Site C Should be a Deal Breaker for BC Liberal Voters

[world2change]

For a region where folks are constantly complaining about high electricity or gas prices, Site C should be a deal breaker for voting in the BC Liberals again.

Site C is a $9 Billion fiscal disaster, political make work project because they couldn't create the private sector jobs even after trying to literally give away LNG.

The BC Liberals refused to listen to the Joint Review Panel's recommendation to send Site C to the BC Utilities Commission to determine if indeed the project is in the best interest of the rate payer. Since even the head of the Joint Review Panel Harry Swaine has spoken out against the project saying it's not necessary. Since approval load forecasts have proven that Site C may not be needed for another 40 years, has killed private sector investment in the clean energy sector, LNG an industry that the BC Liberals made a backroom deal to give Site C power below cost didn't materialize, and alternatives such as Solar PV are proving to be cheaper than the cost of energy for Site C. It's so bad the BC Liberals have taken over communications on Site C from BC Hydro - communication is coming straight from the ministers. The diminishing demand for Site C has led the BC Liberals to axe conservation programs to increase demand and revenue / electricity costs for BC Residents to salvage the business case for Site C.

Furthermore, Site C is also being used as blackmail for getting tarsands pipelines through BC - Christy has pivoted from providing power needed for BC to trying to export power to Alberta to clean their energy grid which requires a further $900 million transmission line.

Site C has been reduced down to a political make work project. In that case if I spend $9 Billion anywhere it will create jobs and stimulate the economy. So why are we spending it on a project we don't need that will drive electricity prices up? They are relying on the stimulus from this project to keep the economy going after LNG was found to have no clothes simple as that. We will pay for this for generations.

The logical way to build out power is incrementally with smaller projects so that you can drive conservation first, and also be adaptable as technologies are rapidly changing and sources are proving to be cheaper than Hydro. There's also nothing wrong with independent power - private sector investment so long as BC rate payer get a good deal. This spreads jobs throughout the province and does not result in boom and bust mega projects. With Site C we are all getting screwed. By the time we will need the power the turbines will need to be retrofitted -- again not in the business case.

All BC residents should be furious, if you like the jobs Site C is creating imagine what $9 Billion could do in our local communities on projects that create lasting jobs or solve local issues, rather than one big shiny project we don't need in one region.

Unlike BC NDP and the BC Liberals, the BC Greens have a more evidence based approach to policy which is needed to get us out of this mess.

Learn more and share here:
https://www.desmog.ca/2016/10/26/new-vi ... arry-swain

https://www.facebook.com/SierraClubBC/v ... 617136429/

[Urbane]

^^ The best part of your post was where it said "Learn more . . ." Good advice and advice you should take. I've read a lot about Site C, and looked at BOTH sides, and I recommend you do that too.

I keep coming back to Marvin Shaffer, an SFU professor and critic of Site C, who says that now it must be finished. I just read a column of his yesterday and in it he said that eventually we will need Site C. He has quibbled about the timing, saying it was too soon to build it, but he says it makes no sense to forfeit billions of dollars by quashing the project now. So Site C is a deal-breaker for me. Anyone who suggests we should waste billions of dollars by stopping the project won't get my vote and shouldn't get anyone's vote.

[world2change]

^^ The best part of your post was where it said "Learn more . . ." Good advice and advice you should take. I've read a lot about Site C, and looked at BOTH sides, and I recommend you do that too.

I keep coming back to Marvin Shaffer, an SFU professor and critic of Site C, who says that now it must be finished. I just read a column of his yesterday and in it he said that eventually we will need Site C. He has quibbled about the timing, saying it was too soon to build it, but he says it makes no sense to forfeit billions of dollars by quashing the project now. So Site C is a deal-breaker for me. Anyone who suggests we should waste billions of dollars by stopping the project won't get my vote and shouldn't get anyone's vote.

Likewise. There is certainly more than one opinion on that point as well. It also doesn't make the case to reward the BC Liberals.

https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/03/15/Site-C-No-Return/

"First, the power isn’t needed provincially and BC Hydro hasn’t yet signed on any buyers, Eliesen says. So there isn’t a reliable revenue source to make a return on the investment. “Selling the power at spot prices can’t justify the huge expense. We will end up with a stranded asset, a white elephant.”

