A notice in my mailbox last week told me that smart meters are going to be installed in my neighbourhood. I’ll admit that the geek in me would like to see real-time information about my energy usage, but as an economist I’m interested in costs and benefits of the program. So far we have seen [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Energy'
Are Smart Meters Worth the Cost?
October 12th, 2011 · Marc Lee · Comments Off · Climate change, Energy
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Fighting energy poverty
September 28th, 2011 · Marc Lee · Comments Off · Climate change, Economy, Energy, Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare
Today we released a new Climate Justice Project report, Fighting Energy Poverty in the Transition to Zero-Emission Housing: A Framework for BC, by yours truly, Eugene Kung (a lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre and a steering committee member of the CJP) and Jason Owen (who worked on this project as a student at UBC, now with [...]
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A ‘Jobs for Jobs’ Strategy
September 23rd, 2011 · Marvin Shaffer · Comments Off · Economy, Employment & labour, Energy
It is ironic that within weeks of its much publicized report and stated concern about the upward pressures on BC Hydro rates, the government announces a job strategy that will drive up electricity rates more than anything else — more even than the self-sufficiency policy government has belatedly recognized must go. The plan for new [...]
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“Climate change starts here: the BC dirty jobs plan”
September 19th, 2011 · Marc Lee · 4 Comments · Climate change, Economy, Energy
We are still on Day One of the Jobs Plan, and the afternoon news is all about proposed liquid natural gas plants in Kitimat, which will take pipelined gas and send it by tanker to Asia. Quoth the Premier: Creating a new industry with the capacity to export B.C.’s natural gas to overseas markets for [...]
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So Where is the Science?
September 8th, 2011 · Marvin Shaffer · 2 Comments · Climate change, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
The headline in the Globe today was certainly ominous — “Clark’s Hydro policy threatens to collapse B.C.’s climate change progress, scientist says”. The purported policy change seemed scary — the government might roll back the requirement for BC Hydro to be able to meet domestic electricity requirements in drought conditions. And the scientist’s description of [...]
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BC Hydro Review
August 12th, 2011 · Marvin Shaffer · 2 Comments · Energy
If it were true that BC Hydro could effectively plan and operate its system with 20% fewer workers, as the government panel has recently suggested in its Review of BC Hydro, one would have to assume that the BC Hydro Executive and Board, as well as the BC Utilities Commission, have all grossly failed in their [...]
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Public consultation down the drain as government comes to fracking industry’s aid
August 3rd, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal, Transparency & accountability
It has been a year since word began to percolate in the Hudson’s Hope area that Talisman Energy Inc. was eying the Williston Reservoir a short distance east of town as a long-term source of water for use in developing its gas resources. Yet in the intervening months – months in which local residents watched [...]
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Decarbonizing BC homes and the price of gas
July 28th, 2011 · Marc Lee · 2 Comments · Climate change, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
Our climate justice framework for BC is to eliminate fossil fuels by 2040. In the household sector, this poses a significant challenge, not so much in terms of technology and knowledge, but because natural gas is much cheaper than electricity per unit of energy. Even though BC has among the lowest prices in North America, [...]
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Future government contract costs jump 50% in one year
July 20th, 2011 · Keith Reynolds · 1 Comment · Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
Although it has received some coverage in the media it is worth noting the eye-popping jump in the cost of long term contracts signed by the BC government in the last year. These contracts don’t go on the books as debt, but just like debt we will be responsible for it for the next 30 [...]
Darkwoods, the murky world of carbon credits and a “carbon neutral” B.C. government
July 15th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · 3 Comments · Climate change, Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
It is spun in government press releases as a “first” for any jurisdiction in North America, an achievement that places British Columbia “on the leading edge” of efforts to combat climate change. But scratch the surface just a little and questions arise about the legitimacy of Environment Minister Terry Lake’s recent claim that “from this [...]
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