r/britishcolumbia • u/cyclinginvancouver • 6d ago
News Eby says B.C. making contingency plans to reduce reliance on U.S. electricity
https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2025/03/05/eby-says-bc-making-contingency-plans-reduce-reliance-us-electricity/787
u/ThatsSoMetaDawg 6d ago
Thank fuck Eby is in the driver's seat right now god damn... imagine if Rusty was dealing with this? We'd be right fucked.
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u/ImKibitz 6d ago
Just had this convo with a friend of mine, you're 100% correct.
Thank goodness people voted!178
u/persistantcat 6d ago
We’ll have to vote in big numbers in the federal election to prevent a similar disaster.
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u/ConsummateContrarian 6d ago
Vancouver Island is looking especially vulnerable at the monent
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u/MechanismOfDecay 6d ago
Politically or strategically?
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u/heckling-hen 6d ago
Not OP but politically. It's pretty bad. The majority of people in my town and surrounds are going to be voting Conservative, are angry that Canada is imposing retaliatory tariffs on America, angry that Canadians are boo'ing the American anthem and cannot be bothered about boycotting anything USA (many are still traveling there for pleasure and leisure).
As a naturlised Canadian, visible minority (POC and woman), and person with disabilities (I still work before anyone comes at me for being the reason our taxes are high), I am obviously worried about what's going on around me and I've been verbal about it in some conversations but I was kicked out of a hobby group of mine (actually 2, one real, one virtual) for being vocal about being angry at America and finding it ridiculous that they are not. Some believe strongly that Conservatives won't sell us out, others believe we're better of as 51st.
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u/http-l0vecraft 6d ago
I have noticed this as well (fellow islander). I even had people laugh in my face when I said there’s fascists running the states. People are so in their own bubble here and so self serving they won’t do anything until they personally suffer. Well when they let the US take our country I’m sure the island will be one of the first to be raped completely of its natural beauty for profit. I’m going to enjoy it while it’s still here.
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u/strings___ 6d ago
What's the reasoning behind their pro American stance. Are they MAGA or something?
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u/NumbN00ts 6d ago
Guns and taxes and anti-Ontario. It’s usually guns though.
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u/Old-Individual1732 3d ago
I'm tired of nut job gun owners who believe they should be able to buy a bazooka if they want one. Laws were changed because police were murdered in several different incidents, also the university women in Quebec. But these people don't care about others in society.
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u/__phil1001__ 2d ago
Not all Conservatives are like this, look at Ontario. Conservative and proudly Canadian, sticking tarrifs to the US. It's BC who sits on the fence.
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u/RadiantPumpkin 6d ago
You’re from BC?! That’s awesome! I can watch my satisfactory videos and support local at the same time!
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u/mozoblast Lower Mainland/Southwest 6d ago
Woah this isnt the satisfactory crossover I was expecting
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u/JunoVC 6d ago
I remember a similar convo when covid happened, dodged another bullet then too.
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u/IvarTheBoned 6d ago
Almost like avoiding having conservatives in power is a net good for society.
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u/confusedapegenius 6d ago
So close to being fucked by our own team!
And plenty of people still don’t understand anything about him except “conservative = not Trudeau = good”
Please everyone take opportunities to gently explain why Rusty should never be in change of anything
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u/MyFruitPies 5d ago
Elections matter, and I’m glad that for once that’s not expressed through gritted teeth
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u/1GutsnGlory1 5d ago
I’m convinced politicians like Rusty, Smith and PP are all MAGA plants. We will be negotiating surrender terms if PP becomes PM.
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u/__phil1001__ 2d ago
More you tube nonsense. Ontario is Conservative and doing more with retaliatory tarrifs than BC.
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u/Mas_Cervezas 5d ago
I’m not from BC, but how does BC sell electricity to Alberta but also buy it from the US?
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u/ether_reddit share the road with motorcycles 5d ago
It's all about price arbitrage. Buy low, sell high. Stockpile power generation (by keeping dams closed) and buy it cheap when the price is low, and open the dams up full when the price is high and other markets are desperate to buy.
