June 30, 2005
Hydro's earnings surge by $291 million for year
Gerry Bellett, Vancouver Sun, 30 Jun 2005
Brian Lewis, The Province, 30 Jun 2005
Hydro's earnings surge by $291 million for year
Gerry Bellett
Vancouver Sun
30-Jun-2005
Despite low water levels in the Pacific Northwest in the past year and higher energy costs, BC Hydro announced a net income of $402 million for the fiscal year 2005, an increase of $291 million over fiscal 2004, according to Hydro's annual report released Wednesday.
While the consolidated net income of $402 million for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005 was lower than the company's 2004 service plan forecast, the dividend paid back to the province was $339 million compared with $73 million last year.
Net income in 2004 was $111 million.
Alister Cowan, BC Hydro chief financial officer, described 2005 as a successful year "even with the challenges such as higher energy costs."
"This will allow us to return an increased dividend to the provincial government, which can then be used to help fund key provincial priorities such as health care and education," said Cowan in a statement.
The report said Hydro's energy costs for the year were $1.959 billion -- an increase of $379 million over the previous year. Much of the increased costs resulted from higher electricity imports, which for fiscal 2005 were 6,896 GWH compared with 5,349 GWH the year before.
The increase in electricity imports reflects the fact that "we were coming off a low-water year as well as ongoing operating decisions to import electricity when it is cheaper than running more expensive resources like Burrard Thermal," said Cowan.
He said Hydro's long-term goal was energy self-sufficiency.
Trade revenues and sales volumes were both up compared with the year before.
Trade revenues were set at $1.021 billion compared with $871 million in fiscal 2004, with some of the increase being the result of a three per-cent increase in average sales prices, which rose to $63 per MWh from $61 per MWh in 2004.
Sales volumes also rose to 29,706 GWh from 28,373 GWh the previous year, an increase of five per cent.
Hydro said it maintained its strong commitment to the environment and social responsibility during the past fiscal year and has announced that one of its long-term goals is a policy of "no net incremental environmental impact" plus a reduction in electricity consumption through such means as the Power Smart program.
"We exceeded our overall Power Smart energy conservation target again this year, achieving savings of 1.355 gigawatt-hours of electricity or enough to meet the needs of over 130,000 homes," said Cowan.
He said Hydro did even better in the area of clean electricity, with "about 61 per cent of our incremental load acquired this year from B.C. Clean sources."
BC Hydro president and CEO Larry Bell said among the key accomplishments of the last year was the completion of "our first revenue requirements process in over 10 years before the B.C. Utilities Commission."
"The result -- a 4.85 per-cent rate increase -- provided the funds necessary to continue operating our business in the most efficient way for our customers while still keeping their electricity rates among the lowest in North America," said Bell.
Electricity - Hydro puts $339m in surplus pot
Brian Lewis
The Province
30-Jun-2005
The provincial government's record $2.6-billion surplus for the recently completed fiscal year, which was disclosed in yesterday's audited financial statements, was given a significant boost by B.C. Hydro ratepayers.
In releasing its fiscal 2005 financial statements, Hydro said a stronger earnings year allowed it to pay $339 million into Victoria's coffers under the utility's obligation to pay the province a special dividend each year.
That figure compares with a $73-million dividend payment in the previous year.
The $339-million payment was in addition to a consolidated net income of $402 million that Hydro generated during the year ending March 31, 2005. While that figure was below earlier Hydro forecasts, it represented an increase of $291 million over 2004 earnings. Included in the earnings was a one-time payment of $137 million from Alcan Inc. as a result of an arbitration award under a power purchase and sales agreement.
Hydro's bottom line was also affected by higher energy costs of $379 million and a significant part of those extra costs was due to increased electricity imports to meet domestic demand.
"Through our long-term goal of energy self-sufficiency, B.C. Hydro will be working to de-crease this reliance on imports and the costs that it brings," said Alister Cowan, Hydro's chief financial officer.
Export revenues rose to $1.02 billion from $871 million last year.
June 28, 2005
Neufeld defends Duke decision
Richard Neufeld
The Province
28-Jun-2005
The cancellation of the Duke Point power project did not cost B.C. ratepayers $120 million, as suggested by Mike Smyth.
The $120 million was the direct result of two failed NDP projects that our government was forced to write off almost two years ago.
Fifty million dollars of that write-off was directly related to the Georgia Strait Crossing Project, the NDP-initiated pipeline that was not required to meet Vancouver Island's gas needs.
The remaining $70 million was almost entirely attributable to the NDP's decision to commit to purchase two turbines.
The cancellation of the Duke Point Power project is unrelated to these costs, and will not have any affect on B.C. Hydro rates.
B.C. Hydro has said it is confident it can maintain reliability planning criteria on Vancouver Island.
It intends extending the life of the current transmission cables, and will make load curtailment agreements with industrial customers until the new cables are constructed.
Richard Neufeld,
B.C. Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
June 27, 2005
Tomgram: Michael Klare on a Saudi Oil Bombshell
Tom Englehardt
www.TomDispatch.com
June 26, 2005
Right now, the price of a barrel of crude oil is flirting with $60; a Chinese state-controlled oil company has made an $18.5 billion bid for the American oil firm, Unocal -- you remember, the company that fought to put a projected $1.9 billion natural gas pipeline through Taliban Afghanistan and hired as its consultant Zalmay Khalilzad, presently our Afghan ambassador and soon to be our ambassador to Iraq; world energy consumption, according to last week's British Financial Times, surged 4.3% last year (the biggest rise since 1984), oil use by 3.4% (the biggest rise since 1978); in the meantime, Exxon -- which just had the impunity to hire Philip Cooney after he was accused of doctoring government reports on climate change and resigned as chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality ("The cynical way to look at this," commented Kert Davies, U.S. research director for Greenpeace, "is that ExxonMobil has removed its sleeper cell from the White House and extracted him back to the mother ship.") -- has quietly issued a report, The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View, predicting that the moment of "peak oil" is only a five-year hop-skip-and-a-pump away; "Oil Shockwave," a "war game" recently conducted by top ex-government officials in Washington, including two former directors of the CIA, found the United States "all but powerless to protect the American economy in the face of a catastrophic disruption of oil markets," which was all too easy for them to imagine ("The participants concluded almost unanimously that they must press the president to invest quickly in promising technologies to reduce dependence on overseas oil..."); and oil tycoon Boone Pickens, chairman of the billion-dollar hedge fund BP Capital Management, is having the time of his life. ("I've never had so much fun…") Over the last five years, he claims, his bet that oil prices would rise has "made him more money... than he earned in the preceding half century hunting for riches in petroleum deposits and companies," and he is predicting that prices will only go higher with much more "pain at the pump." Ah, the good life. And if you don't quite recognize the new look of this fast-shifting energy landscape, then how are you going to feel if the Age of Petroleum turns out to be drawing -- more rapidly than most people imagine -- to a close?
Well, hold your hats, folks. Below Michael Klare, an expert on "resource wars" and the author of the indispensable Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency, discusses a new bombshell book by oil industry insider Matthew Simmons, and his unsettling news that everything you've heard about those inexhaustible supplies of Saudi oil, which are supposed to keep the world floating for decades, simply isn't so. This is real news and absorbing its implications is no small matter.
Imagine, just for the sake of argument, where we might be today, energy-wise, if Americans -- and American legislators –- had actually taken Jimmy Carter's famed 1979 "moral equivalent of war" speech on energy conservation seriously, but rejected his Carter Doctrine and the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force that went with it -- both of which set us on our present path to war(s) in the Middle East. Here's part of what Carter said to the American people on television that long-ago night:
"Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade -- a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day… To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel -- from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun… I'm proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford…"
Well, it never happened. Now consider Matt Simmons' news and where we are today. Tom (Tom Englehardt)
Matt Simmons' Bombshell
The Impending Decline of Saudi Oil Output
By Michael T. Klare
For those oil enthusiasts who believe that petroleum will remain abundant for decades to come -- among them, the President, the Vice President, and their many friends in the oil industry -- any talk of an imminent "peak" in global oil production and an ensuing decline can be easily countered with a simple mantra: "Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia." Not only will the Saudis pump extra oil now to alleviate global shortages, it is claimed, but they will keep pumping more in the years ahead to quench our insatiable thirst for energy. And when the kingdom's existing fields run dry, lo, they will begin pumping from other fields that are just waiting to be exploited. We ordinary folk need have no worries about oil scarcity, because Saudi Arabia can satisfy our current and future needs. This is, in fact, the basis for the administration's contention that we can continue to increase our yearly consumption of oil, rather than conserve what's left and begin the transition to a post-petroleum economy. Hallelujah for Saudi Arabia!
But now, from an unexpected source, comes a devastating challenge to this powerful dogma: In a newly-released book, investment banker Matthew R. Simmons convincingly demonstrates that, far from being capable of increasing its output, Saudi Arabia is about to face the exhaustion of its giant fields and, in the relatively near future, will probably experience a sharp decline in output. "There is only a small probability that Saudi Arabia will ever deliver the quantities of petroleum that are assigned to it in all the major forecasts of world oil production and consumption," he writes in Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. "Saudi Arabian production," he adds, italicizing his claims to drive home his point, "is at or very near its peak sustainable volume . . . and it is likely to go into decline in the very foreseeable future."
In addition, there is little chance that Saudi Arabia will ever discover new fields that can take up the slack from those now in decline. "Saudi Arabia's exploration efforts over the last three decades were more intense than most observers have assumed," Simmons asserts. "The results of these efforts were modest at best."
If Simmons is right about Saudi Arabian oil production -- and the official dogma is wrong -- we can kiss the era of abundant petroleum goodbye forever. This is so for a simple reason: Saudi Arabia is the world's leading oil producer, and there is no other major supplier (or combination of suppliers) capable of making up for the loss in Saudi production if its output falters. This means that if the Saudi Arabia mantra proves deceptive, we will find ourselves in an entirely new world -- the "twilight age" of petroleum, as Simmons puts it. It will not be a happy place.
Before taking up the implications of a possible decline in Saudi Arabian oil output, it is important to look more closely at the two sides in this critical debate: the official view, as propagated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), and the contrary view, as represented by Simmons' new book.
The prevailing view goes like this: According to the DoE, Saudi Arabia possesses approximately one-fourth of the world's proven oil reserves, an estimated 264 billion barrels. In addition, the Saudis are believed to harbor additional, possible reserves containing another few hundred billion barrels. On this basis, the DoE asserts that "Saudi Arabia is likely to remain the world's largest oil producer for the foreseeable future."
To fully grasp Saudi Arabia's vital importance to the global energy equation, it is necessary to consider the DoE's projections of future world oil demand and supply. Because of the rapidly growing international thirst for petroleum -- much of it coming from the United States and Europe, but an increasing share from China, India, and other developing nations -- the world's expected requirement for petroleum is projected to jump from 77 million barrels per day in 2001 to 121 million barrels by 2025, a net increase of 44 million barrels. Fortunately, says the DoE, global oil output will also rise by this amount in the years ahead, and so there will be no significant oil shortage to worry about. But over one-fourth of this additional oil -- some 12.3 million barrels per day -- will have to come from Saudi Arabia, the only country capable of increasing its output by this amount. Take away Saudi Arabia's added 12.3 million barrels, and there is no possibility of satisfying anticipated world demand in 2025.
One could, of course, suggest that some other oil producers will step in to provide the additional supplies needed, notably Iraq, Nigeria, and Russia. But these countries together would have to increase their own output by more than 100% simply to play their already assigned part in the Department of Energy's anticipated global supply gain over the next two decades. This in itself may exceed their production capacities. To suggest that they could also make up for the shortfall in Saudi production stretches credulity to the breaking point.
It is not surprising, then, that the Department of Energy and the Saudi government have been very nervous about the recent expressions of doubt about the Saudi capacity to boost its future oil output. These doubts were first aired in a front-page story by Jeff Gerth in the New York Times on February 25, 2004. Relying, to some degree, on information provided by Matthew Simmons, Gerth reported that Saudi Arabia's oil fields "are in decline, prompting industry and government officials to raise serious questions about whether the kingdom will be able to satisfy the world's thirst for oil in coming years."
Gerth's report provoked a barrage of counter-claims by the Saudi government. Their country, Saudi officials insisted, could increase its production and satisfy future world demand. "[Saudi Arabia] has immense proven reserves of oil with substantial upside potential," Abdallah S. Jum'ah, the president of Saudi Aramco, declared in April 2004. "We are capable of expanding capacity to high levels rapidly, and of maintaining those levels for long periods of time." This exchange prompted the DoE to insert a sidebar on this topic in its International Energy Outlook for 2004. "In an emphatic rebuttal to the New York Times article [of February 24]," the DoE noted, "Saudi Arabia maintained that its oil producers are confident in their ability to sustain significantly higher levels of production capacity well into the middle of this century." This being the case, we ordinary folks need not worry about future shortages. Given Saudi abundance, the DoE wrote, we "would expect conventional oil to peak closer to the middle than to the beginning of the 21st century."
In these, and other such assertions, U.S. oil experts always come back to the same point: Saudi oil managers "are confident in their ability" to achieve significantly higher levels of output well into the future. In no instance, however, have they provided independent verification of this capacity; they simply rely on the word of those oil officials, who have every incentive to assure us of their future reliability as suppliers. In the end, therefore, it comes down to this: America's entire energy strategy, with its commitment to an increased reliance on petroleum as the major source of our energy, rests on the unproven claims of Saudi oil producers that they can, in fact, continuously increase Saudi output in accordance with the DoE's predictions.
And this is where Matthew Simmons enters the picture, with his meticulously documented book showing that Saudi producers cannot be trusted to tell the truth about future Saudi oil output.
First, a few words about the author of Twilight in the Desert. Matthew ("Matt") Simmons is not a militant environmentalist or anti-oil partisan; he is Chairman and CEO of one of the nation's leading oil-industry investment banks, Simmons & Company International. For decades, Simmons has been pouring billions of dollars into the energy business, financing the exploration and development of new oil reservoirs. In the process, he has become a friend and associate of many of the top figures in the oil industry, including George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He has also accumulated a vast storehouse of information about the world's major oil fields, the prospects for new discoveries, and the techniques for extracting and marketing petroleum. There is virtually no figure better equipped than Simmons to assess the state of the world's oil supply. And this is why his assessment of Saudi Arabia's oil production capacity is so devastating.
Essentially, Simmons argument boils down to four major points: (1) most of Saudi Arabia's oil output is generated by a few giant fields, of which Ghawar -- the world's largest -- is the most prolific; (2) these giant fields were first developed 40 to 50 years ago, and have since given up much of their easily-extracted petroleum; (3) to maintain high levels of production in these fields, the Saudis have come to rely increasingly on the use of water injection and other secondary recovery methods to compensate for the drop in natural field pressure; and (4) as time goes on, the ratio of water to oil in these underground fields rises to the point where further oil extraction becomes difficult, if not impossible. To top it all off, there is very little reason to assume that future Saudi exploration will result in the discovery of new fields to replace those now in decline.
Twilight in the Desert is not an easy book to read. Most of it consists of a detailed account of Saudi Arabia's vast oil infrastructure, relying on technical papers written by Saudi geologists and oil engineers on various aspects of production in particular fields. Much of this has to do with the aging of Saudi fields and the use of water injection to maintain high levels of pressure in their giant underground reservoirs. As Simmons explains, when an underground reservoir is first developed, oil gushes out of the ground under its own pressure; as the field is drained of easily-extracted petroleum, however, Saudi oil engineers often force water into the ground on the circumference of the reservoir in order to drive the remaining oil into the operating well. By drawing on these technical studies -- cited here for the first time in a systematic, public manner -- Simmons is able to show that Ghawar and other large fields are rapidly approaching the end of their productive lives.
