December 31, 2008

New undersea cable supplies Island electricity

COMMENT: In 2000, BC Hydro said it was going to replace aging transmission infrastructure with the GSX, a natural gas pipeline to the island, and with new gas-fired generation plants on the island. Importing natural gas, said Hydro and its government sponsors, would increase energy self-sufficiency on the island.

Replace the cables, said the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition. Five years later, in 2005, BC Hydro cancelled the pipeline project, the Duke Point Power project, wrote down $125 million, and turned its attention to replacing the cables.

For other community and citizen groups, two lessons learned:

- the emperor frequently is wearing no clothes. Trust your research and your understanding and your instincts, and don't let them bluff.

- your campaign will last a lot longer than you expect, so you must also ensure you build the organizational capacity and resources to sustain the campaign.

By Andrew A. Duffy
Times-Colonist
December 31, 2008


A $298-million project was completed and brought up to full power last week

That pleasant hum you hear is no longer just the echo of Christmas carols, but the electricity being sent to Vancouver Island through new undersea transmission lines.

The Vancouver Island Transmission Project, known as VITR, was undertaken to replace 51-year-old power lines that link the Island to the mainland electricity grid.

The project was completed and brought up to full power by the B.C. Transmission Corp. last week.

The $298-million project -- a number forecast to be about 15 per cent more expensive than originally expected due to increased construction costs --replaced and upgraded the existing 138-kilovolt overhead transmission lines and one of the existing submarine cable circuits connecting southern Vancouver Island to the Lower Mainland with new 230 kV infrastructure.

The replacement of the undersea lines, which provide more than 10 per cent of the electricity to the Island, increases the capacity to the Island by 600 megawatts of power or about 25 per cent of the peak load.

According to B.C. Hydro, Vancouver Island consumes about 2,100 megawatts of power at any given time, while the Island has the capacity to produce only 690 megawatts -- enough to power 690,000 homes.

As on-Island generation makes up about 30 per cent of the peak load, the Island is heavily reliant on the cable system -- especially because the need is projected to increase by nearly 50 per cent by 2025.

The VITR was brought into service in stages, as BCTC began by energizing mainland sections of the VITR overhead lines and associated submarine cables back in October.

The old cables were removed from the seabed in the fall of 2007 and were replaced in the summer and fall of 2008.

The removal of the cable resulted in the recycling of more than 450,000 kilograms of copper from the cable, which garnered the British Columbia Transmission Corp. about $4 million.

aduffy@tc.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:34 AM

December 22, 2008

Clean Energy Coalition Applauds Bursting of LNG Bubble

COMMENT: In North America today drilling in shales (Texas, North Dakota, northeast BC) is opening up a large new natural gas supply. Industry and government exuberance is probably overstated, so predictions about US gas import declines to only 3% of US consumption are to be taken in the context of this being the consummate boom and bust industry. Nevertheless, the opportunities for LNG imports to North America are correctly understood as not worth a wooden nickel today.

The Texada Island community group opposing the proposal to build an LNG import terminal on Texada, Texada Action Now (TAN), is a member of RACE, Ratepayers for Affordable Clean Energy. TAN is also a founding member ot the Alliance to Stop LNG.

www.texadaactionnow.org
www.texadalng.com

For Immediate release: December 22, 2008

San Francisco, CA – New energy projections from Federal and California agencies show the LNG speculative bubble is over, according to a West Coast-wide coalition of organizations opposing dependence on foreign Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

The coalition, Ratepayers for Affordable Clean Energy (RACE), is responding to two new government reports. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas imports will decline rapidly from 16 percent today to only 3 percent in 2030. The difference will be made up in increased domestic natural gas production. According to a staff presentation from the California Public Utilities and Energy Commissions, California’s natural gas demand will remain flat until 2030, while the one LNG import terminal serving California, located in Mexico, will not receive “significant deliveries.”

"These projections make clear that the West Coast does not need LNG,” said Rory Cox, California Program Director at Pacific Environment and coordinator for RACE. “LNG was an inappropriate choice to begin with, and it remains so. We’re ready to put this debate behind us, and join the new Administration in building a truly clean and sustainable energy future.”

“What a difference a year makes,” said Dan Serres, conservation director at Columbia Riverkeeper. “These new projections are a game changer. LNG is now off the table as a wise investment choice. The current LNG proposals are now just moving forward under nothing but their own momentum.”

Since 2004, RACE has opposed LNG as it will increase California’s contribution to greenhouse gases, undercut development of clean energy, and endanger the health and safety of West Coast communities. The coalition has maintained that despite the media and investment hype, imported LNG has never been necessary on the West Coast of North America. The coalition’s conclusions were based on trends in the domestic natural gas industry, on steadily declining natural gas consumption in California since 2000, and on new laws and initiatives in California such as mandated energy efficiency programs, the renewable portfolio standard, and the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32). RACE has also pointed out that natural gas demand in Baja and the Pacific Northwest is quite small, making it clear that these regions were being used as “back doors” into California’s energy market.

The 2009 Annual Energy Outlook from the U.S. Department of Energy is here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/index.html

A copy of the presentation from the California Public Utilities and Energy Commissions detailing new projections for natural gas usage in California are available by request at rcox@pacificenvironment.org or dserres@gmail.com.

More information about RACE: www.RaceForCleanEnergy.org

###

Contact:
Rory Cox, California Program Director, Pacific Environment. (510) 459-0933
Dan Serres, Columbia Riverkeeper, (503) 890-2441
Tom Ford, Executive Director, Santa Monica Baykeeper, (310) 738-6915
Jody McCaffree, Executive Director, Citizens Against LNG (Coos Bay), (541) 756-0759

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:45 AM

Neufeld Accepts Senate Seat

COMMENT: Harper's 18 senate appointments are rewards to his bagpeople and other loyal supporters before he loses the opportunity. This from from the politician who is a firm believer in an elected senate. Sheesh. There's no reason to expect this to signal a change in government energy or mining policy, although it may be an opportunity to put a prettier face on the ministry.

By 250 News, Prince George
Monday, December 22, 2008

FORT ST. JOHN - Peace River North MLA Richard Neufeld, who also serves as Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, announced today he has accepted a position in the Senate of Canada.

"I have been privileged to serve the constituents of this riding for the last 18 years and I want to thank them for their support," Neufeld said from his home in Fort St. John. "In recent weeks I had discussed with Premier Campbell that I would not be putting my name forward for a fifth term, so I am honoured to have been chosen for the Senate."

Neufeld was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1991 to represent the riding of Peace River North and was re-elected in 1996, 2001 and 2005. He served on Fort Nelson council from 1978 to 1986, five of those years as mayor.

"Richard has been an outstanding MLA, minister and caucus colleague," said Premier Gordon Campbell. "We're really going to miss him on our team, but I know all British Columbians will be very well served by his continuing contributions on behalf of our province in the Senate."

Neufeld says the past eight years have put British Columbia on a good footing to withstand these difficult economic times.

"Working with Gordon Campbell and serving in his cabinet for the last eight years has been both an honour and a privilege," said Neufeld. "This province will continue to do well in these tough economic times because of his leadership.

"The challenges in the next few months are significant and I am proud to continue to represent both this province and now this country in years to come. I look forward to working with the Prime Minister to keep Canada strong."

Before entering provincial politics, Mr. Neufeld owned and operated a business in Fort Nelson. He has been involved in the oil and gas industry most of his life.

Richard and his wife Montana live in Fort St. John and have four grown children and a grandson named Connor.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:23 AM

December 19, 2008

Who's Behind 'BC Citizens For Green Energy'?

By Christopher Pollon
TheTyee.ca
Published: December 18, 2008

Group with BC Liberal ties slams gov't critics, pushes private power, nuclear.

SandersonVickers.jpgBCCGE's Bruce Sanderson and Gene Vickers. (theTyee)

A bold new voice emerged in the provincial discussion about B.C. energy policy last spring, right around the time public outrage was peaking against private hydro development in the Pitt River watershed.

The B.C. Citizens for Green Energy (BCCGE) -- whose name is an apparent take on the B.C. Citizens for Public Power -- launched a website in March, containing articles and press releases aggressively attacking environmentalists, the B.C. citizens, and the organized labour groups that support them.

From its inception, the BCCGP displayed hallmarks of an "Astroturf" group -- a fake grass-roots organization designed to both promote industry-friendly messages and marginalize critics.

Read the rest of this article at the Tyee:
http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2008/12/18/GreenEnergy/

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:32 PM

December 17, 2008

LNG Partners does not make payment to PNG

Marketwire
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

LNG Partners Does Not Make Option Fee Payment to PNG for Utilization of Excess Pipeline Capacity

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Dec. 16, 2008) - On September 25, 2008 Pacific Northern Gas Ltd. ("PNG") (TSX:PNG)(TSX:PNG.PR.A) filed an application with the B.C. Utilities Commission ("Commission") for approval to provide LNG Partners, LLC ("LNG Partners") with an extendable option to contract for a minimum 75 MMcf per day of firm gas transportation service using existing capacity on PNG's Western B.C. pipeline system. Commission approval was received on November 27, 2008, triggering the requirement for LNG Partners to pay a $1.5 million non-refundable option fee to PNG for an exclusive 6 month option to contract firm gas transportation service. Payment of the option fee was due by December 15, 2008 and PNG has yet to receive payment from LNG Partners.

Roy Dyce, President and CEO of PNG, said, "Discussions are currently ongoing with LNG Partners to secure payment of the option fee."

PNG is reviewing its alternatives and can provide no assurances that LNG Partners will make payment of the option fee.

Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Pacific Northern Gas Ltd. (TSX:PNG)(TSX:PNG.PR.A) owns and operates natural gas transmission and distribution systems. The Company's western transmission line extends from the Spectra Energy gas transmission system north of Prince George to tidewater at Kitimat and Prince Rupert, and provides service to 12 communities and a number of industrial facilities. In the northeast, Pacific Northern's subsidiary Pacific Northern Gas (N.E.) Ltd. provides gas distribution service in the Dawson Creek, Fort St. John and Tumbler Ridge areas. Further information is available on the Company's website at: www.png.ca.

(c) 2008 Marketwire. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

See LNG Partners books pipeline capacity with PNG for more information about the agreement and about LNG Partners.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:39 PM

B.C. Communities Unite Around Coalbed Methane Action Plan

CCCBMtop.jpg

Click here to sign on to the action plan

December 17, 2008 (Vancouver) - A coalition of citizens’ groups, including Citizens Concerned about Coalbed Methane - Vancouver Island, has launched a province-wide campaign around a five-point action plan they say could end the current stalemate on coalbed methane development.

“Across B.C., coalbed methane projects are being delayed or stopped by local conflict because residents lack confidence in the province’s approval process and regulations,” said Ted Ralfe, spokesperson for CCCBM-East Kootenay. “The action plan we’re proposing is a way to restore public confidence and create a more certain investment climate for companies.”

The coalition, Citizens Concerned About Coalbed Methane, released its five-point plan on a new website, www.concernedaboutcbm.org. The plan, “Building a safe future for CBM,” calls for the following –

1. Suspend CBM drilling across B.C. until four key policy improvements are in place:

2. Local communities have a clear say in deciding where and how CBM projects proceed

3. CBM projects undergo mandatory environmental assessments that address cumulative impacts

4. “World-class” CBM regulations promised in B.C.’s Energy Plan are fully implemented and enforced

5. Sufficient funds are dedicated to independent baseline research and to proving the safety of “world-class” technologies.

“We acknowledge that once sound regulations are in place, CBM drilling can occur safely in some places,” said Shannon McPhail, Executive Director of Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition. “However, the approval process must start with the question of social license, and projects should proceed only if there is broad public support.”

Today’s campaign launch follows a mixed-bag announcement from the B.C. government earlier this month, which put the brakes on CBM drilling in the Sacred Headwaters while greenlighting another controversial CBM project in the Elk Valley.

“This kind of contradictory decision-making highlights the need for a consistent approach to approving and regulating CBM projects across the province,” said Sol Allison, Director of Save Our Similkameen. “Government has already made some progress towards better standards for CBM. We’re calling for a provincewide pause on new drilling to allow the full action plan to be implemented.”

B.C. residents and organizations are invited to sign on to the action plan at www.concernedaboutcbm.org and show their support for a consistent,responsible approach to CBM across the province.

“We think industry will also be interested in this action plan, because it would increase investor confidence and allow good projects to proceed safely and smoothly,” adds Ted Ralfe. “Today’s band-aid approach serves neither CBMcompanies nor communities in the long run.”

Coalbed methane projects have been or are currently proposed in B.C.’s Elk Valley (British Petroleum), Similkameen Valley (Petrobank), Sacred Headwaters (Royal Dutch Shell), Hudson’s Hope area (Hudson’s Hope Gas, Royal Dutch Shell), Vancouver Island, and Telkwa.

-30-

Contact:

Ted Ralfe – Citizens Concerned About Coalbed Methane-East Kootenay
(250) 423 6844

Shannon McPhail – Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition
(250) 842 2494

Sol Allison – Save Our Similkameen
(250) 293 1047

Click here to download the media release

Click here to sign on to the action plan

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:34 AM

December 15, 2008

RCMP blows pipeline-bomb investigation

By Paul Joosse
Calgary Herald
December 15, 2008

Last week, the RCMP, represented by Tim Sheilds and flanked by a spokesperson from EnCana Corp., let the public have a glimpse into its investigations of the recent pipeline bombings near Dawson Creek.

