BC Hydro Power Forecasts and the Closures in the Forest Industry

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Some BC environmentalists (See Tzeporah Berman on her zerocarbon Power Up! blog  and Guy Dauncey's BC Sustainable Energy Association blog) have attacked the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) for rejecting BC Hydro's Long Term Acquisition Plan for buying wind and run of river power from private companies. Significantly, the BCUC is charged with protecting the public interest on matters electrical, not with finding power for export.

Among other things such as requiring a deeper concentration on conservation, what the BCUC said apparently was that they didn't trust Hydro's power forecasts for future need. Since Hydro hasn't been right yet, just as their forecasts  were wrong in the GSX fight against relying on natural gas for Vancouver Island electricity (which was fought and won by the grassroots, with nary a star power enviro in sight) that shouldn't surprise anyone.

And what's to trust? According to Hydro, the forest industry is the biggest customer for BC's domestic electricity, buying one quarter of it. But the forest industry is undergoing not just the results of stupid politics and hard times, but permanent downsizing. For example, based on Natural Resources Canada data (July 2009), since 2003 the province has lost 4 full pulp mills out of 20 and suffered another 4 permanent reductions in production, half of that in the last 18 months. As well, along with over 75 "indefinite" shutdowns and reductions in capacity in both sectors, 21 lumber mills have closed PERMANENTLY since 2003, 7 of them in the last 18 months.

But Hydro, while allowing some minor dip in the forecast for 2007/08, predicts almost flat-line consumption from 2007 out to 2027 for the industry which is its biggest customer and which is on the ropes. Their predictions allocate around 8,000 GWh to pulp and paper all the way and another 1000 to lumber mills, plus or minus one or two hundred GWh in each case. In fact, Hydro predicts a minor boom in mills of both types - starting this year!

In reality, if Hydro isn't seeing a massive drop in demand due to those mothballed and bankrupt mills, they better go check their metres for grow op power siphons. (Come to think of it, maybe that's where they secretly think the power is going to be needed.....)

The thing about Burrard, the massive natural gas generating station on the mainland, which BCUC refused to allow Hydro to discard, is that you can turn it on and off instantly and it is already in place, so it is a much BETTER deal for the environment and emergency backup than building a bunch of extremely expensive, hard-to-maintain, and impossible-to-use in peak demand, for-profit infrastructure in the middle of the wilderness.

Burrard is also right in the face and lungs of the main power suck in the province, Vancouver, so it should be a powerful argument for reduction by the oh-so-beautiful inhabitants of Robsonstrasse. I bet they could even power Burrard by methane from the city's sewage! Let California use solar power, let Vancouver go on a diet, and let the natural places be reservoirs of hope for the embattled species of the planet, including our own.

Just because Earth's carbon balance is out of whack due to fossil fuel burning and destruction of natural carbon sinks like old growth forests, doesn't mean you need to run around like Chicken Little, trashing whatever is left of the province's natural beauty. There's something about this frenzy and hysteria which is deeply disturbing. Especially when the trashing is being done for a profit, not the public good. Follow the money.

And if we in BC really care about the carbon balance, and feel like being fervent, let's stop allowing new coal mines.

Thanks to the BCUC for just doing its job.