Swain agrees, saying that spot market power sales, worth an average $30 per megawatt hour, don’t justify spending any more than $2 billion.

“My back of the envelope arithmetic shows that this project, which will cost $9 billion, has a net-present value of about $2 billion. So at any point up to the irrevocable commitment of $7 billion, we’d be better off stopping,” Swain says.

“If you take the only sales that are available as far as we can see, and multiply that by 5,100 gigawatt hours (Site C’s projected capacity), that gives you the revenue side of your equation,” he says. “Then you figure out what it costs, and even if you accept the insane financing package that BC Hydro and the government have put forward — that is, a 70-year amortization at three per cent — you’re still a big time loser."

Second, BC Hydro is already carrying an unprecedented $18 billion in debt. That will increase by almost 50 per cent when Site C is completed. Customers will have to cover huge interest costs and Hydro’s debt could result in a credit rating downgrade for the province, increasing interest costs for all provincial borrowing.

“The only solution is a massive increase in electricity rates. Major jobs will be lost,” Eliesen says. “There’s no question: when you have a massive increase in electricity rates, businesses leave the country.”

Swain predicts the project will also lead to higher taxes. “People are going to wind up paying for a stranded asset through their taxes for years and years to come. Hydro will not have the financial capacity to pay it, so it will fall to the guarantors of their debt, that is, the taxpayers.”

Third, large dams almost always go over budget. Manitoba Hydro’s Keeyask dam is 34 per cent over budget; Newfoundland’s Muskrat Falls project costs have almost doubled to $11.2 billion.

[Urbane]

Likewise. There is certainly more than one opinion on that point as well. It also doesn't make the case to reward the BC Liberals.

Site C should NOT be evaluated on whether or not it "rewards the BC Liberals." Unfortunately, many of the opponents of Site C are opposed to it because it was initiated by the current government. Certainly there are arguments on both sides but now that we've spent or committed about half of the cost of the entire project it most definitely does NOT make sense to throw all that money away and reverse course.

[world2change]

Likewise. There is certainly more than one opinion on that point as well. It also doesn't make the case to reward the BC Liberals.

Site C should NOT be evaluated on whether or not it "rewards the BC Liberals." Unfortunately, many of the opponents of Site C are opposed to it because it was initiated by the current government. Certainly there are arguments on both sides but now that we've spent or committed about half of the cost of the entire project it most definitely does NOT make sense to throw all that money away and reverse course.

The article still says it's not worth it. Opponents are against the project because it never made sense, not necessary, unaffordable, killed jobs, put on mountains of debt, killed innovation, did not have a viable business case, did not get reviewed by the BCUC, and destroyed vast amounts of farm land.

As Kevin O'Leary says, just stop the maddness.

[maryjane48]

^^ The best part of your post was where it said "Learn more . . ." Good advice and advice you should take. I've read a lot about Site C, and looked at BOTH sides, and I recommend you do that too.

I keep coming back to Marvin Shaffer, an SFU professor and critic of Site C, who says that now it must be finished. I just read a column of his yesterday and in it he said that eventually we will need Site C. He has quibbled about the timing, saying it was too soon to build it, but he says it makes no sense to forfeit billions of dollars by quashing the project now. So Site C is a deal-breaker for me. Anyone who suggests we should waste billions of dollars by stopping the project won't get my vote and shouldn't get anyone's vote.

lol you claim to have read alot? alot of bchydro talking points i think you mean;. there is no secret info that you are just able to see so i fail to understand how you can somehow be reading different stuff. what is this stuff u claim to have read

[logicalview]

Desmog, Sierra Club and the boneheads at the Tyee. Do you ever read anything else other than Marxist propaganda, to get some measure of objectivity? So where pray tell, is the electricity of the future supposed to come from? Ontario and other even dumber jurisdictions have shown us that solar and wind are a path to economic Armageddon, and only the truly brain-washed dopes who can't do math are still tooting that horn. So tell us, if Site C isn't built, where is the electricity supposed to come from?

[George+]

The NDP plan to freeze utility costs until it is studied independently,
Is the best solution.

Site C will only cost all of us more.

[Urbane]

The NDP plan to freeze utility costs until it is studied independently,
Is the best solution.

Site C will only cost all of us more.

