Jack Moss, BCLocalNews, July 16, 2010
To the Editor,
Re: Green energy better than new dams, Letters, July 10.
David Field’s (B.C. Citizens for Green Energy) letter puts me in mind of Mark Twain’s caution that “There are liars, there are damn liars and then there are statisticians.”
I have no doubt that Field can selectively maneouver a path through the jungle of statistics that surround the B.C. Hydro debate and arrive at a conclusion suggesting that independent power producers can generate electricity cheaper than B.C. Hydro.
Even if that were true, which of course it isn’t, it would still just be a distraction from the larger, far more important truth, which we learn by following the money.
Since 1998, B.C. Hydro has earned $4.85 billion and has returned 70 per cent of it ($3.38 billion) to the province. In fact, in Hydro’s worst deficit year (2004), its trading arm, Powerex, still earned $111 million and returned $73 million to the province.
Let me ask, does this paper have a single reader that believes IPPs will return 70 per cent of their net profits to the province? No, how about seven per cent? No, then how about 0.7%?
So tell me then, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, can you guess where that $3.38 billion will come from over the next 12 years?
Even if that weren’t true, IPP’s generation costs would always be higher than B.C. Hydro’s for two simple reasons: IPPs must pay much more for their borrowed capital and their operations must generate not just electricity, but a tidy profit for their shareholders.
Jack Moss
Courtenay
