Peter Schober is right in saying that BC Hydro's Burrard thermal station is a source of pollution (Coast Reporter letters, Aug. 14). But he is mistaken if he believes that the provincial government's energy plan will replace fossil fuel-fired electricity generation.
Privately-owned run-of-river power plants (IPPs), the centrepiece of the Campbell government's plan, generate almost all their output in the two to three months of spring runoff, when BC Hydro's reservoirs are full and it doesn't need IPP electricity or the Burrard thermal station.
IPP power will therefore have to be exported at roughly half the price that BC Hydro paid for it, a loss of more than $15 billion I estimate to the people of B.C. Small wonder the Public Utilities Commission declared the Liberal government's energy plan "not in the public interest."
As BC Hydro has said, conservation is the answer, not sweetheart deals with Plutonic Power and General Electric.
Michael Poole
Halfmoon Bay
