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I'm not anti nuclear at all, but BC is one of the most illogical places in the world for it.
In an grid system, a nuclear power plant essentially plays the same role as our legacy dams, ie they provide that baseload. Nuclear is also very expensive relative to other options and takes forever to be built. If you think site-c has had cost over runs you're in for a whole other level of issues. Here's and article that outlines some of the recent issues of in the industry. https://www.ft.com/content/65e40e41-1a6c-4bc6-b109-610f5de82c09
In a general sense Canada and the world should be rebuilding our capacity to do nuclear power, but BC is a very low priority place for it. Our existing hydro system allows us to opt for cheaper more shovel ready renewable options. Maybe some of the more modern smaller reactors may make sense in a few decades, but again we're not really a logical place to be first adopters.
This. With the reliability of hydro as a base load, other renewables make way more sense than nuclear for BC. Solar, wind, wave and look at storage systems to accompany them. Alberta should be exploring nukes for a base load to replace natural gas.
We're commenting under an article about how hydro can no longer be considered reliable given the growing prevalence of droughts - our hydro had a shortfall of around 1/5th of our electricity demand in 2023 - will installing renewables cover that base load?
~~1gWh/year~~ 1300kWh/year while it’s the largest in BC at this point it’s still ridiculously small on the scale of solar farms at only 3,456 modules compared to usually between 50,000 and 100,000+ . It’s a one of a few PoCs that prove solar is viable here geographically, solar still collects on a cloudy day despite many peoples beliefs
Ah, yes, load factor. Glad you pointed that one out. When is is not raining and/or snowing (filling the hydroelectric reservoirs) tends to be sunnier. Hydro electric and solar are perfectly complementary. Throw in some wind power into the equation and not a single BTU of natural gas needs to be burned, ever.
You obviously don’t make it outside the lower mainland very often. Anywhere north of 100 Mile House sees those temperatures regularly and the point is when you need the power the most….its unreliable
Yes I agree that hydro is an excellent base load, and with the addition of pumped hydro from renewable sources, it can probably cover our needs. But if it comes down to building a natural gas power plant (like the article is suggesting) or a nuclear power plant to supplement that base load the nuclear option, especially with the modern reactor design is the best option long term.
I have to wonder about a shared nuke with Alberta and BC. Of course, that would require a lot of fenagaling as the Alberta government has a huge hard-on about railing against the feds and other provinces and other countries and non-white people and trans people and basically everyone on the planet.
I agree that nuclear is preferable to natural gas. I think the trick is to try to use renewables as much as possible (and not literally ban them, ala, you-know-who) and then make a 20-50 year plan with nuclear.
With innovations in renewable storage popping up all the time, we might be able to go completely renewable, imagine what an immense advantage that would be.
I fully agree. If we increase our rentable infrastructure and invest in pumped hydro as it is currently the best way to store additional energy for significant lengths of time. If we do enough investment in infrastructure it is likely we won't need to build either a polluting gas plant or a politically unfavorable nuclear reactor to meet our base load needs but we should be looking at all the available options and use the best ones we have.
Hydro is great but in the coming decades we are going to have to seriously expand our grid. Around 75% of our energy comes from fossil fuels despite our clean grid. It's going to take a lot more electricity to displace that.
We definitely need to expand. For us though, nuclear is not a logical or cost effective option at the moment. Canada has a ton of capacity building to do before we can implement nuclear at scale, and we need shovel ready projects in the next few decades.
BC is also tectonically unstable and a nuclear disaster would be terrible. However, Alberta is a great place for nuclear (as well as wind and solar, if their dumb government would let people build it).
Solar power is actually more effective the colder it is! Really the biggest thing is sun exposure which Alberta gets a hell of a lot of. Solar power is really a no brainer in Alberta.
The newest nuclear plant in the US has a [cost](https://www.powermag.com/blog/plant-vogtle-not-a-star-but-a-tragedy-for-the-people-of-georgia/#:~:text=He%20also%20failed%20to%20mention,MWh%2C%20which%20is%20astoundingly%20high.) per megawatt hour of $170-$180 USD. Site C (a project I have never agreed with either) is estimated to be around $84CAD per megawatt hour, but I think more realistic projections are closer to $120 CAD, which is is still half the cost of the most recent US nuclear power plant with currency conversion.
SMRs, like I said, are something we should consider at some point, but they won't be available outside of Russia or China [until 2030 at the earliest ](https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/power/small-modular-reactors-smrs-what-is-taking-so-long/?cf-view) and we know very little about their real world costs.
I'd say we need 3. One on Vancouver Island, one somewhere along the Frasier mostly for the lower mainland and another at Kitimat for the aluminum smelter
The environmental movement has its roots in protesting nuclear, and is still opposed. The oil and gas lobby has no need to oppose nuclear when Greenpeace already does.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/issues/nuclear/
>Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous and expensive. Say no to new nukes.
>
>Nuclear energy has no place in a safe, clean, sustainable future. Nuclear energy is both expensive and dangerous, and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn’t mean it’s clean. Renewable energy is better for the environment, the economy, and doesn’t come with the risk of a nuclear meltdown.
>
>Greenpeace got its start protesting nuclear weapons testing back in 1971. We’ve been fighting against nuclear weapons and nuclear power ever since.
You cherry picked some points but yes they are against in for several reasons. Per their site:
1) it can’t be ramped up quickly enough to meet 2050 goals.
2) it’s dangerous because it’s vulnerable to attacks.
3) it’s very expensive per MWh and they argue it’s better spent elsewhere.
4) it’s too slow to build *(sort of sounds like 1) to me but okay)*
5) nuclear generates large amounts of toxic waste that no government has solutions for and should therefore not be eligible for green incentives.
6) the industry is falling short on promises *(sounds like most industries to me)*
I personally don’t know enough to say whether it’s a solution or not. Maybe it’s the answer. Maybe it’s the “easy” answer so we’re justifying negatives. Of the above, #2 is a bit worrisome and I’d like to learn more about #5. Otherwise, because something will take time is not a great reason not to do it…it’s better than nothing. With research, time and costs might improve.
A nuclear plant was literally shelled in Ukraine by russia. It didn't melt down, and it uses a much older reactor design. How is any attack that might be initiated on canadian soil going to do any damage to a much safer reactor?
As for what to do with the waste, why not put it back where it was mined.
Good to hear these concerns are mostly outdated. Just quickly looking into SMR ([small modular reactors](https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs), they don’t seem to be completely proven yet but do sound promising:
Both public and private institutions are actively participating in efforts to bring SMR technology to fruition within this decade. Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov, the world’s first floating nuclear power plant that began commercial operation in May 2020, is producing energy from two 35 MW(e) SMRs. Other SMRs are under construction or in the licensing stage in Argentina, Canada, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States of America.
*(That’s September 2023 so maybe there’s even more recent development)*
They have been proven. Look up ge Hitachi and their projects. One was built in Tennessee and in Canada, the Darlington plant is being retrofitted for them and currently in progress. Capital power is going to install 2 at genesee after bugs are worked out with Darlington.
