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I've always heard it's more so a liability issue. Some professional or authority might see something that isn't finished and make a big deal out of something they don't know the full story about
Glad to see it's just about done. Province needs the power to electrify well...everything in the next few years.
Hopefully the next project is a major nuclear plant.
There are 4 significant magma regions below BC, geothermal power has big potential but I think it runs into issues with seismic activity that makes it more challenging in BC than say, Iceland.
The best spot for geothermal in BC is in the top left corner but unfortunately, transmission lines don't service that area so the cost of getting transmission infrastructure there nixes the benefits of that solution - for now.
Also, geothermal is a bit of a craps shoot; you can literally spend hundreds of millions to drill a geothermal well, only for the well to turn out to be non-viable for energy generation.
And the deeper the well you drill, the more expensive it can get; the problem is that right now, calculating in all of the costs for site preparation and exploration, plus the high risk levels, geothermal is not cost competitive per KW/h with other forms of electricity generation, such as hydroelectricity or even nuclear.
The big issue with geothermal is that a lot of the costs come from well drilling; you're spending over 50% of the capital expenses up front with well drilling and completion, and you still run the risk that the well you just drilled and completed isn't viable.
This is essentially the crux of any energy production in a nutshell; no sufficient/ capable infrastructure to transport energy in a sustainable manner.
>According to a [report](https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf) from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, roughly 22,000 square miles of solar panel-filled land (about the size of Lake Michigan) would be required to power the entire United States, including all 141 million households and businesses, based on 13-14% efficiency for solar modules.
Many solar panels, however, reach 20% efficiency, which could reduce the necessary area to just about 10,000 square miles, equivalent to the size of Lake Erie.
The prairies in Canada get over 300 days of sunshine a year. We have free energy on this planet if only we could learn how to transport it, and we’ll be digging in dirty oil sands, lining mega oil corpo pockets and continue to be debt slaves until we do.
You realize your statement is basically impossible the idea that we can “just power everything off solar” is ignorant to the fact your population needs a stable power grid. You can use solar to reduce fossil fuels but eliminate is well beyond our current energy storage capabilities.
Collect white hydrogen in tandem with geothermal - set up gravitricity to collect geothermal as potential energy. Collect in giant balloons - float under drone control to airship stops.
I noticed that geothermal mentioned as promising location for white hydrogen at USGS conference:
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2022AM/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/380270
The way I understand it is that the reason there is so much geo thermal energy in places like Iceland is specifically BECAUSE of the seismic activity. Or, maybe more accurately, they go hand in hand. ,
Seismic activity is a result of the crust rupturing in a brittle fashion due to stresses applied. When it comes to Iceland, such as the most recent case of volcanism, it's kind of both but more to do with the rising magma. When magma is at shallow crustal levels, the ground will deform by rising. This strain is a direct result of the stresses induced by the magma. However, if the crust doesn't break, the magma has no pathway (fault / fissure) to ascend. Thus, the crust must rupture, which produces an earthquake, and provides a pathway for the magma to ascend.
Iceland's elevated geothermal activity is two fold:
a) it sits on the mid Atlantic ridge, a spreading centre where tectonic plates rift apart and diverge from one another (this allows magma to rise up and fill the new space)
b) it sits above a hot spot (much like hawaii)
Under the Cascade range from Silverthrone to Mount Baker. An interior spot at Wells-Gray Clearwater in the rockies. There's the Anahim Hotspot from Bella Bella to Quesnel. Last there's the Stikine volcanic belt that starts in Kitimaat and runs north to the Yukon.
https://chis.nrcan.gc.ca/volcano-volcan/can-vol-en.php
I have heard that they (bc hydro) are looking into small scale reactors and some potential future projects there, but that some of those technologies still need some development before bc considers properly investing in those options.
Absolutely. There is a lot of active research going on now. Pilot projects planned with public utilities and nuclear reactor companies partnering. If they can deploy SMRs faster than regular CANDUs, I'd be excited.
I think SMRs are in play. They have great potential application for rural and remote communities.
Large nuclear facilities very likely won’t overcome public perception and upfront cost.
The problem there is it’s too remote for transmission lines from the main system to be cost effective, and wind/solar aren’t reliable enough to support a community full time, so they have to use diesel as it’s the only source they can supply reliably and provide consistent power rn. I think hydro is looking into renewable projects and other options for all their remote locations, because none of those communities particularly love being diesel dependant
I’m surprised wind isn’t considered reliable coming from that part of the coast. My understanding is that the winds are pretty strong and reliable there.
Not guaranteed 24/7, and if the wind stops and you’re 100% reliant on wind, so does your power. It also doesn’t ramp with demand (can’t speed up the wind because it’s rainy and everyone is inside), so it can’t be your only source. Hydro is so good because we can control the output, wind is a good addition but can’t be used on its own reliably.
Yeah but in Haida Gwaii's case, they'd be adding wind to diesel, so they can use the wind to replace diesel for base power, and then ramp up diesel power to meet the remainder: if that's 50-75% wind that would be a colossal improvement in GHG's, and potentially a cost reduction as well.
I believe they’re looking into those options rn and trying to find ways to move away from diesel. Remote communities are also generally adverse to large projects like a wind farm, and it’s quite cost prohibitive for many of them to bring in the necessary parts or build and maintain them (plus the necessary land for the footprint), so historically they’re usually diesel generators, since the parts are smaller, the fuel is moderately easy to bring in, the foot print is small and maintenance isn’t overly complex.
The ocean is far too deep in the Pacific. Not only that but once local Indigenous leaders were informed of just how much ocean floor is destroyed (about 60 cubic meters) per turbine, they went from considering it, to a hard no.
It makes more sense in a place like the North Sea which compared to the Pacific, is a shallow puddle, and lacks little to no ecological diversity already.
Mechanically tidal power is a really great technology that just has one major problem we haven't overcome yet, and that is that anything we put in the ocean, Poseidon shows up and wrecks.
The ocean smashes anything it can (good for tidal power), dissolves just about everything (bad for bendy bladders to absorb tidal power) and clogs everything else. If material science makes a breakthrough and finds something immune to everything in the sea, and still bending enough to absorb tidal forces, then tidal power could leapfrog other energy technologies practically overnight - but until we figure that out... Poseidon says no.
Tidal power is expensive and not as efficient/effective as other options. It’s not a widely implemented technology globally and also has a lot of geographical constraints for the areas they can be built, so I suspect not. It would also need to supply constant and consistent power that can be ramped up and down with demand, which tides wouldn’t necessarily supply (lower production during high and low tide for example). Probably useful for some areas, but a mix of options plus hopefully one day some improved battery technologies would likely be best.
I'll be dead for 5 years before BC even puts shovels or boots in the ground for ANY nuclear in BC, and I'll have been dead for 20 years before they're able to switch it on.
And I'm not planning on dying in the next 20 years
They are definitely happening in Ontario. One of my clients is OPG. But in BC, nuclear is still prohibited. It came up again last year and the Premier (Eby) reconfirmed that they will not ammend the 2010 Clean Energy Act to allow nuclear.