The Mounties even took, in their words, "the very unusual step" of setting up a publicly accessible website dedicated solely to the investigations
(www.dawsoncreekbombings.com).

On the site -- an obvious point of pride for the force --one can view surveillance photos, photos of the blast sites, a copy of a threat letter and a statement from EnCana.

The strategy is to elicit tips from the public about the bombings and the RCMP rightly presumes the most valuable information will come from family members or close friends of the bomber--people who already may harbour suspicions but, for whatever reason (solidarity, denial, fear), may be reluctant to speak up.

Appealing for information, Sheilds noted the perpetrator(s) may "have talked about those grievances to someone, possibly advocating or threatening violent action."

So far, so good.

All evidence does indeed point to the fact that we probably are dealing with a local resident who may enjoy some communal sympathy for his or her grievances -- if not his or her tactics.

But when one looks at a nuts-and-bolts level at the channels available to those with tips, it is clear the police could have done much better.

People who give tips that cast suspicion on friends or loved ones often go through an agonizing decision-making process before they become willing to speak up.

For this reason, the tip-giving channels need to be hassle-free.

Any impediments to the process, such as dialing a wrong number or waiting on hold on the phone, increase the likelihood of engendering second thoughts or cold feet on the part of the tipper.

I went through the processes the new website encourages--partly to imagine myself in the role of a resident with germane information, partly to offer my advice, partly to request information from the police. This is what I found:

1) The CrimeStoppers phone line recited by Sheilds and reproduced in the original written news release (1-800-822-TIPS) is incorrect (the real CrimeStoppers number is 1-800-'TWO' 22-TIPS). This mistake was corrected in the written statement more than a day and a half after I notified them, while the video of Sheilds reciting the wrong number is still online as I write.

2) The tip-line specifically dedicated to the pipeline bombing investigation (1-866-994-7473) leads to a long machine message, not to a person.

3) The tip-submission webpage is very slow to process submitted information.

4) My calls to the RCMP expressing these concerns were not returned.

A fifth point will take more explanation.

Along with the written statement, the RCMP released a photo of the threatening letter sent on Oct. 7 to Coffee Talk Express, a newsletter that serves the area.

However, the pdf image had already been released to media in October. As such, it is not very useful for gleaning new information.

There were two other letters-- sent to EnCana and the Dawson Creek Daily News--and it is surprising the RCMP has refused to release.

There would be great value in releasing them.

To start, we might remember that the capture of Ted Kaczynski -- the Unabomber --was precipitated by the New York Times's decision to publish his "manifesto."

It was a controversial decision that ultimately proved very valuable, in that Kaczynski's brother, Dan, recognized in the letter some very familiar language and decided to alert authorities.

He had suspicions prior to the publication, but he became more certain after he read the document in its entirety.

This type of confirmatory process is less likely to happen if the RCMP continues its strategy of releasing only partial information.

No one can know ahead of time what the "Eureka" clue will be--perhaps some phraseology, perhaps an idiosyncratic spelling, perhaps the way the letter writer crossed his or her Ts.

Suffice to say that for the five reasons above it is reasonable the public should expect a revision of the RCMP's web-related investigative efforts.

Now, the reply from the RCMP might be that they are understaffed and under-re-sourced, and that we therefore shouldn't have such high expectations.

Canadian's often use telephones, however, and know that it only takes a "staff" of one to correctly reproduce a telephone number.

In the Q and A period of the news conference, Sheilds asserted, "Every tip that has come in has been followed up very quickly."

Although this wasn't my experience, generally this may be true.

However, it is the prospect of tips actually reaching authorities' ears that is an area of concern.

Paul Joosse is completing a PhD in sociology at the University of Alberta. His dissertation focuses on radical environmental social movements. He can be reached at JJoosse@ualberta.ca

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

See also

www.dawsoncreekbombings.com

Sabotage fears flow around B.C. pipelines

Third blast rocks B.C. pipeline

Inside an explosive situation

Six recent pipeline incidents, commission says

Oil vandal questioned in B.C. pipeline bombings

Somebody local with a grudge targeting oilpatch?

2nd explosion rocks northern B.C. pipeline

RCMP terror squad probes pipeline bombing

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 06:36 PM

Long-term Vision for B.C.'s Electricity Needs

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
2008EMPR0072-001904
Dec. 15, 2008

Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources

LONG-TERM VISION FOR B.C.'S ELECTRICITY NEEDS

VICTORIA - New terms of reference will guide the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) in looking at the long-term, provincewide electricity transmission needs of British Columbia, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld announced today.

"These terms of reference will ensure that the Province's long-term transmission infrastructure needs, looking ahead 30 years, are fully examined," said Neufeld. "This way we can continue to offer a clean, affordable and reliable energy supply for all British Columbians for generations to come."

This inquiry will be led by the BCUC, as outlined in the recent amendments to the Utilities Commission Act that were announced on March 31, 2008. The inquiry will consider the long-term, provincewide need for transmission infrastructure and capacity and recognize the long lead times associated with transmission development and the need to plan for future development of a clean, renewable, low carbon electricity supply.
The BCUC is required to start the inquiry by March 31, 2009. Following the inquiry, the BCUC will issue a draft report on its determinations of need for transmission infrastructure and capacity.

As a part of the inquiry, the BCUC will:

o conduct an open public process with the opportunity for all stakeholders to participate; o assess key areas for electricity generation development in the province, and the likely sequence of development of those areas; o assess the need for transmission to serve future electricity demand, in light of the direction set through the BC Energy Plan and climate action policies; o consider long-term needs, the risk of limiting opportunities for clean or renewable electricity resources and economic development; and o look at the efficient development of transmission, thus avoiding the need for multiple transmission lines to serve an area.

"This inquiry helps us develop our province's potential to open up new opportunities by ensuring that public infrastructure is in place on time to support investment in clean energy," said David Emerson, BC Transmission Corporation (BCTC) executive chair and CEO. "Transmission infrastructure is a critical component of B.C.'s long-term energy strategy."

BCTC will use the inquiry's findings to help plan the provincial transmission system to enable efficient construction of generating facilities.

-30-

Contact:

Jake Jacobs
Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources 250 952-0628 250
213-6934 (cell)

Mike Witherly
BC Transmission Corporation
604 699-7267
604 374-8362

For more information on government services or to subscribe to the Province's news feeds using RSS, visit the Province's website at www.gov.bc.ca.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 06:30 PM

December 13, 2008

B.C. has potential to be a leader in natural gas

By Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
December 13, 2008

Demand is on the rise, and the province is getting set to cash in

British Columbia's "incredible" potential as a natural gas producer makes it a likely candidate to meet growing market demand in the United States and around the world, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld said Friday.

Recent massive gas deposit discoveries in the northeast, coupled with plans to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Kitimat, are certain to elevate B.C.'s status as a producer, he said.

"B.C. is a competitive jurisdiction in North America for oil and gas investment," Neufeld told an international council of oil and gas producers that is for the first time staging its quarterly conference in Vancouver.

"This past July the sale of natural gas rights resulted in a record-breaking total of over $610 million in bonus bids in that one month," the minister told delegates to a conference of The Energy Council, noting B.C.'s rapid growth in this decade as a gas producer.

For all of 2008 B.C. took in a record $2.7 billion, he said, with nearly all that investment in northeast B.C.

"To put that in perspective in the [2007] calendar year it was $1.2 billion in British Columbia. The year before that it was $640 million.

"I think Alberta's [all-time] record for land sales was $3.4 billion -- so we came very close to that in just a small portion of the province.

"These records are indicative of the amount of positive investment that the oil and gas industries can bring to British Columbia."

Neufeld listed Russia, Iran and Qatar as the world's top three gas reserves. The U.S. is sixth and Canada 18th.

World demand for gas is expected to jump 51 per cent by 2030, with gas emerging as a fuel for transportation, industry and heating -- and as a transitional fuel for electricity generation in lieu of coal-fired generation, he said.

"North American demand is projected to rise over the next 20 years, and British Columbia has an opportunity to provide more natural gas to our neighbours to the south," he said.

Meanwhile, overall Canadian production is down four per cent this year and is projected to continue to fall as a consequence of the maturation of Alberta's sprawling share of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin.

"British Columbia is a bit of a paradox in this supply status question," Neufeld said. "B.C. may have an opportunity to become a North American leader in producing and exporting natural gas."

B.C.'s potential comes from vast unconventional gas reserves that have sparked furious bidding for drilling rights, particularly this year, as gas exploration and production companies have developed the technology to tap into those reserves.

The unconventional reserves commanding the most attention are Horn River north of Fort Nelson and Montney in the Dawson Creek-Fort St. John region.

Neufeld said the deep-drilling technology used to open up North America's largest new unconventional gas play, the Barnet field in Texas, can be applied at Horn River and Montney.

"Production in the future could double or triple according to some estimates. This puts B.C. in a unique position of being able to increase sales to Alberta, Eastern Canada, the U.S. and other export markets."

He said the revenue B.C. derives from gas royalties has skyrocketed and he expects it will continue to grow.

"The extraction of unconventional gas from B.C. will realize billions of dollars of investment. In the 10 years previous to our government [which came to power in 2001], the average investment money in the gas industry in British Columbia was $1 billion a year.

"In the last seven years that has increased to an average of just under $5 billion a year."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:17 AM

December 11, 2008

2008 OIL AND GAS RIGHTS SALES A RECORD $2.66 BILLION

Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
2008EMPR0071-001883
Dec. 11, 2008

VICTORIA - The December sale of oil and gas rights resulted in a total of over $91.7 million in bonus bids, bringing the 2008 calendar year total to a record high $2.66 billion and building on the fiscal year record of $2.38 billion, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld announced today.

"This sale puts a positive final note on a very successful year for B.C.'s oil and gas industry," said Neufeld. "In these times of global economic uncertainty, it is comforting that B.C.'s oil and gas industry provides funding that ensures the stability of health care, education and many other programs that sustain the well-being of British Columbians."

The Dec. 10 sale offered 56 parcels covering 79,022 hectares, and sold 44 parcels covering 60,649 hectares. The average price per hectare was $1,512.

The key parcels in the sale included:

* Two drilling licenses with bids of $4,134 and $7,118 per hectare, respectively, totalling over $19.5 million, located between the Wolverine and Grizzly north fields, approximately 20 km south east of Tumbler Ridge.

* A group of three drilling licenses located within the Horn River Basin, about 40 km north of Fort Nelson, generated over $46 million at average prices ranging from $1,721 to $4,279 per hectare.

* A fourth drilling licence parcel within the Horn River Basin, located at the B.C./NWT border, 130 km north of Fort Nelson, earned over $12 million in tender bonus and averaged $4,345 per hectare.

* Over $28,900 per hectare, for a total of over $7.6 million, was received for a lease parcel located beside the Sunset Prairie Field, approximately 30 km south of Fort St. John.

Additionally, this sale sets new records for the highest per hectare amount ($28,974) and highest tender bonus ($7.65 million), breaking the previous records set in July 2008.

"Since 2001, the oil and gas industry in B.C. has seen unprecedented growth and investment," said Neufeld. "Through effective incentives, programs and royalty structures, B.C. has established itself as one of the most competitive oil and gas jurisdictions in North America."

Drilling licences provide the exclusive right to explore for petroleum and natural gas by drilling wells. They are acquired by the successful bidder at the Crown sale, and primary terms are three, four or five years, depending on location.

Leases provide the exclusive right to produce petroleum and natural gas and are acquired by the successful bidder at the Crown sale or selected from permits and drilling licences. Primary terms are five or 10 years, depending on location.

The next sale is scheduled for Jan. 14, 2009 and will offer 18 parcels covering 11,938 hectares.

-30-

Media contact:

Jake Jacobs
Public Affairs Officer
Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
250 952-0628
250 213-6934 (cell)

For more information on government services or to subscribe to the
Province's news feeds using RSS, visit the Province's website at
www.gov.bc.ca.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:54 PM

Coal bed gas exploration will proceed, minister says

By Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
December 11, 2008


Groups attack B.C. approval of southeast drilling

Calls for a moratorium on coal bed gas exploration in southeast B.C. were rejected Wednesday by Energy Minister Richard Neufeld.

Environmental groups, and the provincial New Democrats, are attacking the government for an announcement last week that while it's imposing a two-year moratorium on Shell Canada's coal bed gas drilling in northwest B.C., it is simultaneously allowing BP Canada to proceed with drilling in the southeast.

The northwest moratorium was praised, the southeast decision condemned.

Coal bed gas exploration is a fledgling industry in B.C., with potential to generate enormous resource royalty revenue for the province, but it poses a risk to drinking water and fish-bearing streams if not properly managed.

Neufeld said in an interview that the government has rules in place to safely address the risks, but critics aren't convinced.

NDP leader Carol James said in an interview that she's not opposed to coal bed gas development if it can be demonstrated that it poses no risk to the environment. But James said the government has failed to provide any proof that the environment can be protected.

The government said last week that it would allow BP to proceed with its Mist Mountain coal bed gas project in the East Kootenays, near Fernie -- but excluding the Flathead River drainage.

"The concern I heard from people up there is that they don't feel environmental issues had been considered, that neither the government nor the company has given them any kind of assurance that we are not going to see environmental damage," James said.

She said the moratorium in effect in the northwest, at Shell's Klappan coal gas project, should be imposed across B.C. -- including Mist Mountain in the Elk Valley drainage.

