Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a boost to all green energy companies last week, but few benefited more than the B.C. firm behind the tidal energy project at Race Rocks.

Harper visited the project off Vancouver Island Friday to announce a $1.5 billion incentive program for renewable energy producers. He no sooner finished speaking than Clean Current Power Systems president Glen Darou began getting calls on his Blackberry from friends across the country.

Many of the callers had no idea that Darou, 64, had come out of retirement to head what some might consider a risky venture. A former chief financial officer at Shell Canada and Cominco, Darou really hasn't had to work for a living since 1997. But he said in an interview yesterday that when he looked back on his long career in the resource industry, he had a hard time seeing where he had helped change the world for the better.

A grandfather of two, he said: "I want them to have what I had; I was a fishing guide when I was 15 years old ... If I go back where I grew up, there aren't as many fish as there once were."

So when he was asked by the inventors of Clean Current's patented tidal technology to head up their fledgling company a few years ago, Darou jumped at the opportunity to get behind something that he believes will ease our reliance on fossil fuels and reduce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Today, Darou's not only the president and chief executive officer at Clean Current, he updates the website and fields media calls. But lest anyone think he's a one-man show, Darou insists that everyone at the company, from investors to the nine-full-time employees, are as passionate as he is.

"They want to make a difference," he said.

In a small way, they're already done that at Race Rocks, which is a pilot project in partnership with Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific, EnCana Corporation and Sustainable Development Technologies Canada. The lone underwater turbine, which converts the energy from tidal currents into electricity without producing any emissions, has reduced reliance on diesel generators at the famed ecological reserve. By summer, the diesel generators should no longer be needed at all, Darou said.

"It's very hard for someone to go out to Race Rocks and not come away saying: 'This stuff is great.'"

By the end of this year, Clean Current expects to complete design work on a three-megawatt commercial turbine with manufacturing slated to start in 2008. Even now, the company is in talks with one interested customer in Europe. Darou believes there will be demand from Asia as well.

With one turbine at a good location able to produce enough clean energy to power 600 homes, a tidal farm with hundreds of turbines could light a small city, the company believes.

"It will change the world for the better," Darou said. "I wouldn't be in it if I didn't believe that."

Reprinted with the permission of
Lindsay Kines
Reporter
Victoria Times Colonist