BC took a hard stance against nuclear in the 60s and I feel like it's a cultural foundation at this stage. It would be like convincing Alberta to get out of oil and gas. I agree with you - would love there to be some hope but we're working against generations of prejudice in BC.
Nuclear can be great, SMRs are just silly.
[I'll link my comment from another thread rather than typing it all out.](https://www.reddit.com/r/sustainability/s/YNTY3LmLUZ)
The idea that SMRs are going to be a cost effective way to power small and remote communities, who struggle enough operating and maintaining much simpler and cheaper conventional tech is just hilarious.
Agree. Can't even keep the water systems running up there. What could be likely is an industrial partner or mine runs it to the benefit of the community, but that would need to open up first.
I'm pretty confident BC is fine with hydro and alternative energy moving forward. But it absolutely makes sense for much of the rest of the country for sure. But we have abundant hydro already so nuclear isn't really a consideration here. Also, earthquake is a concern.
I've heard that Nuclear Energy isn't ideal here due to all the fault lines and pending Cascadia earthquake (expected to be a 7 or greater and happen in the next 50 years).
That's a fair consideration but I'm sure there's a way to plan for this. My understanding of Fukashima is that they just didn't build to high enough tolerances. They modelled after the worst tsunami on record. If I was in charge of something like that, I'd model it on 3x whatever that magnitude is. Like it should be able to take a direct hit from an asteroid.
The real flaw was that the emergency generators were located low in the facility, and that area was subsequently inundated by the tsunami. Had that been rectified, the whole disaster could have been avoided.
There were a lot of stacked flaws with Fukushima.
The biggest was that it was like 30+ years past designed life expectancy. Fukushima was a first generation reactor design from the 1950's that was practically obsolete by the time it was being built. They just kept it running until it failed. It was greed, more than anything, that caused the accident. When nuclear reactors hit their design life, they should be shut down and replaced with an updated design and safety measures.
Modern reactor design is nothing like Fukushima's ancient first generation design anymore. The Canadian CANDU design even from the 80's literally cannot meltdown, the chamber is small enough that you couldn't jam enough fuel in it even if you wanted to do so (ex. malice). Along with other passive safety measures (salt plugs, etc).
All of those old first generation plants should be closed and replaced with modern designs ASAP: or we're just going to keep using them until they fail - and keep the nuclear stigma going for more generations.
Beyond that, yeah the Fukushima retaining wall only extended 6 meters above sea level, which the lead engineer when it was built resigned in protest because he foresaw and stated this exact problem. Plus the backup pumps as you said were only 4m above sea level, and they got hit by a 15m tsunami that immediately put the pumps 5 meters below the surge height.
Fukushima was done in by the back up diesel generators not being located on high ground or in water tight bunkers etc. If those where fortified and placed on high ground like is / was industry standard we would only be talking about the devastating tsunami not the nuclear failure. If BC is serious about this whole green push for electrics cars they would know they need more capacity otherwise brown out and sky high costs for electricity. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks they want that to straight up gouge the customers to make up for the lack of tax revenue which is today is provided by fuel sales taxes.
Just don’t build on flood plains or tsunami prone areas.
Yeah, but if a (or multiple) big hydro dams fall in a big quake, some of us are double fucked. I guess the damage will be pretty local and short lived, unlike nuclear.
Someone smarter than me explained in one of these threads that nuclear is better for baseline power capacity which we have enough with hydro and wind. It's the peak loads that are more urgently needed. It made sense to me
This is 100% the case. Power usage is double at 7pm than at 2am. Hydro power can ramp up and down when needed, nuclear requires days to get to optimum range. Often at night BC receives free power from utilities with nuclear plants, and shuts down Hydro filling up the dams behind it. Later the same day that stored water is sold back for ridiculous profits. BC has some of the cheapest energy costs in the world and this is why.
Lol.ive posted it before, but have a look at powerex and where bc buys their power from and in turn where those states generate their power.
Long and short, we're greenish. Not 95% green.
I meant the electricity we generate. But ya. We buy other electricity when it’s cheap, saving the water in our reservoirs to generate electricity to sell when it’s more expensive.
It's more that we already have a great base load, so while that's a big strength of nuclear we aren't necessarily the ones that really need to explore that tech and can kind of wait and see what options develop and potentially take more intermittent sources.
Couldn’t be easier. Stick an smr into a hole. Or the side of a mountain, and seal it up when done. Whole world is just scared stiff about nuclear for some reason. They don’t realize that radioactivity is always occurring in nature anyway. The nuclear reactor simply concentrates and accelerates it. It doesn’t create more radioactivity than would’ve been otherwise eventually created. Atoms are going to decay at some point.
There's a great book on this called Dealing with an Angry Public by Lawrence Susskind. Talks all about how people cannot appropriately gauge risk associated with things like nuclear.
They can also now make the nuclear elements gravity driven, so that they need an active system to keep them in place. if anything happens, gravity takes over, the elements disengages and the reaction stops. Like disengagement is the default without any action or power. That will really really help in situations where loss of power for cooling has led to near criticality. Don’t know why this wasn’t the basic design to begin with. But we’re not gonna fill the needs of the future without a strong nuclear component. You can see this with a uranium prices already starting to tick up over the last two years. it always puzzles me why those stupid Germans turned off all their nuclear reactors and then started to burn coal to maintain the baseload, all to ostensibly save the environment! And those green morons are actually out in the street celebrating! And this plan was actually approved by a nuclear engineer - Angela Merkel! Never underestimate the power of a brainwashed public.
I like the gravity driven safety system. I saw that the thorium reactors have a similar active cooling system. Some kind of ice plug? Power goes out and the liquid thorium salts melt the ice plug and it all drains into a concrete basin where critical mass is diluted and the reaction stops.
Nuclear on the coast of the ring of fire, when a Big One is coming at some point soon?
I'm pro-Nuclear, but keep it on the relatively geologically stable Canadian Shield.
It’ll be the 4th biggest generating station in the province when it comes online, so I suspect it couldn’t possibly be used to only power those operations, the capacity is simply too large for that to be its only use
The false information that was passed around is that the LNG plants currently being constructed in Kitimat would suck up the power. Those plants are going to be powered solely by natural gas. There are discussions but no concrete plans to electrify the LNG plants.
With the amount of science deniers who couldn't grasp how vaccines work, I'm pretty sure there are too many morons around who will be too terrified of the science behind nuclear power. The cons will pander to these morons and keep us on fossil fuels for decades to come instead. I hope I'm wrong. Hydro power is a great thing, but with record drought levels increasing annually, it is hard to say how long hydro power will be a viable option.
Former nuclear engineer here. Whenever somebody starts talking about how nuclear power is dangerous, I ask them a simple question to see if they understand the science... here's the question:
You have four cookies. Each cookie is contains an ionizing radiation source. One cookie has an alpha source, one has a beta source, one has a gamma source, and one has a neutron source. You have to eat one cookie, put one cookie in your pocket, hold one cookie in your hand at arms length, and dispose of one cookie in a state of the art nuclear waste facility.
