by Marvin Shaffer

Every now and again you read something so outrageous you have to laugh. So it is with the report recently released by BC Citizens for Clean Energy: A Triple Legacy for Future Generations.

The essence of this lobby group’s proposal is that the government should develop an export policy for green energy targeting up to 17000 MW of exports by 2016, an amount greater than the size of BC Hydro’e entire existing hydroelectric system. Then it wants to target for more than double that amount of exports by 2036. And the legacy they offer if this is done:

• secure supply of renewable energy
• substantial reductions in climate change impacts
• the elimination of B.C. tax-supported debt within 15 years or less and eventually even the elimination of the provincial sales tax (or presumably the provincial component of the impending HST).

The promised legacies are, of course, nonsense. Committing all that energy potential to export won’t enhance B.C.’s security of supply.  It is the export of privately-developed, privately-owned power this group wants government to promote. BC Hydro couldn’t use that power itself when the power is committed to export; it would  just be the conduit making the development and exports happen.

Nor will the export sales substantially reduce climate change impacts. It will be the greenhouse gas targets adopted in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere that will determine how much GHG emissions will be reduced and potential climate change impacts avoided. Greater green energy exports from B.C. may affect how U.S. targets are met, but they certainly won’t determine what those targets are.

As for the elimination of B.C.’s tax-supported debt — that is so fanciful one hardly knows what to say. The facts are exactly the opposite. The export plan BC Citizens want the government to implement would be a financial disaster.

The key element of the plan is that BC Hydro or its trading subsidiary Powerex would buy all of the power IPPs can develop in the province (after streamlined environmental review), paying high enough prices so the projects could be financed, built and profitably operated. BC Hydro would then provide all the back-up, shaping, and transmission services needed to be able to sell the power to export customers and receive whatever price it could negotiate.

Notwithstanding the heroic (but grossly incomplete and fundamentally flawed) numbers put forward by BC Citizens, there is no reason to believe BC Hydro could do this at a profit, let alone the multi-billion dollar annual profit BC Citizens suggest.  The amount BC Hydro would have to pay the IPPs to develop all of these green energy resources, plus the transmission and other costs it would incur and alternative trading opportunities it would forego would in all likelihood greatly exceed the amount it could get from the export sales, even with whatever renewable and other green energy credits it could secure.

Maybe BC Citizens just got the sign wrong. Silly mistake — it would be a loss of billions, not a gain that BC could expect.

BC Citizens reasonably ask the question: if we export lumber, non-renewable minerals and metals, why shouldn’t we export green energy. That however is not the issue here. The issue is why should government force BC Hydro to buy power it doesn’t need (in extraordinarily excessive amounts), supply all of the services the IPP sellers don’t have, and take all of the market risk of exports.

If the numbers are so good, why don’t the IPPs buy the services they need and export the power themselvers. After all, that is what the forest and mining firms do, and pretty well everyone else who exports goods or services from B.C.

BC Citizens aren’t looking for an energy export policy that is in the broad public interest. They are looking for a government handout of breathtaking proportions, covered by the green umbrella that apparently can make even the most outlandish proposals seemingly more palatable.

IPPs already have a lot with the costly policies in the BC Energy Plan. What their lobby group is telling us in this report is that they want more — a lot more!

Original article

The proponent, Bute Hydro Inc., recently indicated that additional field work and analysis would be conducted in the spring and fall of 2010 before it will be in a position to submit its environmental impact statement. In light of this new information, the timelines for the review panel process will be substantially delayed.

The participant funding process will be re-initiated when the proponent is in a position to confirm a timeline for the submission of its environmental impact statement. At that time, an announcement will be made with the revised funding amounts and the deadline to submit applications. Current applicants will have an opportunity to revise and resubmit their applications for consideration at that time.

The Agency announced in May 2009 the availability of $250,000 under its Participant Funding Program to assist groups and individuals to participate in the environmental review for the Bute Inlet Hydroelectric Project.

Information on the Participant Funding Program, the proposed project and on the environmental assessment process is available on the Agency’s Web site at www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca, registry number 09-05-44825.

