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VICTORIA — When the New Democrats pushed for quick answers on Site C this week, they put significant restrictions on what the B.C. Utilities Commission can and cannot do in terms of a review.

The cabinet directed the commission to identify alternatives that could provide “similar benefits” at “similar or lower cost” to the 100-year supply of hydroelectric power from the dam now under construction at Site C on the Peace River.

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But those options must conform to the “energy objectives set out in the Clean Energy Act,” the very piece of legislation enacted by the B.C. Liberals that excluded Site C from review by the commission in the first place.

The act objectives narrow the alternatives to electricity generated from “clean or renewable resources” including “biomass, geothermal, solar, ocean or wind” and excluding any source that would increase green house gas emissions.

Doomed by that reference is the option of building a state-of-the-art natural gas fired generating station — which could be done for several billion dollars less than the upfront cost of Site C. Ditto reactivating Burrard Thermal, B.C. Hydro’s idled (and aging) gas-fired generating station near Port Moody.