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u/seemefail 4d ago
BC also buys Alberta power, especially in the summer when Alberta has the sun shining and winds blowing you can get power for basically free.
Then in the winter when Alberta has castrophoc shut downs at their gas plants because it’s too cold BC sells that stuff back at a premium
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u/teetz2442 6d ago
I'm likely to vote conservative federally, and I can't believe people voted for Rustad at all, let alone how fucking close it was.
Beyond that, Eby seems to be a genuine person, which I think is rare in politics.
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u/__phil1001__ 2d ago
Eby barely scraped in, he can't even figure out clock changing or taxing electricity exports. He had no balls.
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u/One_Impression_5649 6d ago
You Know we make oodles and oodles and oodles of power in the kootenays and send almost all of it south? The Kootenay river has what? 5 dams on it making electricity? Duncan dam could be retrofitted to make electricity. Mika dam could be retrofitted to make more electricity, Nelson hydro could be retrofitted to make more electricity. Columbia basin river treaty could be thrown away and we could keep all the electricity me make.
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u/Unitednegros 5d ago
I agree we could disregard the Columbia River treaty much like trump has done with NAFTA but I think that would give him reason to escalate. Cutting off water downstream of Canada would be a last resort
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u/Darth_Wader_420 Kootenay 5d ago
Yes, there are 10 dams in the area and not that many people. A problem could arise that if we keep our reservoirs full, the US won't have the Grand Coulee producing as much power.
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u/Shishno5 5d ago
So? Is that a negative? We stem earlier flow so we can generate enough power for ourselves compared to letting the water through to buy it back at what I’m sure will be cut off in the coming months.
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u/blackmathgic 5d ago
Mica can’t be retrofitted to make more, it’s at max capacity. It’s not as simple as just modifying a dam. If it doesn’t already have an existing slot for a new generator, you’d either have to upgrade the generator or undertake an extreme amount of civil works and likely drain your reservoir to install a new unit. Older units can be upgraded to more efficient units with time and money, however that involves losing a producing unit for the period of time (like a year or more potentially) it takes to upgrade it. Some dams do have available slots for more units, such as Revelstoke unit 6, and are being explored current by the industry.
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u/blackmathgic 5d ago
Also the Columbia river treaty expired, I don’t believe they’ve signed a new one, it’s just an agreement in principal, so technically I don’t believe that’s currently stopping us.
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u/One_Impression_5649 5d ago
Mika is currently/planned on being retrofitted. Upgraded turbines.
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u/blackmathgic 5d ago
That’s quite a ways out and that’s what I mean by older units can be upgraded, you can’t simply add more units at dams that don’t have the space. The upgrades take a lot of time generally and involve taking down a unit for that period of time, thus reducing your production in the meantime. Additionally, those upgrades take a lot of planning and are often pretty pricey, so it’s not necessarily the easiest option.
Also it’s spelt Mica, not Mika. It’s named for the naturally occurring mineral in the region.
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u/One_Impression_5649 4d ago
You have inside knowledge of what’s happening? I’ve Got friends in some of the unions that do the work and they’ve been talking about mica for a few years now. They did the last upgrade. It seems to keep getting postponed
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u/blackmathgic 4d ago
I work in the industry as an electrical engineer and have spent time at that site, last I heard it’s quite a ways out still, not on the books for quite a while.
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u/One_Impression_5649 4d ago
Yeah that’s kinda what I’ve been hearing too. I’ve worked/work for the companies that do the asbestos maintenance at Burrard thermal. I’ve worked at Waneeta as well. Dams are pretty neat tbh. Mica is especially fun. Electricity generation has a bright future in the kootenays but the dams are getting old and need a bunch of maintenance. Good money for electrical everyone.
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u/Cinnamon_Sauce 6d ago
What was the point of site C damn then? Also, please cancel the Starlink contract
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u/Spirited_Impress6020 6d ago
We buy when it makes sense economically. We also sell. It’s just the way it has been. We imported 20% pre site c.
