VICTORIA - If the Liberals are out to launch the incremental privatization of B.C. Hydro, they're sure going about it with infinite patience.

Opponents of the Liberals' plans continue to maintain that the government's new energy policy sets B.C. Hydro on the road to privatization.

You could make the argument. All new power production in the province is going to come from private companies under the Liberals' plan. B.C. Hydro is barred from building new generating facilities.

The Crown corporation is even likely to get rid of existing thermal generating facilities. B.C. Hydro is already looking to sell a generation plant planned for Nanaimo, either before or after construction.

An MLAs' committee is to look at phasing out the Burrard thermal plant, which produced about eight per cent of the system's electricity last year. That will mean big opportunities for private companies, either to take over Burrard and reduce pollution, or build replacement plants.

Hydro chair Larry Bell also signalled the remaining thermal plants could be on the block. "Large thermal plants are not really our core competency," he says.

But even if the Liberals shut down Burrard and sell the existing thermal plants to private operators, privatization is a long way off. The transmission company, the one that owns and manages the wires, will be publicly owned. Hydro will keep all the hydro dams. So where's the private role?

That will come from new power, added to meet growing demand, and the generating plants sold to private companies. But run the numbers, even based on a steady two-per-cent-a-year growth in electricity consumption, and you'll find it will take 30 years before private producers are supplying even half the province's energy.

It may be the path we're heading along, but it's hardly a stampede. That's a long time, and a lot of governments from now.

And it's impossible to predict how eager private power producers will be to invest in B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld says they are lining up. But companies that have just watched Ontario embrace and rebuff market-based pricing, and are aware of B.C. voters' capriciousness, will be slow to invest $500 million in a new gas-fired power plant.

And if they are slow to leap at the opportunities, expect B.C. Hydro to be taking its own proposals to the government, despite the ban.

There's still a lot of mistrust, in the private sector and in government, about the willingness of B.C. Hydro -- the second-largest corporation in the province -- to preside over its own diminution.

That's one reason Hydro has been barred from constructing new generating facilities. A better public policy might see the Crown corporation able to submit proposals for new plants, to be weighed against private sector proposals by the utilities commission. But independent power producers persuaded the government that B.C. Hydro would not play fair.

It likely wasn't a tough sell. In Opposition, Gary Collins was clear he didn't trust the numbers coming out of B.C. Hydro. It's not likely that the new board eased all the finance minister's suspicions. And Gordon Campbell said B.C. Hydro had blocked both new green energy sources and private suppliers in its bid to maintain a monopoly. Again, that suspicion about the Crown hasn't vanished in the past 18 months.

That's too bad. It would be useful to give B.C. Hydro a chance to make the business case for constructing new capacity. Private producers will be looking for not just a good return on their investment, but a return that matches the best opportunities in North America's most messed up markets. Hydro might be able to develop projects that produce power at a lower rate that that.

What people mostly want to known is whether electricity will cost more.

It will, perhaps four or five per cent a year. But one way or another, energy was going to cost more. Hydro dams meet about two-thirds of out electricity needs now, churning out power for about two cents a kilowatt hour. Power from new thermal plants will cost about three times as much. As demand increases, and we depend on them more, electricity costs will inevitably rise. That's true whether the power comes from private producers, or a government monopoly.

The Liberals have played fast and loose with some campaign promises.

But there's nothing in the energy policy that runs counter to what Mr. Campbell and company promised during the run-up to the election.

willcocks@ultranet.ca