Media release - for immediate release
B.C. Citizens for Green Energy
www.greenenergybc.ca
January 28, 2010
Rafe Mair launches
nuclear attack on B.C.
“We’d be going from Burrard Thermal
to Burrard Thermonuclear, and there’s no reason
to do that when we’ve got so many renewable energy
sources available to us in this province.”
— Gene Vickers, B.C. Citizens for Green Energy —
Vancouver, B.C. — Recent comments by former radio personality Rafe Mair, in which Mair suggests B.C. should be looking at nuclear power as an energy option, has B.C. Citizens for Green Energy (BCCGE) scratching their heads.
BCCGE co-spokesperson Gene Vickers says his group have come to expect some pretty crazy, off-the-wall stuff from Rafe Mair, but everyone is wondering why Mair would be suggesting a nuclear path for B.C. when the province has a natural wealth of untapped renewable green energy resources to pick and choose from?
“When it comes to renewable green energy resources, B.C’s got it in spades,” Vickers said. “We have some of the best wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass, wave and tidal energy resources in the world and we’ve barely scratched the surface of these for generating electricity.”
Vickers acknowledges that nuclear power is considered to be a “clean” energy source and that it is in use in many places around the world; places where they are not blessed with the natural abundance of renewable energy sources found in B.C.
Vickers also acknowledges that nuclear power has acquired a bad reputation because of disasters like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Homer Simpson—the fictional character from The Simpsons TV series who works at the fictional Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.
“Looking at nuclear power makes sense someplace where there are no other clean energy options available, but B.C. is definitely not one of those places right now,” Vickers said. “The renewable energy resources we’ve got here in B.C. are outstanding and other jurisdictions would die just to have a fraction of what we’ve got at our fingertips.”
Vickers says the prominent role that Rafe Mair has had at the forefront of a well-funded, well-orchestrated campaign against independent green energy producers—led in large part by COPE 378, the union that represents BC Hydro’s public sector employees—has caused BCCGE to wonder if Rafe Mair’s sudden interest in nuclear power might be some sort of a “trial balloon” being floated by the opponents of green energy development B.C. and in support of some sort of COPE 378 agenda.
COPE 378 campaigned long and hard to keep BC Hydro’s gas-fired Burrard Thermal generating station open instead of allowing independents to develop green energy alternatives; a battle they lost because, as Vickers point out, it make no sense to rely on a 40-year old greenhouse gas factory from the cold war era when we’re trying to bring down carbon dioxide emissions.
Vickers says all of this has led BCCGE to wonder whether COPE 378 might be the next to chime in on a nuclear path for B.C.—presumably under the COPE 378 public sector union umbrella.
“It’s scary to imagine COPE 378 stepping forward at some future point and suggesting that the Burrard Thermal site in Port Moody be re-purposed with a ‘public power’ COPE 378 nuclear reactor,” said Vickers. “We’d be going from Burrard Thermal to Burrard Thermonuclear, and there’s no reason to do that when we’ve got so many renewable energy sources available to us in this province.”
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For more information contact Bruce Sanderson
Co-spokesperson, B.C. Citizens for Green Energy
604-637-2150
e-mail us at info@greenenergybc.ca
B.C. Citizens for Green Energy is an advocacy group representing a cross-section of British Columbians who encourage a legacy of clean, renewable electricity for future generations.
www.greenenergybc.ca