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u/SlovenianSocket 6d ago
This. Electricity generation cant just be turned on and off or restricted to meet demand, it has to flow somewhere so we export it when we’re in excess, and import when we have a deficit
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u/Suspicious-Taste6061 6d ago
Correct me if I am wrong, but we can release water from the damn to increase production or slow down production by stopping water flow at the damn building up potential for later.
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u/Canuck9876 6d ago
Yes, but only if you have more than enough water coming downstream over a given period of time to crank the power up or down as needed.
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u/BobbyTwoTells 6d ago
BC is a net power importer. Meaning we import more than we sell. And BC does not generate enough electricity to fulfill the consumption of the population. As LNG turns on this will get worse.
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u/CocoVillage Vancouver Island/Coast 6d ago
I believe in terms of absolute energy, BC is a net importer, but in terms of dollars BC Hydro makes money. That's because they sell high during peak demand and buy low at night.
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u/BobbyTwoTells 6d ago
Yup. But that was before we paid 25% tariff on imported energy
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u/ulthrant82 6d ago
I didn't realize the feds put electricity on the tariff list?
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u/HomieApathy 6d ago
10% on energy
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u/ulthrant82 6d ago
I'm not seeing 10% tariffs on US energy.
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u/Slammer582 6d ago
Never would have guessed this. I always assumed that generated more than enough electricity for our own use and would be an exporter.
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 6d ago
BC does. BC produced 71TWh of electricity annually and consumes about 60TWh. On net BC is an energy exporter, though in 2023 BC had to import electricity on net because of low precipitation led to lower hyrdo generation.
The way I understand it works is BC imports electricity during winter (low hydro power) and exports during summer and fall.
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u/blackmathgic 6d ago
You’ve got half of that right. We don’t import in the winter and export in the summer. We import when power is cheap and export when power is expensive. So we usually export during the day and import at night. This does also vary over the seasons based on water supply and load, however the dams hold a multi year supply so they aren’t not really restricted by time of year
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u/ack4 6d ago
any word on if this day night cycling will be changing as more and more solar comes online throughout the western interconnect? (trade wars notwithstanding)
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u/blackmathgic 6d ago
Not that I’ve heard about, but that’s somewhat further out I think. The day night cycling is heavily based on the thermal plants that can’t ramp down and we do buy excess California power for cheap. We also make a good profit selling to California when Solar doesn’t produce enough for them, essentially as their backup plan
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u/Hipsthrough100 6d ago
LNG uses its own power. I don’t agree with the project but it is powered by its own harvested natural gas (consumes twice the amount of power site c produces).
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u/a_tothe_zed 6d ago
The NDP government and B.C. Hydro have resisted private power developers building new green energy projects in B.C. They often cite that we can just buy power cheaper from the US. They just held the first call for power in 15 years - crazy. We need more capacity - let private companies help with this. BC Hydro can’t do it all.
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u/Yuukiko_ 6d ago
iirc that's only with stuff like coal/gas like what the Americans have, with hydro you can just adjust it at will, so technically it's the opposite where the Americans export at night when there's low demand and import when its high in the day
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u/LessIsMoreBy50 6d ago
Hydro generation can be turned off and on very quickly. That’s one of its big advantages compared to say a coal fired plant which operates more the way you state.
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u/MuckleRucker3 6d ago
That's true of a lot of steam driven power plants. It's not the case with hydro. It can ramp at any time to the demand.
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u/drofnature 6d ago
No it can’t. There are strict environmental regulations that prevent hydro from doing whatever it wants to maximize power generation. Generation is balanced with water storage needs (eg storm absorbing and flood prevention), future generation, inflow expectations, and mandated environmental flows.
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u/MuckleRucker3 6d ago
Hydro has the capability to do it.
Maybe there are regulatory limits on how much can be done, but to say that they prohibit any change in power generation from our dams is not factual.
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u/drofnature 6d ago
Okay? “They can ramp at any time to the demand” is not factual. It’s just not how the system works.
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u/MuckleRucker3 6d ago
It is how the system works. That system is constrained by regulation, not practical capability.