Bute Hydro Inc. is proposing to construct 17 run-of-river hydroelectric facilities in the vicinity of Bute Inlet. Major components in addition to the generating facilities include a substation near the mouth of Southgate River, associated access roads and ancillary works, 216 km of 230 kV collector transmission line and 227 km of 500 kV trunk transmission line from the proposed substation near the mouth of Southgate River to the existing 500 kV substation at Malaspina.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency administers the federal environmental assessment process, which identifies the environmental effects of proposed projects and measures to address those effects, in support of sustainable development.

For further information: media may contact: Annie Roy, Manager, Communications, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, Tel.: (613) 957-0396

KAREN HOWLETT
Globe and Mail
Jan. 08, 2010

Ontario has a power problem.

A strategy to subsidize the province’s nascent green energy industry is
starting to sting businesses and many households that find themselves
paying the biggest markups on electricity pricing in the country.

Even as electricity demand – and market prices – dropped last year with
the global economic downturn, electricity bills have risen steadily on the
back of generous contracts signed by the province’s power planning agency.
Now, the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty is preparing for a looming
political backlash.

What’s at stake is an industrial strategy that’s on a collision course
with a century-old policy of delivering electricity to consumers at the
lowest possible cost. After the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in
the manufacturing heartland, Mr. McGuinty vowed to create more than 50,000
new ones through the Green Energy Act. But he is building this new sector
- and burnishing his green credentials – by ratcheting up electricity
costs.

The average market price for electricity in Ontario is at its lowest level
since the market was opened up in 2002. It was 3.3 cents a kilowatt hour
yesterday, compared with a record high average of 9.97 cents in September,
2005. But customers are not reaping the benefits of lower prices because
the government is recovering the cost of new projects from power users.

The government is luring green-energy investors with the promise of
generous long-term contracts that include a guaranteed revenue stream.
Every time a new deal is inked with a gas-fired plant, a wind farm or
solar-panel manufacturer, the costs go up for customers. During several
months last year, rates for large industrial users jumped nearly 20 per
cent. The question emerging is whether this is politically sustainable.

The government is sitting on a “political time bomb,” said Toronto energy
lawyer Peter Murphy. “While renewable energy is a great thing for the
environment, it’s also expensive.”

Mr. McGuinty’s government began eyeing the development of new, clean
energy sources in 2006, when the province was facing a shortage of
electricity. He intrinsically linked the province’s economic fortunes to
combatting climate change, saying it is not a matter of choosing between
prosperity and the environment.

Former energy minister George Smitherman was the driving force behind the
strategy, pushing renewable energy projects with little regard for cost,
according to industry sources. He resigned to run for mayor of Toronto,
leaving his successor, Gerry Phillips, to deal with the fallout from that
strategy.

Mr. Phillips is acutely aware that electricity prices are a growing issue.

“We are not as clear as we need to be about the price of the production of
electricity,” he said in an interview.

Ontario does not have the highest electricity costs on the continent, but
it stands out for the gap between the market price of power and the price
charged to consumers. Toronto ranked in the middle of the pack among North
American cities, according to a study of consumer prices done by
Hydro-Québec last April. But industry observers say prices will increase
substantially in Ontario over the next two years as the cost of higher
priced renewable energy flows through to consumers.

The Ontario Power Authority, the government’s planning arm, says it
managed 47 large-scale electricity supply contracts worth a total of
$14.1-billion last year. Contract holders receive a fixed price over 20
years for the electricity they produce – 13.5 cents a kilowatt hour for
on-shore wind farms and up to 80.2 cents for solar power. While wind and
solar make up only a small portion of electricity supply today, the rates
are well above the average of 4.5 cents that government-owned Ontario
Power Generation receives for most of its electricity output.

“Somebody has to pay the price of subsidizing an energy policy that this
government seems bent on pursuing for largely political reasons as opposed
to energy supply,” said Ontario Progressive Conservative energy critic
John Yakabuski.

Electricity consumers pay for these contracts through what is called a
global adjustment – which covers the difference between the market price
for electricity and the rates paid to companies under the guaranteed
revenue contracts. As the market price falls, the global adjustment rises.
The global adjustment averaged 2.91 cents a kilowatt hour in 2009, on top
of 3.16 cents for the electricity itself.

