1565 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

The Obama’s have installed 2,500 gallons of propane tanks at their home in Martha’s Vineyard. Even Snopes admitted it was “mostly true.”

How does anyone take that website seriously any more?:

“This rumor was mostly true, with two clarifications. We reviewed the application after the town provided it to us. The application showed a request not for a single 2,500-gallon propane tank, but instead for three tanks that, when combined, equalled 2,500 gallons. Also, the application indicated that the request was for aboveground tanks, not buried ones. The purpose of the tanks was unclear.”

[Ismo07]

Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

Hydro prices are going to rise 4.8% compounded between 2023 and 2024. You can imagine, that since those costs were calculated some time ago, there could even be an emergency increase added, or 2025 and 2026 are going to compound into the double digits.

Solar power is fine in the summer months, but what about October-April?

 

So what happens when a Crown Corp has extra revenue besides bonuses...?  Does the Province use (steal, like ICBC back in the day?) that money for something?  More rebates for energy star appliances?  You think some of that extra revenue goes back in to make services better?  Add potential dams?  What is your concern about the added revenue?  Relatively is our energy still cheaper?  More and more people in BC using more and more Hydro...  Surely infrastructure isn't ready for all that extra need... 

[Mike K.]

I think it goes to servicing their debt.

[Ismo07]

I think it goes to servicing their debt.

 

For building that last dam?  Isn't that ok?  Wiki has BC Hydro netted $705M in 2020 and $688M in 2021.  Seem to be adding more and more accounts annually. Long-term debt increased by $1.1B+ from 2020 to 2021 so, that can't be great.

[Mike K.]

Depends.

Do we need to build billion dollar dams if Fortis can recover sufficient amounts of gas from garbage dumps to heat our homes?

If you’re stuck with one supplier, you’re tethered to one supply, no matter the cost to supply it.

[Ismo07]

Depends.

Do we need to build billion dollar dams if Fortis can recover sufficient amounts of gas from garbage dumps to heat our homes?

If you’re stuck with one supplier, you’re tethered to one supply, no matter the cost to supply it.

 

Have you switched to Fortis yet?  Like I said BC Hydro continues to add accounts.. I think it was 30,000 last year.  Is Fortis actually cheaper?

[Victoria Watcher]

Fortis gas was touted as cheaper for decades after gas arrived to most of Greater Victoria in the 90’s. Not every homeowner could easily do their own calculations though.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 September 2022 - 01:59 PM.

[Mike K.]

Have you switched to Fortis yet? Like I said BC Hydro continues to add accounts.. I think it was 30,000 last year. Is Fortis actually cheaper?

Your employer is making the switch illegal as of 2025.

[Mike K.]

The UK has terminated its fracking ban, and plans to be a net exporter of energy by 2040. It banned fracking in 2019.

[Victoria Watcher]

Wood from B.C. forests is being burned for electricity billed as green — but critics say that's deceptive

https://www.cbc.ca/n...nergy-1.6606921

In a more perfect world, without government subsidies skewing the market, this wood would be burned here. Not shipped to the UK to burn.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 October 2022 - 04:44 AM.

[Mike K.]

That’s renewable biofuel for ya!

[dasmo]

Brutal. Use trees for guitars and building. Using the waste to make heating pellets sure but straight up logs? From our forests? That’s Tolkien Orc thinking! Also the forest itself is an organism that supports other industries like fish habitat and mushrooms etc. This is the modern green movement right here.

[Mike K.]

You didn’t know?

Dude. The renewables industry is a scam on so many fronts. The kilns burn straight up forests, yo. Cut, de-limbed, shipped across the world and incinerated are BC trees.

[Victoria Watcher]

^ ^^ neither of those statements is accutate.  It's more complicated.

[dasmo]

I assumed it was byproduct. Just brutal. This is my beef with crown land vs public land. It should be ours and decisions like this should be able to be held to a referendum like we were shareholders in the corporation. As it stands it’s the monarch’s and it’s managed by the BC service corporation. This construct is a problem.

[Victoria Watcher]

Joe Aquino, Drax's director of sustainability, told The Fifth Estate's Lyndsay Duncombe that the company only uses lower quality trees from logging operations that otherwise "would have no other purpose." Higher quality logs are used by sawmills or other manufacturers, according to Drax. 

 

During a tour of the company's Meadowbank facility south of Prince George, Aquino said 80 per cent of the plant's pellets come from sawmill waste. The other 20 per cent comes from forest materials, including "roundwood" or what he called "biologs."

 

Central to Drax's green argument is that it uses sawmill residue and also what it calls "waste" left behind in the clearcut forest — including tops of trees and branches — known as slash piles.

 

Common logging practice is to burn those slash piles, partly to prevent wildfires from spreading in the dead debris. 

 

"We're using material that would get burnt anyways," Aquino told The Fifth Estate.

 

In B.C., the practice of burning slash piles has itself been widely criticized as a significant source of the province's carbon emissions. The Horgan government once promised to tax logging companies that created and burned slash piles. Now, it is a booster of the industry that promises to burn that wood overseas, far from British Columbia.

 

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...nergy-1.6606921

 

 

 

The fact is, some wood you are I might think is good for other products simply isn't, there is little or no market.  So it's "roundwood" and "biologs".  It's trees that can't be left standing, they would die anyway.  Alone without protection.  But they have no value here.

 

It's complicated. 

 

There are lots of byproducts that seem to go to waste or sold for less than you might think, in all call kinds of harvesting.  You should see what happens to a cow, all the parts that are not grade A steak.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 October 2022 - 07:07 AM.

[Mike K.]

That's misleading, too. The slash piles are rarely fully burned, and what is burned, provides a lot of nutrients for what is otherwise a clearcut area.

 

Clear cut areas are also littered with small tree 'waste' because it decomposes, and replenishes nutrients for a future generation of forest.

 

The biofuel industry is absolutely, hands down a dirty industry masquerading as eco-friendly relative to other energy sources.

[Victoria Watcher]

The biofuel industry is absolutely, hands down a dirty industry masquerading as eco-friendly relative to other energy sources.

 

It's degrees, right?

 

Coal

Oil

Gas

Biofuel

 

They all have issues.  

 

Right now, #1 2 and 3 sure account for a lot of our North Amercian generation.

[Mike K.]

There are absolutely 'trees left standing' with every clearcut. It's required by law.

 

We also use as much wood as we can to make pulp, and chips. There is no part of the tree harvesting process that has to be used for biofuels to be useful. All of it has a purpose, with biofuel being just one, that nobody likes to talk about, so while our own communities are increasingly being forbidden from using wood to heat homes, our trees are quietly being shipped internationally to heat faraway homes.

[spanky123]

^^ I think that Mike's point is that as taxpayers we are paying subsidies to companies under the guise of being 'green' or 'eco-friendly' when in fact they are anything but.

Edited by spanky123, 06 October 2022 - 07:15 AM.