LETTER – Energy issues are about opportunities, not just about challenges

RE: Response to Doug Collins column “Where Does the Power Come From?

Doug Collins in his One Man’s Opinion column (July 11, 2024) wrote a thought-provoking article on: “Where Does the Power Come From?” Doug outlines both the concerns with continued fossil fuel usage and the challenges in transitioning from our current path of increased fossil fuel usage.

He goes on to point out his concerns with the acceleration in the build out required in electricity generation capacity to meet increasing energy demand. While he focuses on the challenges he sees, for me the question is what opportunity does this create for our communities and individuals.

Having worked in economic development for the past 30 years, we have always looked at economic transition as leading to an opportunity to build back better, in this case generating new revenue sources locally, focusing on more diversified participants and solutions, providing a more sustainable energy system closer to home, and reducing our adverse impact on the environment.

Local leadership in energy production is not a new idea. There are community examples like Princeton (1922), Vernon, and Kelowna (1909) that developed their own utilities that lead to considerable revenue for their communities. In the case of Kelowna, their utility was sold in 2013 and today represents a legacy fund of $111 million.

Today in B.C. we have exciting projects generating revenue for local organizations, or soon will be:

 In the District of Lake Country, the community generates net revenue equal to four percent of their total tax base from the Eldorado Reservoir project.

 In Downtown Vancouver the Core Re-Development and Decarbonization project will electrify heat supply through an array of high-voltage electric boilers. The existing plant, built in 1968, will be modernized and utilize a Class-A tower using waste-heat from office tower cooling operations and further decarbonizing the system.

 Here in Kamloops, Thompson Rivers University, in partnership with Creative Energy, is establishing a Low Carbon District Energy System using a two-stage air-source/water source heat pump approach.

For further thinking outside the box, we see in Bangladesh that small household solar power networks can be woven together to create a network that is now being used to generate revenues for individual households. The surplus power being generated by this network is now being used to attract new businesses to the regions that support the networks, further creating new local employment.

By laying a foundation for organizations and local governments to accelerate adoption of these growing green energy opportunities, we create the potential for projects to move forward quickly, to facilitate the pay-down of capital investments and position for local long-term revenue generation. Further, local green energy projects can be part of the solution in stabilizing or even reducing energy costs for residents.

While there will always be those that can identify the challenges, the real benefit is in understanding the opportunities afforded by change and seeing how we can capitalize on responses that create wealth and stability at the local level. Locally, we have adapted andchanged how we generated energy in the past, and in these modern times, there are clear examples for us to emulate moving forward.

RANDY SUNDERMAN

Editor’s note: Randy Sunderman is the BC Green candidate in Kamloops Centre for the October provincial election.