Simmons' conclusion from all this is unmistakably pessimistic: "The ‘twilight' of Saudi Arabian oil envisioned in this book is not a remote fantasy. Ninety percent of all the oil that Saudi Arabia has ever produced has come from seven giant fields. All have now matured and grown old, but they still continue to provide around 90 percent of current Saudi oil output … High-volume production at these key fields ... has been maintained for decades by injecting massive amounts of water that serves to keep pressures high in the huge underground reservoirs . . . When these water projection programs end in each field, steep production declines are almost inevitable."
This being the case, it would be the height of folly to assume that the Saudis are capable of doubling their petroleum output in the years ahead, as projected by the Department of Energy. Indeed, it will be a minor miracle if they raise their output by a million or two barrels per day and sustain that level for more than a year or so. Eventually, in the not-too-distant future, Saudi production will begin a sharp decline from which there is no escape. And when that happens, the world will face an energy crisis of unprecedented scale.
The moment that Saudi production goes into permanent decline, the Petroleum Age as we know it will draw to a close. Oil will still be available on international markets, but not in the abundance to which we have become accustomed and not at a price that many of us will be able to afford. Transportation, and everything it effects -- which is to say, virtually the entire world economy -- will be much, much more costly. The cost of food will also rise, as modern agriculture relies to an extraordinary extent on petroleum products for tilling, harvesting, pest protection, processing, and delivery. Many other products made with petroleum -- paints, plastics, lubricants, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and so forth -- will also prove far more costly. Under these circumstances, a global economic contraction -- with all the individual pain and hardship that would surely produce -- appears nearly inevitable.
If Matt Simmons is right, it is only a matter of time before this scenario comes to pass. If we act now to limit our consumption of oil and develop non-petroleum energy alternatives, we can face the "twilight" of the Petroleum Age with some degree of hope; if we fail to do so, we are in for a very grim time indeed. And the longer we cling to the belief that Saudi Arabia will save us, the more painful will be our inevitable fall.
Given the high stakes involved, there is no doubt that intense efforts will be made to refute Simmons' findings. With the publication of his book, however, it will no longer be possible for oil aficionados simply to chant "Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia" and convince us that everything is all right in the oil world. Through his scrupulous research, Simmons has convincingly demonstrated that -- because all is not well with Saudi Arabia's giant oilfields -- the global energy situation can only go downhill from here. From now on, those who believe that oil will remain abundant indefinitely are the ones who must produce irrefutable evidence that Saudi Arabia's fields are, in fact, capable of achieving higher levels of output.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (Metropolitan Books).
Copyright 2005 Michael T. Klare
Change of Energy
Alisa Gordaneer
Monday Magazine
Jun 22 2005
BC Hydro shocked us all late last week, when it announced that the Duke Point power plant project was toast. No, it didn't use those very words-presumably, power companies don't care for analogies that call to mind anything that implies a mishap with electricity-but the essential meaning was the same: There would be no gas-powered generating plant near Nanaimo after all. Almost as soon as a group of environmentalists won the right to appeal the project, the company announced it wasn't happening after all. You'd almost think, based on how quickly they backed down, that they might have been worried about what would be revealed by an environmental appeal. Could it have been proven that the power plant would be environmentally hazardous? Is it possible it wasn't terribly necessary after all? We're not likely to find out now.
It's thanks to the efforts of a group of environmentalists-the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition, the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association, and the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation-that the project is dead. And hey, nobody even had to lie down in front of trucks, or chain themselves to a pipeline. How very civilized and new millennium.
Now, even though the Duke Point project is no more, the Hydro company still seems undaunted, and may try to pull a similar project out of its hat elsewhere in B.C.. Clearly, more paperwork for environmentalists is in the works, as are more questions about the value of this particular means of electricity generation.
Remember, this project was meant to create more power here on Vancouver Island. For what? All our big-screen TVs, air-conditioners and home cappuccino machines? Nice-but it's becoming clear such plans come with an environmental price tag we may not be able to afford. Now that Duke Point is, yes, toast, we can look realistically at two different, more sustainable options. First, we can see the possibility for more alternative energy here on Vancouver Island. Second, if we're worried about there being enough power for all those toys, we can consider the bigger question: whether we really need them in the first place. Now that's energy well spent. M
June 26, 2005
Duke Point's demise puts Site C back in picture
Brian Lewis, The Province, 26 June 2005
canada.com, 27 June 2005
Paul Willcocks, Prince George Citizen, 28 June 2005
Globe and Mail, 28 June 2005
Duke Point's demise puts Site C back in picture
Brian Lewis
The Province
26-Jun-2005
What the heck is going on at B.C. Hydro? Part of its mandate is to ensure that B.C. has a reliable supply of electricity at the lowest-possible cost.
Until a few years ago, all of our demand was met by domestically-produced power from our vast hydro-electric resources. We even had surpluses to sell to the electricity-hungry U.S.
But now, an increasing share of B.C. electricity demand is being met by higher-cost, market-priced imported power. And, frankly, this scenario will worsen before it gets better because there appear to be some serious short-circuits in the way Hydro operates.
Its recent decision to cancel the $285-million Duke Point power plant on Vancouver Island -- after spending about $120 million on it -- is the latest example.
The Duke Point folly began with an even larger project that included a Washington State-to-Vancouver Island natural-gas pipeline to feed its generators. The Georgia Strait pipeline caused such a public backlash that it was shelved earlier.
But Duke Point itself was being pushed even though it would only serve for a few years to meet Island demand until a new transmission line could be built from the Mainland. Other cheaper alternatives, on which Hydro must now rely, were dismissed by the utility.
Finally, it took the B.C. Court of Appeal to bring some sense to this issue. It recently gave opponents of Duke Point leave to appeal the spring decision by the B.C. Utilities Commission to give the project, near Nanaimo, a green light.
It did so on the grounds that the BCUC's hearing process was unfair. The Commission, by the way, is supposed to be the public's shield against questionable projects.
It failed.
Because of concerns that Duke Point wouldn't be completed on schedule, Hydro's board of directors has now axed the project.
Regardless, we'll still need more electricity if B.C.'s economy is to continue flourishing.
So, where do we go from here?
Welcome to Site C, the long-shelved hydro-electric mega-project slated for the Peace River near Fort St. John.
The project, which regulators turned down in the early 1980s because there wasn't enough demand for its 900-megawatt capacity, is back on the front-burner in Hydro's ivory tower.
Yes, major environmental concerns will rise again since Site C requires more Peace River flooding. But even in these earliest of planning days it looks as if Hydro's tripping over its own feet again.
In recent consultations with the energy community and other stakeholders, Hydro pitched Site C's latest costs at about $2.3 billion even though costs in original 1981 application were pegged at $2.7 billion.
I'm told that when Hydro was pressed to reconcile this astounding difference, it had simply dropped some big ticket items that were included in 1981 including interest costs during construction, inflation and, most importantly, the costs of building the required new transmission line to the Lower Mainland.
Nor, I'm also told, has it done a basic economic/financial model on the project. Adding these items to the bill could easily put Site C's price tag at $4 billion, sources say.
It may be that even at this price, Site C would be B.C.'s best option for new electricity supply.
But, given its record, domestic electricity isn't the only commodity in short supply at Hydro. Public confidence is a tad rare too,
Brian Lewis is Money editor of The Province. He can be reached at blewis@png.canwest.com
Peace River dam idea revived
canada.com
June 27, 2005
VICTORIA -- B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld is musing about the possible revival of one of the most controversial hydroelectric projects in recent history.
Neufeld says the "Site C" proposal to dam the Peace River may have to be revived now that B-C Hydro has decided to scrap the Duke Point gas power plant scheme on Vancouver Island.
Neufeld says the province is looking at a shortage of hydroelectricity in the future, adding that water power is a good way to develop electricity.
Twenty years ago B.C. Hydro caved in to public pressure and shelved the $2.1 billion "Site C" hydroelectric proposal.
But studies on the 900 megawatt facility were dusted off again last year.
However Hydro spokeswoman Elisha Moreno says the area has not been selected as a "preferred option."
The proposal calls for a third dam on the Peace River near Fort St. John and the flooding of thousands of hectares of land.
Broadcast News 2005
Peace River super dam closer to reality
Paul Willcocks
Prince George Citizen
28-Jun-2005
VICTORIA -- A massive dam across the Peace River is a step closer to reality after the collapse of a Vancouver Island power plant, Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said Monday.
Neufeld said the cancelled Duke Point project leaves B.C. Hydro needing more power, and the Site C megaproject is one solution.
"I would think Site C is something we better look at in real terms," Neufeld said from Calgary, where he is part of a trade mission by B.C. oil and gas service companies.
The $2.1-billion megaproject would tap the last great hydroelectric power source in B.C., with a huge earthen dam spanning the Peace River and producing 900 megawatts of power. That's the equivalent of three or four gas-powered plants.
The Site C project, which would be built near Fort St. John, was abandoned in 1991 after a battle with environmental groups.
But Neufeld said B.C. Hydro has updated its plans for the project and is looking at including the dam in its next energy plan, which will be submitted to the B.C. Utilities Commission by the end of this year.
Hydro is spending $1.9 million this year to update its plans for the dam, and hopes to spend another $5.5 million next year.
The corporation sought public comments on the Site C dam earlier this year as it toured northeastern communities.
The dam is likely to be the centre of controversy again if the government moves ahead with the project.
B.C. Hydro's own plan noted that environmental issues remain.
Thousands of acres of land would be flooded, about 25 farm families would lose their homes, and summer water temperatures in the river below the dam would rise, affecting fish.
The project would require extensive consultations with First Nations, who fear the loss of hunting grounds.
But Hydro power is generally considered less environmentally damaging than coal or gas-fired thermal plants, the most likely alternatives. The Kyoto Accord, which aims to restrict the production of greenhouse gases, also encourages development of the project.
And the Peace River has already been dammed, so no wild rivers will be affected.
Hudson's Hope Mayor Lenore Harwood, whose community would be affected by flooding, told BC Hydro earlier this year that she would rather see improvements to boost capacity at existing dams and more emphasis on reducing demand.
Site C still faces many hurdles.
The utilities commission is charged with taking a tough look at B.C. Hydro's plans and cost projections to make sure the dam is the best alternative for consumers. The ultimate approval would have to come from the cabinet, with the first tough decisions expected by early next year.
B.C. Hydro may reopen plans for Peace River dam
Globe and Mail
June 28, 2005
Victoria -- B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld is musing about the possible revival of one of the most controversial hydroelectric projects in recent history.
Mr. Neufeld said the Site C proposal to dam the Peace River may have to be revived now that B.C. Hydro has decided to scrap the Duke Point gas power plant scheme on Vancouver Island.
Twenty years ago B.C. Hydro yielded to public pressure and shelved the $2.1-billion Site C hydroelectric proposal.
But studies on the 900-megawatt operation were dusted off again last year. Hydro spokeswoman Elisha Moreno said the area has not been selected as a "preferred option."
The proposal calls for a third dam on the Peace River near Fort St. John and the flooding of thousands of hectares of land.
Television coverage of Duke Point Power decision
BCTV
17-Jun-2005 17:08 BC HYDRO has decided to abandon its plans for a
gas-fired generator plant south of Nanaimo. The project was scheduled
for construction at Duke Point to improve the power supply for the
Vancouver Island, but opponents believed the plant would have been
unnecessary and hazardous to the environment.(681K)
21-Jun-2005 05:34 PREMIER CAMPBELL is rejecting calls for a public
inquiry into BC Hydro's decision to scrap the Duke Point power plant
near Nanaimo. Meanwhile, MLA Leonard Krog says BC Hydro needs to look
into other renewable power sources. Krog comments. (1617K)
SHAW - VOICE OF BC
22-Jun-2005 20:31 POWER GENERATION - The demise of the Duke Point power
project has put the spotlight on BC Hydro and the use of alternative
sources of energy. Carole James, who is critical of the management at
the Crown corporation for not looking into alternatives to the gas-fired
power plant, says wind power is an option that should be explored.
Furthermore, the NDP leader is encouraging the provincial government to
remind BC Hydro that part of its mandate is to look at alternative
sources of energy. Includes a recorded comment by Jock Finlayson.(3229K)
Media medley following Duke Point decision
Vancouver Sun
24-Jun-2005 Mayor was out of step on the need for power plant (p. A16)
25-Jun-2005 Hydro's bright lights will surely share the pain (p. E06)
The Province
24-Jun-2005 Duke Point mess begs answers (p. A10)
Times Colonist (Victoria)
25-Jun-2005 Death of project won't bring chaos (p. A11)
25-Jun-2005 Hydro vision gives way to hallucinations (p. A11)
25-Jun-2005 Boondoggle demands judicial inquiry (p. A11)
25-Jun-2005 Restraint runs both ways (p. A11)
The Daily News (Nanaimo)
24-Jun-2005 Route designer never took transit (p. A06)
CKNW
24-Jun-2005 19:09 CKNW Nightline BC DUKE POINT POWER - Michael says BC'ers don't' realize what a "boondoggle" the now cancelled Duke Point Power Project was as $120m in taxpayer's money was thrown away in an attempt to develop the proposal. Michael says the Auditor General needs to do an inquiry on this project but don't hold your breath for that to happen. Richard Neufeld and Premier Campbell are mentioned.
Death of project won't bring chaos
Thomas Hackney
Times Colonist (Victoria)
25-Jun-2005
B.C. Hydro's dramatic cancellation of the Duke Point Power electricity purchase agreement has triggered outrage and heated rhetoric, including demands for inquiries, visions of never-ending regulatory reviews and the by-now-standard myth about looming blackouts.
Perhaps people are so used to reliable electricity that their attention can only be caught by much sound and fury. If so, the facts will put all but true enthusiasts to sleep.
The B.C. Transmission Corporation confidently expects to maintain service to the Island with existing means until the new sub-sea electrical cables can be brought on line by October 2008. The Island's residential and commercial customers do not face more blackouts.
Industrial customers may be asked to curtail their electricity use at times, but they prefer that to paying higher rates for the new power plant. Public concerns with the transmission reinforcement have focused on technical aspects of the project, not its basic purpose.
Phase One of the new cable system will bring the Island 600 MW of electricity from the mainland, and Phase Two will bring another 600 MW -- plenty to power us for quite a few years.
Granted, this does not address the ultimate source of the electricity, but another colourful myth -- that there aren't enough resources on the mainland -- is also groundless. Power producers are lining up to bid for contracts with B.C. Hydro, and Hydro itself can make some very cost-effective capacity upgrades at the Revelstoke and Mica dams.
Calls for an inquiry are understandable, given the $120 million of write-offs and the frustrated regulatory outcome. But an inquiry would be unlikely to do much good. Until the Energy Plan of November 2002, Hydro was under government orders to build on-Island generation.
Then overnight, Hydro was forced to justify the plan before the Utilities Commission. While it was right to take the issue off cabinet's desk, the timing of the decision was highly disruptive to the process -- and Hydro can't be blamed for that.
Meanwhile, less dramatic but far more important is the present series of reviews of B.C. Hydro's electricity plans. Major decisions will be taken on whether and how to incorporate wind power into the grid. The right plan could bring about a whole new industry in B.C. The competition includes coal-fired generation, and cabinet has reserved the right to decide on the controversial Site C, the last major dam development in B.C.
A new tariff will be tabled toward year-end, which may re-jig the relative rates paid by residential, commercial and industrial customers.
These things may not make good headline material, but they will shape our future far more than the Duke Point fiasco will.
Thomas Hackney is president of the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition.
Hydro's bright lights will surely share the pain
Peter W. Pratchett
Vancouver Sun
25-Jun-2005
Re: Duke Point fiasco requires an inquiry to shed light on BC Hydro and regulators, June 22
So BC Hydro has written off most of its $120 million investment on the failed Duke Point power project. Any bets as to how much of a bonus the BC Hydro brass will award themselves this year for successfully spending so much of Joe Public's money? Any bets as to how much unionized workers will be asked to forego in terms of wage increases in upcoming contracts?
