GIVE YOURSELF A BIG GREEN HUG

            Hopefully my letter to the editor gets published as follows:       

        UPDATE:  AT this evenings city budget meeting 2016/02/18  I asked Alex Love manager of Nelson Hydro what makes the solar garden green, his reply "its isn't green, no one said it was green"????  And all this time I thought people were throwing their money at this loser because it was green??  So why would anyone throw away their money for this project which makes no power worth anything!  In one year it makes the same power our dam makes for $700, its a $300,000 project that won't last 20 years?                

                                                                          

                                       GIVE YOURSELF A BIG GREEN HUG

What makes the Nelson solar garden Green?  Did those buying solar panels expect this power would be greener than our own dam’s waterpower?  Would we just let our water spill over the dam to be replaced by this “green” solar power?

Solar panels aren’t green until they return all the non-renewable energy required to make them,  that can take years, especially in Nelson, this isn’t Arizona.  If solar power can avoid some non-renewable power being spent in a power plant somewhere that could make solar power “green”, otherwise its just an undependable expensive feel good waste.

 The only coal power in BC comes at night  from Alberta, those plants take days to shut down, BC buys that power at night, saving our water.  Alberta has announced all coal power will be gone by 2030.  Our solar garden can’t help there.  So just where is this Nelson solar power becoming “green”?

The solar garden is supposed to save us on purchasing extra power from Fortis.  The engineers report shows the solar garden for December could make 868 kWh, we pay Fortis 4c/kWh, the solar garden would save us $34.  SAVE? We resell that Fortis power for 10c/kWh bringing $86 helping reduce our taxes.  During high water from spring freshet through high summer lake levels our dam makes power to sell, up to 28GWh extra power, equivalent to 700 solar gardens.  The engineers report shows the solar garden might make 7500kWh in July, BC Hydro buys 90% of our extra power for $.007c/kWh, if they buy any at all.  July solar garden power could be worth $52.  Unless all our extra waterpower were sold first, one could not attribute any solar power to getting to the grid to become “green” by saving some non renewable fuel in some unknown power plant somewhere, that makes summer solar power, when almost all of it is made, worthless.

Is this clear, the solar garden SAVES? $34 that otherwise would bring the city $86 and if sold we might get $52 in July for a $300,000 project and no Green House Gas is saved.

When you drive by  the 1^st solar garden about to be constructed give yourself a big green hug, that will be the only thing green about it.  They are now selling solar panels for the 2^nd solar garden.  Your power bill is going up 3.8% this year.   My pension went up 1.2%.

I don’t know how many more of these solar gardens I can afford to have me SAVE? money and make the planet “greener”.  If you are a Nelson Hydro customer not in the city, you too are SAVING and making the planet “green”.

Norm Yanke

Nelson, B.C.

If you feel this is wasting your money, please let city council know

let city council know by clicking on this link.

UPDATE  Now I am angry.  I see SD8 is buying 10 solar panels, wasting education dollars.
I am not sure what phony number is now attached to the purchase of one of these panels.
Last I heard around $900.  Real cost, real money, not included more like $1500.

One solar panel in a year makes the power our dam makes for $5 and sells for a profit.

If sold on the grid to go and find some non-renewable fuel like coal etc.  BC Hydro pays
$.007c/kWh.  That $1500 ($900) solar panel power for the entire year of wasting education dollars would fetch $1.75!!!!!!!!!!!!