By John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Daily Gleaner NB Power has asked an American firm to build a controversial natural gas-diesel plant at a cost of more than $1 billion because without it, New Brunswick risks running out of electricity within three years, says an executive. Brad Coady, the vice president of business development at NB Power, laid out the possibility of a bleak future to a group of politicians who represent a province where three-quarters of people still depend on electricity for heat in the bone-chilling winter. On Friday, he told the standing committee on public accounts at the legislature that he discovered the problem during an NB Power executive meeting in the fall of 2023, when he learned the public utility had already blown through its…