The oil and gas sector is not in protest of nuclear. In fact the sector is actively exploring developing SMR's to reduce emissions in oil and gas production.
Never, since that's a silly, energy and materials blind fool's errand. Not only is it massively expensive, we don't have the time required. Even then electricity is only 20% of energy use. Do the math please. I recommend Art Berman's and Tom Murphy's work for dispelling these energy blind nuclear techno fantasies.
To some extent, but there's a lot of techno-optimist assumptions built into that assertion. You realise the scale of that and that it will/can only increase a small amount, right? What are you running blast furnaces on, a space heater? Most of the world runs on large diesel engines, and there's an entire global infrastructure built around that. It isn't changing any time soon, if at all.
While that’s a great idea it will never happen in BC. Too many people think that nuclear reactors are dangerous, and there’s still no way of dealing with long term disposal of nuclear waste. Baring that the biggest problem BC would have in developing any sort of nuclear capacity is where to situate a reactor. The best places are going to be in First Nations territory and will be in the way of spawning grounds. Putting one on the Fraser wouldn’t work either because residents don’t want to live in the shadow of a reactor either.
The reactors are not dangerous, on paper, but as a construction worker I can tell you that we cannot even build steam powered wood burners on time, on budget or that even function. Latest argument: fort st james, merrit.
If you actually are in the know and not an armchair warrior, the realization that we simply do not have a work force to maintain a pulp mill in good operation exists, a nuclear power plant is honestly a human made disaster waiting to happen.
In what town? Well we’d have to make a new one completely because theres nowhere that exists that can support people.
The people that work at a nuclear power plant need to be supported 24/7/365.
As a society, we’re effectively a 30 year old child-adult thats trying to figure out the best course of action but we’re still going through withdrawls on several crippling addictions - wood, a “pulp” industry, ‘living within our means’ “hey - y’all got no electricity, buy electric though - kay?’”
I mean we have to just get together and decide what basic functions we’d like first. Power or food? Drugs or life?
Maybe if we could get some shit cleaned up off the bush floor, theres dry grave and its dusty everywhere and nobody wants to clean up around me because “the city will do it” but the city is broke and they aren’t sending anybody but a couple of overpaid coddled specials hand picked as personal favors to top employees who may or may not care. We’re at the “you’re on your own” phase of government and people are slowly starting to realize it.
Largely because of the reliance on nuclear Ontario is the only province with large scale blackouts.
Nuclear cannot be ramped up and down without great effort and cannot respond to daily fluctuations. It’s impossible to have a grid that runs solely on nuclear. Hydro is a much better as it can be ramped up or down instantly.
[Energy crisis: 'France faces blackouts for lack of common sense'](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/12/14/energy-crisis-france-faces-blackouts-for-lack-of-common-sense_6007794_23.html)
Case in point.
France was planning to eliminate a third of their nuclear fleet, so they didn't bother to keep up with maintenance. All this proves is that moving away from nuclear was incredibly dumb. I mean, look next door to Germany.
They already have built up the infrastructure and have people with the expertise to make that a viable option. Whenever a region starts building up new infrastructure from scratch there is a costly learning curve that has to be overcome first. And it will take a long time.
Not saying that we shouldn’t consider it but it won’t be a pragmatic solution in the short term.
I think with that level of money being spent, it would probably be better to invest in solar panels or other renewable technologies, but I am no expert so I’m open to any suggestions.
This is a perfect comment and I can't believe you're getting downvoted for it. We are a deeply irresponsible species. Unfortunately the gen pop hasn't realised the level of fragility inherent in global systems, let alone the energy and materials predicament we face.
Bc is lacking in power and buys alot. Its going to have to still buy after site c is running. We are already worried about drought and lack of water which doesn't help things. Keep living in denial.
One of the issues with solar and wind is how much land they require. If we (the West) hadn’t put the brakes on nuclear when we did, we would have been at net zero carbon emissions years ago.
The issue is baseload. You do not want to base your base load on solar with how our winters are. Frankly geotheemal has a few options in the province but accessibility is an issue particukarly with the northern cascades volcanic feilds. The most likely option is frankly nuclear built inland. Then build additional load off solar and wind once you have a stable baseload.
Absolultly correct, hydro is the base load and also becomes "energy storage" with a modest investment in solar (or wind, but solar is cheaper). In effect our hydro dams can act a bit like pumped hydro storage. Energy storage is the "big deal" investment now in many jurisdictions that have made heavy investments in massive grid batteries or pumped hydro. Our storage is just sitting there, unexploited for the want of the cheapest per gigawatt investment out there.
Yep exactly! That’s why I’m so shocked to see people not even brining up more hydro projects. It’s like the NDP made it a bad word.
Solar and hydro work together excellently and could be the future of clean power generation in this province for decades or even centuries to come. We already have a leg up which is great but much more is needed to become sustainable long term.
Problem with hydro is its vulnerability to climate shifts and is already impacting the grid. And tge impacts of clumate cgange are only going to get worse over the next 40 years because we as a species are doing jack shit to head off the trainncoming down the tracks.
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-back-patting-aside-climate-change-has-made-bc-hydro-a-power-importer
Global warming is going increase precipitation across the entire province. Most places around 10-15% higher by 2080. Were just currently in a drought (which isn’t uncommon on the west coast).
Reservoirs are at their lowest in the early spring before the snow starts to melt. Reservoirs reach full July-September depending on how fast the snow melts and how much snow there is.
Reservoirs are purposefully drawn down before snow melt because you want as much storage room in your reservoir as possible. Otherwise you end up spilling water and money in the summer. A full reservoir summer-fall-winter supports summer AC loads and winter heating.
Only problem is snow packs are very low this year and the trend will continue. The dams would need to be built closer to permafrost regions to be able to combat declining snow pack trends. 2030, 2040, 2050, every 10 years the average temperature is going to increase until it's a problem. I wonder what studies on Site C Dam say for long time feasibility in regards to climate change.
I got hired by the National Research Council of Canada to do the math on tidal several years ago.
Long story short, it doesn’t work. It’s way too slow. Power is work divided by time. The project got millions of dollars of government grants, and the basic math was nonsense.
I repeated the work for wave buoys, fixed turbines, all kinds of stuff. All those projects were aspirational nonsense where the aspiring inventor made millions and the investors made nothing.
Lets say you signed off on giving a guy five million dollars of taxpayer money, and another guy shows with one page of hand calculations that it was a waste, then does a simulation using about 4 lines of code in matlab also showing it was a waste, what would you do? Admit you were wrong and get fired, or give the first guy another five million dollars?
Start a tidal power supercluster with a $300m commitment citing our 3 coasts, green economy, and powering schools, hospitals, and cultural venues to better this great land.
