Talked to an energy finance expert today. Last time he checked - & prices have plummeted since then - the cost to produce same electricity as #SiteC using cleaner renewables (geothermal/wind/solar) was $7 billion.
Site C is fast heading to $15-20+bn. And may never work.
#bcpoli
..What's even worse than this? Even the $7 billion pricetag to replace #SiteC is irrelevant, since BC HAS A MASSIVE ELECTRICITY SURPLUS. By the time we need more, cost of renewables will have plummeted further. Spend money now on things BC actually needs & create jobs that way.
What should BC Hydro pursue instead of #SiteC? Building retrofits, swapping out gas furnaces for efficient heat pumps for BC, pursue conservation, encourage local energy. Get off corrupt hydro megaprojects with their methane-spewing hydro reservoirs & diversify into modern tech.
To allow BC Hydro to do this, the BC govt would have to scrap the Clean Energy Act, that legislation with the Orwellian name, so that Hydro can modernize & end its enslavement to the private corps benefiting from IPPs and #SiteC. Why did Horgan & the #BCNDP not repeal that act?
(It would be the BC govt incentivizing these things, via BC Hydro. If it were actually interested in a green economy, which it clearly isn't as it's aggressively pursuing fossil fuels.)
The same energy expert also said there are 5 times as many jobs doing energy retrofits as in building fossil-fuel infrastructure (and more than in one dam for sure). Those jobs would also be more long-lasting.
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