"The moratorium should apply across the board until the environmental issues are addressed and until someone could show that community. . . that things are going to be done properly, the moratorium should remain."

Casey Brennan, Southern Rockies and Flathead program manager for environmental group Wildsight, helped organize a rally Wednesday in Fernie where about 120 people gathered to protest the government's decision for their area. A similar rally this past summer attracted 300.

"It's too big an experiment on too big an area and it's going to put at risk the things we care about -- clean water, healthy wildlife populations, and a diverse economy growing in many ways other than just resource extraction," Brennan said.

He said the province has no knowledge of how drilling for gas would affect Elk Valley stream and ground-water resources.

"Their closest groundwater monitoring well is in Cranbrook. They have no baseline data for this area. We have no idea what the subsurface hydrogeology looks like here."

Neufeld, meanwhile, said the government-imposed conditions under which BP must operate -- including deep-well reinjection of water removed during coal bed gas exploration and production, already provide the measure of environmental protection the critics are seeking.

"They have to actually be allowed to drill a few wells, to find out what they are going into. If they can't meet the tough rules and regulations we have then we won't let them go ahead," Neufeld said.

"It's no different than conventional oil and gas. They don't exactly know what's below surface in some big area until they start drilling and find out what's there."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:35 AM

December 09, 2008

4 projects selected in Bioenergy Call for Power

BC Hydro announces successful proposals in phase one of Bioenergy Call for Power

News Release
BC Hydro
December 8, 2008

VANCOUVER – BC Hydro has selected four proposals submitted in phase one of BC Hydro's Bioenergy Call for Power.

"Bioenergy provides clean and reliable electricity year-round, so this is another step on the road to achieving electricity self-sufficiency by 2016," said Richard Neufeld, Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

"These projects are a tremendous opportunity to create new jobs and diversify the forest economy for B.C. communities through better utilization of the wood waste resource," said Pat Bell, Minister of Forests and Range.

These bioenergy facilities will use forest-based biomass, including sawmill residue, logging debris, trees killed by mountain pine beetle, and other residual wood, to generate electricity. The four projects will generate a combined total of 579 gigawatt hours of electricity annually, or enough to power more than 52,000 homes.

The selected proposals were submitted as part of a competitive process and are from Canfor Pulp Ltd. Partnership's PGP Bio Energy Project in Prince George, PG Interior Waste to Energy Ltd.'s proposal also in Prince George, Domtar Pulp and Paper Products' Kamloops Green Energy Project in Kamloops, and Zellstoff Celgar Ltd. Partnership’s Celgar Green Energy Project in Castlegar.

"BC Hydro is pleased that industries are taking the initiative to provide an innovative source of made-in-B.C. electricity, utilizing a carbon-neutral fuel," said Bev Van Ruyven, BC Hydro Executive Vice President, Customer Care and Conservation.

Once signed by the selected proponents and BC Hydro, the electricity purchase agreements will be submitted to the British Columbia Utilities Commission.

BC Hydro, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and the Ministry of Forests and Range continue to work together on plans to develop phase two of the Bioenergy Call.

Contact:
Dag Sharman
Media Relations
Phone: (604) 623-4022

BC Hydro news release

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:26 AM

December 08, 2008

Enbridge pumps pipeline plans at city open house

By George T. Baker
The Daily News (Prince Rupert)
Thursday, December 04, 2008

Enbridge representatives came clad in green golf shirts and brought big flashy placards with pictures of mountains and cozy pastures in an effort to give their side of the story.

That story is about the oil pipeline operators' Northern Gateway project that they hope will snake its way from Brudenheim, Alberta, to Kitimat. It's a project that could deliver 4,000 temporary construction jobs for the region.

It is also a project that has its share of opposition.

"People come to open houses and they think that these are the venues that we tell you what we are doing but actually it is more of a venue saying this is what we think would work and you tell us what you think would work," explained Roger Harris, Enbridge's vice president of communications and aboriginal affairs.

The pipeline itself will not come to Prince Rupert, but there are concerns about oil tankers operating in the region. Some of the tankers would be carrying Alberta tar sands oil to Asia, while some tankers would be bringing in condensate from Australia to the B.C. coast, a highly volatile light petroleum product used to thin bitumen.

Harris went on to explain that another reason for the Prince Rupert stopover was because Enbridge realizes that any project that is developed in the Northwest affects the whole region.

"People in Prince Rupert need to be part of how we craft this project. Not just from the design of the pipeline perspective but also from the shipping vessel perspective," said Harris.

And that's where the nuts and bolts of the issue sits for the North Coast.

It's the old argument of environment versus economy, with both at risk. The sound of 4,000 temporary jobs opening up for a hurting Northern B.C. region, devastated by declines in fishing stocks and plundered by a pine beetle infestation that has battered the forestry industry, could be music to residents' ears. But it also comes with some potential environmental risks, say critics. Enbridge's open house was as much about selling the potential shipping safety measures as it was about the pipeline itself.

The organization's representatives were open about the way they have been perceived by the public and recognized the backlash they have seen.

There have been concerns about oil tankers entering the region. People along the North Coast have not forgotten March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker crashed into Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, spilling 53.1 million gallons of oil into the ocean.

Enbridge has responded to Valdez concerns by mentioning that the new tankers are now double-hulled, with separate oil containers, rather than a single, big container that has been used in the past.

They say that such a vessel design would protect the coast from a Valdez-like spill.

"If we are going to actually design the future of the West Coast of Canada in a way that facilitates the things that everybody wants to do, from shellfish aquaculture to potentially this project, then we better start sitting down collectively and putting together what we need to do collectively to make it work," said Harris.

Another issue that has prevented the viability of the pipeline is a 1972 moratorium on oil tanker traffic and offshore oil drilling installed by then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. That moratorium came about in response to concerns about environmental damage to the North Coast region.

But the Enbridge representatives said they have been unable to find where any moratorium has been written down; meaning that respect for the moratorium may be a moot point.

One B.C. environmental group said that there is one, regardless of whether it is written and that it should be respected.

"The (federal) government has talked about in the past that there is moratorium - they have looked at reviews and looked at reviewing moratoriums on offshore oil and gas, and oil tanker traffic in B.C., so we feel there is a moratorium," said Living Oceans Society Executive Director Jennifer Lash.

Lash said that the federal government has verbally committed to that and therefore they have committed to a social contract with the people who work and live on this coast to not allow oil tanker traffic into the region.

She added that LOS was not saying that they were against tanker traffic all over the world but the North is one of the most ecologically sensitive places in Canada.

"History shows that what usually causes oil spills is human error. If there is an oil spill, industry considers it good if 10-to-15 per cent of oil spilt is recovered. That's just not good enough. We deserve better."

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 05:38 PM

Chief taking a long look at pipeline

By George T. Baker
The Daily News (Prince Rupert)
Friday, December 05, 2008

Lax Kw'alaams elected Chief John Helin expressed cautious concern about Enbridge Inc.'s plan to build its Northern Gateway pipeline though Northern B.C. to Kitimat.

While the project would dip southward before it reaches Prince Rupert, it will partially go through Lax Kw'alaams territory, meaning the First Nation band is expecting to be consulted.

Helin said Enbridge had approached the band about the project and he said he was waiting to hear more.

"We understand the proposed route and we have some concerns around tanker traffic and where it is going to go," said Helin of the conversation he and Lax Kw'alaams council had with Enbridge officials. "We just have to see how that is going to go."

The proposed project consists of two pipelines going east-west with Alberta tar sands oil and west-east with condensate. Enbridge expects to pump 525,000 barrels of oil and 193,000 barrels of condensate each day.

Helin added that Enbridge representatives have insisted that it will be the safest project of this type in the world but he said the band has not said 'yes' or 'no' at this point.

For North Coast residents, the environmental concerns that have been raised centre around the oil tankers moving through the province's northern shores - a scary proposition for some.

If a condensate tanker were to spill in Hecate Strait, according to Bruce Hill of the Headwaters Institute, it would kill any species within contact. The good news is that it would evaporate fairly quickly.

As for the oil, they are still cleaning up the mess Exxon Valdez left in 1989.

In an effort to subdue those fears, Enbridge has taken to touring the northern-half of B.C. to give their side of the story and, as the company's representatives claim, to receive feedback on their plans and mold their plans into what northerners want to see.

As part of that wooing, the Calgary-based pipeline operator has added an extra incentive to First Nations communities in the North by offering them a collective 10 per cent stake in the project. There are also potentially 4,000 temporary jobs at stake, which for a community like Lax Kw'alaams suffering from sever unemployment could mean jobs.

Helin said economics were an important consideration and part of the reason why he could not just turn his back on Enbridge even though his community has serious environmental concerns about the proposed project.

"I think any opportunity like that we would be very interested in," said Helin.
But he added that Lax Kw'alaams leadership was very concerned about the salmon in the region and conservation efforts for the environment.

"We have to be comfortable in the fact that nothing is going to happen to harm the environment."

Enbridge's vice president of communications and aboriginal affairs Roger Harris said that Enbridge has already got almost 20 First Nation communities to sign on to the agreement. Harris said that agreement does not mean they approve the project, it just means they are working on the design aspect.

The challenge for Enbridge is that its proposed pipeline runs through 60 First Nations communities, many of which are still dealing with land claims and treaty rights and still undecided. Navigating through different politics will be just as important as planning the line itself.

Opposition to the proposed project among First Nations communities along the projected line run from expectations needing to be met to outright refusal.

There are tribes, such as the Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council whose territory is just west of Prince George, who have said they will not approve the pipeline until there is an independent First Nations-led Environmental Assessment. And there are tribes like Haida Nation who have said that they would not sign an agreement with Enbridge and that they were opposed to any oil tanker traffic in Hecate Strait.

"There is absolutely no doubt that there are communities that have problems with the federal government's environmental process," said Harris, who is the former BC Liberal MLA for the Skeena riding and who has been at odds with the Haida Nation in the past over forestry on Haida Gwaii.

He recognized there was opposition to oil tankers but said Enbridge would continue to try to work with all First Nations communities during the lifeline of the project.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 05:30 PM

Anger erupts over conflicting coal bed decisions

WENDY STUECK
Globe and Mail
December 8, 2008

Mist Mountain project gets tenure; moratorium announced in the Klappan

A proposal to wrest unconventional gas - also known as coalbed methane - from an area near Fernie, B.C., in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains has moved another step closer to reality, with the province granting BP Canada tenure for its Mist Mountain project.

But opponents of the project are furious, especially since the province on the same day - Friday - announced a two-year moratorium on coal bed activity in the Klappan, where native bands and conservation groups had dug in against Shell Canada's plan to explore for the resource.

"Why have they ignored concerned citizens in the Elk Valley and granted BP tenure, yet at the same time they have imposed a two-year moratorium on [coalbed methane] development in northwestern B.C.?" said Casey Brennan, a program manager for Fernie-based conservation group Wildsight.

The BP tenure was granted after a comprehensive referral process that included local natives, communities and government agencies, B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said yesterday.

BP's Mist Mountain project could last 50 years and feature as many as 150 well pads consisting of 10 wells per site. The company has spent the past few years doing preliminary work in the 500-square-kilometre project area in southeastern British Columbia. Fernie City Council opposes the project, but the nearby town of Elkford backs it.

The province is keen to develop B.C.'s extensive coalbed-methane reserves, but some residents of potential production areas are less enthusiastic.

Shell Canada has had coal bed interests in northwestern B.C. since 2004, but has had its exploration program mostly on hold since 2005, saying it respected local communities' demands for more consultation.

Friday's announcement by the province means Shell's exploration is shelved for at least another two years.

Conservation groups are worried about potential impacts on salmon. The area Shell wants to explore contains the headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers.

The Tahltan natives - comprising on-reserve and off-reserve residents living in Telegraph Creek, Dease Lake and Iskut - need time to come up with a sustainable resource plan, said Anita McPhee, chair of the Tahltan Central Council.

"At this point in time we can't see this type of development advancing without having full and complete information," she said.

"There needs to be a proper framework for decision making. And there also needs to an informed decision-making process. And that wasn't taking place."

The coalbed-methane decisions were made as natural gas prices are falling and other projects are winding down or being delayed.

Toronto-based Barrick Gold's Eskay Creek mine, a profitable gold and silver operation that employed many Tahltan workers and contractors, wound up production early this year.

Galore Creek, a massive copper-gold project jointly owned by Vancouver companies Teck Cominco and NovaGold Resources, was put on hold last year after costs ballooned.

Other potential projects are on hold pending a commodity comeback or new infrastructure, including a proposed electricity transmission line for the region.

That slowdown poses employment challenges, but doesn't lessen the Tahltan's determination to take a cautious approach to development, Ms.
McPhee said.

"There are definitely some economic development challenges because of the financial crisis," she said. "In Tahltan territory and everywhere, I suspect."

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:02 AM

December 05, 2008

BP granted rights for Mist Mountain CBM project

This just in from CCCBM in Fernie ...

BP granted rights for Mist Mountain CBM project in the heart of the Rockies

Today the BC Government announced that BP received its tenure for their Mist Mountain project. At the same time they announced that Shell has been placed under a 2 year moratorium for their development in Northwestern BC.

Why have they ignored concerned citizens in the Elk Valley and granted BP tenure, yet at the same time they have imposed a two-year moratorium on CBM development in northwestern B.C.? Are our concerns less valid then those in the northwest?

