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Originally Posted by lezard
Second, upgrade existing facilities to raise their production capacity. Make what we already have as efficient as possible. I have heard there is a large part of what Site C will produce going unused in Revelstoke and Kitimat. How much capacity goes to waste in existing facilities in the Province; does anyone know? Does Gordo know?
Third, integrate alternative sources into the grid to add incremental capacity. Include sources that could be converted and stored in existing hydro and water reservoirs. Include wave and wind generation offshore. Methane digesters for animal and human waste. Solar on rooftops. Small windfarms on Downtown Skyscrapers. Hook up the gyms for heaven's sake. etc...
Once all that is done, then you start adding new massive projects to accommodate new demand. Only then can someone tell me, my opposition to a dam means there is no other alternative than to build a nuclear power plant.
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Pretty much none of these options make operational or economic sense.
With your first point, we can already dictate where our capacity goes. You can turn a hydro dam on or off with the flick of a switch and keep that potential energy from the water waiting until you want to sell it to someone. Thats why hydro dams are awesome, and how BC hydro makes so much money off the Americans.
Even if we build more capacity into our dams its all dependent on the amount of water entering the reservoir. We largely can't dictate how much power is generated beyond the amount which goes out the floodgates during times of peak runoff. We just get to pick the point in time when we want to generate that amount of electricity. I'd imagine the engineers at hydro probably optimized the amount power we can draw out of a given dam.
In your second point, small windfarms are expensive and provide tiny amounts of power when Vancouver actually has wind, solar in our climate is relatively expensive and still inefficient. With either of these points they don't add meaningful capacity and are likely never to pay off their capital cost during the entire operating life of the equipment. Effectively it would just be burning money.
These alternatives are great until real world things like scalability and money come into play. Conservation on the other hand is a great strategy, but it probably won't be able to fight the tides things like an increasing number of computers or the advent of electric cars. It's really not hard to imagine per capita electricity consumption going up a lot in a couple decades even if society wants to greenwash itself.
As a side note: I wouldn't say your guys argument was particularly childish, but both of you are being pretty reactionary. You should really step up your arguments if you want to be taken seriously.