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www.earthfuture.com
Monday, August 28th, 2000
Michel L. Mantha
Secretary
National Energy Board
444 Seventh Avenue S.W. 5 sides
Calgary, Alberta T2P 0X8
fax: (403) 292-5503
re: Assessment of the Georgia Strait Gas Pipeline Crossing
Dear M. Mantha,
I work as a professional consultant in the field of development planning, and as an author in the field of global climate change. I have been following the discussion about the proposed Georgia Strait Gas Pipeline Crossing with interest.
I will say at the outset that I do not support the proposed gas pipeline, and I am disturbed that there has not been a public process to consider if it is needed, or what the alternatives might be.
I will admit to a prejudice that the members of the NEB, being based in Calgary, are probably skeptical about the impacts of global climate change, and the prospect that energy efficiency and renewable energy have something to contribute. I suspect that the BC government has fallen in love with natural gas because of the lucrative revenues it provides in license fees, and that climate change worries are being dismissed with the words “We’ll buy offsets.” In the nature of public debate, however, I am always hopeful that I can change your minds.
I would like the GSX study to include a study of the following:
1. What is the evidence that Vancouver Island is running short of energy? On paper, BC Hydro has a program called Power Smart, but in reality, it appears to be being wound down. If a utility can persuade its customers to reduce their peak load power use by 10%, that is equivalent to reducing the entire load capacity by 10%. The cheapest way to obtain new energy is to harvest energy that is being wasted, by investing in energy efficiency. Energy gathered this way costs US 0.5 to 2 cents per kWh, and is the most environmentally sound way to collect new power. The Oregon Office of Energy Efficiency estimates that Oregon saved enough energy in 1997 to power Portland for a full year by its various initiatives. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has saved 379 MW through its various initiatives.
In
2000, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy did a nationwide
survey of utility spending on energy efficiency, and found that Washington’s
utilities came out top, with savings of 9.2% of electricity sales, following 20
years of programs. Utilities in only five other states exceeded 4% energy
savings – Oregon, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Minnesota and Vermont. The national
average was 1.74%. What is it in B.C.? The BC Hydro website does not say. If
utilities in every state had harvested the same amount of energy from
efficiency initiatives as was achieved in the top five states, US electricity
consumption in 1998 would have fallen by 200 million megawatt hours, saving 160
million tons of C02 from entering the atmosphere.
What Does Power Cost? (1999 US prices)
Saved energy (commercial/industrial efficiency) 0.5 cents
Saved energy (residential efficiency) 2 cents
Coal-fired power 2 cents
Combined-cycle gas turbines 2.7 – 3 cents
Microturbine cogeneration or trigeneration 0.5 – 3 cents
Windpower 4 – 5 cents
Nuclear energy 15 – 39 cents
Source Amory Lovins[1]
Seattle City Light is America’s 3rd largest public utility, serving some 330,000 residential customers, mostly with hydro (half the population of Vancouver island). In 1992, it set out to harvest 100MW of available energy by 2002, using cost-effective conservation. By 1998, it had harvested 66MW, and was behind target, but well ahead of most utilities. Its goal for 2000 is to harvest another 6 MW, saving 51,000 tons of C02 from entering the atmosphere. How do they do it ? By providing or offering -
· Extensive information on ways to save energy, and a customized Internet read-out of energy and water usage, with specific recommendations for single families
· A Built Smart program that uses financial incentives to encourage customers to go beyond the code for energy efficiency in new multifamily buildings
· A region-wide discount on Energy Star light bulbs and fixtures
· Region-wide cash rebates on efficient ‘WashWise’ clothes washers
· Free energy efficient showerheads and aerators
· $30 rebates to customers who buy energy efficient electric water heaters
· 3% home improvement loans for low and middle-income households
· A low-cost weatherization program for landlords of pre-1984 buildings
· Weatherization grants for low-income families
· A 70% discount on lighting replacements in multifamily building common areas
· Multifamily weatherization grants (70% off lights, 50% off insulation)
· Electricity sales through a tiered rate structure (6.3 cents per kwh in winter, 4.5 per kwh in summer)
·
What does BC Hydro offer? Only a home audit and 3rd party loan program.
Seattle City Council's Energy and Environmental Policy Committee, Chaired by Councilmember Heidi Wills, has approved a strategy that will double the level of current conservation efforts (now 6 average megawatts annually). Scheduled will begin ramping up in 2001, and the program will result in an additional 100MW of cost effective conservation over the next 15 years.
In Eugene, OR, the Emerald People’s Utility District:
· Provides weatherization for electrically heated and mobile homes – 40% off and a 0% loan
· Subsidizes sealing leaky ducts in mobile homes – 50% off
· Buys compact fluorescent light bulbs in bulk, and passes the saving on
· Subsidizes new hot water heaters - $30 rebate
· Offers a $75 - $100 incentive to replace old fridge with efficient model
· Offers a $100 incentive to buy an efficient clothes washer, $30 for an efficient dishwasher
· Offers free energy- efficient showerheads and water aerators
· Offers a $750 incentive and assistance to install geothermal heat-pumps (see #**)
· Offers a ‘Super Good Cents’ $750 incentive to build an energy efficient house
In 1989, a pilot program run by the Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light Company, Massachusetts, demonstrated that customer participation in an efficient lighting program rose from 4% with a partial rebate to 73% with a full rebate. Even with the utility bearing the full expense, the program was still cost effective as a strategy to avoid building an expensive new power plant.
