B.C. will need more electricity

Editorial
Times Colonist (Victoria)
04-Dec-2005

Over the past five years, B.C. has gone from being an exporter of electricity to being a net importer. Unless we build one or more new power plants in the near future, the province will face a major shortfall of electricity in the decade ahead.

These are some of the conclusions from a critique of provincial energy policy, tabled recently by the B.C. Progress Board. The board was appointed by Premier Gordon Campbell to look for ways of accelerating economic growth: Its members are drawn from business and the academic community.

The reasons for this emerging crisis are simple enough: The last major addition to our generating capacity came in 1984. Since then our population has climbed 40 per cent, and projections suggest this growth rate will continue. Over the next decade, B.C. is expected to add the equivalent of a city the size of Kamloops every year.

As the report points out, B.C. has been coasting on cheap hydro-electric power from dams built on the Peace and Columbia rivers in the 1960s and '70s. That has created an illusion of security that makes the public and politicians unwilling to confront the need for action.

Moreover it's unlikely the deficiency can be made up by purchasing cheap surplus electricity from neighbouring jurisdictions, as B.C. Hydro has been doing in recent years.

At the same time our energy needs are increasing, world-wide demand is forecast to surge, due in part to the rapid pace of industrialization in China and India. We will be forced, therefore, to pay a much higher premium for imported power in coming years, or to live with brown-outs, or quite possibly to suffer both.

The authors warn that Ontario and California followed a similar path. Political leaders left public utilities to make the argument for additional power capacity, and in both cases, energy producers failed to convince a skeptical public.

In California, the effective outcome was a 20-year moratorium on new plant construction, which coincides with B.C.'s record almost exactly. Both jurisdictions went on to experience repeated brownouts, extending in California to rolling blackouts and a political firestorm that eventually saw the state governor dismissed in a recall vote.

What distinguishes this critique from similar reports is its willingness to confront the elephant in the room -- B.C. Hydro. The authors allege, in respectful but clear language, that government has lost control of the utility.

"B.C. Hydro is seen by many concerned parties to heavily outweigh the ministry (of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources) in staff and resources.... As a consequence, B.C. Hydro is seen as setting its own policies ... or responding to matters of public interest, such as the government's Energy Plan, in its own time and manner."

A case in point was the recent decision to abandon work on the new Duke Point power plant in Nanaimo, after the B.C. Court of Appeal granted opponents the right to a hearing. The Crown corporation walked away from $120 million already spent on the project, leaving the community and business partners in the lurch.

Not only did the decision catch ministers off guard, the fall-back strategy -- an upgrade of existing power lines from the mainland -- contradicted the corporation's earlier statements about the urgent need for new generating capacity on Vancouver Island. Of course that only added to the general atmosphere of complacency about electricity supply.

What's at stake is more than a political tussle over who controls energy policy, cabinet or the board of B.C. Hydro. The report makes a convincing case that unless government and the corporation speak with one voice, and do so consistently, there's little chance new installations will proceed.

In fact the challenge is quite daunting. Many of the environmental impacts that accompanied power-plant construction in bygone years would never be tolerated today. When the Peace and Columbia dams were built, aboriginal communities were flooded without prior consultation or compensation. Opposition to new gas-fired generating stations in the Lower Mainland is intense.

A prolonged spate of brownouts would no doubt soften public resistance. But given the extensive lead-time required to bring new capacity on line, well before we get to that point the damage will be done.

Convincing voters a crisis exists before its effects have been felt is never easy. While the Progress Board suggests a number of ways to bridge the gap, such as more energy-efficient building standards and price policies that reward conservation, the bottom line is clear.

Our province can, and should, be self-sufficient in electricity. But unless the cabinet takes B.C. Hydro in hand, and both present a convincing case to consumers, the government's promise of a "golden decade" ahead may fall by the wayside.