Quote:
Originally Posted by Kisai
For the most part, the only reason we have Burrard Thermal (950MW) at all is because of spikey local loads AFAIK, and BC Hydro wants to shut it down permanently (probably a bad idea, but it's too expensive to run without a full load, and emissions makes it lower the air quality of Metro Vancouver.)
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I'm pretty sure Burrard Thermal is already shut down.
The Buntzen Power Plant needs the vertical drop to sea level to generate significant power. Hence why it dumps fresh water into the ocean.
Utilising drinking water for power production could be an option, but you would also have to start pumping the water back up hills to get it to the distribution system, so you would probably not break even.
Much of the city is barely below the Coquitlam Lake level (155masl). Currently gravity does most of the pumping works. If you generated power from the water flows, then you'd also have to use power to get the water to where it's consumed after.