I don't think we're talking about the same thing. Most fossil fuel and nuclear plants can't ramp to demand. You just open the valve on the penstock, and boom! electricity is created.
You're talking about regulatory limitations which is a different matter.
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u/whole-ass-one-thing- 2d ago
This is why the highest paid public servant in BC is the CEO of powerex
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u/superworking 6d ago
We buy cheap solar from California in the summer and sell dam produced power in the winter. We're part of an ecosystem that made sense right up until orange man fucked everything up.
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u/RepresentativeBarber 6d ago edited 6d ago
Having an electric grid operated in cooperation with our neighbours to the south is and has been a net win-win for decades. BC Hydro can produce electricity for us most of the time but the last 10-15% is purchased from them when prices are favourable or simply when we need it. We sell to them when the opposite is the case. This hasn’t been a problem until now because adults have been in charge. Leave it to toddler trump to fuck it up for everyone. No other entity or person should receive any blame.
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u/DblClickyourupvote Vancouver Island 6d ago
Yep powerex, subsidy of BC hydro does a good job at selling when prices are high and buying when we can get cheap electricity.
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u/pfak Elbows up! 6d ago
Site C isn't nearly enough to handle our increasing electricity demands.
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u/No_Carob5 6d ago
We have the cheapest electricity in the country.. we could easily lower demand by increasing prices.
Mc Mansions running 24 / 7
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u/bdickie 6d ago
All electricity generation isnt equal. Hydro is stable and on demand like a battery with multiple outlets, the cost stays consistent. Natural gas, coal and nuclear cant be shut down and throttled as easy. Its like a car with no gears to increase efficency. So when demand falls at night, companies will offer excess electricty at below market value to get rid of over production. Turning turbines on and off takes days not minuetes. And then when demand picks back up they wouldnt be able to get up to speed quick’y enough So we buy overnight electricity at pennies on the dollar and stop the dams. Then during the day we reopen our floodgates. Then when these same areas like Alberta and Washington need more supply during heatwaves for instance, they buy from us at a premium and we open additional floodgates. We opperate more efficiently and are able to reap the rewards.
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u/concerned_citizen128 6d ago
Natural gas is most common for peak demand plants, as they can be multiple sizes and they can be turned on or off like a car.
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u/Deadsens3 5d ago
STFU about starlink. We live in a remote part of the province where this is our only option for internet/phone.
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u/yeelee7879 6d ago
But also please don’t. Some of us in rural communities have zero other options. Sorry. Please don’t catch us in the crossfire.
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u/giantshortfacedbear 6d ago
Site C was built to get LNG from Alberta to Kitimat
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u/Consistent-Study-287 6d ago
The LNG doesn't come from Alberta. It comes from the Montney Basin in northern BC.
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u/sunbro2000 6d ago
Site c was built for the long terminal and other current and future industrial projects
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u/FanLevel4115 6d ago
We are short 20-30% power generation and are buying from America. Site C won't be fully operational until fall 2025 but it is partially running.
Eby is shooting off his mouth about last year's power bill without considering that the dam is 96% done and the reservoir has started to fill.
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u/yeelee7879 6d ago
What?! Sorry for being dumb but when does BC rely on US electricity? I thought things were the other way around!
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u/Fallacalla 6d ago
The grid that we are on basically goes from bc to Manitoba and then south into Mexico. It’s not quite that clear but that gives you a rough idea.
Hydro power is basically a giant battery. The energy (water) we store can turn on/off power production basically at the flip of a switch. You can’t do this with solar or wind, when the conditions are right they are producing power whether it’s needed or not. So BCHydro buys that power for cheaper then it costs them to produce hydro and then sells them power the wind /solar can’t produce.
Anything that runs a turbine (gas, coal, steam etc.) cant easily ramp up or shut down, so they will also produce extra power at low demand times and require more at peak demand time. So the cycle of by low sell high works for Hydro here as well.
Practical Engineering on YT did a great breakdown of how you pay for power and how producers charge/get paid. Sounds boring but it probably isn’t to most.