There are 24 possible combinations of what to do with the cookies; 23 of them will kill you; 1 is perfectly safe.
The reason people think nuclear power is dangerous is because they don't know what to do with the cookies. Nuclear engineers have spent the last 80 years figuring out exactly how to arrange the cookies so that humanity can exploit a glitch in the physics engine of the universe to get infinite free energy.
That's a great question to ask. I'm willing to try to answer it off the top of my head. Is it eat the beta, pocket the alpha, hold the gamma and dispose of the neutron source?
You are dead.
Your death was also quite painful and unpleasant.
Ionizing beta particles (fast moving electrons) are low mass (~1/2000th the mass of a proton) and have a strong charge (-1e). They can be stopped by a sheet of paper. But if they get into your body they will easily rip apart the DNA in your cells. As the beta source contaminates your body it will destroy your bone marrow preventing you from producing new white blood cells. If you survive the acute phase of radiation poisoning (ie if the beta source isn’t powerful enough to kill every cell in your body), your inability to produce white blood cells means you will succumb to infection within 7-10 days.
Edit: but good guess. I think you’re thinking about the problem correctly. One wrong answer down, 22 wrong answers left. Anyone else wanna try?
I was going to make a joke about eating the gamma cookie to get hulk-like superpowers, but then I remembered that gamma is just high energy photons (much less mass than alpha and beta particles)
Eat gamma, alpha in pocket, beta at arm's length, neutron buried deep
You are dead.
But you were very close to surviving.
You are correct that gamma radiation is just high energy photons (basically an x-ray). Photons have no mass and no charge. Blocking them is very hard (lots of concrete or lead). But that’s actually a good thing because in this case it means they basically fly straight out of your body without touching it.
You’re also right about the neutron emitter. Neutrons are heavy and have no charge. The lack of charge means they are very hard to block, but when they hit something they pack a huge punch (high mass). You don’t want to be anywhere near a neutron source.
As I mentioned to the other person who answered, a beta particle can be blocked by a sheet of paper. So you can put the beta emitter in your pocket without it affecting you. Your skin might get a “sunburn” if your pants are made from a material with a wide weave, but your skin can handle that.
Alpha particles are high energy helium nuclei; they have a charge of +2e and a mass 8000x higher than an electron. The charge makes them twice as easy to block as a beta but their high mass makes them 8000x harder to block. An alpha particle won’t be stopped by your clothing or skin. But if you hold it away from your sensitive core organs, the dose you’ll get will be low because at arm’s length your torso represents a small fraction of the total solid angle the alpha cookie can see. Your extremities are also more resilient to radiation than your organs.
So the answer is: Eat the gamma. Beta in your pocket. Alpha in your hand. Neutron in a waste facility
Going through Site C history on Reddit, most people thought it was a bad idea and the amount of hate when it was the Liberals and Site C was even higher.
It was a bad idea, then the focus shifted to electrifying the grid. There was also many cost and engineering problems and a scandal.
We will need so much more power on to come online to fully electrify. In 2019, B.C. generated 64.3 terawatt-hours of electricity. Site C will generate 5.1 twh of electricity per year (if the reserve levels are high enough)
Can you provide a single source that says BC needs this power urgently? I'm all for more clean power, just isn't my understanding that the dam was for BC needs?
Most of the people on site are practicing the fine art of making love to canines. I've seen guys down there fucking the dog missionary style, these guys look deep into the dog's eyes, they have no shame, none at all.
I’m well aware. I work in industrial construction. I couldn’t handle it. As soon as work slows down I’m gone. I can’t stand doing rotations back to back with nothing to do for 10 hours a day.
I watched a crew of 5 scaffolders do not a second of work for a full 10 hour shit. They took naps, were on phone calls, watching YouTube, the whole bit. Just gross. What are those people going to do once that teat is dry?
Site C should had been built by the BC Building Trades with a PLA/CBA agreement, not ICBA's private contractors.
Though BC needs to explore geothermal - huge untapped potential for base power. But ultimately, we need to really invest in the grid-tie renewables. Like roof-top solar, energy recovery. We have storage infrastructure (hydro dams) to facilitate grid-tied solar. Would greatly help keep summer levels instead of relying on the spot market.
Yes - believe that's the one I heard of - or may have been the Valemount one? I can't recall exactly - it was Andrew Weaver that really spurred geothermal for BC Hydro potential.
Would be great for oil/gas industry/workers. Much of the technology they're using directly relates to geothermal.
From what I’ve heard there’s no real solid bedrock and some of the giant concrete structures have shifted already. How bad? I don’t know. Guess we’ll find out
About a centimeter either way, it.teetered over the course of a year. Everyone on projects like this say that sort of thing though, I'd never want to live in the tower I built but people do because it's just silliness
My husband worked on this project and while he was there he told me the engineers made some mistakes that caused some portions of the damn to sink too much. Super costly to fix.
Nuclear others have posted about here but geothermal is simply too expensive today for BC. We have some of the lowest electricity costs in Canada because we have so much Hydro - its too good to NOT use.
Geothermal is also very localtion dependent... baseically you'd need to setup in hot springs or something similar and drill deeper.
Geothermal is viable in Terrace. The lakelse lake geothermal complex is fairly large with the hottest spring found so far a whopping 89⁰C! Two different companies are currently working on development.
Ok thats awsome!! More renewable energy is Always good.
Another thing we could tap into more is wave (ie tidal water) energy... tho that form is also in infancy.
Yeah, I was always kinda on the fence about it, but am ultimately in support of it. I see the problems and concerns, but it’s a bigger concern, IMO, if we don’t have the renewable energy in place to help make this transition away from fossil fuels. It would only take longer without Site C, and that would ultimately probably end up being a bigger environmental impact than the dam itself will be.
I do very much agree with what Horgan said about how “Site C is a dam that should be built… but it should also be the LAST dam in BC to ever be built.”
We wouldn't be, and we'd be building a dam somewhere else.
Stop acting like the problem with Site C was a blanket opposition to hydro power. It was a very specific project with very specific flaws and costs.
Back when BC first started looking at sites for dams on the Peace there were sites A through E identified for possible future hydro facilities. This was Site C.
That makes so much sense. I’ve always wondered about the name… My husband worked on the project for a bit. When he first got hired I thought the job was called “Sightsee” 😳🤣
There is an A and a B. The W.A.C Bennett dam is A and Peace Canyon is B. They are all part of an original study done for hydro electric dam options in the area and are all on the same river system.
The site has a permanent set of operations staff, so I presume they meant worked on it from an operations/maintenance perspective, not built the original dam.
Ah I get it, it is a lovely dam that's for sure.
https://preview.redd.it/2iyrth34lagc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7df5ccdcd3386088b13c640098cb925c51ad78f1
Just to add on the other comments, I wouldn't be surprised if this dam will get a permanent name like the other ones, either named after someone important or maybe a native name.
It 100% will get a real name when it opens. W.A.C Bennett went by portage mountain development when it was built if I remember the history correctly. I’ve heard hydro is angling pretty hard to give it a native name in line with their goals of progressing reconciliation and working with the local First Nations groups.