Let BC Premier Gordon Campbell and Minister of Energy and Mines Richard Neufeld know your thoughts on this recent announcement by sending a quick message here - http://www.cccbm.org/take-action-write-e-mail

For more information on this announcement visit this link - http://www.cccbm.org/sad-day-wildlife-province-gives-bp-key-elk-valley


And here's the news release from the Ministry of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources. You'll love the title, and the rest of it is a painful piece of language twisted in the service of spin. Sad though. A ten year moratorium on all of it would have meant something. This is just intended to get them through the May election, and it's a cynical reading of the electoral advantage they hope to purchase in the northwest, and don't think they need to buy in the southwest.

NEWS RELEASE
Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
For Immediate Release
2008EMPR0070-001843
Dec. 5, 2008

LEADERSHIP SHOWN IN UNCONVENTIONAL GAS DEVELOPMENT

VICTORIA – Shell Canada will take a break in exploration activity in the Klappan and have more discussions with First Nations and the community, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld announced today.

“Government is facilitating this by specifying no activity for two years,” said Neufeld. “I commend both Shell Canada for showing leadership in making this decision and the Tahltan who have expressed their concerns and their interest in having more information.”

As the Province moves forward and takes another step towards realizing the benefits of the BC Energy Plan, it is awarding tenure to BP Canada for their Mist Mountain Project in the East Kootenay.

The awarding of this tenure follows a comprehensive referral process that included local First Nations, communities and government agencies requesting they provide comments on the tenure and process. Three of the four local governments either supported approval of the tenure, or were neutral, provided best practices in the BC Energy Plan are adopted and followed for the Mist Mountain Project.

“British Columbia has put in place some of the toughest regulations for unconventional gas development in North America, and BP Canada will be bound by those,” said Neufeld. “BP has been engaging communities and other stakeholders in the region to share information and their environmental processes and seek input on their proposed project.”

In recognition of the Flathead Valley’s environmentally sensitive status, the provincial government has not included any land area within the Flathead River Basin.

“The BC Energy Plan states that government would not allow companies to surface discharge produced water from any CBG projects,” said Neufeld. “We’re keeping that commitment.”

-30-

Media Contact:
Jake Jacobs
Public Affairs Officer
Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
250 952-0628

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 03:19 PM

December 04, 2008

KLNG puts call out for potential clients

By Cameron Orr
Kitimat Northern Sentinel
December 03, 2008

Kitimat Liquid Natural Gas (KLNG) expects strong natural gas reserves in Western Canada. low geopolitical risks and the flexibility of its proposed LNG plant in Kitimat will be major factors in attracting potential users and investors.

Last Tuesday the company issued a call for formal expressions of interest from potential users of the liquefaction facility.

Ilene Schmaltz, vice-president of supply marketing for KLNG, said the move is to ensure fairness and that it hears from all possible candidates.

She said that when the company announced in September it was switching from import to an export, “we got a lot of calls from interested parties wondering as to the availability of terminal capacity or off-take or potential equity.”

As a result, Schmaltz explained. “What we thought we would do is make it more of a formal process to ensure we contacted any potential party that may be interested in our facility.”

A terminal capacity deal would see a party get the rights of a certain amount of LNG processing capacity while off-take refers to the LNG exports.

Schmaltz couldn’t discuss how many parties they have already talked to, but noted, “we have had several companies already tell us they intend to submit responses to our request for expressions of interest.”

Although KLNG hasn’t talked about what capacity they need buttoned down to make the project a go, she said the bulk of their capacity would have to be contracted before they would proceed.

“I would say that we would more than likely be able to go ahead with our project if we had at least 80 per cent of the capacity contracted for,” she said.

While global economic woes are dominating the headlines these days, KLNG is not greatly concerned that will affect the overseas customer base for their product.

“We’ve found over the last few weeks...is that most of these companies that are looking for LNG - the Asian buyers in particular - are long-term thinkers,” said Schmaltz.

“In the long-term they know they are going to continue to need LNG on an ongoing basis well into the future.”

When she attended a Kitimat city council meeting in September, Schmaltz had noted the ‘icing on the cake’ for changing the terminal from a regasification facility to a liquefaction plant was the prospect of numerous natural gas reserves going online in the near future.

Last week she told the Sentinel that in informal discussions with the producers she had been assured that these reserves are still going to be developed.

“Will there be a delay? We’re not sure, but a lot of producers are still actively drilling and exploring,” Schmaltz said. “It still looks very positive.”

The company is still waiting for federal regulatory approval on their facility, but she said the process is going very well and KLNG expects the approval early in 2009.

They are also waiting to receive an amendment for their already granted provincial approval (required since they changed the terminals function) and waiting to hear from the BC Environmental Assessement Office if any further steps need to be taken.

“We’re hoping to be able to finalize our commercial arrangements and get re-permitted in 2009,” said Schmaltz. “If we’re able to do that by the end of 2009 we could start construction as early as late next year or early 2010.”

On that timeline, the 36-40 month construction phase would put them online in early 2013.

Interested parties wanting to fill out an expression of interest have only a limited time as KLNG hopes to have all EOIs in by mid-December.

“Then we’ll take a look at them and decide who we want to proceed with,” she said. Those decisions will likely be made early in the New Year.

KLNG still expects to export five million tonnes of LNG annually.

Kitimat LNG Request for Expressions of Interest

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:29 PM

Spring completion seen for oil pipeline

COMMENT: Someone in BC reading this headline might panic. After all, it's about Enbridge, and it's about two pipelines, one to transport oil from Alberta's tar sands, and the other to transport diluent to the tar sands. Sounds a lot like the Enbridge Northern Gateway project.

But Gateway's other end point is Kitimat BC, whereas the pipelines in this article terminate in the US midwest, at one of the largest North American petroleum near Chicago.

In recent years, forecasts have indicated dramatically increased oil production from the tar sands, and investments in tar sands mining projects have been consistent with the forecasts. Pipeline companies have introduced expansion projects on existing pipelines, and completely new pipeline proposals, which would accomodate that increased production, and move all that new oil to markets.

Fill 'Er Up! is an article I wrote a couple of years ago about these pipeline proposals.

Enbridge, TransCanada, and Kinder Morgan dominate the project list. TransCanada's Keystone and Enbridge's Clipper/Southern Access both go into the US midwest. KM's Trans Mountain expansion (TMX) ends in Burnaby, BC, where increased capacity will all result in more tankers leaving the port, to California and other Pacific delivery points.

In BC, Enbridge is generating most of its headlines with the Gateway project, an oil export pipeline going west and a diluent or condensate import pipeline going east.

In its first round, Gateway made it as far as an application to the National Energy Board, strong resistance from First Nations along the route, fierce opposition from the Haida and others who won't tolerate oil tankers on BC's north coast. Then it collapsed in 2006 when Chinese participants (investors and shippers) bailed.

But early in 2008, it reappeared, and Enbridge is now conducting open houses along the route, and is attempting to mollify First Nations once again.

It ain't workin'. The Haida have resoundingly re-rejected the project because of the tankers and marine issues. Council of the Haida Nation objects to oil pipeline plans

The Haida and other First Nations introduced a resolution at the First Nations Summit insisting that First Nations will conduct their own review process for the Gateway project. Approval Process for Enbridge Gateway Flawed: BC First Nations

Gateway is a doomed project, and Enbridge should pack up its bags and leave BC. Nobody is in the market for this oil today. With oil prices in freefall, and now in a price range that makes tar sands development uneconomic, producers are fleeing Alberta. Over $40 billion in projects were shelved in October alone. That figure may be matched by more cancellations announced in November and December. Global economic collapse is definitely not working in Enbridge's favour. Despite the rah-rah boosters in the BC government and the greedy forecasters in Enbridge's head office. Enbridge's shareholders are likely getting pretty edgy right about now, too, about money being spent on Gateway.

So this article is not about Gateway, it's about Enbridge's Clipper/Southern Access/Southern Lights. Pretty poor odds right now that we'll ever see one like it about Gateway. And the newspaper from Ottawa? That's Ottawa, Illinois.

Here's a map from Enbridge. La Salle County is just west of Chicago.
WI-IL-map.gif


Spring completion seen for oil pipeline

Charles Stanley
The Times, Ottawa, Illinois
December 3, 2008


If you want a look at the Enbridge oil pipeline being installed in La Salle County, do it now: by next April there should be little above ground evidence left.

"A big part of the project is to restore the land to its previous contours and appearance after the construction is completed," said Dave Henderson, an Enbridge spokesman. "Our goal is when it's all said and done and you drive down the road the only thing you will see different is the pipeline markers along the highway."

But in the meantime, he said, "I think people find it sort of fascinating how the pipeline moves along."

Actually, two pipelines are being put in: a 42-inch pipeline that will carry crude oil mostly from Western Canada but also from Montana and North Dakota.

There also is a 20-inch pipeline for light hydrocarbons — called diluent — from the refineries and other suppliers in the Chicago area to be shipped to Western Canada.There it will be blended with the heavy crude oil produced up there to dilute it enough to make it transportable by pipeline.

"So it will be like one big recycling loop."

The first 321 miles of that dual pipeline that runs in Wisconsin from Superior to a pumping station in Whitewater was completed last April.

The section from Whitewater to the Flanagan terminal north of Pontiac is scheduled for completion by Wednesday, April 1.

The completed 42-inch pipe will have the capacity to transport 400,000 more barrels of crude oil per day.

Enbridge bores under major highways, roads and even rivers to install the pipeline.

In the case of the Illinois River, a technique called horizontal directional drilling is employed. An arc is drilled 30 to 40 feet beneath the river bed and comes up on the other side.

Most of the pipe installation, however, takes place in farm ground.

Not everyone was willing to provide property access. In La Salle County, four eminent domain lawsuits were filed by Enbridge. Three were settled and one is listed as remaining active, according to court records.

The pipeline installation is driven by industry installation practices and the agricultural impact mitigation agreement Enbridge signed with the Illinois Department of Agriculture, said Henderson.

"That lays out all of the techniques that we are utilizing to try to insure that the farmers get their crop productivity back relatively soon after the pipeline construction is completed."

For instance, when trenches are dug, topsoil and subsoil are kept separate and then put back in the proper order. Also, any drain tiles that were cut or damaged are restored or repaired.

Before the pipe is covered over, it is tested several ways.

"We run tools through the pipes called pigs to thoroughly clean it out."

There also are pipe sections filled with water and pressure tested for leaks.Then another tool called a caliper is run through to re-inspect the inside of the pipe.

Restoration is dependent on weather conditions, which means some of that work may have to wait until spring.

The project has been a boon to local economies, said Henderson.

The first section employed 2,000 workers at its peak, while the shorter section now under way has about 1,500 workers.

"A lot of the workers are local workers hired out of the union halls."

They include operating engineers, welders, pipefitters and laborers.

"So it does create a pretty nice increase in employment and general economic stimulation. It's a pretty good influx of workers that are making purchases in restaurants, service stations and all sorts of retail establishments."

More information on the project, including maps, is available online at www.enbridge-expansion.com.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:35 AM

RCMP say EnCana specifically targeted in B.C. pipeline bombings

James Keller
Prince George Citizen
Wednesday, 03 December 2008

DAWSON CREEK, B.C. - Calgary-based energy giant EnCana (TSX:ECA) was likely the intended target of three gas industry bombings in northern B.C., the RCMP said Wednesday, publicly speculating for the first time about what may have motivated the attacks.

The Mounties also released video surveillance images of eight people they want to interview as they investigate the bombings of two pipelines and a wellhead in October near Dawson Creek, not far from the Alberta-B.C. boundary.

The explosions were preceded by a letter that called oil and gas companies, and EnCana in particular, "terrorists" and demanded an immediate halt to operations.

Until now, police have not speculated about a potential motive other than to say the bombings and the letter appeared to be related.

But Sgt. Tim Shields told a news conference Wednesday that investigators believe EnCana was specifically targeted.

"Investigators are confident that the person or persons exploding these bombs is from the local area and has a grievance with EnCana," he said in a prepared statement, asking the public to speak up if they know anyone who has expressed anger about the company.

"They will have talked about those grievances to someone, possibly advocating or threatening violent action. This person will have knowledge of and possibly access to explosives."

EnCana spokesman Mike McAllister appealed directly to the bomber Wednesday, inviting whoever is involved to stop their attacks and contact the company directly if they have concerns about local oil and gas development.

"We do not believe you intend the loss of life, but you must understand that a continuation of the bombings dramatically raises the danger of that occurring," McAllister said in a statement.

"It is apparent from your letter that you have grave concerns about the course of energy development in the Tomslake area. I urge you to contact EnCana to discuss your concerns."

No one was injured in the blasts - which occurred on Oct. 12, 16 and 31 - but two pipelines were damaged and there was a small leak of toxic sour gas at a wellhead.

The blasts put a spotlight on local concerns over the rapid growth of the industry in the region, particularly projects containing sour gas.

The gas contains hydrogen sulphide, which can be lethal if breathed even in small amounts.

B.C. has more than 4,000 producing oil and gas wells, all in the northeastern part of the province, and the industry has seen massive expansion.

In 1996, it was worth about $370 million in revenues to the province. By 2006, that figure had jumped to $2.5 billion, mostly related to natural gas projects.

The threatening letter was mailed to local media on Oct. 7 - just days before the first bombing - from a Shoppers Drug Mart in Dawson Creek.