Peter W. Pratchett
Vancouver
Hydro vision gives way to hallucinations
Richard Berg
Times Colonist (Victoria)
25-Jun-2005
The cancellation of the Duke Point power project points to the utter failure of B.C. Hydro and the provincial government to make the capital investments necessary to avoid a catastrophic electrical shortfall after the year 2014. And a reliance on private power producers and private financing for the building of what should be major public power projects is irresponsible and dangerous.
Vital capital expenditures requiring a total of $5 billion or more are repowering Burrard Thermal (thermal or nuclear), building Peace Site C, and making transmission improvements and upgrades to the Island and from the B.C. Interior. Such projects take years to bring into realization (12 years for Site C).
But instead of the vision of the late W.A.C. Bennett, premier in the 1950s and 1960s, we have the hallucinations and deferrals (procrastinations) of the provincial government and its lackeys, a hapless, ineffective B.C. Hydro and the British Columbia Transmission Corporation, which recently caved in on the proper routing for new 230 Kv cables to the Island.
Unless repowered, Burrard Thermal, originally producing 960 megawatts, will shut down in 2014, leaving no backup power for the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, and no easy way of meeting peak winter demand for electricity.
The problems with transmission cables mask the facts of a lack of proper planning, no provision for public financing and the consequent higher electrical rates, and no approvals for the new projects needed to generate up to 22,000 gigawatt hours of extra electricity by 2025. Once Burrard Thermal shuts down and present excess capacity is used up, the lights go out.
Richard Berg,
Port Alberni.
Boondoggle demands judicial inquiry
Bob Ritchie
Times Colonist (Victoria)
25-Jun-2005
Wow! Good news for the residents of Vancouver Island. B.C. Hydro has cancelled the proposal to construct the very costly power plant at Duke Point.
This electricity generating plant was to be powered by very expensive natural gas.
Despite its approval by the Public Utilities Commission and the desires of the provincial energy minister, it's construction was challenged in the courts. The case eventually got to the B.C. Court of Appeal, which ruled the approvals were flawed and they were to come under a full review. BC Hydro decided against going through the process a second time and abandoned it.
If it had been built, Hydro customers would have been committed to paying over $40 million per year whether the plant produced electricity or not. Plus, we were apparently responsible for paying the cost of the natural gas that produces the electricity.
To show what a boondoggle this project was, Energy Minister Richard Neufeld has since told us that he wasn't worried as we had a secure power supply to 2034. Millions of dollars have been wasted on this sad joke and many of us feel that the new attorney general, Wally Oppal, should call for a judicial inquiry.
Bob Ritchie,
Qualicum Beach.
Restraint runs both ways
Chris McDowell
Times Colonist (Victoria)
25-Jun-2005
It's been fairly hard to miss lately the stories in the news concerning B.C. Hydro and their decision to not go ahead with the Duke Point development in Nanaimo. In the public announcement of their decision, they said we Vancouver Island residents will need to exercise restraint in our power consumption.
In light of what I have witnessed recently, "restraint" is an odd word for B.C. Hydro to use.
My wife and I have lived at this address in Saanich for more than 19 years. When we first moved in, the Hydro employee whose job it was to read the meters would go from house to house by foot and enter the data from the meter into a hand-held unit. A couple of years ago (maybe more) Hydro issued mountain bikes to the meter readers. Upon seeing this I was pleased to see the change to a more efficient "green" method.
Lately, Hydro seems to have switched to a relatively non-green and terribly wasteful method of collecting the residents' electrical use data. The meter reader for our street now drives from house to house in a small SUV. I can understand the use of vehicles in the more rural communities where the properties are some distance apart, but driving from one driveway to the next where the homes are side by side?
Hydro was crying the blues not so long ago saying they needed a rate increase. "Restraint?" It goes both ways.
Chris McDowell,
Saanich.
June 25, 2005
Death of project won't bring chaos
Thomas Hackney
Times Colonist (Victoria)
25-Jun-2005
B.C. Hydro's dramatic cancellation of the Duke Point Power electricity purchase agreement has triggered outrage and heated rhetoric, including demands for inquiries, visions of never-ending regulatory reviews and the by-now-standard myth about looming blackouts.
Perhaps people are so used to reliable electricity that their attention can only be caught by much sound and fury. If so, the facts will put all but true enthusiasts to sleep.
The B.C. Transmission Corporation confidently expects to maintain service to the Island with existing means until the new sub-sea electrical cables can be brought on line by October 2008. The Island's residential and commercial customers do not face more blackouts.
Industrial customers may be asked to curtail their electricity use at times, but they prefer that to paying higher rates for the new power plant. Public concerns with the transmission reinforcement have focused on technical aspects of the project, not its basic purpose.
Phase One of the new cable system will bring the Island 600 MW of electricity from the mainland, and Phase Two will bring another 600 MW -- plenty to power us for quite a few years.
Granted, this does not address the ultimate source of the electricity, but another colourful myth -- that there aren't enough resources on the mainland -- is also groundless. Power producers are lining up to bid for contracts with B.C. Hydro, and Hydro itself can make some very cost-effective capacity upgrades at the Revelstoke and Mica dams.
Calls for an inquiry are understandable, given the $120 million of write-offs and the frustrated regulatory outcome. But an inquiry would be unlikely to do much good. Until the Energy Plan of November 2002, Hydro was under government orders to build on-Island generation.
Then overnight, Hydro was forced to justify the plan before the Utilities Commission. While it was right to take the issue off cabinet's desk, the timing of the decision was highly disruptive to the process -- and Hydro can't be blamed for that.
Meanwhile, less dramatic but far more important is the present series of reviews of B.C. Hydro's electricity plans. Major decisions will be taken on whether and how to incorporate wind power into the grid. The right plan could bring about a whole new industry in B.C. The competition includes coal-fired generation, and cabinet has reserved the right to decide on the controversial Site C, the last major dam development in B.C.
A new tariff will be tabled toward year-end, which may re-jig the relative rates paid by residential, commercial and industrial customers.
These things may not make good headline material, but they will shape our future far more than the Duke Point fiasco will.
Thomas Hackney is president of the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition.
$100-M Terasen facility `up in air'
Robert Barron
Daily News
June 23, 2005
The future of Terasen's proposed $100 million liquefied natural gas storage facility in Cassidy is "up in the air" now that BC Hydro has terminated the agreement to build a gas-fired electrical generation plant at Duke Point, says a company spokesman.
Dean Pelkey said, now that the power plant project has been terminated, Terasen will have to reexamine the demand for natural gas on Vancouver Island, and associated load factors at present and into the future before any decisions are made on whether the facility will be built.
"Depending on our findings over the next few months, we may decide to move forward with the construction of the facility immediately, or postpone it for a year or two," he said.
"We still believe the storage facility is needed to help supply the natural gas needs on the Island and we think it's just a matter of when the facility will be built."
The proposal from Terasen, formerly Centra Gas, is to build a storage tank capable of holding one-billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas near Timberlands Road.
The facility was intended to feed natural gas to the Duke Point plant, as well as increase Vancouver Island's natural gas supply security to meet current and future gas requirements.
Pelkey said, while the project has already been given the green light to proceed from the B.C. Utilities Commission, he expects Terasen will have to reapply for permission to proceed with the facility with a revamped business plan, if Terasen decides to continue.
"We'd apply to the BCUC for the same project, but we'd have to show it still makes economic sense and the demand is there to justify its construction without the Duke Point project," he said.
June 22, 2005
Make pipe decision
Peter Morton
Washington Bureau Chief
National Post
22-Jun-2005
WASHINGTON - The Alaska government is growing impatient with Ottawa over the delay in making a decision on the Canadian leg of the massive US$20-billion Alaska natural gas pipeline, the state governor said yesterday.
And Alaska is keen on taking an ownership stake in the Canadian leg through British Columbia and Alberta, Gov. Frank Murkowski told the Financial Post in an exclusive interview in Washington.
Mr. Murkowski revealed that if TransCanada Corp. gets the approval to build the entire 5,600-kilometre pipeline, it might be eligible for US$18-billion in U.S. government loan guarantees.
"It's a quid-pro-quo thing," Mr. Murkowski said, adding that TransCanada has not said whether Alaska would be offered an equity interest in the longer Canadian portion of the pipeline.
Mr. Murkowski said he was promised by Prime Minister Paul Martin in February the government would make up its mind "in a week to 10 days" but he is still waiting. "We urged them to make a decision," he said.
The outspoken governor made it clear he believes it would be simpler for Mr. Martin to give TransCanada the rights for the Canadian pipeline portion because regulatory permits were issued 25 years ago. "It appears there is considerable advantage to the value of those grandfathered [rights]," he said.
As a result, Mr. Murkowski said the regulatory process would be streamlined, avoiding the process disputes and aboriginal claims that have bogged down the $7-billion Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline.
He was referring to the 25-year-old Northern Pipeline Act that gives the rights and the corridor for the Canadian leg of the Alaskan pipeline to Calgary-based TransCanada.
The governor said Jean Chretien, the former prime minister, "forcefully" said in a letter to TransCanada that those rights would be honoured by the current Canadian government.
Mr. Murkowski went to Ottawa in February to press the federal government to make a decision on whether Ottawa would give the regulatory authority for the Canadian leg to the agency responsible for the Northern Pipeline Act or the National Energy Board.
Enbridge Inc., TransCanada's rival in the proposed pipeline, and the owners of the Alaska North Slope gas -- ExxonMobil Corp., BP PLC and ConocoPhillips -- want to see a more open process to allow for competitive bids.
The Alaska government is concerned there would not be enough material or labour to handle both the Mackenzie Valley project and the Alaska pipeline, billed as the largest construction project in North America.
"You can't have both projects hitting the market at the same time," he said.
The state government is negotiating with TransCanada and the producers over the Alaskan leg of the pipeline. The state has agreed to take an equity stake if the producers own the Alaskan leg in exchange for giving up gas royalties.
It is not clear whether the North Slope producers would guarantee TransCanada gets the rights to ship their gas if it gets the nod to build the pipeline.
"We have always said that there is some flexibility on the Alaska side, but today we have not negotiated any other ownership structure for the Canadian side, where we own 100% of the rights" said Kurt Kadatz, a spokesman for TransCanada. "Obviously, this is a very large, complex deal and we have been in constant communication with the state of Alaska as well as Alaska producers. If the governmet wants to talk to us about flexible arrangements, we would listen to what they has to say."
Mr. Murkowski said the three producers would prefer to own at least the Alaskan leg of the pipeline to maintain control but have yet to sort out among themselves which would be the managing or leading partner.
The North Slope contains at least 36 trillion cubic feet of gas and could have as much as 200 trillion. The 4.5-billion-cubic-foot-a-day pipeline could provide as much as 10% of U.S. demand when it kicks in in about 10 years.
The Alaskan pipeline is part of a much broader corridor Mr. Murkowski would like to see built through the state and the Yukon. He would the rail lines from northern British Columbia extended into his state as well as the creation of a fibre-optics communications corridor.
Pat Daniel, chief executive of Enbridge Inc., Canada's second-largest pipeline company, which is also vying to participate in building the pipeline, said last week a decision from Ottawa was imminent.
Little guys win one
Editorial
Cowichan Valley Citizen
June 22, 2005
An amazing victory was achieved by Valley residents such as Arthur Caldicott, Steve Miller and the many others who fought the various incarnations of B.C. Hydro's gas-fired generating plant at Duke Point.
These are people with families and regular day jobs. Nonetheless, they successfully challenged Hydro's expert consumption forecasts and proved the 252-megawatt plant is not needed.
Not only that but they developed a viable alternative plan of their own, and succeeded in convincing the powers that be that Vancouver Island's electrical demands can be met with upgraded cables and other sources, such as NorskeCanada's proposed cogeneration plant.
To achieve all this they developed highly detailed reports and position papers and sat through days and days of monotonous hearings fraught with danger from the heavy hitters and their high-powered legal teams.
Through it all they maintained a cool, competent, informed professionalism oddly lacking in the so-called professionals.
B.C. Hydro has now spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a failed cogen plant in Port Alberni, a failed pipeline from Washington State and a failed gas plant at Duke Point.
Our provincial government needs to examine whether Hydro officials lied and bullied their way through these processes, pursuing personal ambitions at tremendous public expense.
If heads roll, we know of some competent, honest replacements.
June 21, 2005
Premier warns against pointing fingers
Canadian Press
Monday, June 20, 2005
VICTORIA (CP) -- Premier Gordon Campbell says there are lessons to be learned from B.C. Hydro's decision to abandon the proposed Duke Point power project near Nanaimo.
B.C. Hydro cancelled the project last week, saying a continuing appeal process meant there was too great a risk the plant would not be built in time and that other arrangements would have to be found to ensure the supply of power on Vancouver Island.
Alberta-based Pristine Power, which was supposed to build the power plant, and Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan were critical of B.C. Hydro after it made its announcement on Friday.
But Campbell said he doesn't want to find someone to blame and rejected calls for a public inquiry into the matter.
"I certainly understand the comments of the mayor of Nanaimo, but I think we should start by saying, you know, what can we learn and recognize everyone wants to learn from this," he said from Philadelphia, where he was attending a bio-technology conference on Monday.
"It's not looking for blame, it's looking for how we can do better in the future."
Korpan was especially critical of Hydro for wasting an estimated $120 million on the project.
"It has been a total waste of everyone's time, money and worry," he said on Friday. "How B.C. Hydro management has any credibility in the business community or with the public now eludes me."
Environmental groups have said the Duke Point plant would cause too much pollution and electrical needs could be met by renewable power sources and through conservation.
© Canadian Press 2005
June 18, 2005
BC Hydro abandons Duke Point plant; $120M investment lost
Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun, 18 Jun 2005
Chronology, Vancouver Sun, 18 Jun 2005
BC Hydro abandons Duke Point plant; $120M investment lost
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
June 18, 2005
Board of directors decided to avoid another battle with project's opponents
BC Hydro abandoned its trouble-plagued Duke Point electricity project Friday, walking away from a $120-million investment and raising doubts about the supposed "risk" of blackouts on Vancouver Island.
Hydro's board of directors decided to notify its private sector partner in the $285-million project that it was quitting, rather than face another legal battle with project opponents -- this time in the B.C. Court of Appeal.
The project has been steadily opposed by community and environmental groups, as well as the province's major industrial consumers of electricity -- mainly on the premise that it was costly and unnecessary.
It would have added about three per cent to each Hydro customer's monthly power bill.
Earlier this week, the appeal court granted Duke Point opponents leave to appeal the project, albeit on narrow legal grounds.
The court's decision opened a window in Hydro's contract with Duke Point Power of Calgary, enabling the B.C. Crown corporation to abandon a process that began in 1994 and racked up $120 million in regulatory and equipment costs.
These costs were all borne by B.C. taxpayers via writeoffs entered into Hydro's financial books.
"Under these circumstances, the provincial government has to take a close look at the way this was handled by BC Hydro and the B.C. Utilities Commission," said Hydro critic David Austin.
Until the board of directors' decision, Hydro senior staff had steadfastly defended the project -- portraying it as Vancouver Island's best defence against potential failure of aging transmission lines that deliver electricity from the mainland.
Hydro vice-president Bev Van Ruyven is confident it can provide reliable service to the Island by 2008, when a new high voltage cable is set down across the Strait of Georgia from Tsawwassen.
In the interim, it will ask industrial consumers including NorskeCanada to scale back their consumption of electricity during peak winter demand -- which is what Norske had long proposed as the cheapest alternative to building a new power plant.
Dan Potts, who represents B.C.'s major industrial consumers of electricity, said he suspects the Hydro board killed Duke Point because rising natural gas prices made it too expensive.
