FLETCHER: B.C. bets big on wind power to generate industrial jobs

Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered B.C. politics and business as a journalist since 1984.The Germans have a word for it: dunkelflaute. It translates as “dark doldrums,” periods where neither bright sunshine nor strong wind can be harnessed for energy.They usually occur at this time of year, when heating and other power demands are at their highest, not just in Northern Europe but here in North America. The term became popular as Germany shut down its nuclear power stations (because of a tsunami in Japan of all things) and bet heavily on renewables backed up by Russian natural gas.Alberta emerged a year ago from a moratorium on new solar and wind projects, imposing new rules to protect farmland and even “pristine viewscapes” from solar and wind arrays. The move came after a freeze-up in Texas and other disruptions prompted concern about grid instability from too much renewable energy and the demands to back it all up when it fails.B.C. has few large wind installations, despite having a vast hydro grid well suited to back up intermittent renewables. Former premier Gordon Campbell’s push for clean energy focused mainly on run-of-river hydro, but the first couple of wind projects were built in the Peace region, where prairie winds blow and engineering studies showed they would best be able to pay for themselves. A big offshore project at Haida Gwaii died on the vine, perhaps just as well as Britain struggles with the power fluctuations and subsidy demands of theirs.B.C.’s new Energy Minister Adrian Dix has had “climate solutions” added to his title, and he moved into the role with the determination we saw as he grappled with a pandemic and a decaying health care system. Eyebrows were raised in government when he burst out of the gate after the October election with a list of energy projects that would be fast-tracked by skipping traditional environmental assessments.After its near-death experience at the hands of the B.C. Conservatives, David Eby’s NDP government is suddenly on side with dropping the carbon tax, has warmed up slightly to liquefied natural gas and has even copied Alberta in creating a B.C. Energy Regulator out of its former Oil and Gas Commission.Announcing legislative changes to fast-track 18 projects last week, Dix insisted environmental protection would not be sacrificed in a new “single-window” approval process that would not take longer than the project itself to complete. Nine are wind projects that became official when they were awarded power purchase contracts by B.C. Hydro in early December, although one dropped out and was replaced by a solar project. All have substantial indigenous ownership.Dix was creative in his use of facts, employing a move you will likely see in other provinces and at the federal level in the weeks ahead. Projects that had already been announced late last year to address growing power demand and layoffs from the wind-up of the Site C dam and LNG Canada were suddenly in urgent need because of Donald Trump.“We need investment when another country is threatening the status quo in a fundamental way,” Dix said.These wind and solar projects are part of a “generational shift” towards renewable energy in the province, Dix said. Which is odd, given that 98% of B.C.’s electricity is already renewable, thanks to a generational shift to big hydro that started 60 years ago.“I look forward to working with the Green Party,” Dix said. Likely not. The additional power and a fast-tracked Northwest Transmission Line are supposed to drive expansion of LNG exports, an industry the two-member B.C. Green Party wants terminated along with all natural gas use.Will the B.C. Greens, and the Conservative opposition, go lightly on plans to reduce environmental scrutiny of our shade-grown, organic wind farms and the heavy roads they will need to build? Consider the estimates of energy and environmental scientist Vaclav Smil, professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba, known as Bill Gates’ favourite author.“Large trucks bring steel and other raw materials to the site, earth-moving equipment beats a path to otherwise inaccessible high ground, large cranes erect the structures, and all these machines burn diesel fuel,” Smil wrote in 2019 for the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.“So do the freight trains and cargo ships that convey the materials needed for the production of cement, steel and plastics. For a five-megawatt turbine, the steel alone averages 150 metric tonnes for the reinforced concrete foundations, 250 metric tonnes for the rotor hubs and nacelles (which house the gearbox and generator) and 500 metric tonnes for the towers.”Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered B.C. politics and business as a journalist since 1984.

FLETCHER: B.C. bets big on wind power to generate industrial jobs

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