LTAP: Watch for Libs to rein in run-of-river spoilers

Michael Smyth
The Province
August 2, 2009

Last week's regulatory smackdown of Premier Gordon Campbell's clean-energy plan threw the government for a loop, not to mention the private power producers set to pump billions of dollars into B.C.'s green energy revolution.

The B.C. Utilities Commission shocked the industry and its government backers by declaring B.C. Hydro's long-term plan for private run-of-river hydro and wind projects to be "not in the public interest" and told the Crown corporation to come back with a new plan by next year.

I doubt the government will wait that long, only to risk being sent packing by the independent regulators again. That's why I'm told the government is considering all its options, including a possible cabinet override of the BCUC decision.

This would be a risky political move for Campbell, who bragged about empowering the utility commission to function at arm's length from government.

But this is the same government that last week launched massive reviews of supposedly independent B.C. Ferries and TransLink, too. Get set for more meddling.

A key concern for government is the potential flight of private-power investment capital from B.C. after years of courting the industry. The power companies took a beating on the stock market last week and I'm told the investment capitalists that bankroll them have put the government on notice: Fix this or our money goes elsewhere.

With nearly $7 billion set to be poured into independent power projects, it's no wonder Campbell and company are considering drastic action. But, ironically, the upstart utilities commission may have thrown the private power companies a lifeline by including a bizarre directive in its decision: That B.C. Hydro ramp up the generating capacity of its Cold War-era Burrard Thermal power plant to an astonishing 5,000 gigawatts a year.

That would make the 1962-built Port Moody dinosaur the biggest single belcher of greenhouse gases, pollution and smog in the entire province -- at the very time air quality and climate change are among the planet's top environmental challenges.

It would also require the clunking plant to rev its engines at a higher rate than ever before.

To put that 5,000 gigawatts into perspective, the last time Burrard Thermal broke the 2,000-gigawatt threshold was 2002 -- the same year a hydrogen tank exploded and blew a five-metre-wide hole in a wall and started a fire. B.C. Hydro was lucky no one was killed.

The government had slated the aging, inefficient plant to cut back production and eventually shut down. Cranking it up in the other direction would pump two million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere along with smog and pollution -- an insane proposition when B.C. has vast untapped stores of clean, zero-emission energy.

In other words, the commission has given the government the perfect excuse to bring the hammer down. Watch for Campbell to once again don his green cape and play environmental superman -- and pull the choke chain on his "independent" utility watchdog.

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