Economist Eric Anderson on Hydro and PPP's

Rafe sends out quite a few e-mails to everyone on his list asking them to be forwarded to everyone on our lists. As my readership is considerably larger than my mailing list I choose to publish Rafe's emails here.
As he has passed this to me , you can forward it to your mailing list.

RAFE HERE ... below you'll find a letter I received which I think you'll find interesting enough to pass on to your address book.[snip.....]

----- Original Message -----
From: erik andersen
To: HDawson@vancouversun.com
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 1:07 PM
Subject: Practice of contracting with PPP for electricity

From Erik Andersen; Economist
635 Rollo Road, Gabriola Island, BC, V0R 1X3
250-247-8438

Re; The Practice at BC Hydro to commit to payment contracts with Private Power Producers (PPP)

Dear Editor;

A number of years ago the Liberal Government of British Columbia set out to transform BC Hydro into a privately run corporation. Myself and a host of others pointed out that the Government did not have a political mandate for such a transformation and besides it was the height of stupidity to grant private commercial interests monopoly rights over the general population.

Superficially this transformation idea was withdrawn. Not to be easily dissuaded from their ideological course, the Government and BC Hydro's Board then pursued the same policy by using the contracting authority at BC Hydro. The Duke Point generation plant was one of the first of these contracts. Pristine Power (PPP) was to get a contract having a present value of $500 million for building and commissioning a plant costing $300 million (their own number given in evidence). The PPP would get its revenue even without generation of one KW and was not required to assume the cost increases flowing from higher natural gas prices or pollution penalties.

This contract model, with varying features, has been used in the years since then. Globally the people of BC have now indirectly been saddled with about $30 billion of new debt that does not show in the Government's accounts. This new debt will imperil the solvency of BC Hydro and indirectly the Province. It will certainly figure negatively in the process of establishing the Province's future credit rating.

The BC Utilities Commission has recently made the right decision. I only wish it had been sooner. The Board at BC Hydro should be ashamed for collaborating in what appears to be a plan to financially ruin a publicly owned corporation.

Sincerely
Erik Andersen
(end)

I submit here that this not only appears to be but is a "plan to financially ruin a publicly owned corporation."
Just like it is the liberals plan to ruin our rivers , kill off all our wild fish, shut down our rural hospitals, give welfare to the rich, hide our homeless from the olympics, and give away our railway. Gary E.