The Editor,
Re. "Zap! Get ready for BC Hydro rate hikes" (BC Views, The Tri-City News, July 10).
Tom Fletcher's column reiterates what we have been told for some time: A large part of the future BC Hydro rate increase is caused by the fact that expansion of generating facilities delivers new power at a rate higher than today's rates.
But the government is bribing people to switch to electric cars, contributing to consumption increases that will cause rate increases for us all.
At the same time, the minister is telling us we are producing more natural gas than we need, so we should be consuming large amounts of energy to compress it and ship it overseas. Should the first step not be to switch to natural gas-powered cars, natural gas heating for almost all homes where possible and for all large government buildings?
Right now, electric cars are causing the burning of fuels at distant power plants anyway because that is where our "last watt" comes from.
Rein Nienaber, Saanich