Adam White, president of the Association of Major Power Consumers in
Ontario, said the situation is not sustainable because it will leave
companies paying higher rates than competitors in other jurisdictions.

For most residential consumers, the cost of the global adjustment is
hidden because it is rolled into the electricity rate set by the
province’s energy regulator, one that has risen only modestly in recent
years.

But homeowners who signed contracts with electricity retailers are getting
hit hard. Retailers are now passing on the global adjustment, which is not
included in the contracted fixed rate for electricity. A typical customer
who used 1,000 kilowatts of power in December would have paid an extra
$38.

Gerry Heaslip's 'fish of a lifetime' from the River Dodder in Dublin.

A bit of a heads up … shortly, Damien Gillis – the superb producer of outdoor videos – and I will soon be announcing an undertaking which we’re very excited about. Stay tuned!

Premier Campbell and his henchmen along with the federal minister, Gail Shea, continue to deny the heavy impact of sea lice from fish farms on migrating wild salmon. When you read the following report from Norway remember that our migrating salmon smolts are smaller than the Atlantic Salmon and Sea Trout in Europe thus even more vulnerable.

I must tell you that I returned from a short holiday in London thoroughly re-energized so despoilers of the environment will be hearing from me and colleagues this year BIG TIME. My every sense tells me that the public is getting angrier by the day at what they see happening to our beautiful province which means that to keep the pressure on, please send this and other information to your address book!

Here’s an article that appeared in the Irish Times on December 28, 2009:

Norway alert on lice

BY DEREK EVANS

NORWAY’S Directorate for Nature Management and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (Nina) have issued a warning that salmon farming in Norway must be reduced during 2010.

The warning is directed to the new Minister for Fisheries, Lisbeth Berg-Hansen, a former head of the Norwegian salmon farming association and the owner of a salmon farm.

According to Norwegian press reports, Nina estimates that the current level of fish farming in Norway is six to seven times the sustainable limit. There are now 350 million farmed salmon in pens along the Norwegian coast, implying a sea lice burden of 300 to 350 million.

Sea lice are a major threat to migrating juvenile salmon – and therefore to the survival of wild stocks generally.

The Norwegian Salmon Association has said the situation is “a disaster”. It has also drawn attention to the increased resistance of sea lice to the main chemical treatment being used. They have called for a halt to further growth for the industry.

While the levels of farmed salmon production in Ireland are nowhere near those of Norway, farms do tend to be concentrated in particular areas, according to Salmon Watch Ireland.

The damage inflicted on migrating juvenile salmon by sea-lice concentrations generated by farms has also been researched by Irish scientists, and with conclusions similar to those carried out in Norway and Scotland.

Salmon Watch Ireland has lodged a complaint with the EU Commission about the problem, arguing that the Government is failing to apply the terms of the EU Habitats Directive to the management of salmon farms.

The Minister for Natural Resources, Conor Lenihan, and the Minister for Finance, his brother Brian, have co-signed an order cutting rod angling licence fees for 2010 by 10 per cent.

Proceeds from the new licence fees will be invested in management initiatives designed to rehabilitate wild salmon stocks and habitats. The licence includes a salmon conservation levy equivalent to 50 per cent of the licence fee.

“The reduction should enhance fishing as a recreational activity and supports the fisheries boards’ efforts toward building angling tourism numbers,” said Conor Lenihan. Licence fees for 2010 are: All regions (A): €120; one region (B): €58; 21-day (R): €46; 1-day (S): €32; juvenile (P): €18.

Salmon angling gets under way this Friday on a limited number of rivers and loughs. The Drowes River in Co Leitrim will take precedence.

Rarely does a season pass without a fish being taken on opening day.

The Owencarrow and Lackagh rivers also open on New Year’s Day in the northern region and trolling will be the preferred method on Lough Gill in Co Sligo.

In Dublin, the River Liffey is a different kettle of fish. Traditionally a first-day starter, however, for the past three years, salmon angling was suspended because of low sustainable levels.

Original article: Norway alert on lice