Category Archives: WATER

Liberal Candidates Clueless on IPPs; NDP Counterparts Getting It

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada,
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I cannot believe it! Liberal leadership candidate Mike de Jong talks about the Toba Inlet Independent Power Project (IPP) as not a truly private project because Plutonic (General Electric in drag) has partnered with the local First Nation! This, says Mike, makes it a “community” project. This is an interesting point of view considering that Don McInnes, head of Plutonic, told a legislative committee in 2004 that private power companies shouldn’t have to share any profits – not even 1%! – with First Nations. I won’t dwell on this point because it’s irrelevant to the main question – namely, are IPPs a good idea? Mr. de Jong would be a premier who would encourage more and more IPPs even though he obviously doesn’t have the faintest idea as to what they’re all about.

For example, de Jong, to Bill Good, made the nonsensical claim that these projects don’t divert much water, compared to a conventional dam – which is  backwards. These IPPs are diversion projects; whereas dams hold back water, but don’t usually divert it. The Toba projects divert, in fact, something on the order of 90% of the mean annual flow of the rivers for miles.

It’s hard for me, a former cabinet minister, to understand the utter ignorance of the present Liberal bunch have towards IPPs. That a possible premier of BC doesn’t understand that these environmental disasters are making the energy when BC Hydro doesn’t need it yet must buy it anyway; that when they do they must export it at a huge loss or use it themselves, paying 12x what they can make it for themselves, takes the breath away.

This is, however, not an uncommon syndrome affecting politicians called (forgive the technical term) believing your own bullshit. If those seeking the premiership don’t understand the pickle they’ve got us into, God help us.

In fact there’s no evidence that any of them have the faintest idea of what’s involved here.

This is a dramatic turnaround for it was always the NDP whose policy was wrapped up in a one-liner: now the Liberals have no idea of what IPPs arel about and use idiotic statements like “BC needs IPP power to become self sufficient”, whereas the opposite is the case.

BC Hydro’s recent statement of its needs takes the breath away.

Here’s what economist Erik Andersen comments – in summary:

  • Hydro’s financial statements show that its total liabilities have increased by more than 40% at least in the last 3 years
  • As things look from their statements, BC Hydro may be bankrupt by this summer. Of course, it won’t officially go into bankruptcy, as a company in the private sector would under these circumstances, but it does mean that what little independence they have will be gone.
  • Mr. Andersen observes that BC Hydro was forced to buy 8,300 GWH under the Hobson’s choice they face of either exporting the unwanted IPP power at a huge loss or using it instead of their own power at 12x what they can make it for themselves.
  • BC Hydro has always overestimated its needs – Mr Andersen says, “I’m expecting the annual per capita demand by BC only customers to drop from about 11,000 KWh to about 9,000 by 2015. One should note that Mr Andersen’s experience in such matters was learned by preparing demand outlooks for Government of Canada Treasury Board applications in support of new capital projects.
  • Mr Andersen concludes that a recent announcement by BC Hydro that it will seek to raise consumers’ power bills by 50% over the next 5 years “is about deflecting uncomfortable observations and providing a cover for more aggressive borrowing now in the works”. 

Speaking of uncomfortable observations, nowhere in this announcement did Hydro tell us how it’s going to pay the ungodly sums (now estimated at $50+ Billion) to be paid out to IPPs for power it doesn’t need. This scarcely chump change! This is huge – a million dollars times 50 thousand! It will increase as new cozy deals are made by the Liberal government’s favourite campaign donors.

Where the hell is this money to come from?

How can Hydro go to the BC Utilities Commission for enormous rate increases without telling anyone how they’re going to raise this unimaginable money going to the likes of General Electric – no wonder it’s the biggest corporation in the world!

These matters have not occurred, evidently, to those who want to be premier. It has, one might note, occurred to two NDP wannabe premiers John Horgan and Mike Farnworth who, casting aside traditional NDP slogans, have presented platforms that indicate their understanding and solutions to the problems.

This government has got the taxpayers in very deep doo doo indeed and finding the way out will be a challenge for all our citizens.

The sad part is that the Liberal leaders don’t even acknowledge that there’s a problem, much less offer solutions.

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Northwest Transmission Corridor: Alaska Power and the Bleeding of the Northwest

Mining, WATER,
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From TheTyee.ca – Feb 18, 2011

by Christopher Pollon

There’s a sucking sound coming from B.C.’s northwest
corner, barely audible now, but sure to crescendo as the electrical grid
is extended beyond the city of Terrace into a vast copper and gold rich
hinterland after 2013.