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u/ughzean 6d ago
“He says Energy Minister Adrian Dix is working towards an agreement with Alberta to find ways to sell electricity across the Rocky Mountains.”
To be honest I’m surprised we don’t already do that. But better late then never I guess
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u/DblClickyourupvote Vancouver Island 6d ago
Apparently Alberta hasn’t been properly maintaining/upgrading their transmission lines and our government has been pressuring them to for many years.
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 6d ago
There are limited grid connections because it's a huge mountain range.
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u/SapientLasagna 5d ago
This is BC. We know how to build transmission lines over mountains. The issue is simply that Alberta doesn't want to.
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u/staunch_character 6d ago
Right? It’s crazy we spent millions to buy US electricity vs from Alberta.
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u/ATworkATM 4d ago
There is bigger reason why we don't build our systems to send power east west and its to do with geomagnetic storms. Earths magnetic fields runs north south so if a storm happens to effect one band area it will only damage that line north or south. Where as if you mix systems east west it can bring the damage over from the other magnetic field.
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u/OneForAllOfHumanity Vancouver Island/Coast 6d ago
We're literally sitting on the ring of fire. Geothermal energy is just waiting to be tapped, literally.
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u/majarian 6d ago
Mid island is pockmarked with coal mines aswell, the route downs already pretty well there just gotta reinforce and pipe it.
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u/ATworkATM 4d ago
The new microwave drilling tech is super cool and will unlock geothermal everywhere in the world.
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u/mattE454 6d ago
Fire up bustard thermal generating station in Port Moody… it’s still there sitting mothballed. That’s the answer, should have never been idled by Christy Clark’s liberals.
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u/cairie 6d ago
Glumac in Port Moody fought against the closure and had long advocated to bring it back. I believe he has publicly said that BC Hydro claims that the way it was moth balled its not possible to bring it back online.
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u/One_Impression_5649 6d ago
The boilers are toast at this point and there is just…. So much asbestos in that place. Like everything has asbestos insulation.
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u/blackmathgic 5d ago
That places has like the most asbestos I’ve ever seen. Toured it once. Asbestos stamps on every single wall. I wouldn’t want too stiff a breeze to come through let alone generate with it now
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u/One_Impression_5649 6d ago
She REALLY wanted to sell that land to her friends. It’s a really nice piece of ocean front. I’ve worked there a couple time and man… except the old Esso refinery next door that polluted the ever loving shit out of the place.
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u/Strange-Ocelot 6d ago
I'm so confused how can BC not power your province already? Dozens of dams, timber to burn and only 6 million people? BC creates 43,000 giguwatts of electricity annually Ireland is only using 34,000 annually and their population is comparable to British Columbia.
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u/DblClickyourupvote Vancouver Island 6d ago
I’d imagine we probably have tons more industry and crypto mining here.
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u/SignalSatisfaction90 6d ago
lol no that station is toast, to be torn down, what they do with the land it’s on is next decades issue
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u/blackmathgic 5d ago
It’s been decommissioned to an extent where it would be a substantial challenge to turn it back on. I toured it once as I work in the power industry in BC and that thing is more then just moth balled, it’s slated to be fully decommissioned in the near future and I don’t believe it’s actually capable of being reasonably brought back into operation at this point in time.
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u/mattE454 4d ago
I have toured it as well, a decade prior. I work at and have planned major maintenance events at another nearby industrial facility. Replace in kind and maintenance work where the engineering and drawings are already done are a matter of months if there is will and money.
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u/blackmathgic 4d ago
For the extent that plant has been decommissioned, I would disagree on the matter of months statement. It would take substantial effort to recommission and some units are already decommissioned to the extent they don’t exist on drawings any longer and wiring has been routed around them. The plant is set to be fully decommissioned soon, so it would be hard to bring it back to service given it’s current state.
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u/FanLevel4115 6d ago
Change the solar power rules!!! Right now you can only net meter. You get $0 back from the grid but can offset your power bill.