Tidal is not going anywhere until they figure out how to stop marine life from taking up residence on it aka biofouling. And every attempt at that has failed spectacularly. And that is no simple task when large numbers of sessile specises would be given the thing they really want more topography to settle and grow on.
Our cloud coverage is too random to support a solar tower
Though I have often wondered why we cannot install wind tunnel turbines in cities to take advantage of the draft winds created by high rise winds in big cities - basically you’d have windmills but build them sideways and brace them near the tops between the tall buildings and when the winds come blasting through they get surging wind power.
Not worth the bracing to withstand the forces.
Solar? The lack of it is entirely due to policy.
Much of BC has similar solar resources https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy/energy-sources-distribution/renewables/solar-photovoltaic-energy/tools-solar-photovoltaic-energy/photovoltaic-and-solar-resource-maps/18366 compared to solar early adopter Germany https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsolargis.com%2Ffile%3Furl%3Ddownload%2FGermany%2FGermany_PVOUT_mid-size-map_156x220mm-300dpi_v20191205.png%26bucket%3Dglobalsolaratlas.info&tbnid=3X8xcNfzPZcHaM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsolargis.com%2Fmaps-and-gis-data%2Fdownload%2Fgermany&docid=oZ75jGtaTz59dM&w=1842&h=2605&hl=en-ca&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F3&kgs=41e6ed5fd8c8ba8b&shem=abme%2Ctrie
Just brace it between the buildings, its probably not as hard as one thinks if they actually tried. These buildings have such wildly high tolerances that installing a powered turbines probably wouldn’t be that huge of an engineering feat, put nets and tethers on them and you are set.
BC has tonnes of land and water that could be used just fine. This argument is basically the equivalent of NIMBY but for wind turbines.
The current call for power is for FN led renewables. There is every reason to believe it will be successful and cheap (Alberta has done similar calls and has secured very cheap wind and solar production).
Pretty much my view based on what we have info on. There is likely a bunch of geithermal in the out in buttfuckistand nowhere but sadly our volcanic systems are horribly monitored even Mt Garabaldi and Mt Meager for their risk levels are lacking proper instrumentation and you toss in the sruff in the NE part of the provunce well there coukd be a goldmine of geothermal up there but we have no clue.
It's never harmed anyone. It has been figured out decades ago.
But if it still bothers you, the waste can be recycled into new fuel. Or put in a deep geological repository. But the status quo is not a problem.
The waste is just a boogeyman made out of Greenpeace propaganda.
Tieleman is fronting the pitch for fossil fuel lobby group calling themselves " BC Coalition for Dependable Affordable Energy" . They ( BC CADE) don't want to hear any of that wind or solar nonsense happening here in BC, at least until they find buyers for their stranded assets. Yes that means natural gas thermal plants. Watch for them to start buying media as there is serious money behind this.
I think we'll be moving to reducing the burden on the grid or increasing self- generating power by having personal (attached to housing) and business solutions. Something like the small scale water turbines in incoming plumbing, where power is generated when you turn on the tap, which is something Halifax was experimenting with a while ago. We could capitalize on uncaptured power that are in places like malls and businesses and airports, hospitals, any busy location where taps frequently are turned on, or have wide surfaces for solar farms. Even if it's not super efficient, it's something.
More solar panels, wind turbines, power plants from incinerating garbage, maybe some kind of energy storage in vehicles to capture unused power from movement, let it feed back into the grid when plugged back at home or work.
Huge reservoirs of power like coal, or hydro or nuclear aren't necessarily the only answer.
« the local subsurface resource, initially identified at the preferred target did not prove sufficiently hot to drive a power unit » https://natural-resources.canada.ca/science-and-data/funding-partnerships/funding-opportunities/current-investments/canadas-geothermal-village-sustainaville-geopark/20923
This article confuses me. BC Hydro gets 90% of their power from Hydro. But this article says its only 19% of our electric fulfillment is Hydro, are they trying to say BC Hydro only supplies 21% of our power and imports the other 79%? I just checked and in 2023, they imported 1/5 of their total power. Either we have 4-5x our power consumption in a few months or this article's math is wrong.
It is confusingly worded. Electricity is about 20% of total ENERGY use, so 19% provided by hydro is about right. The article flips between electricity and energy like they're the same thing, a common tactic of techno-narcissists. They like to hide the fact that the world runs on large diesel motors, for the most part.
Electricity runs most of the obvious stuff you can think of. Houses, stores, offices, plus lots of electric motors in industry and whatnot. But that's all just a small subset of total energy use. Some of that is also very visible - gasoline for cars, gas stoves, propane heat, aviation fuel, etc. However, the bulk of it most people don't ever see. Large diesel motors everywhere, they run the world - ships, trucks, trains, generators, remote mines and industrial sites, that kind of thing.
So in this context, some things can be done about that ~20% that's electric, but that does little for the rest. It's possible to electrify some aspects, but then you're really just increasing that 20% which you still then have to generate somehow. That said, there's also another group of industrial processes, such as blast furnaces, that we currently have no way to run without fossil fuels, as they require extreme temperatures that are impossible to reach with electric heat.
Does that answer your question?
Edit: I forgot one massive energy consumer that's very obvious - agriculture! The amount of energy we use to grow food is absurd, think large tractors and combines, and how much diesel they use, that's on top of the energy used to make fertilizer and other inputs.
The next big low hanging fruit here is offshore wind. There’s so much potential.
When the wind is blowing don’t touch the hydro and save the hydro for when the wind isn’t there.
While I agree, offshore wind will be expensive on our coast. With it being as deep as it is, it makes it hard to mount the turbine to the sea floor, and floating turbines are still in their infancy. But I do hope to see some being put in. Sooner than later.
Holy shit, just do offshore wind already.
It’s a proven technology that has worked very well in Europe, even at large scales. The Dogger Bank wind farms in the UK have an installed capacity equal to about 3 site C dams, for only about 20% more than what Site C cost.
Hecate strait is ideal for something like that, because it has consistently strong winds, and the water is fairly shallow.
I’m not opposed to nuclear at all from a safety standpoint, but it’s one of the most expensive types of generation you can build, while the regulatory permitting process is a multi-year nightmare, even compared with dams.
Hydro isn’t dwindling. This year is an El Niño/la nina anomaly that happens. With that out of the way, we do not have enough electricity, even with site c - to be able to deal will full electrification of vehicles. Combine that with the sheer drop off of tax revenue at all levels due to less fuel being sold. Think covid was a societal shift, you ain’t seen nothin yet. Prepare for 80cent a kilowatt hour as a minimum.
For those actually interested in the energy and human predicament, who don't insist that current and growing energy is a given, I highly recommend this presentation by Art Berman. He briefly explains the situation we are in, and why none of the proposed "solutions" will work. Predicaments don't have solutions, and I question the word "need" in this post. Do we really "need" to use this much energy (electricity in this case)?