The source is the Alaska-B.C. intertie — a scheme planned and feverishly promoted yesterday
in Juneau, Alaska — that would connect the Alaska Panhandle to the
North American power grid through northern British Columbia. (See a map here and the sidebar to this story).

Positioned by Canadian and U.S. federal
governments as a green infrastructure project to combat climate change,
this Alaska-driven plan is paving the way for a new resource haul road
through the Iskut River valley to Alaska tidewater.

Activists and at least four northern B.C.
mayors have warned that Bradfield Road will one day provide a closer and
more economical route to funnel B.C. minerals and timber through U.S.
ports, shifting the axis of trade away from Stewart, Kitimat and Prince Rupert.

Nathan Cullen heard all about the Bradfield Road during his first year as the federal MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley
in 2004. “Some Alaskans approached me and said, ‘Here’s the project,
and we’ll put this road in for free, and we’ll ship all your goods as a
nice courtesy,'” he says. “If anybody offers you anything for free,
especially from Alaska, you should be worried. The idea of cutting off
Canadian ports from being involved in the resource sector is not on, and
we’ll resist it.”

But the Northwest Transmission Line (NTL), (see map here)
when fully built out, will extend the North American grid to within 35
miles of the Alaska-B.C. border. Once the grid connection to Alaska is
established, says Chris Zimmer, a Juneau Alaska-based campaign director
for Rivers Without Borders, a resource haul road to Alaska is next.

“The grid intertie is going to need a
right-of-way and access roads, so the next step is formalizing that road
into a resource haul road,” says Zimmer. “The Bradfield Road is an
Alaskan road designed to drain future resources out of B.C. at a frantic
and unsustainable rate.”

Alaska-BC grid connection moving forward

The B.C. right-of-way for the future Alaska
grid connection is already being explored. In Nov. 2010, the BC
provincial government issued an “investigative use permit”
to North Coast Power Corporation to explore about 25,000 hectares of
Crown land — a long narrow strip of land extending from the future B.C.
grid terminus to the Alaska border (see map. The expressed purpose of the permit was “investigating the feasibility of a utility line intertie between B.C. and Alaska.”

The goal of this intertie, says the Alaska Energy Authority
is to “provide the energy needed for economic development in southeast
Alaska resulting in jobs for Alaskans and providing reliable, less
costly alternatives to diesel generated electricity for Alaskan
communities.”

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EPA Wants to Look at Full Life-Cycle of Fracking in New Study

WATER, Water and Hydrocarbons
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Republished from ProPublica.com – Feb 11, 2011

by Nicholad Kusnetz

The EPA has proposed examining every aspect of hydraulic fracturing,
from water withdrawals to waste disposal, according to a draft plan the
agency released Tuesday. If the study goes forward as planned, it would
be the most comprehensive investigation of whether the drilling
technique risks polluting drinking water near oil and gas wells across
the nation.

The agency wants to look at the potential impacts on
drinking water of each stage involved in hydraulic fracturing, where
drillers mix water with chemicals and sand and inject the fluid into
wells to release oil or natural gas. In addition to examining the actual
injection, the study would look at withdrawals, the mixing of the
chemicals, and wastewater management and disposal. The agency, under a
mandate from Congress, will only look at the impact of these practices
on drinking water.

The agency’s scientific advisory board
will review the draft plan on March 7-8 and will allow for public
comments then. The EPA will consider any recommendations from the board
and then begin the study promptly, it said in a news release . A preliminary report should be ready by the end of next year, the release said, with a full report expected in 2014.

A statement from the oil and gas industry group Energy in Depth gave a lukewarm assessment of the draft.

“Our
guys are and will continue to be supportive of a study approach that’s
based on the science, true to its original intent and scope,” the
statement read. “But at first blush, this document doesn’t appear to
definitively say whether it’s an approach EPA will ultimately take.”

The study, announced in March , comes amid rising public concern about the safety of fracking, as ProPublica has been reporting for years. While it remains unclear whether the actual fracturing process has contaminated drinking water, there have been more than 1,000 reports around the country of contamination related to drilling, as we reported in 2008. In September 2010, the EPA warned residents of a Wyoming town
not to drink their well water and to use fans while showering to avoid
the risk of explosion. Investigators found methane and other chemicals
associated with drilling in the water, but they had not determined the
cause of the contamination.