What does BC Hydro offer? None of this - just a home audit and 3rd party loan program. So why, when they are arguing that we need more energy, are they ignoring the cheapest option? I am not an expert in the legal side of energy matters, but I believe that BC Hydro has a legal mandate to deliver energy at the cheapest possible rate: this is always the reason they give for justifying gas as an option, versus wind energy.
And yet look what is at stake: a major increase in greenhouse gas emissions, at a time when there is growing concern from all quarters of the world about the impacts of rising temperatures, melting glaciers and icefields, the melting Arctic ice-sheet, the increase in the intensity of tropical storms, the increase in forest fires and droughts, the possibility of a North Atlantic ocean conveyor belt current ‘switch off’ due to increasing fresh water loading off Iceland, depriving Northern Europe of the warming effect of the Gulf Stream current, and so on.
2. The validity of
Greenhouse Gas Offsets as a counteracting measure
The majority of the greenhouse gas offsets that are being informally traded in the world are in tree-planting: and yet look at the raging forest fires in Montana. How safe are GHG offsets stored in trees? Rising global temperatures will increase the incidence of forest fires and pest outbreaks, accelerating the release of stored carbon from trees.
3. The validity of the project’s estimates for the price of gas and wind energy in 2007.
This entire project is premised on BC Hydro’s assumptions that it is duty bound to provide BC with the cheapest form of power, and that gas will cost $3 per million Btus in 2007, while wind will cost more. In the months since these estimates were written, however, North American gas prices have risen to $4.60. There is increasing concern that this winter will bring another crunch in gas prices, and that with so many utilities ordering gas turbines across North America, the rate of discovery will not be able to keep pace with the rate of consumption, leading to a lasting increase in prices. If the proponent’s assumptions about future gas prices are wrong, the financial merits of the entire project must be called into question.
4. The prospects for
a Distributed Grid on Vancouver Island as
an alternative way of generating energy
If BC Hydro wanted, it could invite Vancouver Islanders to participate in the development of a distributed grid, encouraging people and communities to generate additional energy through wind, solar, tidal, microhydro, forest biomass and ground-source heat, facilitated by a net metering policy. 30 states in the US which have implemented net metering, allowing customers to connect their energy systems to the grid, and yet BC Hydro is extremely resistant to the idea. When they connected Victoria’s solar PV house to grid recently, the proponent tells me that it was “like pulling teeth.” Such an approach could also bring in a comprehensive package of energy saving initiatives, financed by a Public Benefits Charge on the utility bill, as most US states are doing.
Wind energy is falling in price all around the world, and will continue to do so for the next 50 years, while gas will continue to rise. Solar energy is also falling in price, and will probably be competitive with other energies by 2005 – 2010, opening up a massive market drive through solar mortgages. Ground-source heat is already the most cost-effective way to generate energy, after efficiency. Forest biomass energy may be the only real insurance policy that we have against more forest fire outbreaks - by thinning and clearing the underbrush in overgrown 2nd growth forests, we can use it to generate energy in a controlled, not an uncontrollable manner.
My biggest single concern is that BC Hydro and its partners, with the NEB’s blessing, are imposing an unnecessary increase in greenhouse gases on us at a time when we need to be doing our utmost to reduce GHGs, not increase them.
The energy economy of the 21st century is going to be based on hydrogen and other renewables, via a distributed grid. The technologies that are the solution to global climate change are going to be the drivers of the future economy: this is precisely why the City of Seattle announced in April 2000 that it would meet 100% of its new energy requirements from renewable energy. They want to be at the front of the new energy revolution, not the back.
For the same reason, the City of Chicago is aiming to become a national leader in the generation of solar energy through a partnership with the Utility PhotoVoltaic Group, the US Department of Energy, Commonwealth Edison and Spire Corporation. Commonwealth Edison and the City have agreed to buy $8 million worth of PV systems for local installation, in exchange for Spire establishing a PV production and assembly business in Chicago which will produce 3 MW of solar panels a year, generating more than 10 million kWh of electricity, displacing 12,500 tons of C02 per year. Chicago has joined with 47 other local government bodies in a load aggregation effort through which 80 MW out of 400 MW will come from renewable energy by 2005, starting at 3% in 2001 and increasing over time.
And what are we doing here in BC? BC Hydro has committed to a mere 10% of new energy needs coming from renewables, compared to Seattle’s 100%. If we persist with BC Hydro’s commitment to gas-fired energy, we will miss the boat, and all of the economic benefits that accompany it.
Yours sincerely,
Guy Dauncey