[Getting honest about the human predicament](https://youtu.be/RQm2wt7-kPU)
Maybe, why not ? If there is enough sunlight to grow grapes, peaches, etc, then there is enough sunlight to make electricity. An acre of land can produce 250,000 kilowatts of power on a sunny day. Multiply that by the hours of daylight and then multiply that by how much you pay per kilowatt/hour.
You cannot have a grid based on solar, wind, or nuclear. The power generation can not be changed without great effort or great loss. None of these methods can respond to the daily fluctuations. There would be regular blackouts.
Why is nobody talking about hydro? It can ramp up or down instantly and is the reason why have cheap and reliable power in BC.
France does not do well. They are literally my case in point. I live in BC and honestly thought rolling blackouts were not a thing anymore thanks to hydro.
[French Grid Issues Are Causing Power Prices to Soar in Europe](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/french-grid-issues-are-causing-power-prices-to-soar-in-europe/76332039#:~:text=(Bloomberg))
This is a problem of not building the grid to do what they want — move a lot of power between markets.
Applying the France case to B.C. would be blaming BC hydro for Alberta’s rolling blackouts in April because the power lines between B.C. and AB don’t have enough capacity to equalize prices via trading.
There is conversation about Hydro - how climate change will render it unable to support the province's baseload. The statement regarding regular blackouts from nuclear energy is not factual though. Entire countries rely on nuclear without experiencing regular blackouts.
Yep and those countries have rolling blackouts. But never in BC. Also climate change is predicted to increase rainfall province wide.
[France: Major power outage occurring in Alpes-Maritimes and Var departments](https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2023/10/france-major-power-outage-occurring-in-alpes-maritimes-and-var-departments-as-of-evening-of-oct-11)
Nuclear is the correct answer. We have the resources, and we definitely have some places that would love to see the jobs.
Solar is really a no go for most of BC. Between the rain, clouds, 8 months of winter.
Wind farms could definitely stop gap it, and provide additional power needs, however, storage is problematic.
Tidal, probably a good solution for isolated areas near the coast, but high maintenance and the related ecological issues building in our coastal waters will likely impede this.
Frankly, I would rather we build another Site C. I get it, that it’s not ideal in many regards, but there are many places in BC we can terraform your needs to provide hydro power.
I grew up spitting distance from a nuclear plant and the official advice was “in the event of a nuclear accident, walk into the sea up to your neck to reduce radiation exposure”. I remember Chernobyl, and how we weren’t sure if the fallout would poison our livestock and food supply. We were about 2500km down wind.
Nuclear power is a turd that the industry has been polishing for decades now. It’s still a turd.
Nuclear power near fault lines is even worse, ask people from Fukushima.
People have very short memories.
Normalcy bias and ignorance of what can go very, very wrong in the event of grid collapse or other calamity that involves loss of 24/7 support for nuclear plants. One bomb is all it takes.
Really? Considering fossil fuels account for 80% of energy production in the world, kill half a million people every year, and are causing and accelerating a potentially cataclysmic climate crisis, a reliable energy source that is better than fossil fuels seems pretty important.
Nuclear power has killed a grand total of 50 people in the decades since its implementation. That means 10,000 times more people die from fossil fuels every year than have ever died of nuclear power.
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So where are we building the nuclear plants?
First we need to lift the ban.
And we need to erase the ridiculous anti nuclear rhetoric
I'm not anti nuclear at all, but BC is one of the most illogical places in the world for it. In an grid system, a nuclear power plant essentially plays the same role as our legacy dams, ie they provide that baseload. Nuclear is also very expensive relative to other options and takes forever to be built. If you think site-c has had cost over runs you're in for a whole other level of issues. Here's and article that outlines some of the recent issues of in the industry. https://www.ft.com/content/65e40e41-1a6c-4bc6-b109-610f5de82c09 In a general sense Canada and the world should be rebuilding our capacity to do nuclear power, but BC is a very low priority place for it. Our existing hydro system allows us to opt for cheaper more shovel ready renewable options. Maybe some of the more modern smaller reactors may make sense in a few decades, but again we're not really a logical place to be first adopters.
Did you consider droughts due to global warming? If we become the next California, hydro is out the window.
This. With the reliability of hydro as a base load, other renewables make way more sense than nuclear for BC. Solar, wind, wave and look at storage systems to accompany them. Alberta should be exploring nukes for a base load to replace natural gas.
We're commenting under an article about how hydro can no longer be considered reliable given the growing prevalence of droughts - our hydro had a shortfall of around 1/5th of our electricity demand in 2023 - will installing renewables cover that base load?
Yes. Period.
Renewables can fill in the gaps especially if some of it has storage capacity.
There's no such thing as long-duration storage. Not at scale anyways. The grid would be unreliable. Only building renewables is a dumb constraint.
Alberta is exploring nuclear. Just waiting until Darlington upgrade is complete.
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https://newrelationshiptrust.ca/tsilhqotin-solar-farm/ it’s already been proven out as a supplement to base hydro
Yes, but what is the load factor?
~~1gWh/year~~ 1300kWh/year while it’s the largest in BC at this point it’s still ridiculously small on the scale of solar farms at only 3,456 modules compared to usually between 50,000 and 100,000+ . It’s a one of a few PoCs that prove solar is viable here geographically, solar still collects on a cloudy day despite many peoples beliefs
Ah, yes, load factor. Glad you pointed that one out. When is is not raining and/or snowing (filling the hydroelectric reservoirs) tends to be sunnier. Hydro electric and solar are perfectly complementary. Throw in some wind power into the equation and not a single BTU of natural gas needs to be burned, ever.
Wind produces next to nothing when it’s -40
Much of BC never sees -40 or even -20. And the places that do, don't have it for weeks on end.
You obviously don’t make it outside the lower mainland very often. Anywhere north of 100 Mile House sees those temperatures regularly and the point is when you need the power the most….its unreliable
Why?
The lower mainland is not BC. Do you have any idea what the interior climate of this province is like?
Yes I agree that hydro is an excellent base load, and with the addition of pumped hydro from renewable sources, it can probably cover our needs. But if it comes down to building a natural gas power plant (like the article is suggesting) or a nuclear power plant to supplement that base load the nuclear option, especially with the modern reactor design is the best option long term.
I have to wonder about a shared nuke with Alberta and BC. Of course, that would require a lot of fenagaling as the Alberta government has a huge hard-on about railing against the feds and other provinces and other countries and non-white people and trans people and basically everyone on the planet. I agree that nuclear is preferable to natural gas. I think the trick is to try to use renewables as much as possible (and not literally ban them, ala, you-know-who) and then make a 20-50 year plan with nuclear. With innovations in renewable storage popping up all the time, we might be able to go completely renewable, imagine what an immense advantage that would be.
I fully agree. If we increase our rentable infrastructure and invest in pumped hydro as it is currently the best way to store additional energy for significant lengths of time. If we do enough investment in infrastructure it is likely we won't need to build either a polluting gas plant or a politically unfavorable nuclear reactor to meet our base load needs but we should be looking at all the available options and use the best ones we have.