Given that the Bennett dam project SEVERELY impacted the Dene Nation and other First Nations in the area, and continues to do so, I am wondering how exactly they would go about doing that.
I wondered the same ..... so I looked up where site C was on Google maps. Turns out it's like the 3rd dam on the same river all feed be the a huge man made lake made by the Bennet dam .... which I believe is site A. Which made me wonder why all the hate from environmentalists when this will be using the same river and lake the other two already use ......
That’s a fair question/statement. I think a lot of people don’t realize there are 2 more dams up there (one being the WAC Bennett dam), nor do they necessarily understand the planning behind building a dam and why it was started when it was. These mega projects are seemingly pretty misunderstood/misrepresented by the general public.
Additionally, the history behind WAC Bennett is pretty bad and pretty messy. The area still remembers it being build and bc hydro even acknowledges that there was a lot of wrong done there (it was built in the 60s when attitudes were different) with how they handled working with the local First Nation communities and some of the environmental aspects of the project. Site C seems to be striving to not repeat history in that regard, but it also doesn’t erase the negative feelings of the area towards it, which additionally fuelled the anti site C sentiment.
The next big electrical power project should be solar farms as they would still provide power during droughts (with is delaying Site C turn-up). Some of BC Hydro's power lines already run through large stretches of the Interior ( Cariboo, South Thompson, Okanagan) that get good solar "irradiance" . These areas are not the Mojave Dessert, but better than places like Germany that have a lot of solar installations.
I heard that there’s an decent sized IPP solar farm proposed for the kootenays rn and that one of the major problems is basically renewable power NIMBYs, people want the projects and power they’ll provide, but don’t want them in their areas, so it’s being held up by reluctance from the locals to install a solar farm in the area.
Great. Now do one on the island. Rivers are raging into the ocean and by August everyone will be crying that there's not enough drinking water. They want to approve all the houses without any more water.
We need 4 Site C's yesterday to meet the goals that the politicians du jour set.
Nuclear is the only way forward if we are to foolishly switch 100% away from fossil fuels. Otherwise diversity is the way to go.
Still a very interesting, large scale project.
Building below existing dams means we need smaller reservoirs for the new ones, the first reservoir acts as the main storage system, and then the water does double or triple the original work by going through additional generators, for the same amount of storage needed. It’s actually a really efficient use of space since a smaller footprint is needed for the reservoir using this system, and it limits the environmental impacts of a large reservoir
It's a really good idea to do this because it can use the giant reservoir from Bennett dam to its advantage.
The power generation capacity of site C is roughly 30% of Bennett dam, but the site C reservoir is only about 5% of the size of Bennett's. Could be a bit off with these numbers but it's roughly that ratio
Dams only work if there is water. It seem impossible to ever imagine BC not having enough water, but things are changing. Sure, there will likely always be some water behind that dam, but will it be as much as they originally considered years ago or enough to operate generators efficiently? Climate may be changing in ways they didn't plan for. When it comes to water shortages, BC may already be in for a very rude awakening this year, starting with the Lower Mainland.
There's lots of water, they just need to increase the storage because most of the long-term climate models are actually showing more rain and precip in the Fall and Winter months but hotter and drier summers. Right now, at least in SW BC, there is alot of water with the stretch of Atmospheric rivers, so they need to store it better, so if there is a drought this summer, they'll have storage. Victoria has the same problem every year. Summer water shortages but water flowing over the floodgates at this time of year.
Water is usually stored as snowpack which is released slowly, feeding rivers, lakes and reservoirs through the spring and summer. But of course if our abnormally warm winter continues, we won't have snowpack in the mountains to store and release water later. It is a problem.
Yes. Concrete production creates massive amounts of CO2*, not to mention all the destruction of huge amounts of land. All that green energy doesn't come without its environmental impacts.
*"Concrete causes up to 8% of global CO2 emissions" [source ](https://amp.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-most-destructive-material-on-earth)
Must be a few months ago eh? They moved that big crawler I wanna say in September or so, when I left beginning of December there was very little work left on the upstream side
Wht doesn't he just tell Vancouver truth. Well planned. u are the one who is trying to kill the brown coil. Instead of u being honest with the girl u are hiding sins and making someone who is innocent suffer. Didn't you know .. you.dont have to run from your easy making life .. some of us arnt as lucky . Wait until he does to u
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Those pens look solid. When do they start bringing in the dinosaurs?
If the dinosaur documentarys I've seen in the past are accurate, the pens have about a 1.0001 safety factor
"Quiet! All of you! They're approaching the Tyrannosaur paddock."
Spared no expense.
[удалено]
I doubt these pics are sanctioned. The resolution sucks, phones should get better pics than this. Looks like someone flew a drone or something in
Why not? Terrorism fears?
I've always heard it's more so a liability issue. Some professional or authority might see something that isn't finished and make a big deal out of something they don't know the full story about
Loving the comments. So civilized. Intelligent people discussing interesting topics and sharing knowledge. Not a single troll. How nice!
Glad to see it's just about done. Province needs the power to electrify well...everything in the next few years. Hopefully the next project is a major nuclear plant.
I really wish BC would be more open about nuclear. There is some really interesting potential with Small Modular Reactors.
And geothermal. There are natural hot springs all over BC. Could be unlimited clean power
There are 4 significant magma regions below BC, geothermal power has big potential but I think it runs into issues with seismic activity that makes it more challenging in BC than say, Iceland.
The best spot for geothermal in BC is in the top left corner but unfortunately, transmission lines don't service that area so the cost of getting transmission infrastructure there nixes the benefits of that solution - for now.
Also, geothermal is a bit of a craps shoot; you can literally spend hundreds of millions to drill a geothermal well, only for the well to turn out to be non-viable for energy generation. And the deeper the well you drill, the more expensive it can get; the problem is that right now, calculating in all of the costs for site preparation and exploration, plus the high risk levels, geothermal is not cost competitive per KW/h with other forms of electricity generation, such as hydroelectricity or even nuclear. The big issue with geothermal is that a lot of the costs come from well drilling; you're spending over 50% of the capital expenses up front with well drilling and completion, and you still run the risk that the well you just drilled and completed isn't viable.
I had no idea about the drilling costs! Thank you!
This is essentially the crux of any energy production in a nutshell; no sufficient/ capable infrastructure to transport energy in a sustainable manner. >According to a [report](https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf) from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, roughly 22,000 square miles of solar panel-filled land (about the size of Lake Michigan) would be required to power the entire United States, including all 141 million households and businesses, based on 13-14% efficiency for solar modules. Many solar panels, however, reach 20% efficiency, which could reduce the necessary area to just about 10,000 square miles, equivalent to the size of Lake Erie. The prairies in Canada get over 300 days of sunshine a year. We have free energy on this planet if only we could learn how to transport it, and we’ll be digging in dirty oil sands, lining mega oil corpo pockets and continue to be debt slaves until we do.
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Wholeheartedly agree. We need to move to post-consumerism.
You realize your statement is basically impossible the idea that we can “just power everything off solar” is ignorant to the fact your population needs a stable power grid. You can use solar to reduce fossil fuels but eliminate is well beyond our current energy storage capabilities.