There are eight people on the store's surveillance footage who mailed letters that day and who police have been unable to identify.

Shields said investigators need to speak to those people and he appealed for public help in the case.

"Protecting the person responsible by remaining silent, or failing to notify police of your suspicions, only enables the bomber to continue," he said.

The Mounties have also launched a website - DawsonCreekBombings.com - which contains the surveillance camera images, as well as other information about the case.

The incidents are reminiscent of the bombings and vandalism that plagued Alberta's oilpatch in the 1990s.

Alberta farmer Wiebo Ludwig, who blamed the industry for hurting his family, his land and his livestock, was convicted of several charges and spent nearly two years in prison.

Police said they have spoken with Ludwig as part of their investigation, but don't consider him a suspect.

See also

Sabotage fears flow around B. C. pipelines

Third blast rocks B.C. pipeline

Inside an explosive situation

Six recent pipeline incidents, commission says

Oil vandal questioned in B.C. pipeline bombings

Somebody local with a grudge targeting oilpatch?

2nd explosion rocks northern B.C. pipeline

RCMP terror squad probes pipeline bombing

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:18 AM

December 03, 2008

Council of the Haida Nation objects to oil pipeline plans

George T. Baker,
Canwest News Service
Victoria Times Colonist
December 03, 2008

Group won't accept risk of tanker spills

PRINCE RUPERT -- The Council of the Haida Nation says it has not been consulted about Enbridge Inc.'s plans to build an oil pipeline running from northern Alberta to Kitimat.

CHN representative Robert Davis said the Haida Nation would never accept Enbridge's plan even if it did consult.

"The Haida Nation will certainly not accept tanker traffic where we would bear the burden of risk and oil spills in our waters. Our livelihoods would be jeopardized," Davis said. "Many of our neighbour nations are equally concerned about impacts on their lands and water. We are willing to stand united to protect our waters."

Davis spoke after the First Nations Summit called for an independent First Nations environmental review of the proposed $4-billion Northern Gateway project.

The Haida Nation has been clear that it will oppose any plan that would bring oil tanker traffic to the North Coast area.

There is already plenty of traffic west of the Queen Charlotte Islands, with many ships making the trip from Alaska to the western U.S. But opening up the pipeline to Kitimat would put oil tankers into the heart of North Coast waters. That is something northern B.C. first nations want to be very cautious about.

The First Nations Summit call followed a Nov. 6 gathering during which hereditary chiefs, elected chiefs and other representatives from six First Nations shared concerns about the Gateway pipeline and coastal tanker traffic.

They agreed that current consultation attempts by the federal government and Enbridge do not meet a standard of genuine engagement with First Nations.

"Regulators are not respecting the fact that we have a responsibility to protect our ancestral territories, rights, title and interests," said David de Wit, natural resources manager for the Wet'suwet'en First Nations.

"Gateway is a major project with significant risks. Yet, the federal government is advancing a decision-making process for Gateway without any provision for addressing aboriginal rights and title. This is unacceptable."

Enbridge held an open house in Prince Rupert yesterday to provide its side of the story.

The pipeline is to undergo a Joint Review Panel process beginning in early 2009. But that process does not take into account risks from coastal tanker traffic and oilsands expansion that would follow pipeline construction, critics say.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 03:28 PM

November 30, 2008

Hydro awash in independent green power bids

By Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
November 29, 2008


HydroAwash.jpgIndependent power producers receive green bids, including for wind-generated power. (Xantrex handout)

Independent power producers are offering BC Hydro enough power in response to a new green-energy call to light every home in the province -- at least on paper.

Hydro reported Friday that it has received proposals for 17,000 gigawatt hours of electricity -- primarily small hydro and wind -- in response to its clean call, which closed this week.

That's equivalent to a third of Hydro's annual output -- the amount of power consumed each year by the Crown corporation's residential customers.

Preliminary tallies from the call, which closed Tuesday, show Hydro received bids from 43 proponents for a total of 68 projects.

It's the biggest amount of electricity ever bid to Hydro by the independents, and it includes several comparatively large-scale projects, including an offshore wind farm and a 17-stream run-of-river hydro network in Bute Inlet.

In total, there are 45 small hydro projects and 19 wind projects, with each sector offering more than 8,000 gigawatt hours.

The remaining four proposals include two for waste heat, one biogas and one biomass project.

Hydro intends to accept only 5,000 gigawatt hours. Hydro is mandated by the province to make B.C. electricity self-sufficient by 2016 -- but plans include conservation measures to cut consumption and enhancements to its network of large-scale heritage assets.

The Independent Power Producers Association of B.C. has speculated that bidders will be pricing their electricity at an average price above $90 per megawatt -- slightly more than Hydro's cost for delivered power from its own, newly refurbished Aberfeldie generating station.

However, Hydro executive vice-president Bev Van Ruyven noted that the clean call did not require fixed-price bids, leaving room for Hydro to dicker for the lowest possible prices on the bids it eventually accepts.

"We think it can help us gain additional value for our ratepayers," she said.

Van Ruyven described the large volume of bids as "a really robust response to a competitive process."

Van Ruyven hopes the fact that not all bids will be accepted "will make everybody sharpen their pencils knowing that they are in with a whole bunch of people, and that we are not going to be awarding 68 contracts."

Attrition rates on past calls have run at about a third of accepted bids, and Hydro will build in a 30-per-cent attrition rate on this call as well.

Hydro did not identify bidders, but some have come forward on their own.

Donald McInnes, CEO of Plutonic Power, suspects his company will emerge as the single largest bidder with roughly 3,500 gigawatt hours of total power -- including three run-of-river facilities in Toba Inlet, and 17 in Bute Inlet.

McInnes believes projects offering large accumulations of power will win Hydro's favor.

"There are 35 run-of-river plants operating today, and the average size of those is only 10 megawatts. If the goal is self-sufficiency by 2016, there is no way way for the utility to get there 10 megawatts at a time," McInnes said in an interview.

NaiKun Wind Energy Group has bid 396 megawatts of wind power, enough to light 130,000 homes, via offshore projects east of the Queen Charlotte Islands

Offshore wind turbines are more costly to install, but NaiKun president and CEO Paul Taylor expects less competition for space on B.C.'s constrained transmission grid because most wind projects are landlocked in the northeastern corner of the province.

"There is no shortage of quality generation available for the province to develop over the next decade or so. I think the real challenge is going to be the transmission system rather than the sources and type of generation that's available," Taylor said in an interview.

"Cost is one factor but pure access is the other. Our project has very few constraints plugging into the system."

He said NaiKun is not interested in direct exports of electricity and sees BC Hydro, not a foreign buyer, as its sole customer.

Finavera Renewables announced earlier this week a memorandum of understanding with GE Energy Financial Services for financing of up to 295 megawatts of wind power in the northeast. Projected cost of the projects is $800 million.

Finavera CEO Jason Bak believes secure funding is a competitive advantage.

"People are still submitting bids. But the lack of financing available in the market, we think, weighs things more towards our end of the spectrum -- mature projects with major companies and big balance sheets. I think that's going to be a strong differentiator for Hydro."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:15 AM

Ryan River project taking comments

By Jesse Ferreras
Whistler Pique Newsmagazine
30-Nov-2008

British Columbia’s Environmental Assessment Office is now taking comments about a proposed run-of-river hydro project to be located north of the Village of Pemberton.

The Ryan River Hydro Project is a joint venture between Ryan River Power Inc. and Regional Power Inc., a Toronto-based subsidiary of Manulife Financial that operates six hydro plants throughout Canada.

The Ryan River plant, to be located about 18 km northwest of Pemberton, is a 145-megawatt project that seeks to use flows from the river of up to 45 cubic metres per second so that it can generate electricity at a powerhouse.

It will utilize a 26.5 km transmission line and link the project to a substation near the intersection of Rutherford Creek and the Green River, according to the project’s terms of reference.

It aims to provide “clean, alternative” energy and help the province offset its use of energy imported from places like Alberta and the United States.

All water diverted for generating power will be returned to the Ryan River below the powerhouse’s location, according to the description. Developers expect to locate the powerhouse on the southwest side of the Ryan River, located just a short distance from a bridge crossing that was washed out in Pemberton’s 2003 flood.

The river has to be examined more deeply before the project’s proponents can decide how to divert the river’s flows through the powerhouse, according to a project description from Feb. 14.

The powerhouse will have three to five turbine-generator units and other equipment commonly found in hydroelectric facilities. Developers also hope to install a flood protection berm, tailrace and spawning channel with salmonid ponds.

The project’s terms of reference note that it is expected to cause “unavoidable” fish habitat losses, a scenario that has necessitated a Fisheries Act Authorization and a review process through the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

Regional Power Inc. hopes to commission the project in the spring of 2012, subject to approval from the EAO, which ensures that major projects are developed in a “sustainable manner,” according to its website.

Though the project has just begun “officially” accepting comments, it’s already generated controversy within Pemberton and elsewhere. Signs along Pemberton Meadows Road implore people to stop the project.

Comments can be submitted until midnight on Dec. 15 by mail to Project Assessment Director Derek Griffin or by e-mail to eaoinfo@gov.bc.ca.

There will be an open house for the project on Thursday, Dec. 4 at the Old Pemberton Community Centre from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. At 7:30 p.m. the EAO will offer a presentation on the assessment process and the project’s proponent will be present.

Several calls to Regional Power Inc. for information on the project were not returned.

The Ryan River project at the Environmental Assessment Office

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 03:24 AM

Upper Pitt River hydro projects not dead

COMMENT: Run of River Power Inc. had its hopes dashed by BC's Environment Minister Barry Penner earlier this year when he stated that the Upper Pitt Projects would not be allowed to proceed with the proposed transmission line routing through Pinecone Burke Provincial Park. See article here: B.C. government rejects Pitt power project

But it didn't stop the company. In October, it submitted an application to the government for an alternative route through the park to build a transmission line to the Cheekye Substation near Squamish. And it has pitched the project into BC Hydro's Clean Power Call.

Third Quarter Report
Run of River Power
25-Nov-2008

Upper Pitt River Power Project

The Company continued feasibility and permitting work in the Upper Pitt
River and, subsequent to the end of the third quarter, submitted a proposal
for the Upper Pitt River Power Project into BC Hydro's 2008 Clean Power Call.
The cluster includes seven low impact run-of-river hydropower projects on
eight tributaries of the Upper Pitt River, located at the North end of Pitt
Lake approximately 35 km from Pitt Meadows, BC.

The Upper Pitt River Power Project will have a combined installed plant
capacity of 155 MW and will connect to BC Hydro's grid at the Cheekye
Substation, located just north of Squamish BC. A Feasibility Interconnection
Study Application for connection to the grid was submitted to the British
Columbia Transmission Corporation (BCTC) on October 17, 2008 that incorporates an alternate transmission route from the original proposed for this project.

Run of River Power, CNW Newswire, 28-Nov-2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 03:14 AM

$4 billion power project announced

By Paul Rudan
Campbell River Mirror
November 25, 2008

Plutonic Power Corporation and GE Energy Financial Services have submitted an unprecedented $4 billion plan to BC Hydro to build run-of-the-river power projects on the mainland coast east of Campbell River.

Plutonic announced the initiative Tuesday, calling it the largest single private sector hydroelectric generation investment in Canadian history.

"Today's submission is the culmination of four years of planning, engineering, consultation, permitting and licensing," said Plutonic Vice-Chair and CEO Donald McInnes in a news release. "We are grateful to our First Nations partners, and the cities of Powell River and Campbell River for supporting our bids."

The bid is in response to BC Hydro's "Clean Power Call" in June. Hydro wants 5,000 gigawatt hours of electricity per year in order to help make B.C. electricity self-sufficient by 2016.

This must also be accomplished using 90 per cent clean domestic generation sources.

Plutonic and GE Financial have already teamed up to build the $600 million run-of-the-river power project in Toba Inlet, along East Toba River and Montrose Creek.

The power plants and lines are presently under construction and are expected to begin delivering 196 megawatts of electricity to the BC Hydro grid by mid-2010.

The new projects, proposed in the bid, would be situated in the Upper Toba Valley and in Bute Inlet, and would cost an estimated $4 billion. Once completed, they would produce 1,200 megawatts of electricity – enough energy to power 330,000 homes.

Funding for the project would come from GE Financial, an American-based firm which could also secure loans for financing. Both Plutonic (PCC: TSX) and GE (NYSE: GE) are publicly traded companies.

BC Hydro is expected to announce the winning bids between next April and June.

Plutonic is currently in negotiations with the Campbell River-based Homalco Indian Band whose traditional territory lies within Bute Inlet. An agreement would be required to move ahead with the projects in Bute Inlet.

The company has already signed working and financial benefit agreements with three other First Nations bands for the projects in Toba Inlet.

"These projects will provide long-term economic and social benefits to these First Nations and communities in addition to providing BC Hydro with clean electricity," said McInnes.

The Upper Toba Valley Hydroelectric Project

The Upper Toba Valley Hydroelectric Project, with a generation capacity of approximately 166 megawatts, consists of three generation facilities that will connect to the BC Hydro grid through a 230- kilovolt line already under construction for the Plutonic Power and GE Energy Financial Services East Toba River and Montrose Creek run-of-river project. The Upper Toba Valley Hydroelectric Project is expected to be permitted by the end of the second quarter in 2009. The project will be able to take advantage of infrastructure already in place in the Toba Valley.

