Will this mean cheaper hydro bills...

Actually no it will result in much larger hydro bills. They companies that are doing these IPP contracts are getting a rate that is much higher than the cost of production or that is even on the free market of electricity. It was another one of those special deals for corporations thanks to your liberal government.

Where do I sign up for a ticket to ride.....the gravy train?
metalman.

Was this farm removed from the ALR? Why work the land when the rent makes life easy. Why would this farm stay in production now? I thought the ALR designation was to make sure the farm land was available, not to use to make money from!

"It was another one of those special deals for corporations..."

Corporations have some kind of a fetish about making a profit for the shareholders and investors who often are teachers' and other union workers' pension funds. If they don't make a profit they often go bankrupt or shut down - to do their business where the pastures are greener.

In fact, profit was the only motive for creating them in the first place.

I wouldn't invest my money in any corporation that can't make a profit and pay dividends which are greater than keeping my money in the bank.

I don't call making a profit a *special deal* - it is the basic motivator of business activity - since the days of the ancients.

Why would a wind farm be removed from an ALR if it is in one? Strawberries don't mind.

Think of it this way. Plant a crop, use it for biomass to create energy. Is that an "agricultural" use?

Take the same land, make energy from wind, use the land underneath the rotors to plant more traditional agricultural products ......

Sort of the same as oil and gas wells, isn't it?

;-)

I have no problem with corporations making a profit but when a government goes out of the way to ensure the corporation makes a profit, versus it being free enterprise and at the market value for the product I take issue.

Leave Electricity generation with BC Hydro. 3rd cheapest rates in Canada, they must be doing something right.

What I take issue with is that when governments in other parts of the world do provide incentives, and in some cases considerable inncentives, to make sure that corporations will come to their country to set up business, or stay in their country to conduct business and we play the so called "free enterprise" high road, that we are not playing the game right and we will continue to be the suppliers of natural resources and all around good guys who really do not have the faintest clue how the world works in the 21st century.

Part of running a country is running a business which is in competition with other countries.

As far as leaving it to BC Hydro, I do believe that BC Hydro has a call for clean power to feed into their grid and this proposal meets that requirement.

There is an interesting similarity between the wind and the hydro projects. Both use fluid flow to drive turbines that generate electricity.

I suspect that wind turbines are more benign to the environment in general than water turbines.

It appears to be a wise addition to their operation.

If someone thinks that the negatives of wind turbines outweighs the negatives of hydro turbines, please identify those reasons.

If the government borrows the money to purchase, erect and run the wind farms - how would that affect our hydro rates? Site C too would require the borrowing of billions of dollars. NO effect on our rates? Of course they would go up!

Only by *creative* accounting practices can it be made to look as if there are no consequences to borrowing money but in reality the users AND the taxpayers will be paying the bill, no matter how the figures are juggled around for ideological purposes.

Whether its private or public - we pay. In this case the private corporation does all the engineering, risk taking and raising of capital, plus the maintenance and later replacement of worn out equipment.

At the end of the day - which way is/was better when it comes to supplementing BC Hydro's power capacity with some privately generated power?

I would have to confess that I do not know how the world works in the 21st century. to me thats not important. What I see happening in our own communities is whats important to me.

When I look at at the corporations in my own back yard I see how they are given timber rights, mineral rights they make hugh profits that leave our country. and the hell with scondary industry let it look after itself. Is that how the rest of the world works?

Switzerland has one of the best economies in the world but I understand that only a small part of profits are allowed to leave the country the remainder must be invested within.

One need not look at the rest of the world one need only look at how the stock market functions. Its all paper and all it produces is profit. It dosent produce a dam thing. Not much food or work involved there.

Its nice to sit back and watch the rest of the world and know how it works and it may work very well for some countries but its not working that well for us. We are only second to the USA when it comes to child poverty. In Prince George the unemploymet rate is above 8%. Is that how the rest of the world works?

Even shit looks good through rose coloured glasses.

Cheers

The advantage of the government borrowing the money is they get it at a much better rate than any one else. The advantage of the government running a power facility is any profits are given back to the public in a variety of ways.

When you do some research and discover the rate the IPP's are being promised over a 25 year lease, with the public ultimately not owning the facility and other incentives given to the IPP's yes there is some creative accounting going on but not in the public's favor.

bridge .... "When I look at at the corporations in my own back yard I see how they are given timber rights, mineral rights they make hugh profits that leave our country"

Here is the revenue breakdown of the alberta 2008 budget (created in 2007)

http://alberta.ca/budget2008/images/2008-09-revenue.gif

30% is from non renewable resource revenue

22.3 % from personal income tax

9.8% from corporate income tax.

That is based on the price of oil below $100 per barrel. In fact, the 30% will likely hit the 35 to 40% mark.

According to todays Vancouver paper we are running short of power for the Province. Can anyone tell me why we are exporting power thereby creating a shortage for ourselves?

The same problem exists in our oil and gas industry, we are exporting our resources while denying the usage and a fair price of same to ourselves.

We export power cause we can make a profit on it, and then in the evenings when we shut down our Hydro ( water fed ) generator we buy back electricity from the states at a lower price as they use steam or nuclear to produce power and those systems don't like to be turned off as readily as a hydro generator. So therefore making money for the citizens of BC. ( till this gets given away by the Liberals , then a US corporation will take the profits and you get to pay more for your electricity. )
The concern is the when we have the huge peaks, like in the dead of winter on a cold day.

After rereading my post I have to apologize for the description of seeing the world through rose coloured glasses.

Netsurfer and lunarbase give us some insite as to where we are going. I have said this before, when will it stop when we become a third world country. We are one of the ritchest countries in the world but are not self sufficient. We depend on our natural resource sales to keep afloat.

So Alberta gets 30% from non renewable resources and who gets the profit? Does it go to secondary industry?

Owl, some days you sound like our politicians. I realy dont know what you are getting at when you give me the information on the Alberta budget. I think the Tar Sands operation should be shut down. Why are we providing oil to the world and poluting our enviroment and now they tell us that the cost of gasoline will be up at 2 bucks per liter by year end .

The biggest problem we have is that to many live in the upper story of our jungle all they see is the green canopy but mean while the decay at thr ground level goes on.

cheers