Coal-fired power plants stir up controversy
BC Hydro: The plants are among 38 proposed independent power projects
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
December 26, 2006
CREDIT: Ted Rhodes, CanWest news service
Epcor Utilities Inc.'s coal-fired power generating plant is located in Wabamun, about 60 kilometres west of Edmonton. B.C. is one of the few jurisdictions in North America that doesn't burn coal to generate electricity.
Public scrutiny of British Columbia's electricity system is going to intensify as the province makes its first serious stab in two decades at expanding the volume of power moving through the grid, some experts are predicting.
Of 38 independent power projects BC Hydro has approved this year, the ones attracting the greatest attention are a pair of coal-fired generation projects. One is proposed for Princeton in the south and the other for Tumbler Ridge in east-central B.C.
On Dec. 21, Environment Canada released new greenhouse gas emissions data showing that across Canada in 2005, coal-fired generating plants belched out 280 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and remained among the nation's biggest polluters.
Some critics are wondering why British Columbia, where coal is burned only in the manufacture of cement, is in a hurry to join a club whose members already envy B.C.'s abundant, emission-free hydroelectric resources.
Others say that in the absence of some new technology, B.C. may be stuck with the old stuff as it struggles to keep up with a growing population's surging demand for electric power.
"As always, B.C. is on the leading edge, and at some stage the world is going to transition from traditional fossil fuels, non-renewables to renewable power," says Tony Fogarassy, chair of Clark Wilson LLP's energy and natural resources practice group.
"I think the harsh reality is that at least for those who are big proponents of renewable energy, we've got an abundance of natural resources that are relatively cheap, that are easy to produce.
"There is a dichotomy of sorts, a conundrum for people."
Even with Hydro announcing that 29 successful applicants are proposing new hydro projects to be situated on streams scattered across the province, the so-called green power sector is expected to take some hits.
Municipalities have chastised the B.C. Liberal government for stripping them of the authority to negotiate land-use contracts with independent power producers.
Former B.C. Utilities Commission chairman Mark Jaccard says the last 20 years have been comparatively quiet in the province's energy sector -- due to a lack of high-profile projects that would have attracted controversy.
"Yes, I think we had an apparently calm time in terms of land-use conflicts with energy resources for a couple of decades. We did not need to build new electricity capacity, we did not proceed with offshore oil and gas, and the development of oil and gas in the northeast happened at a measured pace," Jaccard said.
"We must expand electricity capacity now," Jaccard said. "Because much of it is small-scale enterprise from independent power producers, there will be lots of local conflicts.
"Because any use of fossil fuels -- without carbon capture technology -- will increase greenhouse gas emissions, there are also going to be concerns in the major urban centres among educated elites and environmentalists."
Jaccard is an economist at Simon Fraser University who recently won Canada's Donner Prize for non-fiction writing on public policy.
His book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, argues that coal can continue to make a large and low cost contribution to humanity's energy requirements -- provided it is used in concert with technologies that capture and safely dispose of greenhouse gas emissions rather than dispersing them into the atmosphere and contributing to global climate change.
A decade ago the province was self-sustaining but is now dependent on imported U.S. electricity for about 15 per cent of annual supply. Hydro already says that the imports are biting into its revenues.
Dan Potts, executive director of the Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee, agrees that any new development is likely to attract some controversy.
"We're doing some things that haven't been done in the past to the same magnitude -- the run of river projects, for example," Potts says.
"Everybody talks about renewable energy until you start building it. Then you find out it's going to be in your backyard, and that stream where it will be situated is a place of importance to you -- and all of a sudden you don't want it.
"If we change the current status of a piece of property there will always be those who want to develop it, and those who don't think it's appropriate."
But Potts, who represents B.C.'s largest industrial consumers of electricity, said importing power instead of developing new supplies within the province would be a mistake.
"The major risk associated with a lack of self-sufficiency is your exposure to import markets, exposure to wide price swings on commodity markets."
British Columbia, he notes, is one of very few jurisdictions in either North America or Europe that does not burn coal to generate electricity -- but he believes the issue of coal-fired generation warrants careful consideration.
"There seems to be almost a panic with respect to greenhouse gasses. Maybe there is some justification for it, I don't know. But where that kind of attitude rules, we are very likely to make some bad fundamental policy decisions.
