Duke Point power - an end that marks a beginning

Ray Grigg
Courier-Islander
Friday, July 01, 2005

The Duke Point Power project in Nanaimo, an undertaking to produce 262 megawatts of electricity for Vancouver Island by burning natural gas, has finally been declared dead. BC Hydro has cancelled its agreement with Pristine Power of Calgary for the $285 million project and will now rely on other means and strategies for meeting the Island's electricity needs.

Environmentalists were opposed to the project since its inception in 1994, arguing that eventual shortages of natural gas would make the plant an expensive source of electricity, and that the carbon dioxide emissions -- about 20 million tonnes of the greenhouse gases over the 25-year lifetime -- were unnecessary because of viable green-power options. Time has proven them correct. And time has also confirmed the dilemma facing us if we do not quickly move away from fossil fuels to eco-friendly renewables as our energy of choice.

Even in the 1990s the prospect for cheap natural gas was looking uncertain as prices fluxuated between $2 and $16 per gigajoule (about 1,000 cubic feet).

Meanwhile, as dozens of gas-fired power plants were being built throughout the US and Canada, and as homes and industries were shifting to this fuel, production in Alberta was peaking. Since then, despite drilling about 10,000 wells per year, Alberta's output has been falling by about 2% per year -- some major wells are depleting at an annual rate of 25%. BC's production is rising at about the same rate as Alberta's decline. Overall, however, the rate of consumption is surpassing production.

In 2003, the CEO of TransCanada Corporation, Hal Kvisle, testified before a US government committee that consumption of natural gas would soon outstrip production. "We estimate natural gas demand growth of more than 15 billion cubic feet per day by 2012, but supply growth from traditional North American sources is not expected to be more than five billion cubic feet per day." (The Vancouver Sun, Jun.11/03). Since then, the energy equation has become even more complicated, principally because of oil.

After Saudi Arabia, Alberta holds the second largest supply of oil reserves in the world. Unfortunately this oil is locked in tar sands, and natural gas is used to either heat water or make steam to extract it -- a process akin to using the magic of alchemy to turn the relatively clean energy of gold into lead. About 400 million cubic feet of natural gas is used each day to process this sand. Increased oil production is expected to triple this consumption of gas in less than a decade.

With alternative extraction processes still many years away, North America's natural gas consumption -- excluding any other needs --will rise to satisfy the rising demand for Alberta oil. Meanwhile, according to the Globe & Mail (May 28/05), "[Canada's natural gas] production has probably reached its peak." And the estimated six trillion cubic feet in the Mackenzie Delta, once slated for traditional uses, will likely go directly to produce oil.

This is the energy scenario that finally caught up with the Duke Point Power project, eventually making a bad idea even worse. Delays incurred by the BC Utilities Commission hearings and then the courts simply made obvious what was apparent from the beginning. Unfortunately, the failed project has cost the taxpayers of BC $120 million in wasted planning, studies and equipment.

Fortunately -- thanks to the dogged diligence of a few dedicated environmentalists such as Tom Hackney, Arthur Caldicott and their supporters -- BC Hydro did not stumble into a commitment that would have provided an uncertain supply of expensive electricity, millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases, and a delayed start to a green energy program on Vancouver Island.

Guy Dauncey, the Victoria publisher of Econews and a very credible source of practical green ideas, has an intelligent response to the lost opportunity to produce 262 megawatts of electricity by burning natural gas at Duke Point. "It's not as if there were a shortage of better power proposals. There's 1000 MW of wind energy on the northern tip of Vancouver Island; 250 MW in the Gold River biomass plant proposal; 362 MW that NorskeCanada says it can generate at its Island mills by combining biomass and cogeneration; 2000 MW of tidal energy potential in the waters north of Vancouver Island; 1000 MW of green power projects around BC that have already applied to BC Hydro.... And 500 MW waiting to be captured on the Island through greater energy efficiency."

Should any of these options no longer be available, we still have a huge supply of potential generating power that can fill Vancouver Island's electricity needs. And, since BC Hydro is already redirecting power to buy and sell for profit, redirecting electricity from wind or tidal sources is merely a more complex form of the same production and distribution strategy. The stage is now set for a green energy future for Vancouver Island.

The death of the Duke Point Power project is simply the opportunity to start what we should have started in 1994.

© Courier-Islander (Campbell River) 2005