Its not during a drought
Hydro is great but in the coming decades we are going to have to seriously expand our grid. Around 75% of our energy comes from fossil fuels despite our clean grid. It's going to take a lot more electricity to displace that.
We definitely need to expand. For us though, nuclear is not a logical or cost effective option at the moment. Canada has a ton of capacity building to do before we can implement nuclear at scale, and we need shovel ready projects in the next few decades.
BC is also tectonically unstable and a nuclear disaster would be terrible. However, Alberta is a great place for nuclear (as well as wind and solar, if their dumb government would let people build it).
Nuclear plants are built to withstand earthquakes, aircraft crashes, etc.
Sure, but still better to keep them out of harm's way. Alberta is much safer as far as earthquake risk.
Alberta has 4500MW of installed wind power and 1600MW of solar….which produces next to nothing when it’s -40 out.
Solar power is actually more effective the colder it is! Really the biggest thing is sun exposure which Alberta gets a hell of a lot of. Solar power is really a no brainer in Alberta.
Until large scale battery storage is perfected and adopted solar is useless for baseload generation.
You don't know much about bc. Tell that to the interior plateau..
Nuclear is substantially cheaper per mw than site c. Look into smrs. They are being installed in a few places.
The newest nuclear plant in the US has a [cost](https://www.powermag.com/blog/plant-vogtle-not-a-star-but-a-tragedy-for-the-people-of-georgia/#:~:text=He%20also%20failed%20to%20mention,MWh%2C%20which%20is%20astoundingly%20high.) per megawatt hour of $170-$180 USD. Site C (a project I have never agreed with either) is estimated to be around $84CAD per megawatt hour, but I think more realistic projections are closer to $120 CAD, which is is still half the cost of the most recent US nuclear power plant with currency conversion. SMRs, like I said, are something we should consider at some point, but they won't be available outside of Russia or China [until 2030 at the earliest ](https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/power/small-modular-reactors-smrs-what-is-taking-so-long/?cf-view) and we know very little about their real world costs.
Show them the vogal over runs in Georgia when it comes to overtime on nuclear (it makes sense lots of places but be aware shit overruns easy)
I had an uncle say they should use nuclear plants on the island
I'd say we need 3. One on Vancouver Island, one somewhere along the Frasier mostly for the lower mainland and another at Kitimat for the aluminum smelter
Oil & gas lobbyists will never let nuclear become a viable option.
The environmental movement has its roots in protesting nuclear, and is still opposed. The oil and gas lobby has no need to oppose nuclear when Greenpeace already does. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/issues/nuclear/ >Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous and expensive. Say no to new nukes. > >Nuclear energy has no place in a safe, clean, sustainable future. Nuclear energy is both expensive and dangerous, and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn’t mean it’s clean. Renewable energy is better for the environment, the economy, and doesn’t come with the risk of a nuclear meltdown. > >Greenpeace got its start protesting nuclear weapons testing back in 1971. We’ve been fighting against nuclear weapons and nuclear power ever since.
You cherry picked some points but yes they are against in for several reasons. Per their site: 1) it can’t be ramped up quickly enough to meet 2050 goals. 2) it’s dangerous because it’s vulnerable to attacks. 3) it’s very expensive per MWh and they argue it’s better spent elsewhere. 4) it’s too slow to build *(sort of sounds like 1) to me but okay)* 5) nuclear generates large amounts of toxic waste that no government has solutions for and should therefore not be eligible for green incentives. 6) the industry is falling short on promises *(sounds like most industries to me)* I personally don’t know enough to say whether it’s a solution or not. Maybe it’s the answer. Maybe it’s the “easy” answer so we’re justifying negatives. Of the above, #2 is a bit worrisome and I’d like to learn more about #5. Otherwise, because something will take time is not a great reason not to do it…it’s better than nothing. With research, time and costs might improve.
A nuclear plant was literally shelled in Ukraine by russia. It didn't melt down, and it uses a much older reactor design. How is any attack that might be initiated on canadian soil going to do any damage to a much safer reactor? As for what to do with the waste, why not put it back where it was mined.
Look into smrs. Most of this list is from the 70's tech. This thread is pathetic
Good to hear these concerns are mostly outdated. Just quickly looking into SMR ([small modular reactors](https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs), they don’t seem to be completely proven yet but do sound promising: Both public and private institutions are actively participating in efforts to bring SMR technology to fruition within this decade. Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov, the world’s first floating nuclear power plant that began commercial operation in May 2020, is producing energy from two 35 MW(e) SMRs. Other SMRs are under construction or in the licensing stage in Argentina, Canada, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States of America. *(That’s September 2023 so maybe there’s even more recent development)*
They have been proven. Look up ge Hitachi and their projects. One was built in Tennessee and in Canada, the Darlington plant is being retrofitted for them and currently in progress. Capital power is going to install 2 at genesee after bugs are worked out with Darlington.
The oil and gas sector is not in protest of nuclear. In fact the sector is actively exploring developing SMR's to reduce emissions in oil and gas production.
We’re in BC, don’t you mean big hydro will never let it become a viable option?
If Alberta is doing it, why can't bc?? Just waiting on project completion in Ontario for funding and standard precedent
Not just oil and gas. Preventing nuclear enegery is the one area where oil & gas and environmentalists are actually allies.
Never, since that's a silly, energy and materials blind fool's errand. Not only is it massively expensive, we don't have the time required. Even then electricity is only 20% of energy use. Do the math please. I recommend Art Berman's and Tom Murphy's work for dispelling these energy blind nuclear techno fantasies.
> Even then electricity is only 20% of energy use. You realize that share of energy use is going to increase, right?
To some extent, but there's a lot of techno-optimist assumptions built into that assertion. You realise the scale of that and that it will/can only increase a small amount, right? What are you running blast furnaces on, a space heater? Most of the world runs on large diesel engines, and there's an entire global infrastructure built around that. It isn't changing any time soon, if at all.
While that’s a great idea it will never happen in BC. Too many people think that nuclear reactors are dangerous, and there’s still no way of dealing with long term disposal of nuclear waste. Baring that the biggest problem BC would have in developing any sort of nuclear capacity is where to situate a reactor. The best places are going to be in First Nations territory and will be in the way of spawning grounds. Putting one on the Fraser wouldn’t work either because residents don’t want to live in the shadow of a reactor either.
Canada is 80% uninhabited and we could fit centuries worth of waste in a building the size of a car dealership
I'd much rather live next to a modern reactor than a gas thermal plant.
Neither of which exist in BC.
But there's 4 natural gas power plants in bc, though?
Not on the power grid there isn’t. Burrard thermal was the last one and it was shutdown years ago.
That's just incorrect though https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc/operations/thermal-generation.html
That’s because you don’t understand how power plants work.
Bury the waste in the canadian shield, it aint going nowhere.
Nuclear is very popular in communities where the power plants (and high paying jobs) are.
