VICTORIA – The Burrard Thermal plant is unknown to many B.C. residents. Tucked away on the north shore of Burrard Inlet, it’s part of a little outpost of the dirty energy industry that West Coast folks tend to associate with Alberta.

Yellow piles of sulfur extracted from natural gas, some oil tanks and pipelines, and the six boiler stacks of the gas-fired Burrard Thermal station are the main remnants of this industrial history seen by commuters on the Barnet Highway as it winds its way into East Hastings Street.

In what may be its last loud bark, the consumer watchdog B.C. Utilities Commission has said Burrard Thermal should fire up four of its six old boilers to help meet growing electricity demand. As one would expect, the NDP and its anti-environmentalist pals were ecstatic. It’s the death knell for Gordon Campbell’s “pirate power” scheme, they crowed.

The commission’s decision, a book-length broth of acronyms that only a lawyer could love, rejects parts of the B.C. Liberal energy plan. But it seems contradictory at times.

Self-sufficiency in electricity is a fine goal, they say, which is why the outmoded, 35-per-cent efficient Burrard Thermal kettle should be brought to boil. It’s also a valuable backup, so it shouldn’t be phased out by 2015 as BC Hydro intends.

Elsewhere, the commissioners admit they don’t expect BC Hydro will actually, you know, run the old smog factory flat out. Commissioners are sensitive to the “social licence” of government in this matter, which one insider explained to me is “code for riots in the streets.” They say Hydro would likely end up importing dirty power instead of making it.

I caught up with Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom in his home town of Dawson Creek, where he was presiding over the opening of B.C.’s first commercial wind energy project. With the BCUC now under orders to revise its energy forecast, I asked him, can they overrule the government on private power, or anything else? The short answer seems to be no.

“They’ll continue to play a very important role in British Columbia, I can tell you that,” Lekstrom said. “We want to make sure that, you know, if the direction that was given wasn’t clear enough on Burrard Thermal, we’re evaluating that.”

Compared to the BCUC, Lekstrom is clear enough. The old watchdog has been sitting on the porch for so long that its barking doesn’t make sense any more. No need for a one-way trip to the vet, just a choke-chain and maybe some nice medication to help it sleep away its autumn years.

Environment Minister Barry Penner is less diplomatic than Lekstrom. In addition to being B.C.’s point man on greenhouse gas emissions, he is the MLA for Chilliwack-Hope, the area that would collect most of the pollution from Burrard Thermal.

“The people I have talked to can’t believe it,” Penner said when I asked him about Burrard Thermal.

Oddly, the BCUC went along with BC Hydro’s current position that those newfangled plug-in cars are just a flash in the pan.

Here boy, here’s a nice cookie.