"I think over time it became apparent that, really, it is not a sound economic choice to proceed with this plan," Potts said.
Duke Point Power president Jeff Meyers said he was "shocked" that Hydro had exercised its right to terminate the contract -- he said the appeal was confined to "narrow legal grounds" and was unlikely to succeed.
He also took issue with Hydro's claim that the appeal process would prevent the Duke Point plant from being completed on time for the winter of 2007.
"We would have been happy to demonstrate to Hydro that we can meet our schedule," Myers said.
Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan, whose city welcomed the jobs and taxes the project was promised to deliver, expressed outrage. He called the entire process a "total waste of everyone's time" and said Hydro "lied" to residents when it stated that the project was urgently needed.
"If there is any vestige of decency left at BC Hydro, those executives who did this need to apologize to the citizens of Vancouver Island and then resign," Korpan said in a prepared statement.
He called on the provincial government to launch a public inquiry into Hydro's handling of the entire process -- with the aim of recovering the money that was "wasted on this travesty."
Hydro spent $50 million on preparations -- later abandoned -- for a natural gas pipeline from Washington state to Vancouver Island to feed Duke Point, and $70 million on turbines and other equipment for the plant itself.
In addition, Hydro pays $5.5 million to Duke Point Power, and loses the opportunity to sell the turbine equipment to the company for the comparative bargain price of $50 million.
Community opposition to the project was led by GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition whose president, Tom Hackney, said he was not surprised by Hydro's decision.
"There have been times in the past when it looked like BC Hydro had a very strong momentum to get their project through but we have been very close to the evidence for and against the power plant -- and we were always very confident that we had a strong case against it," Hackney said.
B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld blamed the New Democrats, who initiated the Duke Point process and committed most of the $120 million before the Liberals took power in 2001.
He said he supported Hydro and noted that as the process to build Duke Point dragged on, through BC Utilities Commission hearings and then the courts, it became obvious that it would be just as expedient to run a new high voltage cable to the Island.
Opposition leader Carole James acknowledged that the NDP had initiated the project, but noted that it was the Liberals' decision to privatize it and to persist with it despite four years of widespread public opposition.
"They continued to waste money on it. In my mind it's another example of this government's ideological drive to push privatization. It was another example of another project, like the Coquihalla Highway, until people complained too loudly and then had to back off.
"That shouldn't have to be the only way you get the government to recognize a mistake."
Duke Point points
- Project cost: About $285 million
- Plant: Would have produced enough power for 252,000 homes.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
BC Hydro has wrestled with a natural gas co-generation plant on Vancouver Island for over 10 years
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
June 18, 2005
Chronology of the Duke Point gas-fired electricity generating station project:
1994 A request for proposals for independent power producer projects is issued.
1995 BC Hydro raises concern about Vancouver Island's critical supply issues.
1996 A gas strategy was developed and included: Natural gas-fired co-generation plant at Campbell River; second natural gas-fired co-generation plant at Port Alberni; other potential gas-fired generation on the Island; and, new supply of natural gas to Vancouver Island for these plants.
September 1998 BC Hydro and Port Alberni Cogeneration Project sign a key agreement to build the plant at Port Alberni.
[NOTE: an important part of the story is omitted in this interval from 2000 to 2002]
Early 2000 BC Hydro fails to reach agreement with Atco and Pan-Canadian, the two companies which would build Port Alberni Cogeneration
Nov. 2000 BC Hydro and Calpine jointly announce Port Alberni Generation
Nov. 2001 BC Hydro abandons the Port Alberni Generation in response to overwhelming public opposition in Port Alberni and at the Environmental Assessment Office. Port Alberni refuses to rezone the land targeted for the project.
Jan. 2002 A rezoning proposal to accommodate a plant in North Cowichan faces overwhelming public opposition and is defeated.
Jan. 31, 2002 BC Hydro and Calpine announce that the Duke Point area is the preferred location for the plant
April 10, 2002 BC Hydro announced agreement of the Vancouver Island Generation Project at Duke Point.
Sept. 20, 2002 U.S. federal regulators (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) approved the U.S. portion of the project.
March 12, 2003 As required by the provincial energy plan, BC Hydro applies for a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the B.C. project.
Sept. 8, 2003 BC Utilities Commission denies application.
Nov. 28, 2003 The Canadian National Energy Board approves the application to construct and operate a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island, subject to regulatory approvals for the Vancouver Island Generation Project.
Dec. 15, 2003 The National Energy Board authorizes construction and operation of the Canadian portion of the project.
Dec. 22, 2003 An unconditional environmental assessment certificate is granted for the project.
Dec. 20, 2004 BC Hydro abandons Georgia Strait crossing project at a cost of $50 million.
Feb. 17, 2005 B.C. Utilities Commission rules that $285 million Duke Point Power project can proceed.
June 14, 20005 B.C. Court of Appeal grants opponents of Duke Point power project leave to appeal the BC Utilities Commission decision in favour of the project.
June 17, 2005 BC Hydro board of directors votes to abandon Duke Point power project, at a cost to taxpayers of $120 million.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
June 17, 2005
Media Coverage of Duke Point project cancellation
CKNW, 17 Jun 2005
CBC, 17 Jun 2005
Canadian Press, 17 Jun 2005
Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun, 18 Jun 2005
Chronology, Vancouver Sun, 18 Jun 2005
Andrew Duffy, Times-Colonist, 18 Jun 2005
Andrew Duffy, Opinion, Times-Colonist, 18 Jun 2005
Les Leyne, Times-Colonist, 18 Jun 2005
Editorial, Times-Colonist, 18 Jun 2005
Reuters, Globe and Mail, 18 Jun 2005
Wendy McLellan, The Province, 19 Jun 2005
Andrea Rondeau, Cowichan Citizen, 19 Jun 2005
Vaughn Palmer, CKNW, 20 Jun 2005
Editorial, Vancouver Sun, 22 Jun 2005
Robert Barron, Nanaimo Daily News, 22 Jun 2005
Michael Smyth, The Province, 24 Jun 2005
Hydro Kills Duke Pt Plan
CKNW News
Jun, 17 2005 - 11:00 AM
VICTORIA(CKNWAM980) - BC Hydro is abandoning the proposed gas-fired generator plant at Duke Point near Nanaimo. The proposal has faced bitter opposition on Vancouver Island, and earlier this week, the BC Court of Appeal ruled that opponents could challenge the BC Utilities Commission's approval.
Now, Hydro executives have met and determined the continuing appeals mean the risk is now too great that the plant will not be built on time, so it's scrapping the project.
Instead, the utility says it will now focus on trying to extend the life of the current transmission cable to Vancouver Island, and arranging with industrial customers to cut back on their usage.
Opponents have argued the gas-fired plant is too environmentally hazardous and unnecessary anyway, since there are many alternatives to that technology, such as wind-driven turbines.
Meanwhile, the BC Transmission Company is also working on plans for new power cables to the Island, but that project itself faces opposition.
Island power project dead
CBC News
Jun, 17 2005 - 1:29 PM
VANCOUVER – B.C. Hydro has killed its plans for a controversial natural gas-fired electrical power plant near Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.
 |
| Duke Point, south of Nanaimo |
The corporation's decision stems from a court decision earlier this week allowing environmentalists to appeal the B.C. Utilities Commission decision to allow the project to proceed.
FROM FEB. 17, 2005: Duke Point power project gets green light
LINK: Tuesday's B.C. Court of Appeal decision
A senior vice president with Hydro says the appeal increased the risk that the power plant would not be completed on time.
Bev Van Ruyven says without Duke Point, Vancouver Island could face problems with getting reliable power. But she says Hydro has plans in place to try to stop that from happening.
"We have other options that we can now go towards, contingency options. We are also building a cable to the Island which we have a higher probability that that will be in service in the winter of '08.
 |
| B.C. Hydro headquarter in Vancouver |
LINK: B.C. Hydro release
Van Ruyven says Hydro will consider proposals for another new power plant in B.C., but it won't necessarily be on Vancouver Island.
She says Hydro also hopes to persuade major industrial customers to reduce electrical use.
LINK: GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition backgrounder
Opponents of the Duke Point power project had complained it would create additional greenhouse emissions, and that the Island's electrical needs could be met by developing alternative energy sources.
INTERVIEW: B.C. Almanac's Belle Puri speaks with B.C. Hydro's Bev van Ruyven and with Dan Potts of the Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee which led the court battle.
TOP
Nanaimo power plant project abandoned
Canadian Press
Friday, June 17, 2005
VANCOUVER (CP) -- B.C. Hydro abandoned plans Friday for the proposed Duke Point power project near Nanaimo.
The move follows a court ruling that allows opponents to appeal a decision that gave the go-ahead to the natural gas-fired electrical plant.
B.C. Hydro said the continuing appeal process means there's too much risk the plant will not be built in time.
Hydro vice president Bev Van Ruyven said cancelling the project means the utility will have to make other arrangements to provide power on Vancouver Island, which means trying to extend the life of the current transmission cable from the B.C. mainland until a new line goes into service and by getting industrial customers to reduce electrical use.
"Our priority throughout has been the reliability of electricity supply to our customers on Vancouver Island and the risks to that are now too great," she said in a statement. "Given that, we have decided to exit from the project, something we are able to do as part of our contract with Duke Point Power without any additional cost."
Alberta-based Pristine Power was supposed to build the power plant, and the company's president, Jeff Meyers, disputed Hydro's contention the plant could not be built in time.
"We just felt that because the appeal was on a very narrow issue and it could be resolved in a few weeks, we just thought that they would just hang in here," said Meyers.
"They have said that it's gone on for too long and Duke Point is not reliable for 2007, and that is just a falsehood. That is not true. We have contracts to back up our construction schedule. We have some of the most reputable contractors in the world on this thing and it's just not true."
Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan also criticized Hydro's handling of the project, which he said has cost tens of millions of dollars.
"It has been a total waste of everyone's time, money and worry," he said. "How B.C. Hydro management has any credibility in the business community or with the public now, eludes me. If there is any vestige of decency left at B.C. Hydro, those executives who did this need to apologize to the citizens of Vancouver Island and resign."
Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said the decision is disappointing but understandable, and represents a culmination of events, including the increased price of natural gas.
"I think they reviewed the whole project and decided it would be in the best interest of the ratepayers to actually walk away from it," he said outside a cabinet meeting in Victoria.
Environmental groups had said the Duke Point plant would cause too much pollution and electrical needs could be met by renewable power sources and through conservation.
© Canadian Press 2005
BC Hydro abandons Duke Point plant; $120M investment lost
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
June 18, 2005
Board of directors decided to avoid another battle with project's opponents
BC Hydro abandoned its trouble-plagued Duke Point electricity project Friday, walking away from a $120-million investment and raising doubts about the supposed "risk" of blackouts on Vancouver Island.
Hydro's board of directors decided to notify its private sector partner in the $285-million project that it was quitting, rather than face another legal battle with project opponents -- this time in the B.C. Court of Appeal.
The project has been steadily opposed by community and environmental groups, as well as the province's major industrial consumers of electricity -- mainly on the premise that it was costly and unnecessary.
It would have added about three per cent to each Hydro customer's monthly power bill.
Earlier this week, the appeal court granted Duke Point opponents leave to appeal the project, albeit on narrow legal grounds.
The court's decision opened a window in Hydro's contract with Duke Point Power of Calgary, enabling the B.C. Crown corporation to abandon a process that began in 1994 and racked up $120 million in regulatory and equipment costs.
These costs were all borne by B.C. taxpayers via writeoffs entered into Hydro's financial books.
"Under these circumstances, the provincial government has to take a close look at the way this was handled by BC Hydro and the B.C. Utilities Commission," said Hydro critic David Austin.
Until the board of directors' decision, Hydro senior staff had steadfastly defended the project -- portraying it as Vancouver Island's best defence against potential failure of aging transmission lines that deliver electricity from the mainland.
Hydro vice-president Bev Van Ruyven is confident it can provide reliable service to the Island by 2008, when a new high voltage cable is set down across the Strait of Georgia from Tsawwassen.
In the interim, it will ask industrial consumers including NorskeCanada to scale back their consumption of electricity during peak winter demand -- which is what Norske had long proposed as the cheapest alternative to building a new power plant.
Dan Potts, who represents B.C.'s major industrial consumers of electricity, said he suspects the Hydro board killed Duke Point because rising natural gas prices made it too expensive.
"I think over time it became apparent that, really, it is not a sound economic choice to proceed with this plan," Potts said.
Duke Point Power president Jeff Meyers said he was "shocked" that Hydro had exercised its right to terminate the contract -- he said the appeal was confined to "narrow legal grounds" and was unlikely to succeed.
He also took issue with Hydro's claim that the appeal process would prevent the Duke Point plant from being completed on time for the winter of 2007.
"We would have been happy to demonstrate to Hydro that we can meet our schedule," Myers said.
Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan, whose city welcomed the jobs and taxes the project was promised to deliver, expressed outrage. He called the entire process a "total waste of everyone's time" and said Hydro "lied" to residents when it stated that the project was urgently needed.
"If there is any vestige of decency left at BC Hydro, those executives who did this need to apologize to the citizens of Vancouver Island and then resign," Korpan said in a prepared statement.
He called on the provincial government to launch a public inquiry into Hydro's handling of the entire process -- with the aim of recovering the money that was "wasted on this travesty."
Hydro spent $50 million on preparations -- later abandoned -- for a natural gas pipeline from Washington state to Vancouver Island to feed Duke Point, and $70 million on turbines and other equipment for the plant itself.
In addition, Hydro pays $5.5 million to Duke Point Power, and loses the opportunity to sell the turbine equipment to the company for the comparative bargain price of $50 million.
Community opposition to the project was led by GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition whose president, Tom Hackney, said he was not surprised by Hydro's decision.
"There have been times in the past when it looked like BC Hydro had a very strong momentum to get their project through but we have been very close to the evidence for and against the power plant -- and we were always very confident that we had a strong case against it," Hackney said.
B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld blamed the New Democrats, who initiated the Duke Point process and committed most of the $120 million before the Liberals took power in 2001.
He said he supported Hydro and noted that as the process to build Duke Point dragged on, through BC Utilities Commission hearings and then the courts, it became obvious that it would be just as expedient to run a new high voltage cable to the Island.
Opposition leader Carole James acknowledged that the NDP had initiated the project, but noted that it was the Liberals' decision to privatize it and to persist with it despite four years of widespread public opposition.
"They continued to waste money on it. In my mind it's another example of this government's ideological drive to push privatization. It was another example of another project, like the Coquihalla Highway, until people complained too loudly and then had to back off.
"That shouldn't have to be the only way you get the government to recognize a mistake."
Duke Point points
- Project cost: About $285 million
- Plant: Would have produced enough power for 252,000 homes.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
BC Hydro has wrestled with a natural gas co-generation plant on Vancouver Island for over 10 years
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
June 18, 2005
Chronology of the Duke Point gas-fired electricity generating station project:
1994 A request for proposals for independent power producer projects is issued.
1995 BC Hydro raises concern about Vancouver Island's critical supply issues.
1996 A gas strategy was developed and included: Natural gas-fired co-generation plant at Campbell River; second natural gas-fired co-generation plant at Port Alberni; other potential gas-fired generation on the Island; and, new supply of natural gas to Vancouver Island for these plants.
September 1998 BC Hydro and Port Alberni Cogeneration Project sign a key agreement to build the plant at Port Alberni.
[NOTE: an important part of the story is omitted in this interval from 2000 to 2002]
Early 2000 BC Hydro fails to reach agreement with Atco and Pan-Canadian, the two companies which would build Port Alberni Cogeneration
Nov. 2000 BC Hydro and Calpine jointly announce Port Alberni Generation
Nov. 2001 BC Hydro abandons the Port Alberni Generation in response to overwhelming public opposition in Port Alberni and at the Environmental Assessment Office. Port Alberni refuses to rezone the land targeted for the project.