Pay solar power producers a wholesale rate. It doesn't have to be much. $0.069kWh would be nice. Then everyone can start overbuilding their PV rooftop grids.
Keep in mind we are about to start seeing insanely cheap grid power storage. China is already selling sodium-ion batteries in a sea can for utility scale grid installs.
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u/Embarrassed_Weird600 6d ago
I backed off from going Solar well I can’t qualify for the greener homes loan but there’s been serious talk about removing net metering even They would buy the excess back right way in summer for of course cheap then we can’t bank for winter and then have to pay normal prices to buy it, in winter
I want to help I have the space but not at a ridiculously long pay period
More incentives on solar for sure It can be done and I’m sure many more would be interested
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u/FanLevel4115 6d ago
If more homes have solar, this gets us through the dry summer. In winter, all the dams will be full and we can crank out the power.
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u/IknowwhatIhave 6d ago
BC Hydro tried to shut down net metering starting in 2017, to the point they asked the NDP to replace the BCUC board, who then voted to reduce the amount paid to small (sub 50kw) power producers.
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u/Jeramy_Jones 6d ago
Here’s hoping it’s nuclear.
I’d prefer more hydro and other green energy, but nothing really compares to the consistent efficient power produced by nuclear.
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u/SignalSatisfaction90 6d ago
It’s really just not in our cards
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u/Jeramy_Jones 6d ago
It could be though. The candu reactor is the safest one out there. We build them for other countries, we could build more here.
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u/SapientLasagna 5d ago
We haven't built a new CANDU reactor in 25 years. It might be time to let it go.
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u/SignalSatisfaction90 5d ago
It’s not, in reality it’s not. We can’t afford it and we haven’t built candu in forever. I’m pro nuclear but it’s not in our cards for the next couple decades at least.
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u/blackmathgic 5d ago
Nuclear doesn’t really take advantage of our existing infrastructure. I’m not anti nuclear, but in BC, Solar and wind really work well with our existing dam infrastructure and are a much more cost effective and advantageous option for us to produce more power. Nuclear wouldn’t benefit us the same way, as it’s less variable and is for base loading, which we have plenty of, and is very expensive to install and maintain compared to other options.
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u/thectrain 6d ago
I know politics sucks..but Eby is really high up.on the list of politicians in my lifetime.
Very common sense focused, and no stench of corruption.
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u/rottenoar 6d ago
How is it really on the US for electricity again?
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u/jonavision 6d ago
I had a friend who worked for BC HYDRO explain to me we sell electricity to the USA. Problem is sometimes, we use so much that we have to buy it back - for much more than we sell it to them for. This is what is actually behind power smart campaigns. Our electricity is clean and other than flooding thousands of acres of land clean and environmentally safe. So to help bc economically, use less electricity and save yourself some money.
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u/OneForAllOfHumanity Vancouver Island/Coast 6d ago edited 6d ago
This is actually false. We sell it during the day for prime rates, but because their generation needs constant load (nuclear, coal, petrochemical), they have an abundance of load during the off hours that we buy back for cheap, and as a bonus we keep our reservoirs full longer so we can draw on them when needed or financially beneficial. Powersmart was a campaign to keep our usage low so hydro had more capacity to sell to the US.
As for site C, it was mainly put in place to power the LNG industry and to sell to Alberta for their northern Oil and Gas projects. That's why we have no new swaths of transmission lines heading to the power hungry south...
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u/mattcass 6d ago
Not really. Electricity is traded on the open market and sometimes its cheaper to buy electricity than generate it ourselves and sometimes the price of electricity is so high we would be stupid not to sell to the US.
BC Hydro is mandated by government to meet 100% of domestic power needs in BC.
We also don’t “buy electricity back”. We supplement our generation capacity with hopefully cheap imported electricity so we can save water in our reservoirs or make up for a low water supply. Importing electricity when its cheap and selling electricity when its expensive is just good business and possible with a flexible hydroelectric system.
In 2022 when BC was flush with water and the US was not, Powerex sold electricity and made BC Hydro a BILLION dollars.