Collect white hydrogen in tandem with geothermal - set up gravitricity to collect geothermal as potential energy. Collect in giant balloons - float under drone control to airship stops. I noticed that geothermal mentioned as promising location for white hydrogen at USGS conference: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2022AM/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/380270
That actually seems a like a good idea.
lol… what!? Iceland is literally where the earth is splitting apart as part of the mid-Atlantic ridge!
The way I understand it is that the reason there is so much geo thermal energy in places like Iceland is specifically BECAUSE of the seismic activity. Or, maybe more accurately, they go hand in hand. ,
Seismic activity is a result of the crust rupturing in a brittle fashion due to stresses applied. When it comes to Iceland, such as the most recent case of volcanism, it's kind of both but more to do with the rising magma. When magma is at shallow crustal levels, the ground will deform by rising. This strain is a direct result of the stresses induced by the magma. However, if the crust doesn't break, the magma has no pathway (fault / fissure) to ascend. Thus, the crust must rupture, which produces an earthquake, and provides a pathway for the magma to ascend. Iceland's elevated geothermal activity is two fold: a) it sits on the mid Atlantic ridge, a spreading centre where tectonic plates rift apart and diverge from one another (this allows magma to rise up and fill the new space) b) it sits above a hot spot (much like hawaii)
Ya its splitting apart there, here its pushing together.
No major earthquakes there
BCUC regulations are also out of date to the international geothermal standards.
Where in BC are there areas roughly? Genuinely interested to know!
Under the Cascade range from Silverthrone to Mount Baker. An interior spot at Wells-Gray Clearwater in the rockies. There's the Anahim Hotspot from Bella Bella to Quesnel. Last there's the Stikine volcanic belt that starts in Kitimaat and runs north to the Yukon. https://chis.nrcan.gc.ca/volcano-volcan/can-vol-en.php
Thank you!
I have heard that they (bc hydro) are looking into small scale reactors and some potential future projects there, but that some of those technologies still need some development before bc considers properly investing in those options.
Absolutely. There is a lot of active research going on now. Pilot projects planned with public utilities and nuclear reactor companies partnering. If they can deploy SMRs faster than regular CANDUs, I'd be excited.
I think SMRs are in play. They have great potential application for rural and remote communities. Large nuclear facilities very likely won’t overcome public perception and upfront cost.
They need one in Massett- they have a diesel generator. Hopefully wind power in the future too…
Yeah the irony of beautiful Haida Gwaii using diesel is quite something
The problem there is it’s too remote for transmission lines from the main system to be cost effective, and wind/solar aren’t reliable enough to support a community full time, so they have to use diesel as it’s the only source they can supply reliably and provide consistent power rn. I think hydro is looking into renewable projects and other options for all their remote locations, because none of those communities particularly love being diesel dependant
I’m surprised wind isn’t considered reliable coming from that part of the coast. My understanding is that the winds are pretty strong and reliable there.
Not guaranteed 24/7, and if the wind stops and you’re 100% reliant on wind, so does your power. It also doesn’t ramp with demand (can’t speed up the wind because it’s rainy and everyone is inside), so it can’t be your only source. Hydro is so good because we can control the output, wind is a good addition but can’t be used on its own reliably.
Yeah but in Haida Gwaii's case, they'd be adding wind to diesel, so they can use the wind to replace diesel for base power, and then ramp up diesel power to meet the remainder: if that's 50-75% wind that would be a colossal improvement in GHG's, and potentially a cost reduction as well.
I believe they’re looking into those options rn and trying to find ways to move away from diesel. Remote communities are also generally adverse to large projects like a wind farm, and it’s quite cost prohibitive for many of them to bring in the necessary parts or build and maintain them (plus the necessary land for the footprint), so historically they’re usually diesel generators, since the parts are smaller, the fuel is moderately easy to bring in, the foot print is small and maintenance isn’t overly complex.
The ocean is far too deep in the Pacific. Not only that but once local Indigenous leaders were informed of just how much ocean floor is destroyed (about 60 cubic meters) per turbine, they went from considering it, to a hard no. It makes more sense in a place like the North Sea which compared to the Pacific, is a shallow puddle, and lacks little to no ecological diversity already.
I wonder if they could use tidal power.
Mechanically tidal power is a really great technology that just has one major problem we haven't overcome yet, and that is that anything we put in the ocean, Poseidon shows up and wrecks. The ocean smashes anything it can (good for tidal power), dissolves just about everything (bad for bendy bladders to absorb tidal power) and clogs everything else. If material science makes a breakthrough and finds something immune to everything in the sea, and still bending enough to absorb tidal forces, then tidal power could leapfrog other energy technologies practically overnight - but until we figure that out... Poseidon says no.
Tidal power is expensive and not as efficient/effective as other options. It’s not a widely implemented technology globally and also has a lot of geographical constraints for the areas they can be built, so I suspect not. It would also need to supply constant and consistent power that can be ramped up and down with demand, which tides wouldn’t necessarily supply (lower production during high and low tide for example). Probably useful for some areas, but a mix of options plus hopefully one day some improved battery technologies would likely be best.
No argument here. Just find it ironic is all.
I'll be dead for 5 years before BC even puts shovels or boots in the ground for ANY nuclear in BC, and I'll have been dead for 20 years before they're able to switch it on. And I'm not planning on dying in the next 20 years
They are definitely happening in Ontario. One of my clients is OPG. But in BC, nuclear is still prohibited. It came up again last year and the Premier (Eby) reconfirmed that they will not ammend the 2010 Clean Energy Act to allow nuclear.
Hmm, I hope there an unspoken in the next ‘x’ years in Eby’s comments. Interesting to know.
BC took a hard stance against nuclear in the 60s and I feel like it's a cultural foundation at this stage. It would be like convincing Alberta to get out of oil and gas. I agree with you - would love there to be some hope but we're working against generations of prejudice in BC.
Nuclear can be great, SMRs are just silly. [I'll link my comment from another thread rather than typing it all out.](https://www.reddit.com/r/sustainability/s/YNTY3LmLUZ) The idea that SMRs are going to be a cost effective way to power small and remote communities, who struggle enough operating and maintaining much simpler and cheaper conventional tech is just hilarious.
Agree. Can't even keep the water systems running up there. What could be likely is an industrial partner or mine runs it to the benefit of the community, but that would need to open up first.
I'm pretty confident BC is fine with hydro and alternative energy moving forward. But it absolutely makes sense for much of the rest of the country for sure. But we have abundant hydro already so nuclear isn't really a consideration here. Also, earthquake is a concern.
I've heard that Nuclear Energy isn't ideal here due to all the fault lines and pending Cascadia earthquake (expected to be a 7 or greater and happen in the next 50 years).
So build it in the interior? We have lots of water for cooling it, and low seismic risk.
That's a fair consideration but I'm sure there's a way to plan for this. My understanding of Fukashima is that they just didn't build to high enough tolerances. They modelled after the worst tsunami on record. If I was in charge of something like that, I'd model it on 3x whatever that magnitude is. Like it should be able to take a direct hit from an asteroid.