Jan. 2002 A rezoning proposal to accommodate a plant in North Cowichan faces overwhelming public opposition and is defeated.
Jan. 31, 2002 BC Hydro and Calpine announce that the Duke Point area is the preferred location for the plant
April 10, 2002 BC Hydro announced agreement of the Vancouver Island Generation Project at Duke Point.
Sept. 20, 2002 U.S. federal regulators (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) approved the U.S. portion of the project.
March 12, 2003 As required by the provincial energy plan, BC Hydro applies for a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the B.C. project.
Sept. 8, 2003 BC Utilities Commission denies application.
Nov. 28, 2003 The Canadian National Energy Board approves the application to construct and operate a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island, subject to regulatory approvals for the Vancouver Island Generation Project.
Dec. 15, 2003 The National Energy Board authorizes construction and operation of the Canadian portion of the project.
Dec. 22, 2003 An unconditional environmental assessment certificate is granted for the project.
Dec. 20, 2004 BC Hydro abandons Georgia Strait crossing project at a cost of $50 million.
Feb. 17, 2005 B.C. Utilities Commission rules that $285 million Duke Point Power project can proceed.
June 14, 20005 B.C. Court of Appeal grants opponents of Duke Point power project leave to appeal the BC Utilities Commission decision in favour of the project.
June 17, 2005 BC Hydro board of directors votes to abandon Duke Point power project, at a cost to taxpayers of $120 million.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
Hydro pulls plug on Duke Point
Andrew A. Duffy
Times Colonist
June 18, 2005
Risks 'too great' for power plant, mayor outraged
B.C. Hydro cancelled its Duke Point power plant project Friday, and said it would turn to conservation measures and upgrading of power lines to maintain a reliable electricity supply for Vancouver Island.
Because the Nanaimo-area project faced a legal challenge, the risk of not completing it in time to deal with a projected supply shortfall in 2007 was too great, Hydro said.
Hydro had won regulatory approval to go ahead with the $250-million, 252-megawatt gas-fired generation plant, after spending 10 years and $125.5 million trying to get it off the ground.
The project faced a barrage of opposition from community and environmental groups, who said it was too costly, unnecessary, and would damage the environment. This week, the B.C. Court of Appeal granted opponents leave to appeal the approval.
"When the leave to appeal was granted ... we realized there was a risk of this not getting built on time," said Bev Van Ruyven, Hydro's vice-president of distribution.
"Our priority throughout has been the reliability of electricity supply to our customers on Vancouver Island and the risks to that are now too great."
Until Friday, Hydro had maintained the project was the best way to provide customers with reliable capacity to meet the Island's anticipated supply shortfall in 2007, when some of the undersea electricity cables that run from the mainland are deemed unreliable. Hydro will now look at its contingency plans -- options that include having industrial users contracted to lower power use at peak times, the short-term improvement of the deteriorating undersea cables and establishing new on-Island generation.
Van Ruyven said Hydro exercised an escape clause to get out of the agreement it signed with Calgary-based Pristine Power, the company that was to build the plant.
The decision was met with outrage and shock by those who have followed the plight of the power plant.
"I'm pissed right off," growled Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan who has called on Premier Gordon Campbell and Energy Minister Richard Neufeld for a public inquiry into Hydro's actions. "This is incomprehensible."
Korpan said he couldn't understand why Hydro abandoned the project when it was so close to the end, particularly after years of warning Islanders it was needed and was the most cost-effective means of ensuring long-term power supply.
Friday's decision means Hydro walks away from the $50 million Pristine was to pay for Hydro's work on getting permits for the project as well as the plant's turbines which Hydro bought for $69 million.
Hydro estimates it can get $14 million for the turbines. But Van Ruyven tried to stress the corporation will save in the long run as it is no longer tied into a 25-year agreement that would have seen it pay Pristine between $30 million to $40 million a year for power from the Duke Point plant.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2005
Hydro drops a bombshell
Andrew A. Duffy
Times-Colonist
18 Jun 2005
News that the Duke Point Power Plant project had been cancelled by B.C. Hydro drew sharp criticism Friday, even to the point of Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan calling for an inquiry.
"Time after time, B.C. Hydro said to the public that Vancouver Island was at severe risk of insufficient electricity supply," Korpan said in a written statement. "It is absolutely clear that we on Vancouver Island have been lied to for these last several years."
That's why Korpan wants to see an inquiry.
"At the very least we need an inquiry to find out what the costs were and why we went through this whole thing for nothing."
He wasn't the only one fuming.
Jeff Myers, president of Pristine Power, admits he was stunned with the move, noting Hydro is concerned they won't have the plant done in time.
Pristine is the company that was contracted to build the plant. The time frame has been changed because of the ruling that there was legal cause for an appeal process requested by opponents of the project.
"That's simply not true," he said of the suggested delay. "In fact we
guaranteed it for August 2007 and they don't require it until November ... it just doesn't make any sense." Myers noted that an appeal date had been set for July 8, with a note the hearing had to be expedited.
"This is very surprising and I still don't understand it," he said. "Why not at least go through (the appeal)."
Bev Van Ruyven, Hydro's vice president of distribution, would only say that the delay meant Hydro was out of its comfort zone in terms of the timeline for completion.
"We don't even know if (Pristine) could start it in July, we have no control of the Appeal Court," she said.
And while the opponents of the plant admitted they were surprised by Hydro's move, they were heaping praise on the corporation for finally having seen the light.
"We're very happy, we've been struggling for five years to oppose gas-fired power plants on the Island," said GSXCCC president Tom Hackney.
The GSXCCC has argued renewing the undersea cables as quickly as possible was always the best solution.
The JIESC, which represents the large industrial users of power and advocated demand-side management and renewing the cables as the best solution, was also pleased.
"This was a very, very expensive (stop-gap) measure," said executive director Dan Potts.
"It would have added $50-60 million to Hydro's annual costs and we don't think there's a need for it."
Cutting losses risks cutting power
Les Leyne
Times-Colonist
18 Jun 2005
Hey, auditor general. Want to sink your teeth into something really juicy, a lot more interesting than the usual value-for-money auditing exercises?
Check out something that used to be known as the "Duke Point" power project.
Start by trying to find out where $120 million over the last 10 years went. That's the amount B.C. Hydro has written down so far in the long, chaotic struggle to execute some kind of long-range plan to keep a reliable supply of electricity flowing the length of Vancouver Island.
As of Friday, it looks as if that money and a few million more has been flushed down the drain. And $120 million for nothing is only one of the things that doesn't add up.
Start with the $50 million within that loss that was sunk into the proposed underwater gas pipeline to the Island, which was a whole separate derailment.
B.C. Hydro's deal with the limited partnership that was supposed to build "Duke Point" stipulated that the public utility could recoup that loss. The private company was going to pay them that sum to make up the loss. Whatever happens next, B.C. Hydro is unlikely to get another offer like that. So why did they walk away Friday?
The cancellation of the project was widely expected, but it is still startling to see them abandon a deal with $50 million lying on the table for them.
The stated reasons are that the continuing court appeals meant the risk is too great that it won't be built in time. But they don't add up either.
The Court of Appeal had already set July 8 as the date for a one-day hearing on one narrow procedural question. Allow a couple of weeks for an expedited decision on that, and you could easily anticipate a final court decision on the intervenor appeals well before the July 31 "drop dead" option date that is fixed in contracts.
As Pristine Power head Jeff Myers said: "They were running in a $100-million marathon and they were right within sight of the finish line, and then quit and walked off the course."
The worries about deadline risks don't add up elsewhere, either. B.C. Hydro had absolutely iron-clad assurances from the limited partnership that it would have the plant up and running by the summer of 2007.
But somehow they convinced themselves internally that their partners were going to drop the ball, so they bailed out. Hydro issued reassurances that the bail-out doesn't incur additional costs. But that prospective $50 million they are walking away from sure looks like a loss.
The future options that B.C. Hydro is now outlining don't add up either. They're talking about extending the life of the current transmission cable and making load curtailment arrangements with industrial customers as short-term measures.
Those concepts have been examined ad nauseam over the last several years, and Hydro's own experts were lined up three-deep at times warning they simply wouldn't work. Not only that, the B.C. Utilities Commission formally rejected those ideas.
The new transmission lines in the works have various communities up in arms and are a lot harder to approve than anyone realizes, and even if they are built won't likely be up until 2010.
Hydro's longer-term solution is to look at how the next call for a new energy supply to the private sector needs to be adjusted to take into consideration Friday's decision.
Here's how it will be adjusted: All the costs are going to go up because private companies and their bankers are going to factor in a heavy B.C. premium to recognize the weird vagaries that crop up when anyone tries to do business with B.C. Hydro.
NorskeCanada emerges as a big winner. It fronted a coalition of Island industries that fought *Duke Point* tooth and nail, partly because of natural gas concerns, and partly because it can curtail its consumption and make money selling the unused capacity back to B.C. Hydro.
But that doesn't necessarily add up to a win for residents.
Determined citizens' groups who fought this project are big winners today, as well. But two or three years from now, when Island consumption is well beyond Hydro's forecasts (we hit the 2008 projection last winter) and a new supply is years behind the original schedule, we'll see if everyone is cheering the victory.
There's enough here for an auditor general to gorge on for months. Come to think of it, maybe the transportation safety board should lead the probe, because this is now officially a train wreck.
Just So You Know: If Norske and B.C. Hydro -- at each other's throats for years now -- sit down to do a new deal, Islanders should watch with bated breath. Norske will be the fourth private partner for B.C. Hydro.
Atco got burned for $5 million after Hydro broke off a Port Alberni venture, Calpine walked away with losses after B.C. Hydro flounced away from their partnership, and the *Duke Point* limited partnership's losses are in the "single-digit millions" now that Hydro has severed them, too.
In light of that, Hydro is a strong contender in the quote of the year sweepstakes, for this parting remark about its newest ex-partner: "We hope we will be able to work with them again in the future."
At the end of a pointless exercise
Editorial
Times-Colonist
18 Jun 2005
Hydro's abandonment of Duke Point plant might mean we have to believe in fairies
After four years of effort and $120 million down the drain, B.C. Hydro has pulled the plug on the proposed Duke Point power plant in Nanaimo.
The last straw appears to have been court approval of yet another appeal by opponents of the plant, who will not take Yes for an answer. With the prospect of even more delay, B.C. Hydro decided it had had enough.
So where does that decision leave Vancouver Islanders, who import two thirds of the roughly 2,100 megawatts of power we use at any given time?
Opponents of the project say that we'll be fine; that we don't need the extra power; that, at $45 million a year in fees for a private operator, it was too expensive; that the two power fines from the mainland can be upgraded in time to avoid brownouts; that the import of natural gas as the plant's fuel was uneconomical; that the plant would have been bad for the environment; that we're all better off using less power anyway.
B.C. Hydro has argued correctly that the population of Vancouver Island is growing, and will at some point need more power than the mainland can reliably produce. After all, the mainland population is growing, too, and facing its own power expansion opponents.
B.C. Hydro also argued that, if not absolutely necessary now, Duke Point would have been a backup source of power, and that it was also intended as a stopgap during the several power vulnerable months while the mainland lines are being upgraded in 2007.
In other words, we can get along without the plant, as long as there are no emergencies (like a tsunami or major earthquake) that interrupt the supply from the Mainland or damage the plants already on the Island that deliver about 690 megawatts. It would also help if the population of the Island remained steady, which doesn't seem likely to happen. Or perhaps most of us will trade our cars in for bicycles and walking shoes (also unlikely).
The environmentalist opposition to Duke Point and, indeed, any expansion of power generation except wind, solar and waves is ironic. Green thinking often invokes a precautionary principle: We shouldn't do something if it might harm the environment. It's a recipe for economic and social stagnation, but then, for environmentalists, that's often the point. We can save the planet by bringing economic growth to a halt.
With Duke Point, B.C. Hydro was invoking its own precautionary principle: Should the major supply of electricity fail, Duke Point could have taken up some of the slack.
B.C. Hydro's mandate is to ensure that the people of B.C. have adequate power. With the failure of Duke Point, the utility will now have to spend untold millions more, and endure more years of hearings and environmental opposition, to find yet another site on the Island to ensure that we have adequate power.
Unless, of course, we prefer to believe in the electricity fairy, who brings us all the non polluting power we need with a wave of her wand.
B.C. Hydro drops plans to build power plant
Globe and Mail
Saturday, June 18, 2005
British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority dropped plans yesterday to build a 262-megawatt natural gas power plant on Vancouver Island that had run into opposition from environmentalists and industrial ratepayers. The provincially owned utility said it will not go ahead with the $285-million Duke Point power plant after a court granted opponents the right to file another appeal of a ruling that would have permitted construction. B.C. Hydro wanted the plant in operation in 2007 to meet the island's rising electricity demand, and said "the continuing appeal process means the risk is too great the plant will not be built in time." The plant was to have been built near Nanaimo. Reuters
Duke Point deal dead
Wendy McLellan
The Province
19 June 2005
B.C. Hydro will fire up its contingency plans for Vancouver Island after walking away from a contract to build a gas-fired power plant near Nanaimo.
Hydro blamed the continuing court appeals from opponents of the Duke Point Power project for the decision announced Friday. "There comes a point where you say, 'Enough is enough,'" said Bev Van Ruyven, Hydro senior vice-president.
She said the months of delays were increasing the risk that the plant wouldn't be completed in time to provide power during an anticipated one-year shortage beginning in the winter of 2007.
Earlier this week, the B.C. Court of Appeal agreed to hear arguments from industry, environmental and community groups opposed to the $280-million project. The hearing date was set for July 8.
Hydro's contract with an Alberta-based independent power producer to build Duke Point allowed for cancellation of the deal without penalty if an appeal was granted.
Van Ruyven said Hydro will investigate other ways to save electricity during peak times until the transmission cables are in place in 2008. Norske Canada has already proposed reducing power use during peak hours at its Vancouver Island mills and Hydro will begin working with rate payers to reduce their consumption.
Jeff Myers, vice-president of Duke Point Power LLP, said his firm would have met the deadline to complete the project despite the delay in beginning construction.
"This was our first big deal, and to have it end like this is just devastating for our company financially, and for our reputation," he said. "We spent two years and $5 million on this, and we could deliver on time -- it was guaranteed."
Hydro pulls the plug on Duke Pt. plant
Andrea Rondeau
Cowichan Valley Citizen
19 June 2005
Concerned Citizens Coalition claim victory "milestone in Canadian environmental history"
Opponents of at 252 megawatt power plant that was to be built at Duke Point for $280 million by Duke Point Power Ltd. were celebrating Friday after BC Hydro announced the project has been cancelled.
"I think actually that this is a milestone in Canadian environmental history," said Steve Miller, Vice President of the Concerned Citizen's Coalition, a group that's been fighting the plant. "I don't think something this big has been able to be stopped by people as small as us in Canada before."
...
Build Nothing Anywhere Ever
Vaughn Palmer
CKNW
20 June 2005
VAUGHN PALMER says BC Hydro has spent $120m trying to develop a gas-fired generating capacity on Vancouver Island and so far the only thing that's been generated is a lot of opposition from the Build Nothing Anywhere Ever crowd.
Why should anyone care? We're all paying for it.
Since the announcement, there've been a lot of calls for a public inquiry into what went wrong.
$120 million is just a starting point on the real costs.
Windmill farms? People don't realize how bloody noisy they are.
On the CKNW website, you will have to register a name and email address, before you are allowed access to the audio vault.
You will need Windows Media Player installed on your computer.
The Vaughn Palmer session is on Monday, 20 June 2005 at 7:00 am. Palmer comes on at about 7:10 and the segment runs three minutes.