You should be more supportive of green energy. The Site C Clean Energy Project is worthy of everyone's support and cancelling it now, thereby throwing away billions of dollars, would be incredibly stupid.

[logicalview]

The NDP plan to freeze utility costs until it is studied independently,
Is the best solution.
.

The NDP plan is the dumbest plan, designed as all NDP plans are, to delay economic development as long as possible to ensure maximum crony studies are conducted, before killing it. The NDP is a disaster.

[Urban Cowboy]

The NDP plan to freeze utility costs until it is studied independently,
Is the best solution.

Site C will only cost all of us more.

Oh my gosh, the NDP want to initiate another study, what a shocker. NOT!

Just another one of their 1990's plays rearing its ugly head again.

They blew around ten million studying if we needed the W.C.Bennett bridge, so they should be able to blow through about a hundred million studying a dam.

Sounds like good fiscal management to me.

It does highlight one of the biggest differences between the Liberal and NDP mindset though, in that the NDP complain bitterly, about money spent on various projects that the Liberals have built or are building, but they have no qualms whatsoever blowing money on studies, which provide us with absolutely nothing tangible.

At least when the Liberals spend our money we generally have something to show for it.

[BeingHuman]

All the reasons Site C should NOT proceed: BC Hydro’s debt has grown from $8.1 Billion in 2008 to $18.1 Billion this year, the $9 Billion dollar cost of Site C will put BC Hydro into unacceptably deeper debt, our Hydro fees will more than double (probably triple) as a result; The Royal Society of Canada and 250 of Canada’s top scientists and academics have called for a stop to construction of the Site C dam; Marc Eliesen; former CEO of BC Hydro advises against Site C, as does the Chair of the Site C Review Panel Harry Swain; demand for BC Hydroelectricity is actually decreasing NOT increasing as faltering electricity demand among industrial customers will cost BC Hydro $3.5 billion less in revenue, over the term of its 10-year financial plan; the BC Utilities Commission has reviewed the Site C project twice, and both times they shelved it as not being needed; over 300 square kms of rich agricultural land will be flooded and impacted; a new poll indicates 73% of British Columbians support the pausing of Site C to investigate costs and energy alternatives.

https://canadians.org/blog/73-cent-brit ... am-stopped

[hobbyguy]

So in the site C thread we refute the bogus cost overrun arguments, explain all the benefits of synchronous power, the facts that large scale hydro is the lowest LCOE cost electricity, the lowest environmental cost, go through all the explanations of why solar is uneconomic in the BC context as is wind (both are non synchronous, and solar suffers from poor insolation), go through the silly argument that the power won't be needed in the future and refute that, point out that BC Hydro dams enable solar and wind on the grid where it makes sense (like California) by functioning as massive grid batteries, point out that BC Hydro takes advantage of that storage to profit by purchasing electricity off peak and selling it back at higher prices on peak, plus, plus plus.

But no, the NDP touters want to transport the same bogus and refuted nonsense to another thread.

Site C is a good project and will provide huge benefits to BC in the future. I wouldn't care if it was the Green party or the Rhinoceros party or whoever that got it moving, it is a good project and well worthwhile. The bonus is that it will get BC to the top of the pack worldwide with approximately 97-98% renewable electricity generation.

What's not to like? The NDP never had the vision to attempt it, so they attack it unjustly. Site C is a huge benefit.

[BeingHuman]

On April 28th, 2010, the government of the Province of British Columbia introduced a new piece of legislation. The BC Clean Energy Act. The Clean Energy Act also enshrines in law a long-held development policy, that large hydro dams would only be constructed on the Peace and Columbia Rivers, and even at that, that Site C would be the last dam to be built on the Peace River. Future power requirements beyond that are to be met from alternative sources, including run-of-river projects, solar, and wind.

Might want to brush up on the Clean Energy Act before you go foo fooing alternative energy, through this Act, the BC Liberals are committing BC to the use of alternative energy sources in the future.

[Urbane]

Might want to brush up on the Clean Energy Act before you go foo fooing alternative energy, through this Act, the BC Liberals are committing BC to the use of alternative energy sources in the future.

No one is denying that. Alternative energy sources will be there as part of the overall program. You really need to go to the Site C thread that's dedicated to the subject. Starting from scratch here makes no sense. Hobbyguy is quite right that the bogus arguments from the naysayers have been refuted many times over.