The real flaw was that the emergency generators were located low in the facility, and that area was subsequently inundated by the tsunami. Had that been rectified, the whole disaster could have been avoided.
There were a lot of stacked flaws with Fukushima. The biggest was that it was like 30+ years past designed life expectancy. Fukushima was a first generation reactor design from the 1950's that was practically obsolete by the time it was being built. They just kept it running until it failed. It was greed, more than anything, that caused the accident. When nuclear reactors hit their design life, they should be shut down and replaced with an updated design and safety measures. Modern reactor design is nothing like Fukushima's ancient first generation design anymore. The Canadian CANDU design even from the 80's literally cannot meltdown, the chamber is small enough that you couldn't jam enough fuel in it even if you wanted to do so (ex. malice). Along with other passive safety measures (salt plugs, etc). All of those old first generation plants should be closed and replaced with modern designs ASAP: or we're just going to keep using them until they fail - and keep the nuclear stigma going for more generations. Beyond that, yeah the Fukushima retaining wall only extended 6 meters above sea level, which the lead engineer when it was built resigned in protest because he foresaw and stated this exact problem. Plus the backup pumps as you said were only 4m above sea level, and they got hit by a 15m tsunami that immediately put the pumps 5 meters below the surge height.
Thanks for providing much more detail than I was aware of. Like you say about stigma… Very unfortunate.
Fukushima was done in by the back up diesel generators not being located on high ground or in water tight bunkers etc. If those where fortified and placed on high ground like is / was industry standard we would only be talking about the devastating tsunami not the nuclear failure. If BC is serious about this whole green push for electrics cars they would know they need more capacity otherwise brown out and sky high costs for electricity. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks they want that to straight up gouge the customers to make up for the lack of tax revenue which is today is provided by fuel sales taxes. Just don’t build on flood plains or tsunami prone areas.
They should hire you to build it
Oh no. I build a shed in the backyard and the drywall is a bit rough. I think someone more qualified. ;)
Yeah, but if a (or multiple) big hydro dams fall in a big quake, some of us are double fucked. I guess the damage will be pretty local and short lived, unlike nuclear.
Someone smarter than me explained in one of these threads that nuclear is better for baseline power capacity which we have enough with hydro and wind. It's the peak loads that are more urgently needed. It made sense to me
This is 100% the case. Power usage is double at 7pm than at 2am. Hydro power can ramp up and down when needed, nuclear requires days to get to optimum range. Often at night BC receives free power from utilities with nuclear plants, and shuts down Hydro filling up the dams behind it. Later the same day that stored water is sold back for ridiculous profits. BC has some of the cheapest energy costs in the world and this is why.
I feel like we should be the followers on that one not at the forefront though. Let the other provinces work out the kinks and then jump aboard later.
Especially considering we’re 95% green already. Let’s use nuclear to replace coal, gas generation first.
Lol.ive posted it before, but have a look at powerex and where bc buys their power from and in turn where those states generate their power. Long and short, we're greenish. Not 95% green.
I meant the electricity we generate. But ya. We buy other electricity when it’s cheap, saving the water in our reservoirs to generate electricity to sell when it’s more expensive.
It's more that we already have a great base load, so while that's a big strength of nuclear we aren't necessarily the ones that really need to explore that tech and can kind of wait and see what options develop and potentially take more intermittent sources.
Ya I hear ya. Good points.
Couldn’t be easier. Stick an smr into a hole. Or the side of a mountain, and seal it up when done. Whole world is just scared stiff about nuclear for some reason. They don’t realize that radioactivity is always occurring in nature anyway. The nuclear reactor simply concentrates and accelerates it. It doesn’t create more radioactivity than would’ve been otherwise eventually created. Atoms are going to decay at some point.
There's a great book on this called Dealing with an Angry Public by Lawrence Susskind. Talks all about how people cannot appropriately gauge risk associated with things like nuclear.
They can also now make the nuclear elements gravity driven, so that they need an active system to keep them in place. if anything happens, gravity takes over, the elements disengages and the reaction stops. Like disengagement is the default without any action or power. That will really really help in situations where loss of power for cooling has led to near criticality. Don’t know why this wasn’t the basic design to begin with. But we’re not gonna fill the needs of the future without a strong nuclear component. You can see this with a uranium prices already starting to tick up over the last two years. it always puzzles me why those stupid Germans turned off all their nuclear reactors and then started to burn coal to maintain the baseload, all to ostensibly save the environment! And those green morons are actually out in the street celebrating! And this plan was actually approved by a nuclear engineer - Angela Merkel! Never underestimate the power of a brainwashed public.
I like the gravity driven safety system. I saw that the thorium reactors have a similar active cooling system. Some kind of ice plug? Power goes out and the liquid thorium salts melt the ice plug and it all drains into a concrete basin where critical mass is diluted and the reaction stops.
Nuclear on the coast of the ring of fire, when a Big One is coming at some point soon? I'm pro-Nuclear, but keep it on the relatively geologically stable Canadian Shield.
BC is much bigger than vancouver
People in the lower mainland aren't well known for knowing this fact.
The BC cons support nuclear
Isn’t site C mostly used to power the natural gas operations in the area? I thought I read about that a couple years ago
It’ll be the 4th biggest generating station in the province when it comes online, so I suspect it couldn’t possibly be used to only power those operations, the capacity is simply too large for that to be its only use
My understanding is it'll be primarily powering industrial applications, which there are a lot in Northern BC, not just gas.
The false information that was passed around is that the LNG plants currently being constructed in Kitimat would suck up the power. Those plants are going to be powered solely by natural gas. There are discussions but no concrete plans to electrify the LNG plants.
With the amount of science deniers who couldn't grasp how vaccines work, I'm pretty sure there are too many morons around who will be too terrified of the science behind nuclear power. The cons will pander to these morons and keep us on fossil fuels for decades to come instead. I hope I'm wrong. Hydro power is a great thing, but with record drought levels increasing annually, it is hard to say how long hydro power will be a viable option.
Former nuclear engineer here. Whenever somebody starts talking about how nuclear power is dangerous, I ask them a simple question to see if they understand the science... here's the question: You have four cookies. Each cookie is contains an ionizing radiation source. One cookie has an alpha source, one has a beta source, one has a gamma source, and one has a neutron source. You have to eat one cookie, put one cookie in your pocket, hold one cookie in your hand at arms length, and dispose of one cookie in a state of the art nuclear waste facility. There are 24 possible combinations of what to do with the cookies; 23 of them will kill you; 1 is perfectly safe. The reason people think nuclear power is dangerous is because they don't know what to do with the cookies. Nuclear engineers have spent the last 80 years figuring out exactly how to arrange the cookies so that humanity can exploit a glitch in the physics engine of the universe to get infinite free energy.
That's a great question to ask. I'm willing to try to answer it off the top of my head. Is it eat the beta, pocket the alpha, hold the gamma and dispose of the neutron source?