Duke Point fiasco requires an inquiry to shed light on BC Hydro and regulators
Editorial
Vancouver Sun
22-Jun-2005
Last week's inexplicable decision by BC Hydro to pull the plug on the Duke Point power project suggests such misguided planning and operational ineptitude that a review of the process that brought it to this point should be on top of the auditor-general's to-do list.
BC Hydro had made a compelling technical case for building the $285-million, 252-megawatt, natural gas-fired plant. It argued that Vancouver Island needed reliable generating capacity to see it through a shortfall until new high-voltage cable could be laid from the mainland across the Strait of Georgia. Developing island energy self-sufficiency would fulfil increasing demand from a growing population and industrial users. And once the new cable was in place, electricity could flow both ways. After all, the mainland population is growing too and might need backup in the future.
In essence, it is the same case BC Hydro has been making since 1995 when it first called for tenders for a proposal to address Vancouver Island's future energy requirements.
The BC Utilities Commission rejected a proposal by BC Hydro's own subsidiary, Vancouver Island Energy Corp., in 2003 but approved the latest plan by Duke Point Power Limited Partnership, majority owned by a consortium led by Pristine Power of Calgary.
In the reasons for its decision released in March, the utilities commission deemed the project to be in the public interest. Presumably, then, the decision to abandon the project is not in the public interest.
It leaves Vancouver Island at the mercy of what BC Hydro calls short-term contingency options. These include extending the life of the existing aging cables, an arrangement with Norske Skog to curtail consumption (in effect, Norske sells the power it doesn't use back to BC Hydro) and, if required, diesel-powered mobile generators to produce additional power.
The utilities commission has already formally rejected these alternatives as viable options for providing the island with dependable long-term capacity.
Without the power plant, a vital component of the island's energy infrastructure, economic growth will be constrained, as will the level of services. Businesses will be wary about investing on the island without some assurance that the lights will come on every day.
The reason given for BC Hydro's stunning reversal is that the B.C. Court of Appeal gave opponents of the Duke Point power project leave to appeal the utilities commission's decision. And even if they lost, they could take the case to the Supreme Court, raising the risk that the deadline would not be met and the project would not be completed on time, costing the utility more money.
But these reasons are not convincing. First, the appeal is limited to a narrow procedural matter and may not succeed. Second, the court had already agreed to expedite the process and set the hearing for July 8 in order to accommodate a July 31 deadline set in BC Hydro's agreement with its Duke Point partners. Third, as a public-private partnership, the contractor, Pristine Power, bore the entire risk of construction delays.
The BC Hydro board has much to answer for in this perplexing decision. Was the rising cost of natural gas a factor? That's not plausible. Like electricity, natural gas trades on commodities markets so producers can buy or sell contracts to lock in prices. Besides, there are no energy sources that provide comparable reliability at less cost. There's no such thing as cheap new power anymore.
The utilities commission is not blameless in this fiasco. Instead of convening a no-holds-barred, wide-open process, it conducted restricted hearings, with some sessions held in camera. That lack of transparency opened the door to challenge the fairness of the procedure in court.
BC Hydro has written off most of its $120 million investment in the Duke Point power project, an accounting entry that will soon show up on consumers' electricity bills.
It will also pay the Duke Point Power Partnership $5.5 million for terminating the agreement and forego $50 million on the sale of the turbines and related plant equipment purchased for the earlier incarnation of the project.
In an outraged statement, Gary Korpan, the mayor of Nanaimo, questioned whether BC Hydro management has any credibility left in the business community. He also demanded BC Hydro executives apologize to the citizens of Vancouver Island.
We have one more request -- a formal review by the auditor-general into BC Hydro's management practices and decision-making procedures, as well as the regulator's handling of the affair. We want to know why we have had to endure a decade of wasted time, effort and money.
Hydro's $120-M write off
Robert Barron
The Daily News (Nanaimo)
22-Jun-2005
The $120-million BC Hydro spent in failed attempts to build a gas-fired electrical generation plant at Duke Point was "written off" by the Crown corporation a year and a half ago and has had no financial impacts on Hydro customers, says Bev Van Ruyven.
Van Ruyven, Hydro's senior vice-president of distribution, said the expenses are related to Hydro's planned Vancouver Island Generation Project -- the $370-million, 265-megawatt gas plant proposal for Duke Point that was denied by the B.C. Utilities Commission in 2003 -- and the related $340-million GSX natural gas pipeline across the Strait of Georgia that was supposed to feed it.
"We spent $70-million on physical assets for the VIGP, as well as property acquisition for the project and regulatory processes," she said. "We also spent an additional $50-million on the processes related to the GSX proposal. These expenses were written off as sunk costs and came off Hydro's dividends to the government and was not passed on to our customers."
Hydro nixed a deal with Alberta-based Pristine Power last week to build a $280-million, 252-megawatt plant citing time constraints after a panel from the B.C. Court of Appeal allowed an appeal against the new plant proposal to proceed.
Pristine's proposal for the plant was chosen from 23 private sector bidders, offering a variety of energy generation projects for Vancouver Island, after a lengthy Call for Tender process last year by Hydro after the failure of the VIGP to pass regulatory processes.
While acknowledging Hydro's contingency plans to meet Vancouver Island's energy needs - curtailment and conservation - are almost identical to the alternatives laid out by a number of the plant's opponents, Van Ruyven said "obviously" Hydro always had a Plan B.
"Load reduction, whereby some of our major customers would reduce their load during peak periods, is one contingency we planned on in the event the plant didn't proceed," she said.
Hydro had claimed since announcing plans for a gas plant at Duke Point in 2002 the plant was essential to Vancouver Island's energy mix past the winter of 2007-08, and said Islanders faced the possibility of brown and black-outs passed that point if new power sources weren't in service by then.
The Crown corporation said 240 megawatts of electricity will disappear when the high voltage direct current HVDC cable system, which supplies about 25% of Vancouver Island's energy needs and is in deteriorating condition, goes out of service in 2007.
However, Van Ruyven said B.C. Transmission Corporation has since guaranteed "operational flexibility" on the HVDC cable system with upgrades that will extend its life-span.
Duke Point mess begs answers
Michael Smyth
The Province
24-Jun-2005
Gordon Campbell used to rant and rave about the previous NDP government's mismanagement of B.C. Hydro, especially when the New Democrats decided to invest in a risky power project in Pakistan.
Taxpayers lost $10 million on the doomed plant and in the wake of the ensuing "Hydrogate" scandal, Campbell promised to clean up and professionalize B.C. Hydro.
"We have to make sure it is being run in a professional manner," he said in 2001.
Which begs the question: What's so "professional" about Hydro flushing $120 million of your money down the drain?
That's how much British Columbians lost after Hydro's cancellation last week of the planned Duke Point plant near Nanaimo. It's an astonishing waste of cash that makes the Hydrogate boondoggle look like chump change.
The Duke Point debacle throws into question the competency of Hydro's senior managers and its board. The situation calls for a public inquiry, yet the government's response so far has been to duck and cover.
That's unacceptable with so many unanswered questions.
For example: Why did B.C. Hydro abandon a project it argued for years was desperately needed to prevent a Vancouver Island energy shortage?
Hydro produced stacks of studies, graphs and charts showing Vancouver Island will face an energy crunch by 2007. The arguments persuaded Hydro's board and the B.C. Utilities Commission, and the $285-million plant was given the green light.
The decision angered environmentalists concerned about pollution and the usual regulatory battle erupted. But Hydro's explanation last week that legal wrangling was endangering the plant's construction deadlines is absurd.
The B.C. Court of Appeal had scheduled a one-day hearing for July 8. Duke Point's backers expressed confidence in a positive ruling and said the construction timetable would be OK.
Why, oh, why would Hydro not wait few more weeks for the outcome of that hearing before pulling the pin on a project?
That's like running a marathon and deciding to quit with 100 metres to go because you're afraid of tripping over the finish line.
The environmentalists cheering this absurd decision, by the way, may end up wishing they'd never got their way. Now that Duke Point is dead, B.C. Hydro is working on other plans to meet the island's looming energy crunch.
That includes the possible use of monstrosities called "distillate-fired mobile units." These are massive 23-megawatt generators towed around on barges that guzzle diesel fuel to pump out power and lung-searing pollution.
No wonder Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan said the decision to kill Duke Point left him "pissed right off." He later apologized for his language. But it's others who should apologize and British Columbians deserve answers.
Pristine Power Inc: Hydro decision premature and costly
Attention News/Business Editors:
BC Hydro decision to terminate Duke Point project premature and costly
VANCOUVER, June 17 /CNW/ - Today's decision by BC Hydro to abandon the Duke Point Power Project is disappointing, premature and comes with long-term energy implications for Vancouver Island and BC's ratepayers, said Jeff Myers, President of Pristine Power Inc., speaking for the Duke Point Power Limited Partnership.
"We are extremely disappointed with BC Hydro's decision to terminate the Duke Point Power Project," said Myers. "There is a very clear need for this project. The business case is very strong and the need for this type of project will only increase."
"We do not agree with BC Hydro's decision and its assessment of risk with respect to the potential for delay. We reject the assertion that the project would not be built on time. The in-service date was guaranteed," said Myers. "The appeal court challenge was expedited with a hearing date already set for July 8 and we were confident that BC Hydro and our partnership would succeed on the very narrow procedural issue in question."
To ensure the project was in the public interest, the Duke Point Power Project went through an extraordinary amount of checks and balances including a rigorous, competitive bidding process, an environmental assessment and an extensive public hearing.
"The fact remains, the BCUC determined that the project is clearly in the public interest and is the best, most cost-effective source of dependable capacity to meet Vancouver Island's long-term electricity needs," said Myers.
"Gone is a vital piece of energy infrastructure for Vancouver Island," said Myers. "Vancouver Island residents should be concerned. BC Hydro's own load forecast predicts a looming supply deficit on Vancouver Island that will reach 280 MW in 2008."
"Short-term contingencies such as extending the life of existing cables, load curtailment and mobile diesel generators come with their own set of risks and new costs to deliver this essential service on Vancouver Island," said Myers.
"The BCUC has clearly stated that these contingencies do not constitute a viable option to provide Vancouver Island with dependable, long term capacity. Furthermore, the Commission has noted that the in-service date of the BC Transmission Company's proposed undersea cable could be delayed beyond 2010."
For further information: Michael Goehring, Tel: (604) 970-8115
News Releases on Duke Point cancellation
GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition
Duke Point Power plant cancelled
BC Sustainable Energy Association
BC Hydro Abandons Vancouver Island Gas Strategy
David Suzuki Foundation
David Suzuki Foundation congratulates B.C. Hydro on dropping Duke Point project
Energy Solutions for Vancouver Island
Why the Duke Point Power Plant failed
Sierra Club of BC
website - Georgia Strait Pipeline (GSX)
e-letter - The Hazards of Duke
Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC)
SPEC posts three wins in June
COMMENT: This was originally posted by Sierra Club as an e-bulletin. I cannot find it on the SCBC website - Arthur Caldicott
Sierra Clubbers lead battle to stop Duke Point power plant
Duke Point is dead. After six years, BC Hydro has shelved plans to build a gas-fired power plant at Duke Point near Nanaimo. With it goes the last vestige of a plan that would have seen 900 Megawatts of gas-fired power generation on Vancouver Island and a pipeline across the Strait of Georgia.
In 1999, volunteer Sierra Clubbers Tom Hackney and Bo Martin decided to intervene in the federal regulatory process surrounding the Georgia Strait Crossing Pipeline, or “GSX”, which would deliver gas to several power plants on Vancouver Island. The two thought the idea of burning fossil fuels was absurd when power conservation was less expensive and resulted in less environmental damage.
In 2000, Vancouver Island citizens joined the fight, shocked by the idea of a pipeline through backyards, past schools and across fields. People were furious at BC Hydro’s claim that decisions to build the pipeline were unalterable.
The BC Chapter, other organizations and local citizens formed the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition. The coalition brought evidence to the National Energy Board’s review of the pipeline and, subsequently, the BC Utilities Commission’s reviews of two successive power plant proposals for Duke Point. It also helped citizens organize against proposed sitings of the plant in Port Alberni and North Cowichan.
The coalition delayed GSX so long that BC Hydro cancelled it in 2004, citing unfavourable economics - one of the coalition's key arguments!
BC Hydro then scaled back its plans to one power plant at Duke Point. Again, the coalition fought the proposal through the BC Utility Commission’s review process, but in February 2005 the Commission approved the project.
The story doesn’t end there. The tenacious coalition applied to the BC Court of Appeal for leave to appeal the decision. On June 14, the Court granted leave to appeal. The coalition's appeal never went ahead. Three days later, BC Hydro publicly announced it was cancelling plans for a gas-fired power plant at Duke Point.
Read BC Hydro's press release
Read the coalition's press release
B.C. has some of the planet's greatest renewable energy resources. As the Duke Point struggle showed, it is time to face the future and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
Footnote: In 2006, independent power producer on Vancouver Island will once again bid for the privelege of supplying BC Hydro with electricity. However, for the first time, the BC Utilities Commission will consider the liability of greenhouse-gas emissions and the cost of offsetting those emissions in its assement of the proposals. Undoubtedly, this is a result of the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition's hard work.
GSXCCC: Duke Point Power plant cancelled
GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition
304 - 733 Johnson Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 3C7
Telephone (250) 381-4463
Email: thackney@island.net Website: www.sqwalk.com
For Immediate Release: June 17, 2005
Duke Point Power plant cancelled
For Immediate Release: June 17, 2005
Duke Point Power plant cancelled
Victoria – The GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition and its allies are celebrating BC Hydro's announcement that it will cancel the electricity purchase agreement with Duke Point Power Limited.
"We commend BC Hydro for cancelling the Duke Point power project," said coalition president Tom Hackney. "It's hard to cancel a committed project, but this is the right move. With mounting concerns about global climate change, BC should not be building new fossil fuel electricity generation."
"We looked carefully at the evidence in three regulatory reviews over five years," said Steve Miller, coalition vice-president. "BC Hydro overstated the demand for electricity on the Island and they overstated the risk of blackouts. We are confident the Island's supply will remain secure with the expected October 2008 installation of the new sub-sea cables linking us to mainland supply."
"The Duke Point plant and its earlier incarnations were economically indefensible," said Arthur Caldicott, Director. "Natural gas supplies are in crisis in North America and we can expect rising and volatile gas prices. We have abundant sustainable energy resources in BC, and they are not subject to fuel price fluctuations."
The GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition formed in 2000, with dozens of individual members and member groups including the Sierra Club of Canada, BC Chapter, the Georgia Strait Alliance, the Council of Canadians (Victoria, Cowichan and Mid-Island Chapters), and others.
The Coalition participated in the BC Utilities Commission's January 2005 review of the Duke Point Power Electricity Purchase Agreement. When the Commission approved the purchase agreement, on 17 February, the Coalition, along with the BC Sustainable Energy Association and Society Promoting Environmental Conservation filed with the BC Court of Appeal for leave to appeal the decision. The industry consumer group, Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee also filed an appeal.
On 14 June, the BC Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal the decision on grounds that the Commission may have inappropriately kept some of the relevant information in the review confidential. Following this, the Board of Directors of BC Hydro decided to abandon the project.
- 30 -
For further information, contact:
Arthur Caldicott – (250) 743-5551
Peter Ronald – (250) 361-3621
Download the GSXCCC news release
Other news releases link
BC Hydro abandons Duke Point Power Project
June 17, 2005
Continued appeals force BC Hydro to abandon Duke Point Power Project
"Risk of project not being ready on time now too great"
VANCOUVER – BC Hydro today announced it is abandoning the proposed Duke Point Power Project because the continuing appeal process means the risk is too great the plant will not be built in time. This follows the decision on Tuesday by the B.C. Court of Appeal to hear an appeal of the project by a number of intervenors.