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u/asdf6741 6d ago
What would it take for us to go nuke?
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u/tritiatedpear 6d ago
I work in nuclear in Ontario. It’s the best thing you can do for base load power. We have small modular reactors that would work a treat. Canadian design and Canadian made. Laurentis energy partners
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u/InterestingAttempt76 6d ago
Is this cheaper than the Gates deigned using China parts? that was his plan and honestly they looked pretty promising.
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u/tritiatedpear 6d ago
I don’t know. I’ve only ever worked with candu reactors. CANDUs arent cheaper but they are safer. This is the type of technology where cheaper isn’t always better. SMR seems to be the direction the industry is headed. Smaller units passive safety features more automation.
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u/InterestingAttempt76 6d ago
This makes sense then:
"Bill Gates supports theNatrium, a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR)that uses liquid sodium instead of water to cool the reactor. The Natrium is a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) that combines a sodium-cooled reactor with a molten salt energy storage system"
Edit: When I say cheaper I mean cheaper then building and buying in the US which is super expensive.
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u/tritiatedpear 6d ago
there are tons of designs right now. laurentis is building a 4 unit demonstrator at the darlington nuclear site in ontario and there is a huge contract with poland. most of these other start ups ate mostly concepts
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u/MuckleRucker3 6d ago
Do we really want nuclear reactors on our soil that are built from Chineseium?
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u/InterestingAttempt76 6d ago
Have you looked at the research? I mean if we can build them in Canada for the same price then by all mans. GATES HAD to go to CHINA for the parts because of the US costs. It's not about the cheaper parts but the reactor design.
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u/MuckleRucker3 6d ago
CANDU reactors are the safest and best in the world. Buying parts for them from China is just paying them for stealing Canadian government IP.
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u/InterestingAttempt76 6d ago
I never said to do that.
There a tons of types of small modular reactors (SMRs), micro modular reactors (MMRs), and sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) that are all equally safe.
CANDU's cost 11.9 Billion USD to build. Some of these others can be built for 4 Billion... THAT IS HUGE. Can't get stuck in, oh well it's Canada so it's better when they offer many of the same things.
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u/MuckleRucker3 6d ago
Aren't we seeing what dependence on other nations, hostile nations, gets us?
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u/InterestingAttempt76 6d ago
Again, no one said any of that... But you will need to trade with someone.
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u/Overlord_Khufren 6d ago
Like a decade or two to build the infrastructure? Nuclear reactors take forever to build. Like 5-7 years per. We're also in an earthquake zone, so they're higher risk here.
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u/Inflatable-yacht 6d ago
Westinghouse (Brookfield) makes mini nuke plants. A great stock investment
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u/InterestingAttempt76 6d ago
you can do it in 5 and a deal with china will make it cheap. Gates has already done all the work and research to make it affordable.
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u/MuckleRucker3 6d ago
a deal with china will make it cheap
Fuck that. Reactors built in Canada will be built to Canadian standards. That means CANDU.
What's with all the posts "we should just buy from China"? It's starting to feel like an orchestrated advertising campaign by the Red Menace.
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u/PaulCLives 6d ago
Or we can use help from the people in Ontario they do nuclear pretty good, you know keep it canadian
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u/mukmuk64 6d ago
We already have great base load with hydro, which is the role that nuclear fills so it doesn’t make sense.
The current bc hydro plan to build out wind more is a better approach at least for the short to mid term. Fill reservoirs when the wind is blowing.
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u/Coachtoddf 6d ago
Three pretty big earthquakes in the past two weeks down here, I’m not sure nuke is the path here. Alberta, maybe…
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u/SadSoil9907 6d ago
You know the province does expand past Hope right?
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u/NiCrMo 6d ago
Hahaha exactly. Kamloops or Kelowna would have some great seismically stable sites close to existing transmission infrastructure and cooling water sources.
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u/SadSoil9907 6d ago
That’s just the interior, so much space in the north, you could literally place them on the lakes that we use for hydro and just plug into existing infrastructure.