You are dead. Your death was also quite painful and unpleasant. Ionizing beta particles (fast moving electrons) are low mass (~1/2000th the mass of a proton) and have a strong charge (-1e). They can be stopped by a sheet of paper. But if they get into your body they will easily rip apart the DNA in your cells. As the beta source contaminates your body it will destroy your bone marrow preventing you from producing new white blood cells. If you survive the acute phase of radiation poisoning (ie if the beta source isn’t powerful enough to kill every cell in your body), your inability to produce white blood cells means you will succumb to infection within 7-10 days. Edit: but good guess. I think you’re thinking about the problem correctly. One wrong answer down, 22 wrong answers left. Anyone else wanna try?
I was going to make a joke about eating the gamma cookie to get hulk-like superpowers, but then I remembered that gamma is just high energy photons (much less mass than alpha and beta particles) Eat gamma, alpha in pocket, beta at arm's length, neutron buried deep
You are dead. But you were very close to surviving. You are correct that gamma radiation is just high energy photons (basically an x-ray). Photons have no mass and no charge. Blocking them is very hard (lots of concrete or lead). But that’s actually a good thing because in this case it means they basically fly straight out of your body without touching it. You’re also right about the neutron emitter. Neutrons are heavy and have no charge. The lack of charge means they are very hard to block, but when they hit something they pack a huge punch (high mass). You don’t want to be anywhere near a neutron source. As I mentioned to the other person who answered, a beta particle can be blocked by a sheet of paper. So you can put the beta emitter in your pocket without it affecting you. Your skin might get a “sunburn” if your pants are made from a material with a wide weave, but your skin can handle that. Alpha particles are high energy helium nuclei; they have a charge of +2e and a mass 8000x higher than an electron. The charge makes them twice as easy to block as a beta but their high mass makes them 8000x harder to block. An alpha particle won’t be stopped by your clothing or skin. But if you hold it away from your sensitive core organs, the dose you’ll get will be low because at arm’s length your torso represents a small fraction of the total solid angle the alpha cookie can see. Your extremities are also more resilient to radiation than your organs. So the answer is: Eat the gamma. Beta in your pocket. Alpha in your hand. Neutron in a waste facility
Going through Site C history on Reddit, most people thought it was a bad idea and the amount of hate when it was the Liberals and Site C was even higher.
It was a bad idea, then the focus shifted to electrifying the grid. There was also many cost and engineering problems and a scandal. We will need so much more power on to come online to fully electrify. In 2019, B.C. generated 64.3 terawatt-hours of electricity. Site C will generate 5.1 twh of electricity per year (if the reserve levels are high enough)
I can support this thought
Probably won’t happen Nuclear plants are banned in BC
The provincial gov can just remove that ban though
We also don't need to be wasting, like, all that electricity on methane gas compression for LNG.
Can you provide a single source that says BC needs this power urgently? I'm all for more clean power, just isn't my understanding that the dam was for BC needs?
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Dam. That's a long time.
Jesus Christ 4 years on a project like that. What did you do?
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It’s fucking massive. If you were t there, you don’t know.
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It's so huge it took him 4 years just to come home.
So you do know
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I tested the earth fill lifts for density 🤣
The project started in 2015
Most of the people on site are practicing the fine art of making love to canines. I've seen guys down there fucking the dog missionary style, these guys look deep into the dog's eyes, they have no shame, none at all.
I’m well aware. I work in industrial construction. I couldn’t handle it. As soon as work slows down I’m gone. I can’t stand doing rotations back to back with nothing to do for 10 hours a day.
I watched a crew of 5 scaffolders do not a second of work for a full 10 hour shit. They took naps, were on phone calls, watching YouTube, the whole bit. Just gross. What are those people going to do once that teat is dry?
That’s life in that industry. Onto the next project after this one. They didn’t learn that skill on this project.
Jeezz.. how long you been waiting to use all those one-liners in 1 reply?
There's a lot of time to sit around and think down there.
Site C should had been built by the BC Building Trades with a PLA/CBA agreement, not ICBA's private contractors. Though BC needs to explore geothermal - huge untapped potential for base power. But ultimately, we need to really invest in the grid-tie renewables. Like roof-top solar, energy recovery. We have storage infrastructure (hydro dams) to facilitate grid-tied solar. Would greatly help keep summer levels instead of relying on the spot market.
Geothermal is actively being explored by multiple companies in the Terrace area.
Yes - believe that's the one I heard of - or may have been the Valemount one? I can't recall exactly - it was Andrew Weaver that really spurred geothermal for BC Hydro potential. Would be great for oil/gas industry/workers. Much of the technology they're using directly relates to geothermal.
Well I’ll be dammed.
I’m a simple man, I see infrastructure and I hit upvote.
I worked on this site for nearly 3 years. You couldn't pay me to live down river.
Go on
How come?
From what I’ve heard there’s no real solid bedrock and some of the giant concrete structures have shifted already. How bad? I don’t know. Guess we’ll find out
About a centimeter either way, it.teetered over the course of a year. Everyone on projects like this say that sort of thing though, I'd never want to live in the tower I built but people do because it's just silliness
Yeah I’m sure it will be fine. That’s not nearly as bad as some would make it out to be
how about when they started pouring concrete they realized the ground was just sinking, so their answer was to just dump in more concrete
Yeah, all those civil engineers wish they knew as much as redditors
My husband worked on this project and while he was there he told me the engineers made some mistakes that caused some portions of the damn to sink too much. Super costly to fix.
I guess you weren't doing engineering work.
Worked at Site C for a while. Cool project.
I’d be open to nuclear or geothermal if available.
Nuclear others have posted about here but geothermal is simply too expensive today for BC. We have some of the lowest electricity costs in Canada because we have so much Hydro - its too good to NOT use. Geothermal is also very localtion dependent... baseically you'd need to setup in hot springs or something similar and drill deeper.
Geothermal is viable in Terrace. The lakelse lake geothermal complex is fairly large with the hottest spring found so far a whopping 89⁰C! Two different companies are currently working on development.
Ok thats awsome!! More renewable energy is Always good. Another thing we could tap into more is wave (ie tidal water) energy... tho that form is also in infancy.
Why can’t a province like BC sell its abundance of energy to its neighbours? I see nothing but upside
Huh...? We already do through Powerex.
I had a tour of the site just after that finished boring the bypass. Interesting to see all the work that’s been done since then.
I’m so glad the NDP didn’t cancel this project. Otherwise we would be getting coal power electricity from Alberta.
Yeah, I was always kinda on the fence about it, but am ultimately in support of it. I see the problems and concerns, but it’s a bigger concern, IMO, if we don’t have the renewable energy in place to help make this transition away from fossil fuels. It would only take longer without Site C, and that would ultimately probably end up being a bigger environmental impact than the dam itself will be. I do very much agree with what Horgan said about how “Site C is a dam that should be built… but it should also be the LAST dam in BC to ever be built.”
We wouldn't be, and we'd be building a dam somewhere else. Stop acting like the problem with Site C was a blanket opposition to hydro power. It was a very specific project with very specific flaws and costs.
Alberta had to get coal power from Saskatchewan a few months back.
Why is it “site c”? Is there a site a, b, and D?
