The government’s policy here is a simple one. First, force BC Hydro to buy more power than it needs by ignoring its ability to import power when extreme drought conditions reduce the generating capability of its major hydro stations. And ignoring the downstream power benefits that are returned to (and owned by) the province under the Columbia River Treaty — an amount of power equal to the potential output from Site C. And most recently by pretending the Burrard Thermal plant doesn’t exist — that it can’t provide any back up in emergency drought conditions even though we have to maintain the plant to be able to meet peak winter capacity requirements.

Next, artificially increase the demand for electricity with what I like to call a buy high-sell low policy of charging new electric intensive mines less than half the cost of the new electricity supply BC Hydro must acquire to meet their requirements — an effective subsidy of tens of millions of dollars per year per mine.

And finally, force BC Hydro to look only to the private sector to develop new sources of energy, no matter how costly and low in value many of these sources are or what cumulative environmental impacts they have.

You do, in this process, create an artificial private power producer (IPP) industry. And politically you reap the rewards of mindless consulting reports, uncritically regurgitated in the mainstream press, touting all the investment and jobs that will be created. And there is the green veneer — the suggestion that building more power plants and transmission lines than you need, and encouraging more electric (and GHG)  intensive mines with effectively subsidized power rates is somehow good for the environment.

But of course the investment and jobs in the IPP industry and electric intensive mining industry don’t come for free. They are being paid for by BC Hydro, which in turn passes on the extraordinary costs it is being forced to incur to you and me.  The bill for all this, by which I mean not the total cost, but the extra costs due to the unnecessary, inefficient and, I would argue, environmentally unfriendly government policy is well over a billion dollars — easily heading for two. A billion or two we don’t have to spend, that you could spend in other ways, generating jobs and investment just like the IPPs. A billion or two that essentially strips BC Hydro of the net benefits we all could have shared in.

Not once through all the announcements and media spin (sadly spun by the mainstream media reporters themselves) has there been any analysis of the benefits and costs of what the government is forcing BC Hydro to do. Simple measures, for example the amount and cost per tonne of any net reduction in GHGs, or the effective subsidy per job, would be not too much to ask. But there is no justification, only slogans and press releases.

It is, as I said to my right wing friend, either corruption or stupidity. Except for the obvious influence of election support, I’m not a conspiracy theorist myself — I think it’s stupidity. But either way it still is a disgrace — much worse than anything I saw in the Clark or Harcourt governments or the Socred governments that preceded them.

As for run-of-river IPPs, the fact is they are not very green, at least not if you value the large amount of land and water resources they cumulatively impact in pristine wilderness areas. They are not needed in the amounts that the government is forcing BC Hydro to acquire with its incredibly ill-considered and needlessly costly self-sufficiency and insurance policies. The energy they provide is relatively low in value, delivered disproportionately in the spring when least needed. They are high price. And the private contracts under which they are purchased provide BC Hydro with no long term security of supply. At the end of the contract terms the IPP power must be repurchased at then prevailing market prices.

Liberal Energy Policy forcing the development of excessive amounts of these ‘green’ IPPs is what I like to call a strategy to buy high-sell low (because much of the IPP power will be surplus and exported at relatively low prices) and buy now-buy again later (at the end of the initial contract terms). En realidad, as my Baja friends would say, its not just godless socialists that could question its wisdom.

As for the carbon tax, the hysteric debate and forecasts of doom have nothing to do with what is being proposed. Axing the Liberals carbon tax will mean fuel prices by 2012 may be 7 cents per litre less than they would otherwise be. That is a relatively small difference in price (less than the very annoying daily swings in price that sometimes take place at your friendly service station). And that in turn will have only a marginal impact on fuel consumption and related emissions. The demand for fuel is widely recognized by economists as inelastic (relatively unresponsive) to price.

Whatever you think about the Liberals carbon tax — a token gesture to attract green votes or a bold, albeit modest, step in the right direction — it is almost irrelevant to the much larger issues that need to be addressed. How and when will a cap and trade system for large emitters be put in place? How will transit initiatives be developed and financed to reduce auto use? Will vehicle levies or system tolls be introduced? If we are going to retain a carbon tax, how high should it go, and how can it be linked to the price of crude oil, so that it isn’t too small when crude prices are low and too high when crude prices go through the roof. Shouldn’t carbon tax revenues be devoted at least in part to offsetting the emissions on which they are levied? And shouldn’t we coordinate any carbon tax policy, like cap-and-trade, with what is going on elsewhere.

There is an opportunity to have an interesting debate here. But, at least so far, passion, politics and new found religious zeal seem to rule.