Let private enterprise shoulder the cost, the risks
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Updated: September 30, 2009 2:02 PM
Editor, The Standard
It’s truly unfortunate that an important issue like clean energy has been hijacked in B.C. over the past year by a bogus debate about public versus private electricity production. Anyone with any sense can see that we need a blend of both in order to optimize B.C.’s clean energy potential and benefit from the strengths that each has to offer.
Even with private companies generating and supplying new clean electricity to B.C.’s grid, major public projects like the Site C dam and extensive retrofits and upgrades to existing publicly owned dams like the Mica and Revelstoke mean that public BC Hydro will continue to produce the overwhelming share of electricity in this province.
And as BC Hydro ratepayers we should be glad to let the private sector rather than public BC Hydro shoulder the enormous risks and costs involved in implementing new clean energy technologies like wind, geothermal and small hydro run-of-river. As a BC Hydro ratepayer I certainly don’t want to be the one paying the cost of unsuccessful clean energy projects on my hydro bill each month; We’re probably still paying off the $120 million wasted on the failed Duke Point power scheme from a few years ago.
As a B.C. taxpayer and as a BC Hydro ratepayer, I’m glad to let the private sector take on the riskier pieces of B.C.’s energy puzzle and leave the relative safety of mega dams to BC Hydro.
It’s the best of both worlds.
Kevin Lee
Vancouver, B.C
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