"Our priority throughout has been the reliability of electricity supply to our customers on Vancouver Island and the risks to that are now too great," said Bev Van Ruyven, BC Hydro Senior Vice President, Distribution. "Given that, we have decided to exit from the project, something we are able to do as part of our contract with Duke Point Power without any additional cost."
Canceling the project does come with reliability of supply implications. This is, however, something that will be focused on from both a short and longer term perspective.
"From a short term reliability perspective, we need to ensure that there will be enough supply on Vancouver Island until the new transmission line comes in," added Van Ruyven. "We will do that by trying to extend the life of the current transmission cable and making load curtailment arrangements with industrial customers that may be needed between 2007 and when a new transmission lines comes into service."
"For the longer term, we will look at how the next call for new energy supply to the private sector needs to be adjusted to take into consideration today's decision. As well, we will use the upcoming second round of our Integrated Electricity Planning workshops to discuss – particularly on Vancouver Island – how our next portfolio of resources can take into consideration today's decision. This will get us more input to help make a decision."
In making this decision, BC Hydro would like to recognize all the efforts of DPP throughout the last year.
"DPP has been very professional throughout this process," concluded Van Ruyven. "We hope we will be able to work with them again in the future."
Contact:
Stephen Bruyneel
Director, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs
Phone: 604 623-4344
stephen.bruyneel@bchydro.com
Notice to BCUC to Terminate EPA
BC Hydro remains committed to supplying its customers on Vancouver Island with reliable cost-effective electricity. To that end it will begin to plan the implementation of short-term contingency options to secure additional reliability through to the in-service date of the proposed 230 kV transmission project. These options will be implemented sequentially to respond to the most current supply-demand forecasts. They include a load curtailment arrangement with Norske Skog, and perhaps other industrial customers, and temporary generation, if and when needed. Under current assumptions BC Hydro anticipates a one-year gap in its ability to meet the N- 1 planning criteria. However, it need not commit to that course of action until the in-service date for the 230 kV project becomes more certain. If BC Hydro concludes that the one-year gap is appropriate in the circumstances, it wil bring the matter forward to the Commission.
The most immediate consequence of the decision to terminate the EPA is that BC Hydro is obliged to reconsider the evidence it had planned to file Wednesday in support of the F2006 call for energy described in the 2005 REAP. Fundamental issues of the F2006 call, including quantity, timing and terms and conditions, all require reconsideration by BC Hydro in light of its termination of the EPA.
June 15, 2005
What you can do about Duke Point
The most effective thing you and others can do now, from June 13 to July 31, 2005, is write or call to key decision-makers.
Encourage them to seize this window of opportunity to terminate the agreement with Duke Point Power Partnership, without penalty. (By agreement on March 3, BC Hydro now has this right.)
Point out that there are more appropriate, less expensive, more environmentally benign alternatives to what is really just a short term bridging issue between 2007-2008, than this 25 year deal for the most expensive power in North America - which will necessitate, all by itself, a two percent electricity rate increase in BC if it goes ahead.
Write to:
Premier Campbell at Legislative Buildings, Victoria, BC V8V 1X4
Richard Neufeld, Minister of Energy & Mines, also at Legislative Buildings, Victoria, BC V8V 1X4
Your MLA - you can find her or his address and phone number here (though this information may be unreliable as new MLAs are updated in the system.)
Larry Bell, Chair, and the Directors of BC Hydro, at 333 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 5R3, or fax to Corporate Secretary's Office (604) 623-4467
Bob Elton, President and CEO, BC Hydro, also at 333 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 5R3, or fax to Corporate Secretary's Office (604) 623-4467
It's a little more work, but infinitely more effective, for you to write a letter. Email does not have the same impact.
GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition
302 - 733 Johnson Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 3C7
Telephone (250) 381-4463
Email: thackney@island.net Website: www.sqwalk.com
15 June 2005
The Chair and Board of the BC Hydro and Power Authority
Vancouver, BC
by fax: (604) 623-4467
Re: The Duke Point Power Electricity Purchase Agreement
Dear Mr. Bell and Board Members,
The GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition requests that BC Hydro cancel the electricity purchase agreement with Duke Point Power LP.
As you will be aware, the BC Court of Appeal has granted leave to the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition and its allies and to the Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee to appeal the Utilities Commission’s decision of 17 February. Now, under the terms of the electricity purchase agreement, BC Hydro has the right to terminate the agreement with no liability to Duke Point Power LP.
BC Hydro should exercise this option now. As you know, the opposition to the Duke Point Power proposal and other gas-fired generation projects on Vancouver Island has been widespread and protracted, and strongly supported with evidence. Not only have environmental groups and local Islanders opposed these projects – based largely on environmental considerations, including global climate change – but at the same time, on-Island industries are opposed, though they would supposedly be the main beneficiaries.
There are strong economic arguments against the Duke Point plant, including the price uncertainty of the gas commodity. As well, it is fundamentally wrong to build more fossil fuel-based generation in the context of global climate change. At the same time, the BC Transmission Corporation is confident of maintaining the Island’s electricity supply without the Duke Point plant.
The GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition has some forty individual members on Vancouver Island and ten members groups: Sierra Club of Canada, BC Chapter; the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, BC; the Georgia Strait Alliance; the Council of Canadians (Cowichan, Mid-Island and Victoria Chapters); the Nanaimo Citizens Organizing Committee; the Pender Island Conservancy Association; Shawnigan Lake Watershed Watch; and the Watershed Sentinel.
We urge you to cancel this project, so that BC Hydro can move toward an environmentally sustainable future, according to the commitments articulated by your president, Mr. Bob Elton.
Sincerely,
Thomas Hackney, President
Media coverage of Duke Point appeal decision
Vancouver Sun, 15 Jun 2005
Robert Barron, Nanaimo Daily News, 15 Jun 2005
Les Leyne, Times-Colonist, 16 Jun 2005
Duke Point power project opponents allowed to appeal its approval
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
BC Hydro is mulling its next step after a B.C. Court of Appeal panel ruled Tuesday that opponents of the Duke Point power project on Vancouver Island did not get a fair hearing when the project was originally considered by the B.C. Utilities Commission.
The appeal court judges voted two-to-one in favour of groups including GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition who sought to appeal the BCUC decision -- albeit on narrow grounds pertaining to the amount of information Hydro originally provided on the cost of the project.
Hydro said in a statement it will schedule a meeting of the Crown corporation's board of directors "as soon as possible" and will have no further comment until that meeting has taken place.
Project opponents have 30 days to file their appeals with the court.
"A successful appeal would overturn the Utilities Commission's decision and nullify the approval of the Duke Point Power electricity purchase agreement," the citizens coalition said in a statement.
Hydro wants Duke Point, a gas-fired electricity generating plant, to meet peak-time power needs on the Island while opponents say cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternatives exist.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
Power plant appeal gets new life
Robert Barron
Daily News
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Now that a three-judge panel has agreed Tuesday to allow an appeal process to move forward against the proposed Duke Point power plant, BC Hydro officials are meeting "as soon as possible" to determine the Crown corporation's next moves.
Hydro spokeswoman Elisha Moreno said a board meeting will be called to analyze the decision by the B.C. Court of Appeal's panel and "provide guidance" on the next steps that will be taken.
"(Hydro) won't have any further comment until after the meeting has taken place," Moreno said.
On June 3, the panel heard arguments from the Joint Industry Electrical Steering Committee and the Georgia Strait Crossing Concerned Citizens Coalition who were required to show the panel that the B.C. Utilities Commission committed an error in law in its February decision to allow the $250-million, 252-megawatt gas plant to move forward.
Hydro had entered into a partnership with Alberta's Pristine Power to build the plant, if given approval, to meet a perceived energy crunch on Vancouver Island by 2007.
Pristine would build and operate the plant and sell the power to Hydro in a 25-year purchase agreement that would see Hydro pick up the tab for the costs of the natural gas to feed the plant. The three-judge panel reserved its decision until Tuesday to have time to study the documents filed by all sides.
The groups had filed an appeal to the B.C. Court of Appeal on the grounds of a reasonable apprehension of bias and denial of procedural fairness on behalf of the BCUC panel that oversaw the review process, but the court ruled in April its jurisdiction covers only procedural and jurisdictional issues and denied the appeal. After a review of the court's decision, the groups decided to press their case to the court's three-judge panel.
In coming to the conclusion to allow the appeal, one judge fully granted an appeal, a second fully denied an appeal and the third granted the appeal on one issue - confidentiality - but denied an appeal on the apprehension of bias so, by majority, the appeal was granted.
Appeal could sink Duke Point plans
Les Leyne
Times Colonist (Victoria)
Page A12, 16-Jun-2005
The proposed Duke Point electrical generating plant is vanishing right before our very eyes.
It's more than 10 years old and still doesn't exist as anything other than a mountain of expensive course changes, court decisions, regulatory hearing transcripts and electrical supply projections. Now all of them could turn out to have been written in disappearing ink.
It's an over-budget, politically inspired mess of the first order. All that saves it from becoming a public scandal is the relative low visibility and the fact it's a complicated story about a commodity everyone takes for granted -- electricity. That, and the fact it's been running for so long now that people are inured to it.
The full extent of the project where everything that could go wrong did might not become apparent for another couple of years.
That's when, given the track record to date, it's quite conceivable Vancouver Island industries might start shutting down at peak demand times because there isn't enough electricity any more. Consumer curtailments and portable emergency diesel generators dotting the Island also wouldn't be out of the question.
Various opponents say it won't come to that -- they just have to renew the cables that now supply the Island. But that separate project is getting its own share of heat from Lower Mainland and Gulf Islands residents cool to the idea of more overhead wires.
The latest news on this star-crossed 10-year-old plan to get more electricity on the Island comes from the B.C. Court of Appeal. The justices this week allowed some interest groups the right to appeal a utilities commission decision earlier this year that the deal between B.C. Hydro and the private proponents behind Duke Point makes enough economic sense that the project can proceed.
Those groups include a citizens group that has fought the project for years, two environmental groups and the major electricity customers on the Island. (That group is spearheaded by NorskeCanada, whose mills could make considerable profit by curtailing production and selling the unused power to Hydro themselves.)
The prospect of yet another hearing isn't particularly exciting news. But this week's decision could be the end of the line for a multimillion-dollar B.C. Hydro production that over the years has wandered the length of the Island, gone through several private partners, morphed into assorted shapes, spent years in various approval process and still gone nowhere.
Hydro informed the B.C. Utilities Commission last March that if the leave to appeal was granted before June 30, it has the right to abandon the project and proceed with contingency plans. Alternatively, the crucial agreement between Hydro and the private partners will stay in place only until July 31, if the appeal is still alive.
That means there are two potential go or no-go decision dates looming. B.C. Hydro can now scrub the project on a few days' notice, or wait until the drop-dead date on July 31. Early reaction to the court decision indicated B.C. Hydro is going to make a quick call on the project in the near future. The board of directors is expected to meet soon to decide.
The B.C. Liberal government is staying as far away from the mess as it can, with Energy Minister Richard Neufeld saying it is entirely up to the utility company. Hydro will wait until today to see what the new cabinet looks like and who the energy minister is, then the board will huddle and decide what to do next.
Directors could decide to wait some more, while a full-scale appeal of the commission's decision is prepared, heard and decided upon. And if the opponents win, that could also involve backing up and holding more commission hearings.
There have been so many delays already that another year or more looks minor by comparison. Or they could decide to pull the plug and cut their losses, which are now in the tens of millions of dollars. That would burn their private partners (Calgary-based Pristine Power is the operating company). But two private partners in past incarnations of the project have already been burned, so it's not like that's stopped them in the past.
It became clear years ago to all the B.C. Hydro experts that the Island would be facing a shortage of capacity. The NDP cabinet directed Hydro to pursue the generating plant as the preferred option. It's remarkable since then how circumstances -- natural gas prices, determined citizens' groups, unfavourable rulings and political changes -- have conspired to the point where the utility now has to make a major decision in which either option is loaded with negative and expensive consequences.
June 14, 2005
Duke Point Project Goes to Appeal
14 June 2005
Media Release – for immediate release
Duke Point Project Goes to Appeal
Victoria/Vancouver – This morning the BC Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal the BC Utilities Commission’s decision approving the controversial Duke Point Power electricity purchase agreement. The GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition, the BC Sustainable Energy Association and the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation applied for leave following the Commission’s 17 February decision. The Court also allowed the Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee (“JIESC”) to appeal the Commission’s decision.
Both groups sought to appeal on the grounds that the Commission may have been biased in favour of the application; that it unduly restricted access to evidence; and that it unfairly used the review to order BC Hydro to contract for gas supply to Island Cogeneration, an unrelated power plant that was not the subject of the review.
“Under the terms of the contract, BC Hydro or the government can now cancel the Duke Point Power agreement with no liability,” said Tom Hackney, President of GSXCCC. “They should do so now, so Hydro can get on with more cost-effective and environmentally appropriate projects.”
“British Columbia has abundant sustainable energy resources and huge potential to increase energy efficiency,” said Guy Dauncey, President of BCSEA. “There is no justification for building fossil fuel-based generation, now or in the future.”
“The Duke Point Power plant would emit 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year,” said Karen Wristen, Executive Director of SPEC. “It would go directly against Canada’s climate change commitments under Kyoto, and it would undermine our ability to maintain a healthy environment, economy and society.”
Power from the 252 megawatt Duke Point Power generation plant is planned to go on-line in time to offset the 2007 zero-rating of some of the sub-sea electrical cables that supply Vancouver Island. A successful appeal would likely delay the plant, so that it would not meet that deadline. In that case, the BC Transmission Corporation would use bridging measures to ensure the Island’s supply until new sub-cables can be put in service in 2008 or 2009.
The appellants have thirty days to file their appeals with the Appeals Court. No date has been set to hear the appeal. A successful appeal would overturn the Utilities Commission’s decision and nullify the approval of the Duke Point Power electricity purchase agreement.
Tom Hackney, GSXCCC
(250) 381-4463
Guy Dauncey, BCSEA
(250) 881-1304
Karen Wristen, SPEC
(604) 788-5634
Download the GSXCCC news release
David Suzuki Foundation news release
Groups heading back to court to fight Duke Point project
Energy Solutions for Vancouver Island news release
Duke Point power plant in trouble
Gabriola Island’s NoGasPlant Coalition news release
Gabriolans Delighted With Appeals Court Ruling Against Gas Plant
Sierra Club of BC news release
Appeal granted in Duke Point power plant fight!
BC Court of Appeal Reasons for Judgement
The Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee and the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition, British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association and Society Promoting Environmental Conservation brought applications under s. 9(6) of the Court of Appeal Act to review the order of a chambers judge dismissing leave to appeal from orders made by the B.C. Utilities Commission concerning the application to approve an Energy Purchasing Agreement entered into between BC Hydro and Duke Point Power Limited Partnership. The applications were allowed to the extent that the order of the chambers judge is varied by granting leave on the issue of disclosure of confidential information, for the reasons given by Rowles and Levine JJ.A.; Hall J.A. dissenting. The review application is otherwise dismissed for the reasons given by Hall J.A., Levine J.A. concurring; Rowles J.A. dissenting.
BC Court of Appeal Reasons for Decision
The Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee and the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition, British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association and Society Promoting Environmental Conservation brought applications under s. 9(6) of the Court of Appeal Act to review the order of a chambers judge dismissing leave to appeal from orders made by the B.C. Utilities Commission concerning the application to approve an Energy Purchasing Agreement entered into between BC Hydro and Duke Point Power Limited Partnership. The applications were allowed to the extent that the order of the chambers judge is varied by granting leave on the issue of disclosure of confidential information, for the reasons given by Rowles and Levine JJ.A.; Hall J.A. dissenting. The review application is otherwise dismissed for the reasons given by Hall J.A., Levine J.A. concurring; Rowles J.A. dissenting.