Back when BC first started looking at sites for dams on the Peace there were sites A through E identified for possible future hydro facilities. This was Site C.
That makes so much sense. I’ve always wondered about the name… My husband worked on the project for a bit. When he first got hired I thought the job was called “Sightsee” 😳🤣
Thanks 🙂👍
There is an A and a B. The W.A.C Bennett dam is A and Peace Canyon is B. They are all part of an original study done for hydro electric dam options in the area and are all on the same river system.
I worked on A and it was a really cool site
Holy how old are you?
The site has a permanent set of operations staff, so I presume they meant worked on it from an operations/maintenance perspective, not built the original dam.
Ah I get it, it is a lovely dam that's for sure. https://preview.redd.it/2iyrth34lagc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7df5ccdcd3386088b13c640098cb925c51ad78f1
Also it's the 3rd damn on the river. Most people don't realize that. Heck most don't even know about the project.
Just to add on the other comments, I wouldn't be surprised if this dam will get a permanent name like the other ones, either named after someone important or maybe a native name.
It 100% will get a real name when it opens. W.A.C Bennett went by portage mountain development when it was built if I remember the history correctly. I’ve heard hydro is angling pretty hard to give it a native name in line with their goals of progressing reconciliation and working with the local First Nations groups.
Given that the Bennett dam project SEVERELY impacted the Dene Nation and other First Nations in the area, and continues to do so, I am wondering how exactly they would go about doing that.
Likely indigenous, but for now its very solidly attached to the name Site C
I wondered the same ..... so I looked up where site C was on Google maps. Turns out it's like the 3rd dam on the same river all feed be the a huge man made lake made by the Bennet dam .... which I believe is site A. Which made me wonder why all the hate from environmentalists when this will be using the same river and lake the other two already use ......
That’s a fair question/statement. I think a lot of people don’t realize there are 2 more dams up there (one being the WAC Bennett dam), nor do they necessarily understand the planning behind building a dam and why it was started when it was. These mega projects are seemingly pretty misunderstood/misrepresented by the general public. Additionally, the history behind WAC Bennett is pretty bad and pretty messy. The area still remembers it being build and bc hydro even acknowledges that there was a lot of wrong done there (it was built in the 60s when attitudes were different) with how they handled working with the local First Nation communities and some of the environmental aspects of the project. Site C seems to be striving to not repeat history in that regard, but it also doesn’t erase the negative feelings of the area towards it, which additionally fuelled the anti site C sentiment.
The next big electrical power project should be solar farms as they would still provide power during droughts (with is delaying Site C turn-up). Some of BC Hydro's power lines already run through large stretches of the Interior ( Cariboo, South Thompson, Okanagan) that get good solar "irradiance" . These areas are not the Mojave Dessert, but better than places like Germany that have a lot of solar installations.
I heard that there’s an decent sized IPP solar farm proposed for the kootenays rn and that one of the major problems is basically renewable power NIMBYs, people want the projects and power they’ll provide, but don’t want them in their areas, so it’s being held up by reluctance from the locals to install a solar farm in the area.
This looks like a sweet Warzone map
I love the non controversial posts the most.
Beavers everywhere are in awe
Nice 👍🏼 Time to start another
Great. Now do one on the island. Rivers are raging into the ocean and by August everyone will be crying that there's not enough drinking water. They want to approve all the houses without any more water.
Just a fraction of what we need to electrify and potentially supply our dirty neighbours to the east.
We will build a dam, and make Alberta pay for it
I worked there for a year, great job just got old being out of town so much
I worked there for a while it was sweet watching it grow from underground toall the way up to intakes
Its going to be an incredible mega structure when completed.
I remember some idiot from my school hospitalized herself after going on a hunger strike to protest this dam.
It's amazing people were able to build this 5000 years ago without machinery. I can't wait to see this fully restored!
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Yeah, what do you think the pyramids were for??
Grain storage.
We need 4 Site C's yesterday to meet the goals that the politicians du jour set. Nuclear is the only way forward if we are to foolishly switch 100% away from fossil fuels. Otherwise diversity is the way to go. Still a very interesting, large scale project.
Revelstoke also being brought to full capacity by bringing in a 500mw 6th unit. BC is an energy giant.
Super engineering😆
It’s not exactly the nicest for people who live here. The light pollution is at its worst…
The scale of these projects is wild. But the Peace... again? We gotta find some other places to dam.
Building below existing dams means we need smaller reservoirs for the new ones, the first reservoir acts as the main storage system, and then the water does double or triple the original work by going through additional generators, for the same amount of storage needed. It’s actually a really efficient use of space since a smaller footprint is needed for the reservoir using this system, and it limits the environmental impacts of a large reservoir
Better to be on an already impacted rover vs. A new one.
Truth
It's a really good idea to do this because it can use the giant reservoir from Bennett dam to its advantage. The power generation capacity of site C is roughly 30% of Bennett dam, but the site C reservoir is only about 5% of the size of Bennett's. Could be a bit off with these numbers but it's roughly that ratio
Lol peace River ab will be site d is the rumour in these parts..
why would we want to destroy other river systems? this one’s already fucked, use it and leave the other river systems alone.
Hopefully we get some rain so there is enough water to run this monstrosity….
Dams only work if there is water. It seem impossible to ever imagine BC not having enough water, but things are changing. Sure, there will likely always be some water behind that dam, but will it be as much as they originally considered years ago or enough to operate generators efficiently? Climate may be changing in ways they didn't plan for. When it comes to water shortages, BC may already be in for a very rude awakening this year, starting with the Lower Mainland.
There's lots of water, they just need to increase the storage because most of the long-term climate models are actually showing more rain and precip in the Fall and Winter months but hotter and drier summers. Right now, at least in SW BC, there is alot of water with the stretch of Atmospheric rivers, so they need to store it better, so if there is a drought this summer, they'll have storage. Victoria has the same problem every year. Summer water shortages but water flowing over the floodgates at this time of year.
Water is usually stored as snowpack which is released slowly, feeding rivers, lakes and reservoirs through the spring and summer. But of course if our abnormally warm winter continues, we won't have snowpack in the mountains to store and release water later. It is a problem.
That’s where the “green” energy for your EV’s will be coming from. Looks like a massive “carbon footprint” is going into building the plant to boot.
Yes. Concrete production creates massive amounts of CO2*, not to mention all the destruction of huge amounts of land. All that green energy doesn't come without its environmental impacts. *"Concrete causes up to 8% of global CO2 emissions" [source ](https://amp.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-most-destructive-material-on-earth)
Short term versus long term. Once its built the carbon use drops drastically
Must be a few months ago eh? They moved that big crawler I wanna say in September or so, when I left beginning of December there was very little work left on the upstream side
So this is why we have no water in the NWT, literally destroying an entire territory. wtf
Wht doesn't he just tell Vancouver truth. Well planned. u are the one who is trying to kill the brown coil. Instead of u being honest with the girl u are hiding sins and making someone who is innocent suffer. Didn't you know .. you.dont have to run from your easy making life .. some of us arnt as lucky . Wait until he does to u