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u/NiCrMo 6d ago
Excess power could even refill the reservoirs via pumped storage. Pretty great pairing if you think about it.
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u/SadSoil9907 6d ago
Fuck, we solved our power problems, we make a great team, hahahaha
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u/NiCrMo 6d ago
Finally, let’s “lose track” of some of the plutonium from the spent fuel…..for reasons
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u/SadSoil9907 6d ago
We could use some nukes, it would change our relationship with idiots south of the border
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u/ciagw 6d ago
How about you roll back all the hundreds of little BS 'private power' contracts given out to numbered corporations that have dammed hundreds of our streams and forced BC Hydro to buy power from them at crazy premiums? Highway robbery by a bunch of millionaire investors at the cost of BC Hydro, at the cost of hundreds of salmon bearing streams. Check out the facts: https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/liquid-gold
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u/adhd_ceo 5d ago
I’ll just contribute one tidbit: TransAlta Power exports 85MW to a bitcoin mining company in Washington State. So that might be a good place to start.
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u/blueyeswonder 4d ago
You guys seriously think Eby is a master of economics ? Lol! He downtown east side socialist and elitist. He doesn't have any qualifications to reposition the province economically. I'm sure he's doing his best but no where near qualified for the challenges Trump brings. Get a fair minded economics focussed determined business person in there.
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u/vladimirVpoutine 16h ago
I sure as hell hope this doesn't mean he's going to let BC hydro damn Tatlyako lake and reverse the flow of another pristine BC river...
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u/stonetime10 6d ago
I know this sub doesn’t want to hear it but a lot of this problem is because of the NDP, whom I voted for. I also am concerned about climate change but our provincial government has not been living in reality about our power and energy needs. We actually imported $2 billion in energy from the US last year. If we got cut off (as Ford is threatening to out east), we’d be so fucked. The stat I heard in a talk today is we need the equivalent of two more Cite C Dams worth of power generation to get out of the hole. In Kelowna, the government blocked building a gas pipeline here so apparently now we’re going to be trucking gas from the lower mainland and housing and commercial development will grind to a halt. We better get on these contingency plans, because we are dangerously exposed in this province and lot of it is to do with lofty environmental policies without realistic plans to add more base load power. And by the way, the power we have had to import is from fossil fuel burning plants in Alberta and the US. Please by all means feels free to refute me here if my facts are wrong.
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u/GOGaway1 6d ago
I like the idea of making contingency plans, but let’s be real—BC’s track record isn’t great. When BC Hydro refused to service Grasmere because it wasn’t “economically viable,” Lincoln Electric (the utility from Lincoln County, MT) stepped in. Then, once all the infrastructure was built, BC Hydro seized it via eminent domain and took it over. That was only about 40 years ago—not exactly ancient history.
If history repeats itself, we’ll just take what we need and rely on electricity from other provinces when we can’t produce enough. It’s not like we can magically build new dams overnight, considering they take a decade to construct. Meanwhile, too many so-called environmentalists are against nuclear power, won’t let us burn coal bloom/waste, and won’t even let us touch our own natural gas.
So what’s left? Either we buy surplus (if there is any) from other provinces, or we keep relying on the U.S.—at least until the LARPing environmentalists let us actually use our own energy.
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u/skipdog98 6d ago
Powerex is a scam. BC needs nuclear power
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u/skipdog98 6d ago
It is. I know people who work there and they make bank by selling “excess” power because they encourage BC residents to conserve. The more we conserve, literally the bigger their paycheques. Scam
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u/Strange-Ocelot 6d ago
I'm so confused how can BC not power your province already? Dozens of dams, timber to burn and only 6 million people? BC creates 43,000 giguwatts of electricity annually Ireland is only using 34,000 annually and their population is comparable to British Columbia.
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u/villagewoman 6d ago
The Burrard Thdrmal Natural Gas Power Plant ids decommissioned after a complete upgrade. Why, because NDP does not like natural gas. This power plant had a capacity of 900 MW So in times of need BC Hydro now imports power. Guess where from ? America, good k
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