Upgrading Alberta’s electricity transmission lines to keep pace with a fast-growing province generated bitter controversy lasting almost a decade. Then, one day a few months back, I noticed new transmission towers marching through the fields near my acreage north of Calgary. They had sprouted like mushrooms in the night. Soon, the 500-kilovolt, direct-current wires began to go up. To me, it was very welcome, for it had been 11 years since it became clear new lines were needed.

Inefficient electricity distribution resulting from constrained transmission tends to raise electricity prices while discouraging construction of new generation facilities because the new power can’t get to market. But the very thought of new lines had triggered frenzied opposition.

It struck me as illustrative of the emotion-based opposition to projects of all kinds across North America. Every argument against the new lines seemed misplaced. The claim they were unneeded was countered by the clear evidence of periodic system overloads and a spike in the province’s population. Concerns about electromagnetic fields seemed moot, at best, because the electrons were flowing regardless, merely through overworked, older lines.

Cries that “consumers would pay” seemed almost addled, as residential consumers would pay only 16% (our share of overall electricity consumption) and because the beneficiaries of a good service should pay for it. And just how much do consumers enjoy the “free” power outages caused by insufficient infrastructure? A further irony is that one of the new lines would connect the wind farms that most transmission-line opponents favour.

The least impractical alternative to new transmission lines is new power generation sites near population centres. Fast-growing Calgary needed something done. But some local residents didn’t want new power plants, either, fighting a proposed natural gas-fired electricity plant based on fears of the plant’s emissions. These emissions being precisely the same mix of water vapour and carbon dioxide (the chemical result of burning methane and oxygen) that comes out of every Calgary home’s furnace. Unreason was on a tear.

As the controversy raged, the provincial energy regulator became embroiled in scandal over accusations that it had hired private detectives to spy on opponents. Even the right-leaning Wildrose Party came out against the new power lines, a bizarre stance caused by some of the most vociferous opponents having become Wildrose candidates. Desperate to show that the new lines weren’t some dark profit-mongering conspiracy, the Alberta government passed legislation in 2009 declaring the lines a matter of provincial urgency. Formal approval came at last in late 2012.

Within 18 months, the lines were up. The sun continued to rise and electricity bills didn’t shoot up. Well, only a little, for the sole thing the opponents accomplished was ensuring that the new lines, having been delayed by almost a decade and forced to zigzag to steer clear of ornery landowners, will cost about $400 million more than budgeted.

More of Koch’s columns can be read at www.drjandmrk.com.

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