The pursuit of power — electrical and political — is what keeps Queen’s Park fired up. And so the governing Liberals have conjured up yet another Long Term Energy Plan for the next two decades.

With hindsight, can we trust their foresight? Over-ambitious long-term plans of the recent past haven’t turned out as planned.

Mindful of the election cycle, politicians treat electrical power as an elixir. They generate energy not only to energize our economy but to regenerate their party’s prospects — harnessing electrons for elections.

Over the past decade, the governing Liberals bought into (and spent billions on) green energy. In prior decades, the governing Tories bought into (and borrowed billions for) nuclear energy.

In the traditional Tory paradigm, heavy manufacturing would be attracted by (unsustainably) cheap nuclear power, subsidized by ratepayers or defrayed by borrowings.

In the new Liberal paradigm, a futuristic green industry would be attracted by (unaffordably) high prices for wind turbines and solar panels — in hopes of windfall returns.

But governments can no more rewrite the laws of economics than they can reinvent the laws of physics.

Wind power is in a stall and green jobs are failing to take root across the industrial belt as once promised. An embryonic wind turbine manufacturing industry, nurtured by those subsidies, appears stillborn.

Nuclear power is also in decline, as the next generation of overpriced CANDUs cannot make a sale. The Canadian-designed reactor that supported tens of thousands of high-tech, value-added jobs appears to have a much shorter shelf life — and half-life — than once imagined.

With its economy at a crossroads, Ontario desperately needs a successful industrial strategy to grow its most promising sectors, harness domestic markets and scale up for foreign exports. But it is easier said — and written — than done.

The nuclear industry seemed a sensible bet a generation ago. But massive upfront capital costs, unknowable disposal costs (for radioactive waste) and prohibitive cost overruns have made it unaffordable for Ontario. Beyond the grim provincial prospects, the global outlook is bleak: CANDUs haven’t made a sale abroad since the last century as foreign competitors outmuscle the Canadian product.

(India might have been the industry’s salvation but for a sales ban imposed four decades ago, when New Delhi exploded a nuclear bomb using CANDU technology. Ottawa has only recently restored nuclear ties, but India cloned those CANDUs long ago long ago. A delegation from Ontario’s nuclear industry visited India last month to promote maintenance work, but it’s a hard sell all these years later.)

The green industry also seemed like a worthy wager over the past decade, as the Liberals tried to transplant a new manufacturing industry to replace a hollowed out auto sector. But wind turbines didn’t fit Ontario’s political temperament or seasonal temperatures.

Quite apart from the heat generated in rural Ontario — on esthetic grounds or from unproven health claims — the cost-benefit equation remains dubious. In the summer heat, when demand peaks, the wind often doesn’t blow.

Under the Liberals’ latest plan, the rapid deployment of wind turbines is being scaled back. Yet scale is precisely what’s needed to incubate a world-class industry.

A recent study on industrial strategy by the Institute for Research on Public Policy cautioned that incubating infant industries is risky compared to those with a critical mass:

“The public sector effectively serves as the ‘launch customer’ to allow an industry to establish itself,” note the authors, Dan Ciuriak and John M. Curtis. “Overall, the empirical record on the effectiveness of the infant industry argument … is mixed,” they conclude. “Other policies might be more effective and cost-efficient.”

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Instead of synergy between energy and the economy, Ontario is suffering from the paradox of power planning: The nuclear sector has peaked and the green industry has fizzled just when we need them most. The long-term plans didn’t pan out.

Realistically, the public sector cannot pick winners every time, just as the private sector makes its own mistakes. Governments or businesses that fear failure will never achieve successes. The challenge — whether for future industrial strategy or long-term energy planning — is to learn lessons the recent past. More on that later.