Change of Energy

Alisa Gordaneer
Monday Magazine
Jun 22 2005

BC Hydro shocked us all late last week, when it announced that the Duke Point power plant project was toast. No, it didn't use those very words-presumably, power companies don't care for analogies that call to mind anything that implies a mishap with electricity-but the essential meaning was the same: There would be no gas-powered generating plant near Nanaimo after all. Almost as soon as a group of environmentalists won the right to appeal the project, the company announced it wasn't happening after all. You'd almost think, based on how quickly they backed down, that they might have been worried about what would be revealed by an environmental appeal. Could it have been proven that the power plant would be environmentally hazardous? Is it possible it wasn't terribly necessary after all? We're not likely to find out now.

It's thanks to the efforts of a group of environmentalists-the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition, the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association, and the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation-that the project is dead. And hey, nobody even had to lie down in front of trucks, or chain themselves to a pipeline. How very civilized and new millennium.

Now, even though the Duke Point project is no more, the Hydro company still seems undaunted, and may try to pull a similar project out of its hat elsewhere in B.C.. Clearly, more paperwork for environmentalists is in the works, as are more questions about the value of this particular means of electricity generation.

Remember, this project was meant to create more power here on Vancouver Island. For what? All our big-screen TVs, air-conditioners and home cappuccino machines? Nice-but it's becoming clear such plans come with an environmental price tag we may not be able to afford. Now that Duke Point is, yes, toast, we can look realistically at two different, more sustainable options. First, we can see the possibility for more alternative energy here on Vancouver Island. Second, if we're worried about there being enough power for all those toys, we can consider the bigger question: whether we really need them in the first place. Now that's energy well spent. M