Could not be said better ---- good column

Rafe
I am completely in agreement with your stance on keeping our rivers. I am just wondering with all the alternative ways of making power which would be the most environmentally friendly and cost effective choice?

Heres an eyeopener folks. It costs hydro about 6 dollars a megawatthour to produce electricity. It costs an IPP about 67 dollars to produce that same megawatt hour. Guess who is going to pay the difference.

Seems to me I remember Campbell stating , words to the effect, that if elected he would disband all trade unions....
That means privatization...
and he, so far, has done whatever he can to live up to that election promise.
So why not with Hydro as well....

Actually BCRacer,you're right.
Problem is,Campbell spews enough rhetoric and gives out enough tokens to the peons,that most people are not paying attention to that little fact.
Exactly what he wants.
It's all about big business ain't it?
If people took the time to look at what has been lost or given away in B.C.since Campbell came to power,they might start to see the pattern.

Revolt, civil disobedience. Has a nice ring to it eh. Oh ya, I forgot we live in Canada. We let all the rich people give it to us without hardly a squeek.
Sheep, all of you.

"Sheep, all of you"
-I didnt vote for the guy..

How revolting would you have us be, lostfaith? Will you be our leader?
We will follow, you lead.
baa, baa.
black sheep(metalman)
P.S. run of river is ok if done correctly.
I do agree we cannot let BC Hydro go private, we must protect our rivers.
baa.

Leaving aside environmental concerns does anyone know what the percentage of total power produced these privately owned small power producers represent?

Are these small private generating facilities something that BC Hydro could, should or would do economically by itself?

How about privately owned wind farms? Isn't wind a public resource owned by us the people, who also own the sunlight that falls on any solar cells?

Where does it start and where does end?

Where does it start and where does it end?

It starts any time you want to pay to put up a wind farm or solar farm because it has negligible environmental impact.

It ends when you want to go within 50 meters of any body of our precious and limited water resource that is the habituate of entire eco-systems.

For me its not even a debatable issue.

"our precious and limited water resource"

It is precious ...... it is limited in some ways, not in others. In other words, it might be limited in location, in beauty, etc., but it is typically replenished over time.

It can be "wasted" by putting impurities into it, by altering its path, etc.

The real question to you, eagleone is this:
"what are its attributes that make it precious?"

In other words, what can it be used for and what should it not be used for?

Wind farm projects in particular have met with a fair amount of opposition. Noise, bird kill, ruining of the scenery...you name it.

I personally believe that it starts with the need of mankind for energy and the fact that mankind is choking the earth in the way it already has overpopulated it. It ends when a proper balance is achieved between mankind's demands on the earth and the ability of the earth to support those demands.

If a small waterfall's energy can be used to supply electrical power to the grid (thereby preventing the burning of fossil fuels) isn't that something that should be explored as long as it doesn't do anything to the quality of the water which emerges from the turbine as clean as it entered?

We all expect to have a reliable supply of electricity to our homes, to the businesses where we earn our paycheques and to the schools where our children get their education.

We already supply most of our requirements by hydro power obtained by large scale tinkering with nature. If other ways can be found to satisfy our ever increasing demands without going near rivers and creeks I am all for it but historically that has been where our power comes from.

The controversy of government vs. private control is probably the main reason with those who object to the Run of the River projects.

Posted by: metalman on April 15 2008 3:09 PM
How revolting would you have us be, lostfaith? Will you be our leader?
We will follow, you lead.
baa, baa.
black sheep(metalman)
P.S. run of river is ok if done correctly.
I do agree we cannot let BC Hydro go private, we must protect our rivers.
baa.

Sorry metalman I'm no shepherd, I have stage fright and I have no real faith in mankind to ever do the right thing for one another or our planet. Hence my name here on this site. I could spend the rest of my life fighting for all that is good and right but my life is better than half over and now it's time for me. I don't believe in fighting losing battles anymore, been doing that all my life it appears. Man will put an end to man, end of story. The place and it's inhabitants are doomed.
You say run of river is ok if done correctly. What is the correct way?
You say we cannot let BC Hydro go private and I agree, but exactly how do you think the sheep could possibly ever stop it when the shepherds decide to sell it?
Because when they do it will be done.

lostfaith, too bad you gave up on things.

I say: Keep voting, keep hoping, keep their feet to the fire, don't let them grind you down, recall them, replace them, don't get mad - get even!

There is a pot at the end of every rainbow! There may even be some gold in it!

Cheer up and see the good in mankind! It's there alright even though it never seems to make it into the news!

Have a good day!

Hey lostfaith, I think I know where you are coming from, I frequently feel that way about things too. There are a lot of things to be disillusioned about, but we can't change most of them. Illegitimus Carborundum, and don't ever give up!
How to do run of river correctly? In my opinion, you place it at or near the base of a waterfall (lots of those in B.C.) so that it does not/cannot interfere with fish heading home to spawn, then you divert all or a portion of the river (depending on the size of the river and the size of the generator) run it through the generator, and discharge back into the river. Presto: no dam, no loss of water, no temperature change in the water, just clean green power coming from a modest riverside powerhouse. These can be built, they have been built, they are simple, and yet they can be made even better. With the technology available, the output can be varied according to load, if necessary, this is done by automatically varying the volume of water being diverted. The environmental impact amounts to cutting in a road, clearing a place down at river level, constructing the powerhouse, and the minimal work that must be done in the water itself. None of these intrusions need be harmful to the land, the river, or the fish.
metalman.

