Syntaris Power

News Release

VICTORIA – Premier Christy Clark today announced a new, smaller cabinet focused on putting families first, creating jobs and changing the way British Columbians engage with their government.

“Our new cabinet will reflect the priorities of British Columbians and put families at the centre of all our decision-making,” said Premier Clark. “Together, we will focus on creating jobs and building a strong economy because that is the single most important thing we can do to support families and ensure we can invest in critical services like health and education. This is a team that will work hard to ensure that prosperity and opportunity extend to every region of our province.”

The new cabinet is made up of 17 ministers plus the premier, reduced from the previous total of 24. This includes the new Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation, which will bring together many of the functions in government focused on job creation under a single ministry. As well, three new cabinet committees reflect the priorities of government – the Committee on Families First; the Committee on Jobs and Economic Growth; and the Committee on Open Government and Engagement.

Responsibility for colleges and universities has been recombined under the Ministry of Advanced Education; responsibility for mining has been returned to the Ministry of Energy and Mines; Labour and Citizen Services have been combined; and Forests and Lands has been combined with Natural Resource Operations.

The new cabinet appointed and sworn into office by the Lieutenant-Governor in a ceremony today is:

· Premier – Hon. Christy Clark

· Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance – Hon. Kevin Falcon

· Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation – Hon. Mary Polak

· Minister of Advanced Education – Hon. Naomi Yamamoto

· Minister of Agriculture – Hon. Don McRae

· Attorney General – Hon. Barry Penner

· Minister of Children and Family Development – Hon. Mary McNeil

· Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development – Hon. Ida Chong

· Minister of Education – Hon. George Abbott

· Minister of Energy and Mines (minister responsible for Housing) – Hon. Rich Coleman

· Minister of Environment – Hon. Terry Lake

· Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations – Hon. Steve Thomson

· Minister of Health – Hon. Michael de Jong

· Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation – Hon. Pat Bell

· Minister of Labour, Citizens’ Services and Open Government – Hon. Stephanie Cadieux

· Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General – Hon. Shirley Bond

· Minister of Social Development (minister responsible for multiculturalism) – Hon. Harry Bloy

· Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure – Hon. Blair Lekstrom

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British Columbia could potentially capture a piece of the market for renewable energy in the Western United States, but it’s going to take major policy changes on both sides of the border, as well as hefty investment in transmission and generation in the province.

A white paper released earlier this month by The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), a B.C.-based academic research group, examined both the opportunities and risks of expanding electricity exports, as called for in the province’s 2010 Clean Energy Act.

The Clean Energy Act lays out two different types of export projects, one through the IRP process and the other through a surplus created through “self-sufficiency” requirements. The act protects ratepayers from the risk associated with the IRP process, but not from risks associated with province’s self-sufficiency requirements, the report says.

Dr. George Hoberg, from the University of British Columbia and co-author of the report, told Energy Prospects West that there are several policy gaps in the B.C. export plan.

“We need to ensure that the investments needed to build projects to export make economic sense,” Hoberg said. “We don’t have anything that requires a net-benefit test.”

The province also lacks a comprehensive land-use planning mechanism.

“How do we plan for the environmental impacts in B.C.? We do have province-wide electricity planning, but we don’t have a framework for land-use planning at the regional level that allows for the cumulative impacts of multiple projects.”

The white paper lays out six policy recommendations, including developing a revenue-sharing mechanism with local communities affected by large new energy projects.

In addition, the paper recommends that the government ensure that electricity exports do not jeopardize the reliability of domestic supply by providing guidance on setting upper limits on the proportion of B.C. electricity that can be dedicated to the export market.

The government should also require any importing jurisdiction to have meaningful demand-side management programs in place before signing an export contract.

…Still, B.C. sees a market for its renewable power, thanks to RPS requirements in states within the Western Electricity Coordinating Council’s footprint.

BC Hydro’s 2008 Long Term Acquisition Plan suggested that total renewable energy demand within WECC could reach 177,301 GWh/yr (20.2 aGW) in 2020. In 2008, 43,618 GWh/yr (5 aGW) were in service, leaving a gap in supply of renewable energy of 133,683 GWh/yr, according to BC Hydro projections.

An analysis done last year by Clean Energy B.C., a coalition of independent power producers in the province, suggested that the B.C. could capture 10 percent of the WECC market for renewables.

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…a recent article claims it could take just 40 years to convert the bulk of the world’s global energy usage from fossil fuels to renewable energy, primarily wind and solar power.

That’s not only vehicle fuel, but also electric-power generation, home heating, and the many other global activities that rely on the remarkably high energy density of the hydrocarbon molecules in coal, oil, and natural gas.

Researchers from Stanford University and the University of California-Davis published their analysis in the journal Energy Policy.

Measuring costs vs benefits

The main challenges, say the authors, will be summoning the global will to make the conversion. “There are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources,” said author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor, saying it is only a question of “whether we have the societal and political will.”

Another challenge: accurately accounting for both the costs (which are comparatively easy to tally and project) and the benefits (which are tougher).

When looking at the cost of junking half a century’s worth of existing power plants, for example, how can electric utilities benefit from the tens of billions of dollars in public health costs that will be avoided in the future once those emissions are no longer being generated?

Those public-health benefits might include saving 2.5 to 3 million lives each year.

And then there’s the benefit of halting climate change, not to mention reductions in water pollution, and increased energy security as more of each nation’s energy is generated from within its own borders.

Step One: New generation from renewables

The authors assessed the costs, benefits, and materials requirements necessary to convert the bulk of the world’s energy usage to renewable sources.

Just as it will do over the next few decades for cars, electricity will play an increasingly large role, with 90 percent from wind turbines and various forms of solar generation.

Hydroelectric and geothermal sources would each provide about 4 percent of the total, with another 2 percent from wave and tidal power…

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Dear Mr. Abbott, Ms. Clark, Mr. de Jong, Mr. Dix, Mr. Falcon, Mr. Farnworth, Mr. Horgan, Mr. Lali, Mr. Larsen, Mr. Mayne, Mr. Simons, and Dr. Stilwell:

This winter has seen remarkable strides in worldwide leadership on combating global warming. December alone saw Japan announce an escalating carbon tax, designed to curb fossil-fuel consumption; California’s Air Resources Board voted to adopt the large-emitter cap-and-trade provision laid out in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Clean Energy Act; and Chris Huhne, Minister of Energy in the U.K., set out a four-point program that includes a national carbon tax tied to reductions in income and employment taxes.

Curbing carbon pollution and slowing global warming while putting money in people’s pockets makes obvious sense. But there are additional benefits. California’s renewable-energy sector is now growing more rapidly than any other segment of its economy, providing tens of thousands of new, well-paying jobs while broadening the tax base. In B.C., the carbon tax is stimulating capital investment and innovation that is helping to drive the GDP associated with the green economy from $15 billion in 2008 to a projected $20 to $27 billion by 2020, as much as 15 per cent of provincial output. Some 225,000 direct and indirect green jobs will be in place by 2020, up from 166,000 in 2008.

By Thomas Pedersen, Special to the Sun

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