The Bute Inlet Project

The Bute Inlet Project, with generation capacity of approximately 1,027 megawatts, consists of 17 facility sites in three areas: the Homathko, Southgate and Orford Rivers. The Bute Projects have been registered with both provincial and federal permitting authorities. A formal application for an environmental assessment certificate is expected to be submitted in late 2009.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 02:53 AM

November 28, 2008

Enbridge brings experts to Burns Lake to inform locals

Lake District News (Burns Lake)
November 25, 2008 11:00 PM

enbridgemap_2_20081126.jpg
The proposed pipeline route for the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project will pass through the Burns Lake area. Two twin lines will be built along the route. Over 80 people turned out for the company’s open house in Burns Lake on Nov. 17. Officials answered questions on how the route will impact local property owners, emphasizing cooperation to get their approval of right-of-ways and easements. Enbridge also tried to ease fears of mountain bike park members by adjusting the route so that it goes around the bike park and not through it.

Enbridge held an open house on Nov. 17 at College of New Caledonia (CNC) as part of its efforts to let the public know what is going on with its Northern Gateway pipeline project.

Several dozen people attended the open house, which was held from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm to allow people flexibility in attending the information session, and a dozen Northern Gateway engineers, environmental experts, and communications people were on hand to answer people’s questions.

Enbridge is proposing to build two pipelines from an area north of Edmonton to Kitimat, a distance of 1170 km.

The west line, 36 inches in diameter, will carry an average of 525,000 barrels of petroleum a day from near Edmonton to Kitimat.

The east line, 20 inches in diameter, will transport an average of 193,000 barrels of condensate a day from Kitimat to near Edmonton [condensate is a light oil used to thin heavier petroleum products for pipeline transport].

The east and west lines would be built inside a 25-metre right-of-way corridor, and buried one metre beneath the ground.

Enbridge officials estimated that approximately 85 people came to the CNC open house to ask questions, look at maps, and examine the various pipeline display boards that were liberally spread around the room, including several boards with lists of social and environmental topics, asking, “Is your concern listed here?”.

“We had some open houses last week in Alberta, where maybe a dozen people turned out. But here in Burns Lake, more people than we expected came out, and they came prepared, having done their research, and they asked some tough questions,” commented consultant Kevin Brown, who is helping Enbridge stage its open houses.

A dozen Lakes District residents who were concerned about the pipeline going through their properties and/or the Burns Lake Mountain Bike Park (BLMBP) had met earlier with Enbridge representatives on Nov. 12.

If regulatory approval is granted, Enbridge needs to obtain right-of-way or easement agreements with landowners along its 25-metre right-of-way corridor for the pipeline route, and arrange for financial compensation to those property owners for use of their land.

Neil Sweeney, Northern Gateway communications director, said, “We want to work with property owners, to try to come to arrangements with them; we want people’s cooperation; we don’t want to be fighting with them.”

Sweeney, asked what would happen if Enbridge could not sign right of way/easement agreements with property owners, said, “The National Energy Board would then come into the picture, and they would handle the expropriation process. But, we don’t want it to come to that. We want to make agreements with property owners, whose land the pipeline crosses.

Also, it will be much easier for Enbridge to obtain regulatory approval from the National Energy Board for the project, if we have negotiated easement/right of way agreements with property owners, rather than being in conflict with them.”

Another concern dealt with at the meeting was the impact of the proposed pipeline on the BLMBP trails.

Burns Lake Mountain Bike Association (BLMBA) members Kevin Derksen, Dawn Stronstad, and Pat and Patti Dube attended the open house. BLMBA members have been a driving force behind the design and construction of the BLMBP.

Derksen and Pat Dube commented, “As a result of our concerns, Northern Gateway seems willing to re-align part of its route through the Burns Lake area, so it goes around - rather than through - the mountain bike park.” [see map - yellow line: proposed pipeline route; red line: altered pipeline route, around mountain bike park].

Enbridge engineer Ray Doering, commenting on the diversion of the pipeline route around the BLMBP, said, “Yes, the alternate route around the mountain bike park is something that we’re considering to reduce the impact on local areas.”

Derksen said that further trails are planned to be built

in 2009, around Boer Mountain north and east of the present trail system, and that Northern Gateway is aware of the BLMBA’s plans.

As for Northern Gateway’s impact on those proposed bike park trails, Doering stated, “What we would do, is come in, build our pipeline under those trails, and then restore the trails to their exact state prior to pipeline work in those areas, at Northern Gateway’s expense.”

Pump stations to control the flow of petroleum and condensate will be built at 100-km intervals along the pipeline route; they will be automated stations, monitored 24/7 at a computer facility in Edmonton, but Northern Gateway plans to have teams of workers stationed along the route in case something happens to the pump stations or the pipeline.

“We’re looking at locating a pump station in the Burns Lake area, and such a station will have to be built close to the BC Hydro transmission lines that cross just north of Burns Lake, as the pump station will be operated with electrical power, rather than generators, to ease the impact on the environment,” commented Doering.

“We plan to be back in the Lakes District many times over the next few years for public meetings like this, as we want to keep the community and interested stakeholders totally informed throughout the process, as we undergo the environmental assessment process,” said Brown.

Northern Gateway’s expects to submit its application for review by the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency sometime in 2009.

Following the submission, the National Energy Board (NEB)-led panel will hold public hearings along the proposed Northern Gateway route.

In addition, it is expected that the NEB will conduct community open houses in advance of public hearings, which will provide an opportunity for aboriginal groups, stakeholders and individuals to express their opinions directly to the NEB.

Because the pipeline crosses provincial boundaries, the NEB will regulate the Northern Gateway pipeline throughout its life.

If the project receives regulatory approval, construction is expected to begin in 2012, and pipeline operations will start up sometime in late 2014 or 2015.

GatewayOpenHouseSchedule.png
Enbridge Northern Gateway Open House Schedule

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:42 PM

Miller Creek IPP questioned

Megan Grittani-Livingston
Whistler Question
November 27, 2008

Despite initial uncertainties, comptroller felt comfortable approving project

Biologists working for the B.C. Ministry of Environment expressed serious concerns about the impact of the Miller Creek hydro project eight years ago while the run-of-river project was being reviewed for its water licence. But their fears were overruled as the province’s comptroller of water rights felt the amount of uncertainty was small enough to proceed with a licence, albeit one accompanied by a five-year monitoring period.

The dialogue about the 33-megawatt Miller Creek Hydroelectric Station reopened recently after the release of emails about the project sent between scientists working for the Ministry of Environment. The messages, primarily from the early part of the decade, were obtained by Gwen Barlee of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee in a Freedom of Information request, as previously reported in The Question.

In an email from September 2000, Marvin Rosenau, then a referral biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Section of the Ministry of Environment, expressed concerns about the impacts independent power projects (IPPs) could have on aquatic resources, pointing to what he viewed as a lack of resources for agencies and proponents to properly review the issues.

Now an instructor at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Rosenau said in a recent interview that he felt uncomfortable with the amount of water that would be diverted from Miller Creek and the lack of historical data to back up decision-making. He said there was a sense of frustration among some of the Ministry scientists that their concerns were going unheard.

“At that time (1999 and 2000), we didn’t have much information to go on, and so I guess we just felt decisions were made without a complete data set,” Rosenau said. “That doesn’t mean that you’re always going to be right even with a lot more information. But we were just pretty uncomfortable with where it was going.”

He said September 2007’s dewatering incident, which saw water levels dip quite low for about three hours because of a control failure, “basically was an empirical example of some of the things we were worried about.”

Current environmental consultant and conservation biologist Pamela Zevit worked for the Ministry of Environment from 1994 to 2004, and she was assigned to coordinate the review of the Miller Creek project in 1999 and 2000, working with specialists such as Rosenau to ask the necessary questions. Zevit said she felt the Miller Creek project predated full guidelines and policies for IPPs, so the government scientists were flying by the seat of their pants in terms of what they had to find out.

She said the government scientists were looking for more information about flow impacts on food and nutrients, the consequences of potential dewatering, what the project’s infrastructure components would do for sensitive ecosystems and wildlife, whether long-term monitoring would take place and how impacts could be mitigated.

“Miller Creek does sort of exemplify a lot of the issues, and so a lot of things have now come to pass in the last few years that are guiding these processes and making them a lot more stringent — but it’s still going to boil down to, ‘Is this the right project, the place for it, (and) what are the trade-offs you’re willing to make?’” Zevit said.

Jim Mattison, the comptroller of water rights for the past 10 years, said he was satisfied that enough studies had been conducted and information collected to put a plant in at Miller Creek. While he said he agreed with the biologists’ concerns about the lack of information to a certain extent, he felt “they just didn’t have anything substantiated.”

“I thought the uncertainty was small enough that we could make this decision and then monitor more to see if we had it quite right,” Mattison said, adding, “None of the decisions are totally without risk.”

Mattison included a five-year environmental monitoring period in the Miller Creek licence. He said that a report produced at the end of that period proved to him there has been relatively little change.

Mattison said he doesn’t think problems such as the dewatering incident can be directly linked with the biologists’ initial concerns.

“I don’t think those are evidence that the decision in 2000 was bad. I think they’re operational problems, and they’ve been fixed,” he said.

A Conservation Officer Service investigation is still probing the incident and whether fish were killed. But Epcor, the company that took over the plant after the licence was issued and opened it for commercial operation in 2003, has already acted to improve communications, mechanical and electrical systems, personnel, training, computer logic and parameters and procedures, Epcor Director of Environment Michael Smith said.

“We took the events of last year actually very seriously,” Smith said. He said the company put a team together to make sure everything at Miller Creek “was up to an Epcor standard — what happened was just as unacceptable to us and our organization as it was to the community and the people of B.C.”

Jay Shukin, Epcor’s manager of public and government affairs for B.C., said the Miller Creek project has been meeting the standards set by the licence terms — including the regulated in-stream flow rates — and the company has opted to commit to an extended period of environmental monitoring beyond the provincially mandated initial five-year phase.

The B.C. environmental monitoring firm Ecofish plans to at the overall health of the stream and collect statistical data that scientists can use, Smith said.

“We’re very hopeful and confident that what it’s going to show is that overall the project isn’t making any negative environmental impact,” he said.

Allen McEwan, whose property borders on the lower part of the creek, said he’s been quite pleased with Epcor’s communications and improvements.

“They’ve done their best to explain (the low-water event) to us in some detail, (and) it would appear that they’ve done an awful lot of work to make sure it never happens again,” McEwan said.

While he said he shares many of the concerns raised by scientists such as Rosenau and Zevit as applied to IPPs in general, Miller Creek’s fisheries value had been compromised before the plant, and Epcor is addressing the issue of an information deficit through its monitoring program.

Veronica Woodruff, a director of Stewardship Pemberton, said she speaks first for the concerns of fish, since that’s her passion, and she feels the Miller Creek project might not have been “one of the better projects to start with.”

But she’s been impressed with Epcor’s communications with residents and changes to make sure the possibility of another dewatering event is low.
“I feel right now that Epcor has really done their duty in regards to that project,” she said.

mlivingston@whistlerquestion.com
© Copyright 2008, Whistler Question

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:01 AM

Approval Process for Enbridge Gateway Flawed: BC First Nations

First Nations Summit
Nov 28, 2008

MORICETOWN, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Nov. 28, 2008) - A resolution, passed at today's First Nations Summit meeting in Vancouver, calls on the federal government to establish an independent First Nations Review Process for Enbridge's Northern Gateway project.

The resolution follows a November 6 gathering where Hereditary Chiefs, Elected Chiefs and representatives from six First Nations shared concerns about the Gateway pipeline and coastal tanker traffic. They agreed that current consultation attempts by the federal government and Enbridge do not meet a standard of genuine engagement with First Nations.

"Regulators are not respecting the fact that we have a responsibility to protect our ancestral territories, rights, title and interests," says David de Wit, Natural Resources Manager at the Office of the Wet'suwet'en. "Gateway is a major project with significant risks. Yet the federal government is advancing a decision-making process for Gateway without any provision for addressing Aboriginal Rights and Title. This is unacceptable."

The Northern Gateway project proposes to move bitumen from Alberta's tar sands, across Northern British Columbia, en route to markets in the US and Asia.

Although the pipeline is slated to undergo a Joint Review Panel (JRP) process beginning in early 2009, the JRP does not account for risks from coastal tanker traffic and tar sands expansion that would follow pipeline construction. Moreover, the JRP process was developed without meaningful Aboriginal consultation; it is currently designed to grant approvals irrespective of potential harms in First Nation communities.

"The Haida Nation will certainly not accept tanker traffic where we would bear the burden of risk and oil spills in our waters. Our livelihoods would be jeopardized," says Robert Davis, Representative of the Council of the Haida Nation. "Many of our neighbour Nations are equally concerned about impacts on their lands and water. We are willing to stand united to protect our waters."

Today's First Nations Summit resolution, tabled by the Nadleh Whut'en First Nation, offers a constructive means of addressing gaps in the Gateway JRP. An independent First Nations Review Process would allow affected communities to genuinely evaluate risks and benefits and determine whether or not these are acceptable.

"Our communities are deeply concerned about the environmental impacts of the Gateway project," says Larry Nooski, Chief of the Nadleh Whut'en First Nation. "We also have a constitutional right to make decisions based on independent information about risks and benefits. Until such assessments take place, no-one has the authority to make commitments on our behalf."