Drillers have been fracking wells for
decades, but with the rise of horizontal drilling into unconventional
formations like shale, they are injecting far more water and chemicals
underground than ever before. The EPA proposal notes that 603 rigs were
drilling horizontal wells in June 2010, more than twice as many as were
operating a year earlier. Horizontal wells can require millions of
gallons of water per well, a much greater volume than in conventional
wells.

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Innergex Announces the Acquisition of Cloudworks Energy and $150 Million Public Equity Offering

WATER
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From Marketwire – Feb 14, 2011

Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. (TSX:INE) (“Innergex” or
the “Corporation”) announces that it has entered into a definitive
agreement (the “Agreement”) with the shareholders of Cloudworks Energy
Inc. (“Cloudworks”) to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares
of Cloudworks (the “Acquisition”). Pursuant to the Agreement, and
subject to certain adjustments, Cloudworks will be purchased for an
aggregate consideration of $185 million (the “Purchase Price”),
approximately $ 145.7 million of which will be payable in cash (the
“Cash Consideration”) and approximately $39.3 million of which will be
payable by the issuance, by way of private placement, of common shares
of the Corporation. In addition to the Purchase Price, the vendors will
be entitled to receive conditional deferred payments. The conditional
deferred payments provide for a potential sharing of the value created
if the Cloudworks assets perform better than expected and would result
in incremental accretion to Innergex, net of these payments.

Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia and founded in
2000, Cloudworks currently employs 30 people. Cloudworks’ portfolio of
assets consists of an interest of 50.01% in six run-of-river
hydroelectric facilities having a combined gross installed capacity of
150 MW (the “Harrison Operating Facilities”); full ownership of 76 MW of
run-of-river hydroelectric projects under development with 40-year
power purchase agreements (“PPAs”) (the “Cloudworks Development
Projects”); and full ownership of run-of-river hydroelectric projects in
various stages of development having a potential aggregate installed
capacity of over 800 MW (the “Cloudworks Prospective Projects”).

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The Numbers Don’t Lie: We Don’t Need More Private Power

WATER,
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Sooner or later the truth must come out. Clearly it must be from outside the government and BC Hydro – and it sure as hell isn’t going to come from the mainstream media.

Let me lay this out clearly – either what The Common Sense Canadian says is true or it isn’t. We’ve laid out the facts and taken our message around the province and are about to start another tour. The numbers tell us that thousands of you are seeing what we do and your response has been fantastic.

We don’t just tell you what comes into our heads – we rely upon the best experts in the business. We are a-political in the sense that we don’t support any political party but we sure as hell will support any party with a chance to form a government that wants to save our province from those who steal our resources and take them and the profits away to faraway places.

Yes, I’m speaking of the foreign fish farmers and the foreign or at best huge Canadian companies who are ruining our rivers to make power for California and pocketing all the profits at no cost to themselves. Indeed the harshest fact is that in both cases we help fund these predators.

There were two news items recently that in days gone by would have had newspapers and TV stations raising supreme hell. In fact they are, at best, printed in a small corner of the business pages.

BC Hydro’s financing of Independent Power Producers took another two astonishing turns.

Until now, if an IPP wanted to dam our rivers – yes they are dams – and the project size was under 10 Megawatts, they could do so free of any public process or environmental assessment. Just pay the peppercorn license fee and away you went with the equivalent of a never-ending winning lottery ticket in your hand.

Now BC Hydro (for which read the Campbell government) intends to raise the limit to 15 Megawatts – by no means a “small”, “run-of-river” project!

That’s a 50% hike in size for thieves trashing our rivers, forcing BC Hydro to go further in the hole for power that is exported to the undiminished profit of the likes of General Electric and without any environmental concerns and without the slightest input from the public!

This power isn’t for us – when Pinocchio Campbell tells us this is for our energy needs he’s laughing he’s bullshitting us. This government mocks us at The Common Sense Canadian and laughs – but whether we win this fight or lose, CSC and all who support us can carry their heads high for doing our best to save what’s left of our province.

But there’s more. Hydro also intends to offer these offshore leeches a raise of between 14-29% for this already astronomical power!

This is like the bailed-out banks paying million dollar bonuses to the people who got them in trouble in the first place! BC Hydro is forced to pay even more ransom to these bastards who send power to Hydro when it doesn’t need it. Most of these projects provide the bulk of their power during the Spring
run-off, when our reservoirs are full and our power needs at their
lowest. So Hydro must either export it at a huge loss or use it instead of power they make themselves at as little as a 1/12th the cost!

