some research, while you are at it check out what BC pays for electricity over the same in Alberta where your natural gas “cheap energy” generation resides
Vaughn Palmer: Hydro offers 900-page report defending Site C
VICTORIA — B.C. Hydro is not giving up on Site C without a fight, judging from the almost 900-page defence it submitted this week to the NDP-government ordered review of the controversial project.
“The best option for ratepayers is to complete Site C as currently planned,” Hydro wrote at the outset of a submission to the B.C. Utilities Commission where it declared the project to be on time, on budget, much needed and cheaper than the alternatives.
ht tp://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-hydro-offers-900-page-report-defending-site-c
Build the dam thing already!
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