Visions of Hydro’s future

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/07/2024 (692 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Upon taking office the newly elected NDP government wisely replaced the board of directors of Manitoba Hydro with its own appointees. Wisely, because that worthy group had shown themselves incapable of envisaging a future for the corporation that would see it at the forefront of Manitoba’s response to climate change.

The new board, keeping a low public profile, has not yet demonstrated or at least revealed its aptitude in the vision department.

Much effort seems to have gone into dampening expectations, a tradition followed by all new governments. A flood of negative stories painted a very gloomy picture of the financial miasma enveloping Hydro. We were told it will post a $190-million loss this year, not insignificant but to be expected occasionally during drought years. This is small beer however, when compared to the horror of horrors, a $24.6-billion debt. We are told that developing future sites would not “bring sufficient return on investment” to warrant consideration at this time.

We are also told that it is for future generations that we should be prepared to take drastic, even draconian measures, to limit global warming within manageable limits and to adapt to the significant and inevitable impacts. So, what is a “reasonable” return on an investment whose benefits will be enjoyed by a generation as yet unborn?

It is useful to look back at past Hydro-Electric development in the province, particularly on the Winnipeg River. Of the six power plants on the river — Point du Bois (1911), Great Falls (1922), Seven Sisters (1931), Slave Falls (1931), Pine Falls (1952) and McArthur Falls (1954) — the “newest” has been operating for 70 years and the oldest for over a century. We enjoy their benefits today even though in the 1920s and ‘30s and even in the mid-’50s, today’s benefits were invisible to an economic methodology that discounts, drastically discounts, the future.

So what? Perhaps not a big deal if one is persuaded, as many are, that we are entering a new age in which wind and solar farms will replace all of the energy we now obtain from fossil fuels plus the steadily increasing energy demands of growth-driven economies. Not that this is unobtainable — it can be done; but it requires an extremely dense transmission network, various types of storage and some 24-7 uninterruptible energy sources. This latter requirement may be eliminated in the distant future — massive batteries, hydrogen generation and use — but we are not there yet.

In the past there were three types of power plants providing uninterrupted power to the grid — fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydro-electric. We are (hopefully) phasing out the former, of which the recently dismissed Hydro board seemed unaware, and nuclear remains a societal pariah even though we may have no choice but to re-harness Prometheus in the medium term. For the Manitoba system, where hydro now provides almost 100 per cent of our energy, it will take on added significance as increasing demand is met by renewable (and interruptible or intermittent) sources. With our existing and future hydro capacity, we can support an enormous renewable energy grid with enough capacity for a government with vision to one day import electricity-intensive industries instead of exporting power.

But how can we think in such expansive terms if Manitoba Hydro is, if not on death’s doorstep at least requiring intensive care? A $190-million deficit compared to the budgets you and I and most Manitobans manage, is huge; but a single wet year will wipe that number off the books and potentially add a few hundred million in the black. As to the debt, in the past couple of years Canada has set aside about $100 billion in various compensation programs; $13 billion for a dental care program; and $600 million for affordable housing. Money can be found for whatever we consider important. Just how important do we consider future generations?

Our definition of sustainable development prioritizes meeting the needs of the present while generously agreeing not to “compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” And what if their needs require actions that only we can take, like ensuring the planet is not made unlivable by climate change?

Of course, these are global scale concerns and we here in Manitoba are micro, micro scale. But nonetheless, we can only answer for our own actions and who knows, maybe if we practise true sustainable development, development for the future, it might catch on.

In the meantime, it will be interesting to see how the Hydro board addresses these questions or in fact whether their vision sees them at all.

Norman Brandson is the former deputy minister of the Manitoba Departments of Environment, Conservation and Water Stewardship.