"Our position is simple," says Anne Marie Sam, a councilor with the Nak'azdli First Nation. "We won't accept a decision-making process that undermines our rights."

For more information, please contact
Office of the Wet'suwet'en
David de Wit
(250) 847-3630

or

Nadleh Whut'en First Nation
Larry Nooski
(250) 613-7102

or

Council of the Haida Nation
Robert Davis
(250) 626-7125

or

Nak'azdli First Nation
Anne Marie Sam
(250) 649-8284

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:06 AM

November 27, 2008

Emerson named CEO of B.C. Transmission Corp.

COMMENT: In this one week alone, the Globe and Mail has three items announcing new appointments for former federal minister and Canfor CEO, David Emerson. Two may be largely honorary, done for the corporate boasting rights, but the BCTC appointment indicates the expanded role transmission (budgets, projects, and electricity movement) will be playing in BC.

Another interesting factor that will have an impact on BCTC and the business it conducts, as well as on BC Hydro and the power it presently is well positioned to buy and sell, is the Montana Alberta Tie Line.

If an Alberta merchant power generator wants to sell to a US customer, it has to move its power through British Columbia or to a much lesser extent, through Saskatchewan. There is 1200 MW of transmission capacity between AB and BC. There is 150 MW between AB and SK, and that energy has a many more miles to travel before it finds a sizable US market.

The Montana Alberta Tie Line (MATL) is a proposed new 300 MW, 230 kV, international power line which would run from Lethbridge to Great Falls, MT. Once in the Montana grid, the power is available to the entire western North America market for which BCTC currently provides the primary gateway.

With a Montana routing for Alberta power opened up, one scenario for BC Hydro is a realignment of the price and availability of surplus Alberta energy that BC Hydro has purchased and resold, or used instead of BC-generated hydro power, for many years.

As of a week ago, the MATL had all of its Canadian and US approvals in place. But these are changing and uncertain times. The MATL, purely a merchant venture, relies on the commitment of users for its financial underpinnings, and some of those expressions of interest may not be expressed with quite as much certainty at the end of 2008 as they were months ago. If the MATL does start construction, David Emerson will have a new factor to consider.



Emerson named CEO of B.C. Transmission Corp.

Canadian Press
Globe and Mail
November 26, 2008

Vancouver -- Former federal cabinet minister David Emerson has been named CEO and board chair of B.C. Transmission Corp., which works in tandem with British Columbia Hydro in delivering electricity across the province.

He replaces departing chair Bob Reid and CEO Jane Peverett.

Mr. Emerson served in several federal cabinet posts, including Foreign Affairs and International Trade before deciding not to run again in the October federal election.

He says B.C. is already a North American leader in clean energy generation and transmission and he's looking forward to working with BC Hydro to develop the province's energy potential.



The Honourable David Emerson, P.C.

Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP
Globe and Mail
November 24, 2008

Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP, one of Canada's leading law firms, welcomes The Honourable David Emerson, P.C., formerly Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the firm as Senior Advisor.

Mr. Emerson obtained his Doctorate in Economics from Queen's University. Nationally he has held senior positions that include Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Industry, Minister of International Trade and Minister for Pacific Gateway and Vancouver - Whistler Olympics. In British Columbia he was the Province's Deputy Minister of Finance, Deputy Minister to the Premier and later President of the British Columbia Trade Development Corporation. He has also served in leadership roles in the private sector, including as President and CEO of Canfor Corporation, the first President and CEO of the Vancouver International Airport Authority and Chairman and CEO of Canadian Western Bank.

Mr. Emerson has been deeply involved in the national public policy agenda, including economic policy, globalization and trade policy, transportation and logistics. In the private sector, he has undertaken the development of competitive global value chains and has been involved in strategically motivated financial restructurings, project financing and public/private partnership initiatives. He will assist Farris' clients in meeting today's practical demands and opportunities, provincially, nationally and internationally.



CAI lands Emerson

Andrew Willis
Globe and Mail
November 24, 2008

CAI Capital Management landed former federal Cabinet Minister David Emerson on Monday as a senior adviser to the $1.3-billion private equity fund.

CAI, a major player in infrastructure, added to its blue-chip roster by adding the former minister of foreign affairs and international trade. A senior member of both Liberal and Conservative cabinets, the Vancouver-based Mr. Emerson was also president and CEO of lumber company Canfor.

CAI was founded in 1989 by former Alcan CEO David Culver and veterans of Wall Street investment bank Salomon Brothers. Tracey McVicar, who heads CAI's Western Canadian operations in Vancouver, said: “Mr. Emerson's deep experience in international trade and his involvement with public/private partnerships will be of inestimable value to our firm in these challenging times.”

Last year, CAI was a central player in the $3.5-billion buyout of oil fields services firm CCS income Fund, one of the larger private equity takeovers done in 2007.


Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:01 AM

November 25, 2008

Green power bids flooding in to BC Hydro

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Power corporation could receive offers of five times the electricity sought

Independent producers are expecting to flood BC Hydro with offers of green electricity by the time the 2008 call for clean power closes today.

BC Hydro could be looking at five times the 5,000 gigawatt hours of new green power it was seeking when it opened the call process earlier this year -- and the independents are speculating that the bid price for each new megawatt hour of power will be substantially higher than the last call in 2006.

The call has attracted criticism from independent power opponents who want Hydro to develop all new sources of electricity in the province and ensure that all electricity generation in the province is held by the Crown.

Meanwhile, Independent Power Producers association of British Columbia president Steve Davis described the call as competitive, saying the sheer volume of interest guarantees that Hydro's customers -- the people of B.C. -- are getting the best price on new sources of electricity.

"It's certainly competitive, 169 projects registered [earlier this year] to bid," Davis said in an interview. "BC Hydro's target is 5,000 gigawatt hours [but] I think they will receive something in the order of 25,000 gigawatt hours."

Run of river hydro and wind power projects are expected to comprise the bulk of the bids.

Davis said many of those in the bidding will come away disappointed, after months and even years of preparatory work.

"If we presume 100 of them are going to bid I'm still expecting a four to five times over-subscription ratio.

"Having been a bidder, I can say the last thing you want to do is price it just a little too high, and get nothing at all."

One certainty is that the price Hydro accepts will be substantially higher than the last call, which came in 2006.

Davis notes that Hydro was offering $55 per megawatt hour in 2003, which works out to 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour, and paid an average $74 per megawatt hour in the last green call, in 2006.

"I'm not sure this time the prices aren't going to be closer to the $90s," Davis said, noting that the higher price is a reflection of higher construction and financing costs, not profiteering by the independents.

"If somebody is pricing too high, to hope to make too much money, they simply will not get selected."

At present, independents annually produce about 1,000 megawatt hours -- nine per cent of the total generating capacity of the BC Hydro system.

BC Hydro is investing in refurbishing its own aging network of heritage hydroelectric facilities.

It recently spent $95 million to upgrade the 86-year-old Aberfeldie generating station near Cranbrook.

Hydro documents show the electricity from refurbished Aberfeldie will cost $78 per megawatt hour.

"Critics of the government's energy policy -- public power proponents, environmental groups, first nations -- won't be surprised by the onslaught of bids for the upcoming energy call," said Melissa Davis of BC Citizens for Public Power.

Melissa Davis, no relation to Steve Davis, said in an e-mail to The Sun that the government and private power companies seem to be "racing against the clock" to sign as many energy purchase agreements as possible before the May 2009 provincial election.

"The government must be counting on a lot of votes from the IPP sector. Because I doubt they'll get much support from British Columbians who care about the environment, or from British Columbians who oppose the privatization of our public services, or from British Columbians living on low or fixed incomes who won't be able to afford the two-tiered hydro rates and outrageous increases that are subsidizing private power."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

BC Hydro's 2008 Clean Power Call

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 08:52 PM

November 22, 2008

Wind, water, tide and garbage will power Van Isle

COMMENT: Not. This Pollyana-ish article may have a place in a marketing brochure, but it doesn't belong anywhere else. The Green Island Energy garbage burning plant is still a pipe dream, after six years now of promotion by its backers. In its first iteration, the pop singer Jewel provided funding and her family connections to the project, joining Gordon Campbell for a photo-op. It's difficult to say who looks sillier.

img_jewel_meets_premier_campbell_april_30_2003_t.jpg

The Green Island project was originally pitched as a wood waste burning generation plant. When challenged as to where all this wood waste would come from, the company said it would barge it in from the entire west coast of North America, from California to Alaska. Nothing happened. Then the project re-emerged pitching itself to the then Greater Vancouver Regional District (now Metro Vancouver) as a garbage burning facility. Nothing has happened on that front, either, not unexpectedly, though Metro Vancouver has been talking about incinerating municipal waste in the Fraser Valley, and an application is now at the Environmental Assessment Office to expand the Cache Creek landfill. Green Island still talks a big story, and a mountain of construction and wood waste is apparently being stockpiled in Tahsis - not Gold River - but some of the old Bowater plant in Gold River is now a land-based fish farm.

In addition to the opposition a garbage-burning facility will face from those of us concerned about toxic emissions (drifting in all directions, including east into the Georgia Basin at times), there's the matter of a steady procession of barges crossing Georgia Strait, Haro Strait, running past Dallas Road, out the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and up the stormy west coast to Gold River. That'll be popular. Victoria will stop dumping its shit in the Strait, only to have it replaced by Vancouver's garbage.

As to Finavera Renewables, and wave energy, it doesn't have anything at all off the west coast of Vancouver Island. It's a company that really doesn't have anything at all, come to think of it. Like Sea Breeze, it has funded a lot of empty promises through issuing shares, but has nearly run to the end of that road. Its share price has tanked with this global economic collapse, and its only prototype wave energy generator, named Aqua-Buoy, sank a year ago off the coast of Oregon, and is still there, on the sea bottom.

FVR.jpg

And as for wind on Vancouver Island, there is a lot of it in some places, notably on the west coast and the north end of the island. My understanding is that the wind in these locations is gusty, rather than sustained and consistent as is the northeast (cited in the article) and Alberta. Transmission is another costly challenge for wind developers on Vancouver Island, as there ain't no power lines running the necessary hundreds of kilometers out in the remote bush. Perhaps a critical mass of wind projects can cost justify transmission, but that's the sort of thing that would take co-ordination and planning, and we haven't seen any of that from any of the wind farms proposed so far.


Business Examiner
November 17, 2008

Despite the recent decline in world oil prices, the volatility of the energy market has made it clear that alternative energy sources need to be developed and encouraged. There are several proponents of alternative energy schemes on Vancouver Island.

Were bidding on an EPA (Energy Purchase Agreement) to sell power to BC Hydro, says Russ Hellberg, vice president for community and government relations for Nahwitti Wind Power Ltd. Were hoping to be up and running by the summer of 2011.

The proposed project, located northwest of Nahwitti Lake, would generate clean, renewable energy from 42 wind turbine generators.These generators stand 125 metres tall, with propeller blades that span 45 metres, each turbine capable of producing 2.5 Megawatts (MW)enough to power 250 homes.

One of the challenges we face is siting the turbines, getting them built in fairly remote locations and positioning them to take full advantage of the wind to produce maximum power, says Hellberg.

BC Hydro has initiated a call for power to Independent Power Producers (IPP) and will commission 5,000 gigawatt hours per year of clean, renewable energy using proven technologies, such as hydro and wind. There will be a competitive bidding process involving independent power producers across the province and will help many new power generating projects to be built and become

The potential of wind power will soon be demonstrated near Chetwynd, where, by the end of next year, B.C.s first commercial windmill operation is expected to generate 144 megawattsenough power to supply 34,000 homes.

Vancouver Island generates only about 25 per cent of its own power, says Steve Davis, president of the Independent Power Producers of BC. The island is uniquely suited to develop these alternative energy sources. The wide range of generation resources in the region such as rivers, oceans, wind, and wood waste allow for the development and innovation of energy technologies.

While the coastal areas are suitable for the production of wind energy and tidal/wave power, interior areas have the resources to provide run-of-river hydro projects.

One of the first alternative projects to be built is the China Creek micro-hydro plant near Port Alberni. Since it went on the BC Hydro grid in 2005 it has provided a steady six megawatts. Says Judith Sayers, Chief Councillor of Hupacasath First Nation: When the plant operates at full capacity, it generates enough power to supply electricity to all the homes in Port Alberni.

Opportunities for biomass generation also exist throughout the Island. Biomass energy derives from the burning of organic materials such as garbage or forest-iindustry by-products such as wood waste and hog fuelboth plentiful on Vancouver Island.

The island biomass project furthest along is the Gold River Power Project, begun by Green Island Energy of Vancouver in 2003. Using the existing Gold River pulp mill site, the company expects operations to begin in 2009. Phase one will see a 45 megawatt boiler burning 350,000 tons per year of wood waste.

Phase two will see a 45-MW boiler that will burn 450,000 tons per year of municipal solid waste, shipped in from Oregon and California. Financial backing has shifted since the projects inception but is still in place.

Wave technology has huge potential but, as yet, no projects have secured approval.

Finavera Renewables, based in Vancouver, is currently testing offshore power plants in Ucluelet. These consist of buoys that conduct wave energy into a turbine that produces electricity. Clusters of these AquaBuOYs are moored several kilometers offshore where the wave resource is the greatest.

