Horgan hit it on the head with his ‘ hydrogen hype’
Fuel cell fl eet sell- off : Dubbed ‘ Fast Cat Horgan,’ MLA proved he could spot a green elephant
Seven years ago, a then- rookie member of the legislature challenged the B. C. Liberals for pouring millions of dollars into a fleet of hydrogen- fuel- cell- powered buses as part of a “hydrogen highway” stretching all the way to California.
“Why,” asked John Horgan, was B. C. “embarking on what could only be described as a bottomless pit of public subsidy for a technology that’s not yet proven?”
Right he was. The province, in partnership with the federal government and Whistler municipality, had to subsidize the project to the tune of almost $ 90 million. The outlays covered the purchase of some 20 buses and building the necessary fuelling and maintenance facility, plus covering the annual operating losses of the service.
By the time BC Transit listed the buses for sale this month, they and the hydrogen highway were less a wave of the future than a laughingstock.
Horgan was on track in another of his criticisms as well when he targeted the supposed emissions- free aspect of the project.
“It’s a sexy undertaking,” he told the house in 2007, “but the greenhouse gases produced to create the hydrogen to move the buses or to create the fuel cells are almost as great as the GHGs that you would produce from burning diesel fuel.”
“Hydrogen hype,” he called it, quoting then Vancouver Sun columnist Craig McInnes, who’d explained that the emissions-free claim was contingent on discounting how the hydrogen fuel was manufactured and transported in the first place.
The latter consideration provided one of the more mockable aspects of the entire exercise. A Quebec- based firm got the contract to supply the hydrogen fuel for the buses, which meant deliveries every 10 days or so by diesel- powered tanker trucks travelling across the continent.
Still, when Horgan first raised his objections in the spring of 2007, the Liberals weren’t having any of it.
The buses would be put into service in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler. Being the first instalment of the hydrogen highway project, they would
By the time BC Transit listed the buses for sale this month, they and the hydrogen highway were less a wave of the future than a laughingstock.
thereby put B. C. on the global map, green- wise.
Besides, hadn’t the previous NDP government also invested in hydrogen fuel cell technology?
Yes it had. But as Horgan knew very well, that government’s more notorious venture entailed risking millions of dollars on an ill- fated attempt to develop fast catamaran ferries.
As a senior staffer in the NDP government, Horgan had been close enough to the ferry project that when he made his bid for a seat in the legislature in 2005, his opponent branded him “Fast Cat Horgan.” So he’d learned his lesson about unproven technology the hard way.
Besides, as he fired back at the Liberals during the debate over hydrogen fuel, weren’t they supposed to be superior to the can’t run-a- peanut- stand socialists in these matters?
“Risk- taking, the members on the other side will say to us over and over again, is something that we should leave to the private sector, and by and large, I embrace that notion,” said Horgan.
Good point. Because a number of self- styled free enterprisers left their fingerprints all over the hydrogen fuel project.
Then cabinet minister, now Conservative senator Richard Neufeld: “There are countries around the world that would love to see the investment that’s happening in hydrogen in B. C.”
Then cabinet minister, later B. C. Liberal leadership contender Kevin Falcon: “A wonderful demonstration of the technology.”
Then federal minister Stockwell Day: “Our government is proud that we are creating jobs today and also ensuring that B. C. is a world- leader in hydrogen fuel cell technology.”
But the biggest promoter of all was the premier of the day, Gordon Campbell, then at the peak of his enthusiasm for green technology and fighting climate change.
On April 30, 2007, the very day that Horgan raised his challenge in the house, Campbell announced full funding for the bus fleet.
A month later, the Liberal premier presided at a star- power launch of the hydrogen highway with California’s celebrity governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the two of them promising an “uninterrupted corridor” of fuelling stations that would stretch all the way from Whistler to the Mexican border.
When the corridor never materialized, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times would liken it to a string of “Potemkin villages,” after the bogus settlements the 18th- century Russians supposedly built along a river to impress visiting Empress Catherine the Great.
Not one of the prouder ventures of the B. C. Liberal era. Nevertheless, they are scarcely prepared to confess to it yet. Asked Friday for a verdict on the ill- fated project, current Transportation Minister Todd Stone characterized it to my colleague Rob Shaw as “very successful.”
But ... but ... but. The buses cost four times as much as diesel buses to buy and three times as much to maintain. They were hard to start in cold weather. And they are now being offered for sale, with no expectations of recovering more than a fraction of the cost. How does that count as a success?
“The original intentions were to demonstrate that the technology was feasible,” Stone replied. “By that account it was successful.”
If they are so dang feasible, why are they being sold off? “BC Transit’s determination was that those additional costs were not sustainable for B. C.’ s purposes.”
The Liberal delusion continues. Whereas at least the New Democrats did eventually admit that the fast- ferry project was a fiasco.