Reader submitted request

I had this slither over the transom at Facebook tonight:

Re: My image on your blog

Between You and Jenny Moores

Jenny Moores October 24 at 6:09pm Report

Terry: I am writing to politely ask you to take my photo off your blog. While I appreciate that you have opinions about one rate power, I don't appreciate you using my image to prove your point. Surely you can find a more suitable photo that actually relates to your position.

If I'm correct, you and I used to have the same job at NNSL - we were both photo editors. With that background, I would expect you have an awareness of photo usage rights.

Please and thank you,

Jennifer Moores

And my reply:

Terry Halifax October 24 at 7:44pm

Hi Jenny

As per your request, I’ve removed your image and replaced it with an artist’s rendition.

I can appreciate that you wouldn’t want your visage associated with the comments you made or the company you keep.

Get used to it. It’s time someone put a face to some of the numbskulls running these shadowy organizations that want to put the world on hold, while you wallow in personal luxuries.

You and your ilk have postponed legacy and hope for thousands of indigenous people along the Mackenzie Valley.

Take notice, Jenny, people are fed up with this mindless bullshit you granola-munching tourists are spouting and you need to be exposed.

Many people are working hard to build a sustainable, realistic future for the North and it includes a real future for people in remote communities.

It also includes wind, solar, gasification, cogeneration, biomass and fuel cells. And yes, Jenny, our future also includes a pipeline.

I doubt you recognize that you and your counterparts are committing economic genocide with your policies. You probably think you’re actually helping.

Get this straight, Jenny, you are NOT helping!

Warm regards,

Terry

Not sure where she got the idea I was ever a photo editor, but I guess I better polish up my writing a bit.

All for one and one rate for all

The much-anticipated Electricity Review has been completed.

For those keeping count, this is report number four in the last ten years.

When the review panel was in Inuvik, I tried to argue the case for one blended rate power for the whole territory.

Most of what I said didn’t make it in the report; I guess I was speaking to fast for the typist.

To recap, like it or not, we are all members in this club together, but we're not all enjoying membership privileges.

We all own the hydro facilities, but only those on the grid enjoy the benefit of lower energy costs. We all paid a low water rate rider, when the Snare hydro system was slowed to a trickle. We all pay for a bloated corporate office that the government refused to downsize when the territory split.

When Inuvik upgraded to a natural gas turbine system, only Inuvik rate payers paid the rider for the upgrade.

I explained to the panel that as the cost of service and the cost of fuel continue to rise, it is inevitable that the NTPC’s largest customer – Inuvik -- will be forced to seek an alternative.

There is this corporate mentality within NTPC that breeds waste and inefficiency, because the flaw in any crown-owned utility, is that they can always write off any expense as “the cost of service.”

This means they can take a charter when they don’t feel like driving the ice road, they can give six figure bonuses to management, they can avoid renewable energy sources, because it’s not in their interest. The more they spend, the more they make. Every dollar spent, is a dollar earned through the “cost of service.”

During an Association of Communities AGM, I brought up the subject with municipal leaders from Hay River, Fort Simpson and Norman Wells. It’s become obvious that we’re not all in this together, so why should we continue to share the cost of service with those who won’t share with us?

The communities along the Mackenzie Valley all share the same frustrations and, over a few cocktails, we dreamt of the Mackenzie Valley Energy Corporation.

All along the pipeline route, we could tap into the line, distribute the gas, generate our own electricity through co-generation and distribute our own electricity and recover heat to distribute to municipal buildings.

So what happens to what’s left of the NTPC? The once-blessed hydro customers will be left to shoulder the burden of that bloated corporate office, as well as subsidize every other community not on the grid or the pipeline route. In short, NTPC will fold like a house of cards.

I notice in the report that Ecology North was against any attempt to introduce one rate in the NWT, as they believe that the current higher rates in thermal communities encourage conservation.

With that line of thinking, why not make the Yellowknife, Hay River and Fort Smith rate the same as it is in Collville Lake? At $2.45/kwh, just think of all you’d conserve!

Take a look at the Ecology North web page and you’ll have a pretty good idea at how “North” they really are. Here’s one of the three questions they asked the board members to answer in their biographies:

“What is your favourite thing about YK, in 3 WORDS OR LESS?” (Emphasis theirs. I can only surmise that the caps lock key got stuck in between bong hits and no one noticed.)

Jenny Moores’ reply spoke volumes:

“small, sunny city”

Hate to burst your bubble Jenny, but winter’s coming and the sun is going.

And, with the Mackenzie Valley Energy Corporation, so goes your cheap energy on the backs of the rest of us.