Good God, folks, when is enough enough?

You want a little more sleight-of-hand?

The government, through BC Hydro, is telling us we need a lot more power. Now remember, whatever their power needs, they are not going to get it from IPPs. It’s easy to think that if we need more power, that IPPs are the answer but that’s palpably false.

I told you we have top-notch advisors. Erik Andersen, is one of them. He’s an economist who follows these issues closely and he has a report on this edition of the website which I urge you to read.

Put simply, BC Hydro has, as is their history, grossly inflated the power needs of this province. They did this 30 years ago when I was in government and they always have. It’s sort of a shield against falling short of the needs but now they have outdone themselves, as Mr. Andersen’s figures demonstrate.

Moreover, anyone with half a brain can see that the demands will be far less than Hydro says for at least two reasons:

1.   Industrial demand will continue to diminish, in real terms, because we are in a long-term downturn in the economy worldwide and the likelihood is that it will get worse.

2.   Conservation is no longer some pie in the sky word only used in “feel good” speeches but is, and more and more, becoming an important reality. Hydro’s own 2007 Energy Conservation Potential Review report found that we could save enough electricity through serious conservation by 2026 to power 1.4 million homes (close to a third of our total current electricity demands)

Here, then, is where the Campbell government has got us:

1.   Private power destroying our rivers and the ecologies that depend upon them.

2.   The power they create is not needed by BC Hydro

3.   BC Hydro must take that power or pay for it – now at rates 14-29% more for this new purchase program. The bank has called the robber back to tell him he missed a safe and here’s the money he forgot.

4.   This means Hydro must export the power at a huge loss or use it when it can make its own power at 1/12th the cost on its heritage dams

5.   The environmental assessment, when it’s mandated, is a bad joke and more and more IPPs will dam rivers without any environmental assessment

6.   When the government says it’s doing all this for BC energy self sufficiency, for the reasons above, they’re lying through their teeth.

7.   BC Hydro has consistently made a profit sending a very substantial dividend to the government for hospital, schools and social services. Going bankrupt, it can no longer do that.

8.   Never mind, folks, you’ll get your dividend after all as Hydro will substantially raise its rates to you so they can pay that dividend!

The Liberal leadership hopefuls will not whisper a word about this and one can only hope that the NDP candidates make an issue out of it. Or maybe a third party will emerge.

Either what we’re saying is right or wrong – if we’re wrong, we should be challenged by the Campbell government with hard facts but that’s an unknown policy in their book; Moreover, their long silence tells us we’re spot on; if right, the government must abandon the policy, make the IPP contracts public and do its best to restore and protect our environment.

If the government persists we, and I mean all of us, must consider taking direct action.

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New Must-Read Report: BC Hydro Driving Rates Higher

Economics, WATER
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Editor’s Note: The Common Sense Canadian presents a second in-depth report from economist Erik Andersen on the troubling trajectory of BC Hydro’s finances. After first exposing Hydro’s increasingly shaky financial position in these pages last year, Mr. Andersen now delves into the numbers to show the inevitable consequences of this situation for the province’s ratepayers: skyrocketing power bills for years to come. On the bright side, we are making real headway in terms of domestic energy conservation – and yet, Hydro continues to commit us to more private power contracts we simply don’t need.

—————————————————————————

January news releases by BC Hydro indicated the intention to alter the “Standing Offer Program” (SOP) by giving new Independent Power Producers (IPPs) higher contract purchase prices for the electricity they generate. “The SOP pricing has been increased between 14 and 29%, depending upon the location of the project.” The SOP is a special private power purchasing program – separate from the “clean power call” tendering process – for “smaller” projects, which are entirely exempted from any public review process or environmental assessment. In addition to raising the purchase price for this power, BC Hydro intends to up the maximum size from 10 to 15 Megawatts.

What follows is a presentation about declining productivity at BC Hydro and why it is folly to be promoting more generation capacity in the circumstances of 2011.

It is instructive to look at the BC Hydro record when making a judgment as to their intention to contract for more IPP generation capacity. BC Hydro presented a ten-year outlook “for new resources” in their 2000 Annual Report. By 2009 the “probable forecast” of demand was to be 65,000 GW hrs. It was not made clear if this included demand from other than BC customers but it should not have as the corporation is only directed to serve the interests of BC customers (“domestic” customers in their language).