BC Court of Appeal Reasons for Decision
June 13, 2005
BCUC and BCCA proceedings
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Duke Point Project goes to appeal |
Apr 28 Sounder article |
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February 17, 2005 Mar 9: Reasons for Decision |
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June 10, 2005
Kitimat LNG plant takes step forward
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
10-Jun-2005
A Calgary company's plan to build a $500-million liquid natural gas plant near Kitimat took a major step forward on Thursday, with an announcement that the project is now in the hands of British Columbia's environmental assessment office.
Kitimat LNG Ltd. is proposing to construct a deepsea receiving terminal for liquid natural gas (LNG) 18 kilometres south of Kitimat in Elmsley Cove.
The plant's owners foresee bringing in liquefied gas from suppliers in a maritime region known as the Pacific Basin, and "re-gasify" it in tanks at the Elmsley Cove terminal before piping it to local industries and on into the Western North American gas pipeline network.
The site is about 12 kilometres from a Pacific Northern Gas pipeline.
"There's the local market, a regional market, and then there's the greater British Columbia market," said Kitimat LNG president Rosemary Boulton in a telephone interview from Calgary.
"Some of the gas has the opportunity to move into the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and on down into California -- or it can flow east into Alberta."
Sending gas to energy-rich Alberta isn't as implausible as it sounds -- Boulton noted that the province's oil sands project requires vast amount of natural gas to serve as fuel during processing.
Kitimat has three major industries, Alcan, Methanex and Eurocan, each of which could emerge as major customers for gas from plant -- although Methanex recently said the future of its plant is uncertain due to rising North American gas prices.
Boulton estimates the project would employ 700 people during construction, leading to 50 permanent full time jobs when the project is operational.
The privately owned company, an offshoot of Calgary's Galveston Energy, hopes to be in business by 2008. It secured an initial $50 million in financing in January 2005.
LNG is a comparatively rare commodity in North America, but there are about 35 proposed projects on the books in Canada, Mexico, and particularly the U.S., and it's expected that the continent will derive 20 per cent of its gas from liquefied imports by 2020.
Improvements in LNG transportation and handling methods have slashed costs by half since 1989, making it an economically viable participant in the North American market.
"Ultimately we'd like to source gas from the Sakhalin Island project which is just north of Japan, in close to Russia. That's the shortest supply destination for us," Boulton said.
"The project economics are making sense."
She added that there are "lots" of LNG projects coming on in the Pacific Basin in the 2008-2010 time frame "so it would certainly fit in well with our supply portfolio."
The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office will now undertake a 180-day review of the proposal, which has support from the community of Kitimat and unanimous support of city council.
The company also began consulting the Haisla First Nation since May 2004 when it declared an interest in the project.
"I guess the only thing that may throw a wrench into the gears is if the environmental assessment process doesn't finish in a timely fashion," said Kitimat Mayor Rick Wozney.
Kitimat LNG Project site at the Environmental Assessment Office
Oil and gas exploration is dead
Brian Peckford, Parksville Qualicum News, 10 Jun 2005
Richard Neufeld, CKNW, 10 June 2005
Oil and gas exploration is dead
A. Brian Peckford
Parksville Qualicum News
10-Jun-2005
Now that the final counts are in for the recent provincial election, one can reach certain conclusions based on the results. One conclusion that I have reached is that the issue of offshore oil and gas is pretty well dead, at least for some considerable time.
I have come to this conclusion given that on this particular issue the lines were clearly drawn between the two major parties.
The Liberals were in favour of lifting the moratorium and moving ahead with appropriate regulations and the New Democrats were opposed to lifting the moratorium.
Evidence of the Liberals’ position is obvious, given their statements in throne speeches and by the premier and the energy minister.
Additionally, the Liberals established an offshore oil and gas team within the Department of Energy and Mines.
The New Democrats have clearly indicated their position in their party platform: “Carole James will make sure common sense prevails by continuing the moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration.”
The three provincial constituencies to be most affected by offshore activity are the North Coast, Skeena, and North Island.
All three ridings were held by Liberals before the provincial election and all three constituencies were lost to the Liberals and are held by the New Democrats after the election.
The likelihood of a Liberal government with a much reduced majority pursuing their offshore policy in light of these results is low to nil.
Add to this the minority status of the federal Liberals and their desperate attempts to hold power at almost any cost, means that little will be done federally to keep this file active.
And the third party, the first nations, have stated, through the recent public hearing process, their opposition to lifting the moratorium.
A. Brian Peckford
Qualicum Beach
Copyright 2003 Parksville Qualicum News
Offshore drilling still a high priority
Richard Neufeld, Minister of Energy and Mines
CKNW
Jun, 10 2005
VICTORIA/CKNW(AM980) - The Campbell Government insists it will continue to push for offshore oil and gas drilling, despite electoral losses in the ridings most affected by the issue.
Liberal MLA's who backed offshore drilling went down to defeat on the north coast and north island. That's prompted former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford, who now lives in BC and pushes for offshore drilling, to lament that the issue is probably dead.
But Energy Minister Richard Neufeld insists that's not the case, "Well that's his opinion, he's welcome to one. Our document said we were moving ahead with offshore and to my knowledge I've not been told any different, still have an offshore branch and still moving forward with it."
But Neufeld admits it'll be hard to get anything done on this file in Ottawa right now given the Federal Government has its attention on other issues.
June 09, 2005
U.S. power cheap no more for Hydro
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, June 09, 2005
It's just as effective to build additional power sources in B.C., papers show
A voracious and troubled electricity market south of the border is killing BC Hydro's ability to bolster the province's energy supply with cheap U.S. power, documents suggest.
The cost to import electricity from the western United States has risen 11 per cent since 2003, and it's now just as cheap -- or even cheaper -- to develop new independent power production within the province.
That's a 180-degree turnaround from Hydro's decades-long practice of buying cheap off-hour import power and conserving B.C.'s sprawling hydroelectric resources for periods of peak demand.
Independent power producers say B.C. is now relying on so-called "brown" power from coal-fired and nuclear power plants, because Hydro has failed to develop new resources at the same pace as domestic needs have expanded.
About 12 per cent of the province's annual electricity needs are met by imports.
Hydro maintains it can still meet all demand in a pinch by firing up the old and dormant Burrard thermal generating plant -- although current market prices for natural gas make this a costly option.
Documents filed recently with the B.C. Utilities Commission show Hydro paid an average $52.50 per megawatt hour (enough power for 750 homes) in the 2004-20005 fiscal year, compared with $47.50 in 2003.
Cheap U.S. hydroelectricity has kept the overall import price down in decades past, but five consecutive years of drought along the Columbia River drainage in Washington state have taken that source out of the equation.
Meanwhile, a Calgary-based energy sector analyst is suggesting a power-hungry U.S. will be burning more natural gas for electricity this summer because the nation's coal-fired generation system is pretty much at the limits of its capacity.
Martin King sees North American gas prices rising 20 per cent -- a scenario which would push overall energy prices even higher, both for U.S. consumers and BC Hydro.
"BC Hydro through Powerex was enjoying importing low load hour power over the earlier years of this millennium but in the last three years it's gone up quite steeply," Independent Power Producers Association of British Columbia president Steve Davis said on Wednesday.
"When you look at price, security and environmental impact, the high import strategy doesn't make sense any more," Davis added.
"The $52.50 price was the average in fiscal 2005. The rather painful irony is that that is essentially equal to the price BC Hydro paid to the green B.C.-based IPPs in their most recent call for power.
"More subtly, those green IPPs pay about $20 per megawatt hour back to various governments through water rentals, through taxes and through levies to regional districts or first nations."
Hydro spokeswoman Elisha Moreno said the crown corporation is "definitely" trying to get more independent power projects operational in B.C., but must also deliver the lowest electricity price.
"In the ideal world we are looking at becoming self-sufficient within British Columbia," Moreno said. "The challenge we face in expediting projects is that we must maintain a competitive process."
ssimpson@png.canwest.com
MADE IN AMERICA:
Powerex imports about 11 per cent of the electricity we consume in B.C. each year. And while some of that comes from Alberta (about two per cent of imports in fiscal 2005), the other 98 per cent comes from the U.S. That dependency on American energy is getting more and more costly.
Average cost of U.S. power imports
Fiscal 2003:
$47.50 Cdn per mega-watt hour
Fiscal 2004:
$49.90 Cdn per mw hour
Fiscal 2005:
$52.50 Cdn per mw hour
Increase over the three-year period:
More than 11 per cent
Source: B.C. Hydro
Ran with fact box "Made in America", which has been appended to the end of the story.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
June 05, 2005
The battle for power continues
CKNW
Jun, 04 2005 - 3:00 AM
NANAIMO/CKNW(AM980) - The battle over the Duke Point Power Project near Nanaimo is now on standby, as everyone awaits the outcome of the latest legal arguments.
The BC Court of Appeal has reserved judgement following a day's worth of hearings.
Tom Hackney of the Georgia Strait Crossing Concerned Citizens Coalition is pinning his hopes on what the three-judge panel will decide, "If we are granted leave to appeal, I think that radically increases our chances of actually defeating the Duke Point Power Project."
BC Hydro thinks the plant is important to meet the future electricity needs of Vancouver Island.
But, some others, including Hackney, think it's overkill.
Court of Appeal judges hear Duke Point appeal arguments
On Friday, June 3, lawyers representing the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition (GSXCCC et al) and the Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee (JIESC) argued their applications before Hall, Rowles and Lavigne of the BC Court of Appeal (deep breath) to have them vary Judge Thackray's earlier dismissal of GSXCCC, et al's and JIESC's applications for leave to appeal the BCUC Duke Point Power decision.
In attendance were four lawyers for the BC Hydro and the Duke Point Power Partnership (DPPP) and three for the appellants.
BC Hydro (Chris Sanderson) focused on rebutting the JIESC (Brian Wallace) arguments, leaving Duke Point Power (George Mackintosh and Loyola Keough) to address the GSXCCC (Bill Andrews) "bias" argument.
Perhaps a dozen observers attended the hearing.
Key issues and evidence in the GSXCCC and JIESC arguments:
- the amount of information released in the Duke Point review was unduly restricted
- BCUC panel chair Hobbs inappropriatelyt included an order for Hydro to make a long-term firm supply contract with Island Cogeneration Project as a condition of approving the Duke Point deal
- the infamous "un-redacted" (or "redacted, lite") Volume 8 transcript, wherein Hobbs chats with BC Hydro witnesses on how to engineer a different winner than that arrived at by the Call For Tenders process
- the Commission appears to have decided the outcome of the review in advance of hearing all the evidence - as evidenced in that transcript
- the substance of the same in camera session was to have a conversation with BC Hydro to engineer an outcome, rather than simply to hear commercially sensitive information
The judges seemed well versed in the case and did not interrupt to get facts of the review explained.
At the end of the afternoon, the judges reserved decision. Parties will likely be notified a day or two ahead when the judges are ready to release their decision. The decision may be released, with reasons to follow.
from notes by Tom Hackney
thackney@island.net
(250) 381-4463
June 03, 2005
Anti-Duke Point Groups Re-Apply to Appeal Court
GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition
302 - 733 Johnson Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 3C7
Telephone (250) 381-4463
Email: thackney@island.net Website: www.sqwalk.com
2 June 2005
Media Advisory
Anti-Duke Point Groups Re-Apply to Appeal Court
Victoria – On Friday, 3 June, the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition, the BC Sustainable Energy Association and the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (“GSXCCC, et al”) will appear before the BC Court of Appeal in a bid to stop Duke Point Power’s 252 megawatt gas-fired power plant from being built.
GSXCCC, et al will ask a three-judge panel of the Court to vary the 12 April decision of Judge Thackray. Thackray dismissed GSXCCC, et al’s application for leave to appeal the BC Utilities Commission’s 17 February decision, which approved BC Hydro’s plan to purchase electricity from Duke Point Power. GSXCCC, et al claim the Commission’s decision should be set aside, on the grounds that there is a reasonable apprehension that the Commission was biased in its review of the electricity purchase agreement.
The Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee (“JIESC”) will appear before the three-judge panel at the same time as GSXCCC, et al, also arguing for a reconsideration of Thackray’s decision. Should the three-judge panel grant the requests, the GSXCCC, et al and JIESC will formally appeal the Utilities Commission’s decision to the Court of Appeal.
BC Hydro has indicated that, if leave to appeal is granted, Hydro will have the right to terminate the electricity purchase agreement with Duke Point Power, without penalties. Also, if an appeal were launched and succeeded, that would cause the Utilities Commission’s decision to be nullified, and again, BC Hydro would be able to terminate the agreement without penalty.
Power from the Duke Point Power generation plant is intended to be on-line in time to offset the 2007 zero-rating of some of the sub-sea electrical cables that supply Vancouver Island with electricity. A successful appeal would likely delay the project sufficiently so that it could not meet that deadline, in which case, the BC Transmission Corporation would employ “bridging measures” to ensure the Island’s supply until new sub-cables can be put in place some time in 2008 or 2009.
“We have a very real chance of defeating this costly and unnecessary project,” said Tom Hackney, President of the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition, “and that would be good for all BC Hydro ratepayers.”
The GSXCCC, et al and JIESC applications will be heard at the Vancouver Law Courts, 800 Smithe Street, beginning around 9:30 and continuing into the afternoon. GSXCCC etal representatives will be available on site to address the media and answer questions.
For more information, call Tom Hackney at 381-4463
June 01, 2005
Power line opposition heating up
Andrew A. Duffy
Times Colonist
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Upgrade urged for Island's electrical grid
Residents of Saltspring Island, Tsawwassen and Delta want to zap plans to upgrade the power lines that keep lights glowing on Vancouver Island.
They cite health and environmental concerns, saying high-voltage lines have been linked to health problems and are just plain ugly.
A lobby group on Saltspring wants a re-routing that would boost costs by tens of millions of dollars. Tsawwassen and Delta residents want route changes. B.C. Transmission Corp., responsible for the power lines, is in talks with residents and assessing alternatives.
On Tuesday, the corporation unveiled plans to put lines underground at Tsawwassen. It originally wanted to run lines on new towers over homes but scrapped the plan after a public outcry. "We listened carefully to the views expressed in Tsawwassen and with community input we were able to identify a route alternative that fully meets safety and environmental protection standards," said Dennis Maniago, a B.C. Transmission vice-president.
But at a meeting Tuesday night, residents were still unhappy. "We don't feel that the community's concerns have been met. We have huge concerns about the health effects of placing these high-transmission lines underground," said resident Maureen Broadfoot.
B.C. Transmission has estimated its upgrading project will cost more than $200 million. The upgrade is needed, it says, because of growing demand for electricity on Vancouver Island; as well, some existing lines are near the point where they're no longer reliable.
In the Gulf Islands, B.C. Transmission wants to install new overhead lines on Saltspring and Galiano islands to carry power to Vancouver Island using a 60-year-old right-of-way.
"We are asking them to consider alternative options, alternative technology and alternative routes," said Daria Zobi, a member of Island Residents Against High Voltage Overhead Lines.
Zobi's group says running cables overhead on the existing right-of-way is potentially harmful considering the electromagnetic field given off by the increased capacity in the lines, and does not take into account environmental damage in the Gulf Islands.
"Their proposal is dinosaur technology," said Enid Turner, president of the residents' group, whose property backs onto the right-of-way. "We want them to look at new technology ... if this system is going to be around for 40 or 50 years, why not do it right?"
Both Turner and Zobi suggest an undersea model that would go around Saltspring before reaching the Vancouver Island entry point near Maple Bay. "BCTC is not willing to look at it seriously," said Turner.
The utility disagrees. B.C. Transmission has been crunching the numbers on three alternatives, an overhead route, underwater and underground, said Donna McGeachie, the corporation's community affairs manager. Estimates will be ready for a meeting with Saltspring residents on Saturday.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2005