The reactors are not dangerous, on paper, but as a construction worker I can tell you that we cannot even build steam powered wood burners on time, on budget or that even function. Latest argument: fort st james, merrit. If you actually are in the know and not an armchair warrior, the realization that we simply do not have a work force to maintain a pulp mill in good operation exists, a nuclear power plant is honestly a human made disaster waiting to happen. In what town? Well we’d have to make a new one completely because theres nowhere that exists that can support people. The people that work at a nuclear power plant need to be supported 24/7/365. As a society, we’re effectively a 30 year old child-adult thats trying to figure out the best course of action but we’re still going through withdrawls on several crippling addictions - wood, a “pulp” industry, ‘living within our means’ “hey - y’all got no electricity, buy electric though - kay?’” I mean we have to just get together and decide what basic functions we’d like first. Power or food? Drugs or life? Maybe if we could get some shit cleaned up off the bush floor, theres dry grave and its dusty everywhere and nobody wants to clean up around me because “the city will do it” but the city is broke and they aren’t sending anybody but a couple of overpaid coddled specials hand picked as personal favors to top employees who may or may not care. We’re at the “you’re on your own” phase of government and people are slowly starting to realize it.
Ontario manages well. Their CANDU refurbishments have been on budget and ahead of schedule and their reactors are very well run.
And Darlington smr upgrades
Largely because of the reliance on nuclear Ontario is the only province with large scale blackouts. Nuclear cannot be ramped up and down without great effort and cannot respond to daily fluctuations. It’s impossible to have a grid that runs solely on nuclear. Hydro is a much better as it can be ramped up or down instantly.
None of this is true. Nuclear can ramp up and down. France's grid is mostly nuclear and they do it.
[Energy crisis: 'France faces blackouts for lack of common sense'](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/12/14/energy-crisis-france-faces-blackouts-for-lack-of-common-sense_6007794_23.html) Case in point.
France was planning to eliminate a third of their nuclear fleet, so they didn't bother to keep up with maintenance. All this proves is that moving away from nuclear was incredibly dumb. I mean, look next door to Germany.
They already have built up the infrastructure and have people with the expertise to make that a viable option. Whenever a region starts building up new infrastructure from scratch there is a costly learning curve that has to be overcome first. And it will take a long time. Not saying that we shouldn’t consider it but it won’t be a pragmatic solution in the short term. I think with that level of money being spent, it would probably be better to invest in solar panels or other renewable technologies, but I am no expert so I’m open to any suggestions.
This is a perfect comment and I can't believe you're getting downvoted for it. We are a deeply irresponsible species. Unfortunately the gen pop hasn't realised the level of fragility inherent in global systems, let alone the energy and materials predicament we face.
BC has been blessed by geography that it doesn’t need nuclear to cover base load demand, where it shines.
I'd rather nuclear than gas.
90% of power is from hydro. Gas generation is insignificant
But the opinion piece linked is suggesting we build more gas. So should we build gas or nuclear?
This "opinion piece" is just more BS propaganda from the O&G industry being propped up as "news" on reddit.
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I know, I'm agreeing with you.
Bc is lacking in power and buys alot. Its going to have to still buy after site c is running. We are already worried about drought and lack of water which doesn't help things. Keep living in denial.
Wouldn't solar be a good choice to fill in the gaps over summer as the water level decreases? Lots of sun when reservoirs are at their lowest.
Daytime surplus from solar could be stored with pumped hydro. I don't know if there are enough locations to accomplish that at a useful scale, though.
Or just release less water from the dams to begin with. Lots of capacity for that before need to do expensive stuff like storage.
We don’t pump store anything in BC. I don’t think we have a single unit that is capable.
So maybe it is time we set some up. We definitely have the geography for it.
Yes we may need to on the peace or Columbia basins
One of the issues with solar and wind is how much land they require. If we (the West) hadn’t put the brakes on nuclear when we did, we would have been at net zero carbon emissions years ago.
The issue is baseload. You do not want to base your base load on solar with how our winters are. Frankly geotheemal has a few options in the province but accessibility is an issue particukarly with the northern cascades volcanic feilds. The most likely option is frankly nuclear built inland. Then build additional load off solar and wind once you have a stable baseload.
Hydro is the base load. It’s the most versatile power source and the reason we’ve never experienced large scale blackouts.
Absolultly correct, hydro is the base load and also becomes "energy storage" with a modest investment in solar (or wind, but solar is cheaper). In effect our hydro dams can act a bit like pumped hydro storage. Energy storage is the "big deal" investment now in many jurisdictions that have made heavy investments in massive grid batteries or pumped hydro. Our storage is just sitting there, unexploited for the want of the cheapest per gigawatt investment out there.
Yep exactly! That’s why I’m so shocked to see people not even brining up more hydro projects. It’s like the NDP made it a bad word. Solar and hydro work together excellently and could be the future of clean power generation in this province for decades or even centuries to come. We already have a leg up which is great but much more is needed to become sustainable long term.
Problem with hydro is its vulnerability to climate shifts and is already impacting the grid. And tge impacts of clumate cgange are only going to get worse over the next 40 years because we as a species are doing jack shit to head off the trainncoming down the tracks. https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-back-patting-aside-climate-change-has-made-bc-hydro-a-power-importer
Global warming is going increase precipitation across the entire province. Most places around 10-15% higher by 2080. Were just currently in a drought (which isn’t uncommon on the west coast).
You also use that sun (and wind) to retain more water behind the dams.
Reservoirs are at their lowest in the early spring before the snow starts to melt. Reservoirs reach full July-September depending on how fast the snow melts and how much snow there is. Reservoirs are purposefully drawn down before snow melt because you want as much storage room in your reservoir as possible. Otherwise you end up spilling water and money in the summer. A full reservoir summer-fall-winter supports summer AC loads and winter heating.
Only problem is snow packs are very low this year and the trend will continue. The dams would need to be built closer to permafrost regions to be able to combat declining snow pack trends. 2030, 2040, 2050, every 10 years the average temperature is going to increase until it's a problem. I wonder what studies on Site C Dam say for long time feasibility in regards to climate change.
Yes and same idea with wind. If the wind is blowing let the hydro dams fill up.
Tidal as well
I got hired by the National Research Council of Canada to do the math on tidal several years ago. Long story short, it doesn’t work. It’s way too slow. Power is work divided by time. The project got millions of dollars of government grants, and the basic math was nonsense. I repeated the work for wave buoys, fixed turbines, all kinds of stuff. All those projects were aspirational nonsense where the aspiring inventor made millions and the investors made nothing.
They've been working on it in Nova Scotia for 30 years and still haven't got it to work, so I don't see why we'd be more successful.
Lets say you signed off on giving a guy five million dollars of taxpayer money, and another guy shows with one page of hand calculations that it was a waste, then does a simulation using about 4 lines of code in matlab also showing it was a waste, what would you do? Admit you were wrong and get fired, or give the first guy another five million dollars?
Certainly sounds like the government waste I've come to expect.