"We've ruled out nuclear. A major flooding of valleys for large scale hydroelectric doesn't seem to be an acceptable alternative. Natural gas was the fuel of choice not too long ago, but now that we've seen such extreme price volatility, you'd be taking some real risks."
Hydro projects that British Columbia will annually need an additional 20,000 gigawatt hours of electricity within 20 years.
Even its biggest potential hydro project, the $5 billion Site C dam on the Peace River, would only meet one-fifth of that requirement.
"So how are you going to do it? I don't know," Potts concedes.
"But it looks to me like we need to get some wind, some run of the river, some biomass, biomass-coal, and perhaps we need a major coal project as part of the mix."
Neither Compliance Energy in Princeton, nor the AESWapiti Energy Corporation group in Tumbler Ridge are proposing large-scale coal generation projects. Hence, neither will offer state-of-the-art emission control technology.
Instead, they proposes to dilute the impact of their emissions by consuming a proportion of biomass -- wood waste -- in their burners. Wood waste is seen as greenhouse gas-neutral because wood, left untouched to decay on its own, will release the same volume of carbon dioxide as it does when deliberately burned.
Brad Hope shudders at the thought of coal power taking root in B.C.
The Princeton resident, a grandfather who says he is unaccustomed to political activism, was one of a busload of residents who traveled to Chilliwack last month to stand in front of B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner's office to protest BC Hydro's acceptance of the Compliance coal plant bid.
"We've got to get this out into the public more," Hope says. "I think people just haven't grasped what's happening.
"And in lots of ways I don't think the average person should have to become an expert in coal- fired power generation and gasification.
"We elect an government, and an environment minister, who are supposed to protect us and should be looking at the best technologies. For god's sake, why wouldn't B.C. at least go with the best technology? I don't understand that.
"So somehow we as people have to get together, make scenes, make protests. I'm almost 60. I've got grandchildren that I'm concerned about and here I am chanting in front of Penner's office, 'No coal, supernatural B.C.' It seems so stupid but what else do you do?"
The plant would be situated 14 kilometres out of the city, but Hope says emissions will still be a problem because "the prevailing wind comes right down the valley."
Any doubt about that situation was removed last summer, Hope said, when smoke from a major forest fire in the Princeton region settled directly over the community.
"There is an environmental review process that works within certain terms of reference. Once those terms are set you really can't challenge anything. There are no restrictions on greenhouse gas so there is nothing we can talk about there. We can't argue whether or not climate change is real."
Compliance chief executive officer John Tapics is not surprised by the project's reception in the local community, attributing it to a general unfamiliarity with coal-fired generation.
"This project along with the one up at Tumbler Ridge are the first ones in B.C. in some time to propose to burn any amount of coal. While it's a recognized generation source in the rest of North America, it's new to this province," Tapics said.
Echoing Dan Potts, Tapics said the primary advantage to a coal plant is that you can rely on a steady supply of energy, at a low, steady, price over a very long period of time.
"The advantage of coal is a stable fuel price and the difficulty you have with a plant burning natural gas -- whether it be in a plant like [BC Hydro's aging] Burrard thermal or a modern combustion turbine -- is the volatility of gas price and being able to lock in a long-term fuel supply agreement.
"Since you can't do that, those projects are extremely difficult to finance. Whereas by using coal and wood waste, in this case, and having a secure supply of coal we are able to get financing for the project.
Coal power is "absolutely not" the right direction for B.C., replies Tom Hackney, a BC Hydro policy specialist with the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association.
"BC Hydro does have serious concerns about what they refer to as firm electricity -- which is electricity from a source that allows them to throw the switch anytime, day or night, and they know it will be there.
"They view that as more beneficial than an intermittent form of energy such as wind, which is not blowing all the time, or small hydroelectric where there is a seasonal fluctuation in energy."
Since Hydro ramped up its Powersmart conservation program in 2000, the Crown corporation "has been achieving more conservation at lower costs than they expected," Hackney said.
He noted that Hydro is updating its conservation potential review, last undertaken in 2002.
Hackey said Hydro forecasts that conservation, or 'demand-side management' could shave 10,000 gigawatts from power requirements over the next 20 years.
"My opinion is that we should be doubling that target at least. It's a conservative target based on a conservative conservation potential review.
"Energy conservation is zero greenhouse gas emitting, zero pollution emitting. It's environmentally the optimum."
© The Vancouver Sun 2006