Province to Get Serious about Site "C"

Friday, September 28, 2007 11:58 AM

The government will introduce legislation this spring requiring 50 per cent of all new incremental power needs to be offset through conservation by 2020 and will begin the process to seriously consider Site C, Premier Gordon Campbell announced today at the Union ofBritish Columbia Municipalities convention.

"Hydro has just put out a 'clean' power call that will be followed by a bio-energy power call early next year," said Campbell. "But the fact remains we still need some new large-scale power production, and our options for clean, large-scale power are very limited. We are going to begin the process to seriously consider Site C."

The process will include extensive consultations with First Nations, the Province of Alberta and the public. Campbell said that if Site C does move forward it will be a public asset and a new heritage asset of BC
Hydro.

Campbell also announced that BC Hydro will be required to implement new technology and develop a process where both commercial and residential customers can sell back surplus power.

The first step towards such a system will be for Hydro to help customers install "smart meters" and then develop a "smart electricity grid" that can precisely track and manage power demand. The 1.7 million residential and commercial meters, currently read manually, will be replaced with meters that can be read automatically. That new technology will allow for "net metering" whereby industrial power producers and residential customers can sell back surplus power. A "green power pricing" process will be established to reward customers for reducing and shifting power consumption to off-peak periods.

Smart meters will be mandatory under the BC Building Code in all new buildings and every residential unit. The new green building code will implement the highest energy efficiency standards in Canada, which will
result in homes in B.C. costing less to heat and reduce impacts on the environment.

"California and Washington states have had these codes in place for 25 years," said Campbell. "If we had a green building code in 1986, we would be able to power 250,000 additional homes today."

The Province will also introduce legislation to support the new energy plan such as requiring all new electricity produced to have net zero greenhouse gas emissions and all existing power generation will be required to have net zero GHG emissions by 2016. In addition, no coal-fired electricity projects will be permitted without 100 per cent carbon sequestration.

The Province will also work with the UBCM to establish a sensible but rigorous regime for the recovery, sale and use of methane gas from landfills.

In addition, the Vancouver Water District will be granted new authority to produce and sell clean hydro power to third parties.

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Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 11:58 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Andyfreeze on September 28 2007 7:44 PM

Well,here we go!
This one should get a few enviro-mental-ists up in arms.
Gonna be VERY interesting.

Posted by: Palopu on September 28 2007 8:44 PM

This will be another big scameroony where we will build Site C and supposedly generate our power needs for the next 40 years, etc; etc; and then we will sell it to the Americans to make a dollar, and we will ask the Citizens of BC to turn out their lights to save electricity.

How much revenue is generated by BC Hydro and PowerEx and returned to the BC Government. How much revenue is generated by ICBC and returned to the BC Government; How much from the illegal Government controlled gambling. The list goes on.

Hopefully the legislation will stop our Mayor from building a wood burning co-generating plant to heat buildings with water. That has to be the dumbest proposed project that I have ever heard about. Its all about getting Government money and spending it, and has nothing to do with reducing greenhouse gases.

As long as we get money from other levels of Government that have restrictions on how the money is to be spent we are going to have stupid programs.

Tunnel under Victoria St. (Highway 16) and the Kin Connector are two examples.

Posted by: Parrothead on September 28 2007 10:11 PM

Build Site C, turn your lights down or switch to better lighting technologies, and make a dollar.

Sounds good to me.

Highway 16 should be routed south of the city - a new bridge would cross the Fraser and the new highway would join up near the airport with the Old Cariboo Highway as part of it. Get the "just passing thru" traffic out of downtown.

Oh, and what makes the government controlled gambling illegal Pile '0 Poo?

Posted by: dgdiggler on September 29 2007 12:07 AM

Didn't BC sell millions of dollars in electricy to California who simply decided not to pay BC for it? Why would be risk the same thing? Let's keep our own power, water, gas and oil. Turn off the switches and taps to the US.

Posted by: Andyfreeze on September 29 2007 6:35 AM

The first question that needs to be asked of the Campbell government is exactly how much of that Site "C" power will be sold to the U.S.??
Because the crap we are fed about selling power to keep OUR costs down is exactly that...crap.
Selling a certian amount is ok,but we sell far too much!
Using our resourses as a cash cow is NOT always the right way to go!
And why should we turn off our lights at home when the parliment buildings in Victoria are lit up like a Xmas tree?
Have you ever looked at downtown Vancouver at night?
Or Victoria?
Oh ya...it's done for security reasons...ya right.
Well in this day and age,it is not all that difficult to run your security systems without every light in the damn building on!
I would be in favour of the Site "C" dam in principal but, they better do a better job with that power for B.C.than has been done in the past!

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on September 29 2007 7:46 AM

When I was a young fella we moved to Ft St John in 1975 and I worked on the Site C as everyone got ready for the trucks to start rolling.

Looks like I'll be a very old guy by time Site C is up and running. Sure puts a life time in perspective. I used to think the Egyptian pyramids took along time to build.

Posted by: seamutt on September 30 2007 9:28 AM

Its all about getting Government money and spending it, and has nothing to do with reducing greenhouse gases.

Palopu the industry of greenhouse gases is going to turn out to be the biggest scam of the century. Last year this scam was worth 60 billion dollars to those who signed on. Al Gore makes $125,000 a speech and lives in a "house" that sucks up $60,000 a year in energy. But he says that is okay as he buys carbon credits. David Suzyki gets $10,000 a pop. There are thousands of Scientists taking grants and living very good off this ride. This ride will soon come to an end as more and more scientists are starting to speak up against anthropogenic global warming. Do searches on the internet, lots of information discounting anthropogenic global warming. Lets get the money back into real enviromental issues. I have lots of links if anyone is interested.

Posted by: Chester on September 30 2007 9:34 AM

The BC Government is focusing on British Columbians as individuals to reduce green house gases. They say that 40% of the emission problem is from your vehicle, 19% if from your air travel and another 19% is from your home operations. They are asking for ways to discourage you (or penalize you) from buying gas guzzling vehicles. This will keep you distracted from the bigger problems for awhile. Chester

Posted by: Andyfreeze on September 30 2007 11:17 AM

That about sums it up Chester/seamutt!

Posted by: thereasonableman on September 30 2007 11:49 AM

Whenever the story sounds so promising as this one, I know I'm being had.