Site C Will Be Announced Today
By Ben Meisner
Premier Gordon Campbell is to announce today in Hudson’s Hope that the Site C - Hydro Electric project is back on the books.
The province will announce that we are in need of new power in the next five to ten years (BC hydro’s own service plan shows there is no need for Site C until 2025)
The project will put 5,000 gigawatts of power on the grid when it is finished at a cost of about $ 6 billion plus. That puts the people of the Peace Valley at odds with BC hydro, and believe me, the fight has just begun.
$ 6 billion will put a lot of people to work in the area from Hudson’s Hope to Ft St John; it also will annoy a lot of farmers, ranchers and a general population who see no need for the Site C.
They look to wind power as the next generation power, pointing out that the cost of wind power has dropped about 80% over the past decade as companies build bigger fans to harness the wind.
Now page 4 of the 2010 service plan says we in the province will not need site C until at least 2025, but the province is about to get on with the project now.
What the 6 billion will do for the economy north of the Pine Pass, and how it will affect Prince George and the central interior are questions that have yet to be answered. Dumping that kind of money into a project of this scale cannot help but boost the economy and it will come at the expense of the Peace Valley.
This one however is not over, first there must be environmental reviews, and a deal with the First Nation’s people of the area. Things are about to heat up north of the rocks.
I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.
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Posted by: gus on April 19 2010 1:12 PM
Large wind turbines put out about 5 mega watts … this link is to a modern 7mW turbine http://www.metaefficient.com/news/new-record-worlds-largest-wind-turbine-7-megawatts.html
The hydro power station is proposed to put out 5,000 gigawatts = 5,000,000 megawatts
If we use a more commonly available 5mW turbine for ease of calculation, in order to create the same capacity with the current wind turbine technology, we would be looking at one million wind turbines.
I like harnessing the wind. However, I think there are some obvious limits compared to harnessing water. To compare hydro to wind is like comparing apples and oranges. Try installing a wind turbine for $6,000 per turbine.
I understand that the world installed wind powered generators was about 160 mW at the end of 2009. In order to reach the capacity of the site C proposal, we would have to build 30 times the current world capacity.
Just a few things to consider.