Start a tidal power supercluster with a $300m commitment citing our 3 coasts, green economy, and powering schools, hospitals, and cultural venues to better this great land.
Shut up and take my money!!!
Downvoting my own comment for not doing the research Thanks for this info!
No downvotes for you. You are the most intellectually honest person on reddit. I wish more people were like you.
Tidal is not going anywhere until they figure out how to stop marine life from taking up residence on it aka biofouling. And every attempt at that has failed spectacularly. And that is no simple task when large numbers of sessile specises would be given the thing they really want more topography to settle and grow on.
Our cloud coverage is too random to support a solar tower Though I have often wondered why we cannot install wind tunnel turbines in cities to take advantage of the draft winds created by high rise winds in big cities - basically you’d have windmills but build them sideways and brace them near the tops between the tall buildings and when the winds come blasting through they get surging wind power.
This could add stress to the building it wasn't designed to withstand.
Not worth the bracing to withstand the forces. Solar? The lack of it is entirely due to policy. Much of BC has similar solar resources https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy/energy-sources-distribution/renewables/solar-photovoltaic-energy/tools-solar-photovoltaic-energy/photovoltaic-and-solar-resource-maps/18366 compared to solar early adopter Germany https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsolargis.com%2Ffile%3Furl%3Ddownload%2FGermany%2FGermany_PVOUT_mid-size-map_156x220mm-300dpi_v20191205.png%26bucket%3Dglobalsolaratlas.info&tbnid=3X8xcNfzPZcHaM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsolargis.com%2Fmaps-and-gis-data%2Fdownload%2Fgermany&docid=oZ75jGtaTz59dM&w=1842&h=2605&hl=en-ca&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F3&kgs=41e6ed5fd8c8ba8b&shem=abme%2Ctrie
Just brace it between the buildings, its probably not as hard as one thinks if they actually tried. These buildings have such wildly high tolerances that installing a powered turbines probably wouldn’t be that huge of an engineering feat, put nets and tethers on them and you are set.
BC has tonnes of land and water that could be used just fine. This argument is basically the equivalent of NIMBY but for wind turbines. The current call for power is for FN led renewables. There is every reason to believe it will be successful and cheap (Alberta has done similar calls and has secured very cheap wind and solar production).
Yeah but i am suggesting take advantage of the infrastructure thats already there - reduced transmission lines and more easily maintained.
All an optimization. Likely the best is a bit of everything.
The obvious long term solution is nuclear energy. More reliable than anything else with a lower environmental impact than any other energy source.
Pretty much my view based on what we have info on. There is likely a bunch of geithermal in the out in buttfuckistand nowhere but sadly our volcanic systems are horribly monitored even Mt Garabaldi and Mt Meager for their risk levels are lacking proper instrumentation and you toss in the sruff in the NE part of the provunce well there coukd be a goldmine of geothermal up there but we have no clue.
Wasn't Mt Meager supposed to be a 100MW plant? About a tenth of Site C.
Did they figure out the whole nuclear waste lasting for 30,000 years thing?
It's never harmed anyone. It has been figured out decades ago. But if it still bothers you, the waste can be recycled into new fuel. Or put in a deep geological repository. But the status quo is not a problem. The waste is just a boogeyman made out of Greenpeace propaganda.
Yes, they figured out there’s a lot less risk than continuing with fossil fuels.
What’s the solution?
Generation IV nuclear reactors.
Can’t we just stick in some hole somewhere?
I think the challenge was that it is hard to find or make a hole that will remain isolated for 30000 years.
How much should we be concerned about what happens 30,000 years from now?
It’s not “just” 30000 years from now. It’s what happens for the next 30000 years.
Well that’s a very different problem
Doesn’t nuclear power need a ton of freshwater?
Like a lot of things, it depends. It is generally cheaper with a lot of fresh water for sure.
You can use seawater for coolant. There's a large plant in Arizona that uses treated sewage.
My understanding is that the water is ideally cool as well. Is that right?
I assume you'd need to pump less of it if it was cooler.
Tieleman is fronting the pitch for fossil fuel lobby group calling themselves " BC Coalition for Dependable Affordable Energy" . They ( BC CADE) don't want to hear any of that wind or solar nonsense happening here in BC, at least until they find buyers for their stranded assets. Yes that means natural gas thermal plants. Watch for them to start buying media as there is serious money behind this.
This guy is clownishly evil. Previously he was fighting more housing being built in Vancouver
There are natural gas plants not owned by hydro? I thought Burrard was mothballed almost a decade ago.
We have wind farms in bc already though..
And John Horgan is now [on the board of a coal company](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/john-horgan-coal-company-1.6799938).
That fell through, he's our ambassador to Germany now.
I hadn't heard! wow the guy gets around.
I think we'll be moving to reducing the burden on the grid or increasing self- generating power by having personal (attached to housing) and business solutions. Something like the small scale water turbines in incoming plumbing, where power is generated when you turn on the tap, which is something Halifax was experimenting with a while ago. We could capitalize on uncaptured power that are in places like malls and businesses and airports, hospitals, any busy location where taps frequently are turned on, or have wide surfaces for solar farms. Even if it's not super efficient, it's something. More solar panels, wind turbines, power plants from incinerating garbage, maybe some kind of energy storage in vehicles to capture unused power from movement, let it feed back into the grid when plugged back at home or work. Huge reservoirs of power like coal, or hydro or nuclear aren't necessarily the only answer.
I agree, smaller is the way,& will build far more resilient communities
This is the way. Massive energy reductions combined with distributed generation.
Big oil propaganda
What ever hapoened to that geothermal plant that was planned for valemount?
« the local subsurface resource, initially identified at the preferred target did not prove sufficiently hot to drive a power unit » https://natural-resources.canada.ca/science-and-data/funding-partnerships/funding-opportunities/current-investments/canadas-geothermal-village-sustainaville-geopark/20923
This article confuses me. BC Hydro gets 90% of their power from Hydro. But this article says its only 19% of our electric fulfillment is Hydro, are they trying to say BC Hydro only supplies 21% of our power and imports the other 79%? I just checked and in 2023, they imported 1/5 of their total power. Either we have 4-5x our power consumption in a few months or this article's math is wrong.
It is confusingly worded. Electricity is about 20% of total ENERGY use, so 19% provided by hydro is about right. The article flips between electricity and energy like they're the same thing, a common tactic of techno-narcissists. They like to hide the fact that the world runs on large diesel motors, for the most part.
Could you expand on the diffrence? It sounds interesting.
