BC Hydro recently released its new Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), the Crown utility’s approach to meet future electricity needs for the coming decades. While the plan is a thoughtful combination of actions to keep power affordable and reliable, its overly conservative assumptions for future electricity loads, especially including industrial ones, aren’t sufficiently visionary to build B.C.’s electrified future.

Premier David Eby has articulated a vision of the province becoming a “clean energy superpower.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s list of now 11 projects of national interest for fast-tracking includes both projects that create potentially massive new........

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