The news that the federal government has injected $40 million to connect Yukon to the main North American grid ought to have us cheering that the outside world is coming to address our power needs and rescue us from catastrophic power outages. But, hold those cheers.
That $40 million for “pre-development work” is a mere drop in the bucket against the estimated final cost which, back in 2015, was pegged at about two billion but is certain to be significantly more in today’s dollars.
Coincidental to the Hanley-Pillai announcement comes a story from CBC on Sept. 26 about Site C, the Peace River Dam that by the fall of 2025 will add eight per cent to the B.C. grid. That same article states that by 2030 the electrical demand in B.C. is expected to grow by 15 per cent, meaning that in the very near future B.C. will experience a power shortfall.
Indeed, B.C. already has. This year, the province has imported 20 per cent of its power from neighbouring provinces or states at a cost of half a billion dollars.
And, in the climate change age, with diminished snowpacks and multi-year droughts, just how reliable will B.C.’s supply be?
Leaving aside the billions that extending the power line from B.C. to Yukon will cost - and who will pay - will a jurisdiction that is struggling to meet its own electrical requirements be in any position to assist us in our time of need?
Then there is the cost of that imported power to us at the very end of the transmission line. The CBC story makes clear that for B.C. to import energy “it must compete against the whole West Coast for electricity which means rising costs”. How would Yukon fit into this calculus?
Earlier this year, Keith Halliday, in his Yukonomist column for the News, wrote that a trans-mission line from B.C. is “hugely expensive, faces massive transboundary political issues.
(i.e. “at least ten First Nation and non-FN governments”), taps into power pools that don’t have much spare capacity and reduces Yukon economic development.” Only a myopic government would consider taking this path. Back in April, Halliday suggested that money from the Feds “might be better spent building local power capacity”.
Chu Niikwan, Kwanlin Dun’s economic arm, which has erected four wind turbines atop Eagle Hill (Haeckel Hill), is demonstrating that renewable alternatives can be locally developed, contributing to our economy.
Wouldn’t federal money be more wisely invested in creating more renewable ventures in Yukon,
working with First Nations partners? That investment would see substantially more money staying in the Yukon, generating jobs and revenue here, rather than seeing ever-increasing flows of capital flowing south. Is it too late to stop this folly?
Rick Griffiths
for Yukoners Concerned