Great post, metalman! Thanks for the information. Now, if those private producers sell the power to Hydro and Hydro sells surpluses at a profit to Alberta or the US we as B.C. residents still benefit. The private producers employ people and pay taxes while making a profit for themselves. It may even be some kind of protection for the rivers when outsiders come along and want to get their hands on the water.

Diplomat wrote:- "The controversy of government vs. private control is probably the main reason with those who object to the Run of the River projects."

I think you're right, diplomat. We didn't get BC Hydro from WAC Bennett's Socreds because they believed that 'government' run power was better than 'private' run power.

That wasn't a matter of Socred ideology, like it was for the NDP. The Socred ideology then was, "That is moral which works best." All around, for ALL the people of BC. That's the difference between them, the NDP, and the Campbell Liberal crowd. The latter two are 'slaves' to their ideology. Social Credit never was.

BC Electric and other then existing private power companies were given every encouragement by Bennett to develop the hydro-electric power potential of the Province. But they wouldn't do it. Not without holding us hostage in what we'd end up paying forevermore.

They wouldn't progress, any more than the CPR would modernize their antiquated ferry fleet that made the crossing from Vancouver to VI, (the old side-loading steamships, that took almost as long to get cars on and off as it did to make the crossing!)

So a government that was committed to a strong belief in "free enterprise", stepped in and did what was "best" for ALL the people of BC. We got BC Hydro, and BC Ferries. Even though Bennett was likened to Fidel Castro by the New York financial papers for doing it.

As a result, we got plentiful, relatively low-cost power, (if you don't count what we paid in the 'price-inflation' that took place while the dams were being built, and afterwards, that is ~ an inflation which finished Bennett's government, because he couldn't keep a lid on it. Which is kind of ironic, since the original, actual 'social credit' ideology contained a mechanism to prevent 'inflation'!)

But contrast what Bennett did then with what Campbell is doing now. Is 'private power' the most cost effective way to add new generating capacity? Under the kind of arrangements Campbell is making? Is that the "best" policy to follow for the benefit of ALL the people of BC? I hardly think so from what I've seen so far.

Time we got back to "That is moral which works best", for ALL BC Citizens, I think.

IPP's will generate 20% of BC's needs but will cost 80% of the money. Enough to make a free enterpriser wet himself. Billions of dollars are going into these people's hands. Is that right or wrong? I think very wrong. I believe nuclear is the way to go. Before flaming me on that, research it. Did you know that 50% of the nuclear power generated in the US is fueled by deactivated Russion warheads.

Rafe Mair:- "Under the public power system set up by W.A.C. Bennett, BC Hydro is usually in a position to pay handsome dividends to the public purse to help with public spending, Those dividends, therefore, are paid to you and me."

No, Rafe, that's a convoluted way of looking at it. There's a BIG difference between dividends "paid to the public purse to help with public spending, and dividends paid to "you and me".

When those dividends are "paid to the public purse" there is NO control over how they will be spent by "you and me". The government spends them as it chooses.

If they were paid to "you and me" directly first, as they should be with ALL dividends from profitable Crown corporations, "you and me" have a sanction as to how much of those dividends we might want to pay back to the "public purse" in taxes.

We seem to have been cowed by successive takings by 'government' into forgetting the basic rights enshrined in the Magna Carta. Just because we've dispensed with the "divine right of King's", doesn't mean that we should embrace the "divine right of 'government'" as a replacement when it comes to the spending of OUR money.

When we allow ANY government unfettered access to finance this way, our basic freedoms are in very grave danger.

Those are some excellent posts socred... I can't argue with any of that.

Socredible:" If they (the dividends) were paid to "you and me" directly first, as they should be with ALL dividends from profitable Crown corporations, "you and me" have a sanction as to how much of those dividends we might want to pay back to the "public purse" in taxes."

Probably not. First of all, we would have to pay federal and provincial income taxes on the *bonus* money. Secondly, the provincial government would simply claw back whatever it wished to get back by raising income tax rates.

Crown corporations should be allowed to keep enough profits so they can be reinvested in them to keep them viable. The habit of burdening a crown corporation with government debt which was not incurred by it (the BCR is a good example) often makes for a handy excuse for a government to sell
it and pay off the crown corporation's accumulated debt that way.

If the BCR had been allowed to keep all the surpluses it generated rather than skim them off into the coffers of the government of the day and treated as general revenue it may still be around as a people owned entity.

That kind of cash-cow approach can easily backfire.

Yes, diplomat, under the current system of computing income tax, 'some' of us would probably have to pay more in income tax when the dividend was added to our other income.

But I think you'd find we'd all still be farther ahead, even those who had to pay more.

I don't disagree with you in regards to a Crown corporation re-investing some of its profits to make improvements in their particular business.

I'm not suggesting that ALL of its profit be paid out as dividends, for that's certainly not the practice in any dividend paying private company either.

But "we, the people" are ultimately the benefical common owners of these public entities held in trust for us in the name of the Crown. We may not have a stock certificate to attest to our ownership, and we may not individually be able to 'disown' our share, but we DO own them, and when they're profitable we should most certainly be entitled to a return on "our" investment. Paid to "you and me", and every other British Columbian, equally.

Think of it this way, most of the revenue Hydro receives already comes out of our pocket. Either directly, as a bill for for the power we personally consume. Or indirectly, when we purchase any product made or distributed in BC in which electricity makes up a portion of its costs, and subsequently is impressed into its price. A price we'll pay when we want or need to buy that product for our consumption.

We've already paid for something that a continuing increase in efficiency, which our original investment, (the taxes we paid to intitate BC Hydro and make up its 'capital'), plus the part of the Hydro profit that's re-invested, should bring about, and that should be credited back to us.