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Columnist Les Leyne recently wrote about uncertainties surrounding BC Hydro's latest waffling on their proposed Duke Point power plant and about proposals by Norske to become a significant power generator themselves

Then Bev van Ruyven of BC Hydro attempted to eat the waffle by stating that whatever Norske is proposing, it isn't enough, and the Duke Point project is still needed.

Sure.

Three years ago, BC Hydro began telling us that the lights will go out on Vancouver Island by 2003, if they couldn't build the proposed GSX Pipeline and, at the time, the Port Alberni Generation Plant.  What's that?  It's 2003 already?

Then it was 2004, 2005, now I think they're up to 2006.

Leyne says 2007, when some of the cable systems to the island will be
taken out of service.  Please note, it's only BC Hydro's plan to take those systems out of service at that time.  They don't have to do it then.

They're not so bad, you know.  On Boxing Day, when the lights did go out on Vancouver Island, the HVDC system - that's the system they want to take out of service - was carrying 561 megawatts and had been for days.  That's more than twice its rated capacity.

What's really interesting about the Boxing Day outage is that it had nothing to do with an insufficiency of supply.  It began because
of right-of-way neglect by BC Hydro. 

That caused a cascading escalation of load shedding and supply cutoffs on the island, ending up with Island Cogeneration in Campbell River being offline for more than a day, and the aforementioned HVDC taken offline too.  None of this needed to happen.  

The outage began with maintenance neglect, and the loss of 360 megawatts, and ended with Hydro's supply management shutting down nearly everything.  Had the Duke Point plant been operating, it too would have been taken offline, just like Island Cogeneration.  Supply is NOT the problem.  Management is.

It is unfortunate that in these three years we haven't been working on a better long-term solution for Vancouver Island.  We certainly could have been, had B.C. Hydro's storm troops not been consuming all the available energy, so to speak, in trying to ram this gas-fired lunacy down our communities.

The new energy policy said that private companies would build all new
generation.  If these projects make good business, as Hydro says they do, where are all the good businesspeople clamoring for a piece of the action?

Maybe BC Hydro should sell both projects in the March auction, with the fast-ferries.  If they make economic sense, there will be furious bidding.  If not, well, maybe they could just float away with one of the Queens of Disaster.

Leyne comments that "now is an odd time to start wondering if this thing is worth all the trouble."  No it isn't, Les, now is the best time, because nothing has been built.  Now is the best time of all. Tomorrow it will be too late, and we'll have yet another multi-million dollar boondoggle to sell  at another auction.

Hydro's "lights will go out" gun is not loaded.  There is no urgency.  Let's  not waste the next three years on this debate.  Instead, let's work on evolving Vancouver Island into a global showcase of progressive energy solutions.  We begin with a solid base of hydroelectricity, which we already have, both on-island and off.

Communities all over Vancouver island would be solidly supportive were you to put the gas-fired projects aside, and attention turned to sustainable, job-creating, distributed, small generation projects.  

We have wind, tide, rivers, and wood waste.  We're ready to move on this.  It can happen.

Arthur Caldicott of Cobble Hill is director of the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition