Time needed to fully review power options, Editorial, Times Colonist_Oct 23, 2001, Energy Policy Task Force, BC Hydro, GSX

EDITORIAL Victoria Times Colonist
October 23, 2001

Vancouver Island is emerging as the new frontier in the politics of power.

More than 90 per cent of B.C.'s electricity has traditionally been generated by hydro plants at remote reservoirs in the province's hinterlands.

But with new dams and the flooding of more valleys no longer politically acceptable, B.C. Hydro sees natural-gas-fired plants as the best way to generate electricity for the next 10 years.

And the Crown corporation is setting about bringing those plants to Vancouver Island. Hydro, with the blessing of the Liberal government, is forging ahead with projects begun by the NDP. These include the Georgia Strait Crossing (GSX), a $260-million gas pipeline, and a $300-million generating plant for Port Alberni.

Hydro has also signalled it may want to build another plant, more than twice the size of the Alberni plant, somewhere else on the Island. And given the rapidly escalating cost of the GSX (just a year ago the price tag was $180 million), it may well need another plant to justify the pipeline's expense.

But Island residents have long felt shut out of the decision-making by Hydro, which ran its operations in a highly secretive mode under the NDP.

The issues are complex, to be sure. But there has been insufficient debate about whether the pipeline is needed and what the risks to Island residents are if it -- and the attendant power plants -- go ahead.

Island residents have good reason to worry about air pollution and greenhouse gases from such plants, especially given the opposition to the existing Burrard Thermal plant in the Lower Mainland. The provincial government itself has opposed another gas plant proposed for Sumas, on the B.C.-Washington border.

It may well be that the province faces a power crunch in the coming years. The days of large hydroelectricity projects died in the 1980s when the Social Credit government decided against pursuing the controversial Site C dam on the Peace River.

Since then, Hydro has upgraded existing power stations, including Burrard Thermal, a natural gas powered plant in the Lower Mainland, but it has avoided megaprojects. Campbell River's privately built power plant, owned by Calpine, is the most significant generating facility built in more than decade.

So it is reasonable for Hydro to be looking for new sources of energy.

Whether bringing natural gas to the Island is the best answer is another thing.

The Campbell government has an opportunity to review all the options with the energy policy task force it established in August.

All the options include looking at meaningful conservation programs to encourage more efficiency in a province where cheap electricity has encouraged some of the most wasteful habits in the world.

There are other issues for the task force to consider, like whether Site C deserves another look and what role independent power producers should play. There's great potential to generate electricity from heating systems used in schools, universities, hospitals and hotels. Wood waste energy from lumber mills is still going largely untapped.

And then there's all kinds of alternative energy sources, including wind, tidal and solar technology. Hydro is just beginning to look at these options, with demonstration projects planned for Vancouver Island in wind, wave and micro-hydro technologies.

But its pledge to generate 10 per cent of its new power from "green" sources is way behind commitments from other utilities in Washington and Oregon.

So, with so much for the task force to consider, why is Hydro barrelling along with its natural gas projects, which will effectively govern the province's power policy for the next decade?

The pipeline is subject to a federal hearing next spring while the proposed Alberni plant is currently undergoing a provincial environmental assessment.

Is it too much to ask for Hydro to put its gas projects for the Island on hold until the task force can lay out all the alternatives and allow for better public input?