The Lawyer’s Daily, Robert McCullough

From the Tennessee to the Columbia rivers, hydroelectric dams have played a decisive role in making cheap electricity widely distributed throughout the North American economy. From declining fish populations to flooded land, some Canadians and Americans have had to pay a higher price to make hydro power possible.

That social trade-off is making less sense today as the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) from wind and solar generation has now dropped below the LCOE of hydro and most all thermal energy resources. The portion of a U.S. state’s power generation by hydro no longer predicts its electricity prices.

Vancouver Sun, Robert McCullough

A month ago, I had the honour of sitting down with the NDP cabinet and Premier John Horgan. I gave a detailed presentation why proceeding with Site C would be costly and risky. Curiously, after the cabinet meeting the only followup involved questions from specific MLAs — not inquiries from the cabinet or their staff.

Vancouver Sun, Robert McCullough

This fallacy, which is related to status-quo bias, can also be viewed as bias resulting from an ongoing commitment. For example, individuals sometimes order too much food and then over-eat ‘just to get their money’s worth.’ Similarly, a person may have a $20 ticket to a concert and then drive for hours through a blizzard, just because s/he feels that s/he has to attend due to having made the initial investment. If the costs outweigh the benefits, the extra costs incurred (inconvenience, time or even money) are held in a different mental account than the one associated with the ticket transaction.