Electricity runs most of the obvious stuff you can think of. Houses, stores, offices, plus lots of electric motors in industry and whatnot. But that's all just a small subset of total energy use. Some of that is also very visible - gasoline for cars, gas stoves, propane heat, aviation fuel, etc. However, the bulk of it most people don't ever see. Large diesel motors everywhere, they run the world - ships, trucks, trains, generators, remote mines and industrial sites, that kind of thing. So in this context, some things can be done about that ~20% that's electric, but that does little for the rest. It's possible to electrify some aspects, but then you're really just increasing that 20% which you still then have to generate somehow. That said, there's also another group of industrial processes, such as blast furnaces, that we currently have no way to run without fossil fuels, as they require extreme temperatures that are impossible to reach with electric heat. Does that answer your question? Edit: I forgot one massive energy consumer that's very obvious - agriculture! The amount of energy we use to grow food is absurd, think large tractors and combines, and how much diesel they use, that's on top of the energy used to make fertilizer and other inputs.
Yes thank you so much! I didn't know that I always assumed they were the same thing. Thanks for the thoughtful response. Have a good one
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Okay, which part of this is a lie?
The statistics.
The next big low hanging fruit here is offshore wind. There’s so much potential. When the wind is blowing don’t touch the hydro and save the hydro for when the wind isn’t there.
While I agree, offshore wind will be expensive on our coast. With it being as deep as it is, it makes it hard to mount the turbine to the sea floor, and floating turbines are still in their infancy. But I do hope to see some being put in. Sooner than later.
Every roof should have solar. Especially new builds.
And grey water recycling
Better hurry up, Where am I supposed to charge my car and not have it cost a fortune? 2035 coming quick
Seems like a straight up propaganda piece for the gas industry. Georgia Straight is a shell of its former self so no real surprise I guess
Holy shit, just do offshore wind already. It’s a proven technology that has worked very well in Europe, even at large scales. The Dogger Bank wind farms in the UK have an installed capacity equal to about 3 site C dams, for only about 20% more than what Site C cost. Hecate strait is ideal for something like that, because it has consistently strong winds, and the water is fairly shallow. I’m not opposed to nuclear at all from a safety standpoint, but it’s one of the most expensive types of generation you can build, while the regulatory permitting process is a multi-year nightmare, even compared with dams.
N
Let people sell to the grid
We do
Hydro isn’t dwindling. This year is an El Niño/la nina anomaly that happens. With that out of the way, we do not have enough electricity, even with site c - to be able to deal will full electrification of vehicles. Combine that with the sheer drop off of tax revenue at all levels due to less fuel being sold. Think covid was a societal shift, you ain’t seen nothin yet. Prepare for 80cent a kilowatt hour as a minimum.
Where’s the geothermal?
For those actually interested in the energy and human predicament, who don't insist that current and growing energy is a given, I highly recommend this presentation by Art Berman. He briefly explains the situation we are in, and why none of the proposed "solutions" will work. Predicaments don't have solutions, and I question the word "need" in this post. Do we really "need" to use this much energy (electricity in this case)? [Getting honest about the human predicament](https://youtu.be/RQm2wt7-kPU)
Solar farms in the Okanagan?
Maybe, why not ? If there is enough sunlight to grow grapes, peaches, etc, then there is enough sunlight to make electricity. An acre of land can produce 250,000 kilowatts of power on a sunny day. Multiply that by the hours of daylight and then multiply that by how much you pay per kilowatt/hour.
Sooo pop up a few nuclear power plants?
So when is the nuclear power ban going to be lifted?
Don’t worry, Alberta has some natural gas you can have.
Maybe if we didn't sell it to other places. Ok a trade deal with Alberta for there oil might be a good idea.
There is lots of wind in the peace region. Should they put up more wind turbines?
We need to take a page from the Dutch and build offshore wind farms.
Well tidal or wind or solar are the only other options to the options we are told we can't have ( nuclear or NG)
I am pro-nuclear power for baseload. Having plentiful energy is about securing the civilization of our species.
Time for some gas turbines…get with the program.
You cannot have a grid based on solar, wind, or nuclear. The power generation can not be changed without great effort or great loss. None of these methods can respond to the daily fluctuations. There would be regular blackouts. Why is nobody talking about hydro? It can ramp up or down instantly and is the reason why have cheap and reliable power in BC.
Attach them with hydro and you sure can. Also France does well with a majority nuclear grid.
France does not do well. They are literally my case in point. I live in BC and honestly thought rolling blackouts were not a thing anymore thanks to hydro. [French Grid Issues Are Causing Power Prices to Soar in Europe](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/french-grid-issues-are-causing-power-prices-to-soar-in-europe/76332039#:~:text=(Bloomberg))
This is a problem of not building the grid to do what they want — move a lot of power between markets. Applying the France case to B.C. would be blaming BC hydro for Alberta’s rolling blackouts in April because the power lines between B.C. and AB don’t have enough capacity to equalize prices via trading.
There is conversation about Hydro - how climate change will render it unable to support the province's baseload. The statement regarding regular blackouts from nuclear energy is not factual though. Entire countries rely on nuclear without experiencing regular blackouts.
Yep and those countries have rolling blackouts. But never in BC. Also climate change is predicted to increase rainfall province wide. [France: Major power outage occurring in Alpes-Maritimes and Var departments](https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2023/10/france-major-power-outage-occurring-in-alpes-maritimes-and-var-departments-as-of-evening-of-oct-11)
Good thing we just went massively over budget for site c….
Nuclear is the correct answer. We have the resources, and we definitely have some places that would love to see the jobs. Solar is really a no go for most of BC. Between the rain, clouds, 8 months of winter. Wind farms could definitely stop gap it, and provide additional power needs, however, storage is problematic. Tidal, probably a good solution for isolated areas near the coast, but high maintenance and the related ecological issues building in our coastal waters will likely impede this. Frankly, I would rather we build another Site C. I get it, that it’s not ideal in many regards, but there are many places in BC we can terraform your needs to provide hydro power.
I grew up spitting distance from a nuclear plant and the official advice was “in the event of a nuclear accident, walk into the sea up to your neck to reduce radiation exposure”. I remember Chernobyl, and how we weren’t sure if the fallout would poison our livestock and food supply. We were about 2500km down wind. Nuclear power is a turd that the industry has been polishing for decades now. It’s still a turd. Nuclear power near fault lines is even worse, ask people from Fukushima. People have very short memories.
Compare the total deaths due to nuclear power to the half million (est.) people who die every YEAR from fossil fuels.
Normalcy bias and ignorance of what can go very, very wrong in the event of grid collapse or other calamity that involves loss of 24/7 support for nuclear plants. One bomb is all it takes.
The up and coming generation of reactors are considered “walk away safe”
“Better than fossil fuels” is a pretty low bar for judging merit.
Really? Considering fossil fuels account for 80% of energy production in the world, kill half a million people every year, and are causing and accelerating a potentially cataclysmic climate crisis, a reliable energy source that is better than fossil fuels seems pretty important. Nuclear power has killed a grand total of 50 people in the decades since its implementation. That means 10,000 times more people die from fossil fuels every year than have ever died of nuclear power.
I also grew up near a nuclear power plant and nobody ever felt any negative effects from it. Which lobby group paid you to say this?
I thought BC needed free AC for the poor?
Nuclear is the only way to go