FLETCHER: Hydro is hot again as BC reverses course on energy

Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.VICTORIA — It was surprising to hear BC Energy Minister Adrian Dix say this month that his NDP government was not only naming the Site C hydro dam after their revered former premier John Horgan, but it is even considering a fourth dam on the Peace River near the Alberta border.Even more surprising was Dix suggesting another long-opposed project was back on the table — a network of 17 run-of-river hydro projects on remote Bute Inlet, a steep fjord north of Powell River. That plan was abandoned by private developer Plutonic Power in 2010, after it had completed a smaller project at nearby Toba Inlet that proved the concept of harnessing seasonal runoff to generate electricity to meet summer demand.Run-of-river generators don’t dam the river. They use a small holding pond to stabilize flow and divert some water through powerhouse turbines, taking advantage of areas with heavy precipitation and spring snowmelt while preserving river flow to reduce environmental impact.The Bute Inlet plan was central to former BC premier Gordon Campbell’s partnership with then-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to save the planet with clean energy. Like their “hydrogen highway” idea to decarbonize transportation along the West Coast, it didn’t get far.A few hydrogen fuel-cell buses were put into service at Whistler for the 2010 Olympics, and the Toba Inlet project showed that peak BC run-of-river output matched up nicely with peak demand for air conditioning in California.The shale gas revolution upended the business model for both. Abundant, cheap natural gas displaced coal power in the US, moving hydro and hydrogen to the back burner. With its major export market going in another direction, Plutonic stopped the Bute Inlet development in 2010 after BC Hydro declined to enter into a power purchase contract to finance it..Bute Inlet was ahead of its time in another way. The Homalco First Nation was an early proponent of the hydro network, and the initial Toba Inlet project was a much-needed source of jobs and revenue for a remote community that has since declared a state of emergency over drug- and alcohol-related deaths.One advantage of Bute Inlet is that its steep mountainous setting is beyond the reach of any migrating salmon. But that doesn’t stop outside environmental campaigners from claiming salmon and other wildlife impacts, as they have done to shut down salmon farming in other remote indigenous communities with no other way to make an independent living.Homalco Chief Darren Blaney tells a familiar story about outside environmentalists recruiting local opponents in indigenous communities.“Every time there’s an environmental issue, they look for a brown person to throw in there with them, to give themselves legitimacy,” Blaney said.When Homalco and Klahoose First Nation leaders promoted the Bute Inlet project in 2009, they met a wall of opposition from the NDP, unions, and environmental groups like the Wilderness Committee that dominated public hearings..One target was Plutonic’s partnership with a division of General Electric, portrayed as a profit-seeking invader into the public monopoly of BC Hydro. Their slogan for BC Hydro’s potential contracts to expand production was “pirate power.”The energy market has changed dramatically, with virtue-signalling efforts to tax and trim carbon dioxide emissions giving way to the reality of scarcity and huge demand from population growth, electric vehicles, and a return to natural gas for power generation that was shunned in BC.Who knows, maybe Western Canada could eventually grow up and go nuclear. It was only 20 years ago that a CANDU reactor was proposed for a site near Peace River, AB, about 100 km from the BC border. That could have provided the power needed for steam extraction of heavy oil from formations that can’t be mined, like the oil sands.Needless to say, BC has no truck nor trade with nuclear power, despite having its own proven uranium resources. A 1980s moratorium on uranium exploration and mining was abruptly revived and formalized by the BC government in 2007, apparently to thwart the plans of a Vancouver company aiming to develop big uranium deposits near Big White ski resort in the Okanagan.Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.tomfletcherbc@gmail.comX: @tomfletcherbc

FLETCHER: Hydro is hot again as BC reverses course on energy

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