The actual energy sale to domestic customers in 2009 was 53,588 GW hrs – and by 2010 it had fallen to just 50,233 GW hrs.

This exaggerated outlook at future demand was in error by 21% (and 29% by 2010). From 2000, when the outlook was presented, there were 9 years of records that should have prompted a major revision of this inflated projection.
 
What would have been a better way to look at “planning for the future”?

Graphic 1 below shows the annual domestic and trade (export) revenues from each of the past 11 years. Only minor changes in total domestic revenues have occurred. A slight increase in later years is explainable, not by volume of sales increases, but rather by rate increases. By comparison, revenues from sales to others have been very volatile and sharply lower in the most recent years. This record is indicative of a fickle market and one that should be avoided, not one to chase after. Planning for the future is therefore relatively straightforward. The strongest positive correlation is between the province’s population and per capita demand.

Graphic 2 is a demonstration of this relationship. It is divided to indicate the record up to 2010 and a projection to 2025. Because there has been a recorded  drop-off in per capita electricity consumption in the past 2 years, it is reasonable to think of this continuing. Per capita consumption will decrease as citizens are forced to make accommodation in their budgets for higher food prices, taxes such as the HST, etc. There will also be substitution in response to higher rates, as is now occurring. Lastly, more people will try to lower consumption using an array of conservation methods such as more insulation, etc.

Graphic 3 is an extrapolation of the per capita consumption rates combined with the official projection for provincial population numbers, expressed in gross electricity demand for the province. As this graphic illustrates, the zone of highest probability indicates
that by 2025 the domestic demand would range between 45,000 and 60,000
GW hrs.

For the reader to appreciate the preceding outlook, it is instructional to look at BC Hydro’s financial record. With most businesses it is usual to expect increasing capital investment will produce improved productivity. The exact opposite has occurred at BC Hydro.
 

Graphic 4 below is an expression of asset and debt amounts, per GW hr of domestic production and sales, in each of the 11 years. At a glance it is easy to see that for a unit of energy, the needed financial resources remained remarkably constant until 2008 when we see the “Hockey stick” curve develop. In a few short years it suddenly took about 40% more financial resources to produce the same or less GW hrs of energy needed by domestic consumers.
 


So what does this record indicate?

BC Hydro is using vastly more financial resources to produce and deliver the amount of energy the domestic customers will need into the foreseeable future. This divergence in cost versus demand can only be managed by much higher electricity rates to its captive customers. Seeking greater returns from other than domestic customers is akin to pushing on a rope.

Promulgating a call for more IPP generated energy, at even higher than previous prices, suggests a situational awareness deficit at BC Hydro and is an insult to its customers.
 

Erik Andersen, Economist
February 13, 2011

   
 

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Reuters: City of Buffalo Bans Hydraulic Fracturing

Energy and Resources, Fracking, Water and Hydrocarbons,
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Feb 8, 2011

(Reuters) – The
city of Buffalo banned the natural gas drilling technique of hydraulic
fracturing on Tuesday in a largely symbolic vote that fuels debate over
the potential harm to ground water from mining an abundant energy
source.

The city council voted 9-0 to
prohibit natural gas extraction including the process known as
“fracking” in which chemicals, sand and water are blasted deep into the
earth to fracture shale formations and allow gas to escape.

The ordinance also bans storing, transferring, treating or disposing fracking waste within the city.

No
such drilling projects had been planned in Buffalo, though city
officials were concerned that fracking waste water from nearby
operations was reaching the city sewer system.

Backers
of the measure hope it will help build pressure against fracking, which
environmentalists claim endangers ground water from leaking chemicals.

Pittsburgh, Penn., has enacted a similar ban.

Industry
supporters say fracking is proven safe and natural gas from sources can
provide a much-needed domestic energy source. For an index of shale gas
companies, double-click on.

The
Marcellus Shale formation underlies much of Pennsylvania and parts of
surrounding states including western New York. Geologists estimate it
could supply U.S. natural gas demand for 20 years or more.

The
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is studying the impact of
fracking and on Tuesday submitted a draft of its study to the agency’s
Science Advisory Board for review.

Initial Findings from the study are expected to be made public by the end of 2012.

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WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices

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From the Guardian – Feb 8, 2011

by John Vidal

US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world’s biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.

The cables, released by WikiLeaks,
urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi
government oil executive that the kingdom’s crude oil reserves may have
been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.

The
revelation comes as the oil price has soared in recent weeks to more
than $100 a barrel on global demand and tensions in the Middle East.
Many analysts expect that the Saudis and their Opec cartel partners
would pump more oil if rising prices threatened to choke off demand.

However,
Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration at the
Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, met the US consul general in Riyadh in
November 2007 and told the US diplomat that Aramco’s 12.5m barrel-a-day
capacity needed to keep a lid on prices could not be reached.

According
to the cables, which date between 2007-09, Husseini said Saudi Arabia
might reach an output of 12m barrels a day in 10 years but before then –
possibly as early as 2012 – global oil production would have hit its
highest point. This crunch point is known as “peak oil“.

Husseini said that at that point Aramco would not be able to stop the rise of global oil prices because the Saudi energy
industry had overstated its recoverable reserves to spur foreign
investment. He argued that Aramco had badly underestimated the time
needed to bring new oil on tap.

One cable said:
“According to al-Husseini, the crux of the issue is twofold. First, it
is possible that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes
described, and the timeline for their production not as unrestrained as
Aramco and energy optimists would like to portray.”

It went on:
“In a presentation, Abdallah al-Saif, current Aramco senior
vice-president for exploration, reported that Aramco has 716bn barrels
of total reserves, of which 51% are recoverable, and that in 20 years
Aramco will have 900bn barrels of reserves.

“Al-Husseini disagrees
with this analysis, believing Aramco’s reserves are overstated by as
much as 300bn barrels. In his view once 50% of original proven reserves
has been reached … a steady output in decline will ensue and no amount
of effort will be able to stop it. He believes that what will result is a
plateau in total output that will last approximately 15 years followed
by decreasing output.”

The US consul then told Washington: “While
al-Husseini fundamentally contradicts the Aramco company line, he is no
doomsday theorist. His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his
predictions be thoughtfully considered.”

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Cartoon: Private River Power Projects and their “Small Footprint”

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Rafe Mair has been giving his local MP, Federal Tory John Weston, a hard time of late for his praise of Plutonic Power/General Electric’s private power projects. The West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky representative allegedly referred to these “run of river” projects as having a relatively small ecological footprint. If it weren’t such a serious matter, this assertion would be downright comical. Speaking of comical, here, with his take is our resident cartoonist, Gerry Hummel.

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General Electric’s hydra-headed lobbying effort in BC

Canada, Politics, WATER, Water and Hydrocarbons, Western Canada, ,
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From the Public Eye Online – Feb 8, 2011

The world’s second largest company has
registered to the lobby the government on a cornucopia of subjects.
General Electric Co. is perhaps best known in provincial political
circles for having partnered
with run-of-the-river, solar and wind energy producer Plutonic Power
Corporation Inc. So it’s not surprising the company’s Canadian
subsidiary is targeting the province’s “wind development program” and
“renewable energy opportunities” as part of its lobbying effort. But General Electric
– which hosted two receptions at the government’s BC Showcase during
the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and donated $15,470 to the Liberals
between 2005 and 2009 – is also planning to talk about:

* technology, services and strategies aimed at helping clients “significantly reduce the cost” of healthcare and design futuristic hospitals. That lobbying comes a year after the government committed to a new agenda that “expands innovation in health delivery” – a commitment Liberal leadership candidates Christy Clark and Kevin Falcon share.

* the government’s policies with “respect to sustainable mining
energy-renewable shale gas development.” General Electric’s products
include “comprehensive air quality solutions” for mining operations, as well as a new “mobile evaporator” that lets natural gas producers recycle untreated waste water created by fracking. Three years ago, the company also partnered with Rio Tinto PLC to “develop the most energy efficient and ecologically friendly solutions to support the future of mining;”

* the development of a policy “targeted at buy (sic) power from
greenhouse into grid (sic).” Two years ago, in a North American first,
Great Northern Hydroponics Ltd. opened
a General Electric-designed greenhouse cogeneration plant that
generates onsite power and sells the surplus to the local grid under a
20-year contract with the Ontario Power Authority; and

* the government’s policy with “respect to solutions for offgrid
(sic) communities.” Last month, General Electric Canada president and
chief executive officer Elyse Allan announced
the launch of an initiative “to gain greater insight into shaping the
growth of Canada’s remote community economies and the decisions being
made by global and national businesses to invest in these communities.”

General Electric Canada has yet to respond to a request for comment placed yesterday.

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