The electricity is sent ashore through an undersea transmission line. The company expects this facility to produce 5 MW of power.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:30 AM

November 21, 2008

Storm Cat Energy bankrupt and delisted

News Release
Storm Cat Energy
Friday, 21 November 2008

Storm Cat has been advancing its coalbed methane project in the Elk Valley and until this bankruptcy, was believed to be close to a production decision.

STORM CAT ENERGY CORPORATION RECEIVES DELISTING NOTICES
FROM THE NEW YORK ALTERNEXT US LLC AND TORONTO STOCK EXCHANGES

DENVER, Colorado and CALGARY, Alberta – November 20, 2008 – Storm Cat Energy Corporation (NYSE Alternext US: SCU; TSX: SME) today reported that it has received a delisting notice from the NYSE Alternext US LLC (NYSE Alternext US) pursuant to Section 1009 of the NYSE Alternext US Company Guide. Key reasons for the delisting of the Company’s stock cited by the NYSE Alternext US include, among others, the subsidiaries of Storm Cat having filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code on November 10, 2008, its recent financial performance, and the low per share trading price of Storm Cat’s common stock for a substantial period of time, as addressed by the NYSE Alternext US Company Guide in Sections 1003(a)(i)-(iv), 1003(c)(3) and 1003(f)(v).

Separately, the Company received a notice from the Toronto Stock Exchange (the “TSX”) stating that the TSX had decided to suspend trading of the Company’s common shares immediately and to delist the Company’s common shares as of the close of business on December 18, 2008. The delisting was imposed due to similar reasons cited by the NYSE Alternext US.

Storm Cat has a limited right to appeal the NYSE Alternext US’s decision until November 24, 2008, and is required to appeal the TSX’s decision before December 18, 2008. At present, Storm Cat has elected not to take any specific actions or responses to the NYSE Alternext US or TSX delisting notices.

News Release, Storm Cat Energy, 20-Nov-2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 02:43 PM

November 20, 2008

Take Action to STOP CBM this Friday!

A quick phone call can help keep irresponsible oil and gas development out of Beautiful British Columbia.

Shell Canada and BP Canada wants to drill for coalbed methane in the Sacred Headwaters and the Elk Valley, but all the amazing work done by citizens together has prevented any work from being done on the ground.

A number of signs suggest the BC government, Shell and BP might just be rethinking their projects.

They've received thousands of resolutions against drilling from First Nations, municipalities, fishermen, unions and ordinary citizens in BC. They've heard from prominent Canadians, like Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, and Wade Davis, Explorer in Residence at National Geographic.

So now comes the fun part!

On Friday, HUNDREDS of people across BC and Alberta will phone Gordon Campbell and let him know that we don't want CBM drilling in this province! Not anywhere in this province, not on Vancouver Island, not in the Similkameen, not in the Elk Valley or Sacred Headwaters.

Join us! It's as easy as making a quick phone call. Just pick up the phone between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Friday, November 21st. With the amount of resistance shown to this development, Gordon Campbell will be forced to make the right decision.

Some places are too special to allow oil and gas drilling, and should be preserved as a legacy for all Canadians. Contact the Premier of British Columbia, and urge him to do the right thing and STOP irresponsible CBM development.

CALL BC Premier, Gordon Campbell: 250-387-1715
An assistant will likely answer your call.

Thanks everyone!

This message originated from the Citizens Concerned about Coalbed Methane (CCCBM) in Fernie (www.cccbm.org), but it could have as easily come from the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition (SWCC) in Hazelton (www.skeenawatershed.com) or the CCCBM-Vancouver Island in Campbell River (www.cbmvi.org), or from Princeton or Telkwa or Hudsons Hope or ...

SWCC ran this ad in the Calgary Herald in November.

SWCC_FINAL_nov08.jpg

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:18 PM

Proposed power line to Lower Mainland draws intense environmental scrutiny

Route map and other links at bottom of page

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Hydro line must be in place by 2014, officials say

The hunt for a route for a $725-million high-voltage power line to Metro Vancouver has begun in earnest, and it's a massive effort.

The British Columbia Transmission Corp. announced this week that it has formally submitted its application for an environmental certificate for a 500-kilovolt transmission line along a 255-kilometre route between Merritt and Coquitlam.

The Crown corporation wants the line in place by 2014, saying population growth in the Lower Mainland will soon drive electricity demand beyond the capacity of existing transmission lines to the B.C. Interior -- and that blackouts are likely if the line does not get built on time.

BCTC has submitted eight volumes of documents covering everything from the line's potential impact on a handful of spotted owls living east of Boston Bar to a shortage of tourist accommodation in areas along the route where numbers of migrant construction workers are concentrated.

The "Interior to Lower Mainland" line parallels an existing transmission line for more than two thirds of its length, but requires new alignment for 74 kilometers of the route.

It will also need to be widened to accommodate additional towers and wires for about 60 kilometres of the route.

The consultation phase is massive -- BCTC lists 126 federal, provincial and first nations contacts who are likely to comment and possibly raise concerns about the transmission corporation's plan for the route during a 180-day review period.

There are 30 fish species within the study area of the route, which will require 409 stream crossings and 97 road crossings. There are also 22 red- or blue-listed plant species, 11 rare and endangered bird species, two rare and endangered mammals, two rare and endangered reptiles, and four rare and endangered amphibians.

There are 60 first nations, and seven tribal councils or associations with an interest in the alignment of the route, 23 archaeological sites, 42 historic sites, and one paleological site.

BCTC senior project manager Melissa Holland is confident that the proposed route -- which includes a "thread the needle" section in a narrow Coast Mountain pass between critical habitat for spotted owls and grizzly bears -- is the one with the fewest environmental impacts.

"What we did find was a nice actual bench around the edge of the mountain where we can put the line. We wouldn't have been able to find that without hiking up and down the side of that mountain, which we did."

Gwen Farrell of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee is not so sure it's the best route.

"I'm surprised that the line will actually take away critical spotted owl habitat," Farrell said. "We are down to seven owls in the wild. I can't believe the project would even contemplate further encroaching on the habitat that's left."

Meanwhile, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs said the chiefs have several concerns about the line -- not the least of which is a failure on the part of government to address the impacts first nations have suffered as a consequence of earlier transmission line construction along the route.

Phillip said the chiefs have flagged B.C.'s environmental assessment process as being "grossly deficient" and called upon Premier Gordon Campbell to work with first nations to amend the process "in a fashion that does recognize and acknowledge our aboriginal title interests."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008


ILM_upper.jpg

ILM_lower.jpg

Interior-Lower Mainland Transmission Project Preferred Route Map here

Environmental Assessment Office file on ILM project here

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:58 PM

November 17, 2008

B.C. gas patch poised for another boom

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
November 17, 2008

Record levels of natural gas and oil drilling expected in 2009

Drilling for natural gas and oil in British Columbia is expected to reach record levels of activity in 2009, in the wake of frenzied bidding for new gas exploration leases in 2008.

Two organizations that track the Canadian gas and oil drilling industry predict a drop in exploration and well development in Alberta, but forecast a major jump in activity in B.C.

The Petroleum Services Association of Canada expects drilling activity will increase 29 per cent in B.C. -- which would bring it precisely back to the level that had drillers and service rigs going flat-out in 2005 and 2006 amid robust gas prices on the North American market.

This time, however, natural gas prices aren't the catalyst.

Instead, it's a buzz of on-the-ground activity in the wake of record-setting bidding for gas drilling rights in two non-conventional and under-explored basins, Monkman and Horn River in northeast B.C.

Those two areas have lifted gas-rights auction revenues in B.C. to record levels for both the 2008 calendar year and the 2008-09 fiscal year as both large and small companies scrambled to stake a claim to a portion of what are believed to be huge, long-term, world-class reserves.

Now that they have the land, it's time to work.

"We will run about 150 rigs in the first quarter of the year in B.C.
Everything that can run in the province will be there," said Don Herring, president of the Canadian Association of Oil Drilling Contractors.

Herring said there is only a limited number of rigs with the sophisticated drilling equipment necessary for the deep, multi-directional drilling needed to extract gas from tight shale formations.

The B.C. play is a "new, unique play to Western Canada" and has only one real counterpart, the vast Barnet Shale play that has the gas industry roaring in Texas.

At this point, the Canadian play is restricted to B.C.'s portion of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, the nation's primary reserve of gas and oil.

The lion's share of the basin is in Alberta, where most resources rest in conventional, cheap-to-access drilling areas that are producing less and less gas each year.

Alberta will still draw the lion's share of activity, but its higher gas-royalty costs are driving many companies to B.C.

"This non-conventional gas resource is a new, unique play to Western Canada. It is very much focused at this point in northeastern B.C.,"
Herring said.

"It could also, of course, extend across the border into Alberta. But the focus has been on B.C. in large measure and in part because the royalty regime in Alberta has discouraged a lot of investment, whereas the fiscal regime in British Columbia has done exactly the opposite. It has attracted investment."

At the same time, "very good drilling results" reported in 2007 and
2008 by companies exploring Monkman and Horn River are accelerating interest in B.C., Herring said.

"The investor certainly is speaking with his wallet and saying he believes there is some real opportunity in British Columbia. What makes it unique is that he is not saying that about Alberta."

Roger Price, Western Canada operations vice-president for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, noted B.C. has taken in more than $2 billion this year and calculates at least half of it has gone to the two key areas.

"Companies have spent a lot of money. They are now at the stage, with that kind of capital outlay, where they need to start getting a return on that investment," Price said.

"So they need to start investing further in terms of the drilling programs -- to start getting the production to pay for the capital they've invested."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:50 AM

November 15, 2008

Enbridge Coming to Town

By 250 News, Prince George,
Friday, November 14, 2008

enbridge_gateway_route.jpg
Red line represents path of proposed twin pipeline ( map courtesy Enbridge)

Prince George, B.C.- Enbridge will be starting its public consultation process next week and will bring its case for the Northern Gateway pipeline project to Prince George on Thursday. The company’s open house sessions will talk about the planned twin pipeline project from the Edmonton area, through to a new marine terminal in Kitimat.

One line would carry petroleum to the coast for shipping to other regions. The east bound line would carry condensate from the coast to the Edmonton area. (condensate is used to thin petroleum products for pipeline transport)

The petroleum line will be 36 inches in diameter and 1170 kilometers long. It will carry about 525 thousand barrels of petroleum each day.

The condensate line would be 20 inches in diameter and carry about 193, thousand barrels of condensate per day.

Enbridge quotes Initiatives prince George CEO Tim McEwan as one of the supporters of the project “Northern Gateway represents a real opportunity for the North. It will create jobs and develop skills that will benefit northern communities over the long term.”

Enbridge has lots of ground to cover in more ways than one. There is public consultation and input an environmental assessment process, consultation and relationship building with first Nations and, if all goes well, preparation and construction. It is a path that will take Enbridge about 7 years to complete.

In addition to the environmental and safety concerns as the line covers the land, there is also the matter of issues as they apply to marine environmental concerns.

Enrbridge has publicly stated (on its website) that it is open to First Nations having an “Equity Investment Option for Aboriginal communities to benefit directly" in other words, First Nations are invited to make a cash investment in the project and become business partners.

The lines would cross B.C. north of Prince George, but there is an opportunity for Prince George to supply materials, equipment and skilled labour for the 4000 direct and indirect jobs Enbridge says the construction of the line would create.

The full open house schedule for the Prince George region is as follows:

Monday November 17
Burns Lake
College of New Caledonia
545 Hwy 16 West
4:00-8:00pm

Tuesday November 18
Fort St. James
Stuart Lake Seniors Association Recreation Centre
250 Simon Fraser Avenue
4:00-8:00pm

Wednesday November 19
Vanderhoof
Elks Hall
474 East Victoria Street
4:00-8:00pm

Thursday November 20
Prince George
Coast Inn of the North
770 Brunswick Street
4:00-8:00pm

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 03:15 PM

November 12, 2008

Crews battle to contain fire at natural-gas well

WENDY STUECK
Globe and Mail
November 12, 2008

Crews yesterday were working to contain a fire at a ConocoPhillips natural-gas well about 30 kilometres east of Chetwynd in northeastern B.C.

The well is licensed to produce sour gas, which contains toxic hydrogen sulphide, but was producing sweet gas at the time the blaze started. Air at the site is being monitored. The fire started early yesterday after gas made its way into the well bore Monday afternoon.

The fire broke out in the course of routine operations and is not related to three recent attacks on nearby EnCana facilities, a ConocoPhillips spokesman said.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:39 AM

November 11, 2008

Sabotage fears flow around B. C. pipelines

Nathan Vanderklippe
Financial Post
November 11, 2008

Companies reviewing how to protect assets

VANCOUVER - The recent attacks on EnCana Corp. natural-gas infrastructure in northeastern B. C. have created skittishness across the industry, as other companies scramble helicopters to respond to perceived threats and consider design changes to bolster the security of future pipelines in the area.

"We're going to be looking for ways in our design to limit sabotage or anybody gaining access to [a proposed new pipeline]," said Darren Marine, president of SemCAMS, a Calgary-based sour-gas processor that is seeking National Energy Board approval to build a 150-kilometre pipeline near the area where the attacks have occurred.

In October, two explosions were triggered near interconnection points on EnCana pipelines near Tomslake, B. C., a tiny highway settlement hugging the Alberta border. A third explosion at an En-Cana wellhead was discovered on Halloween. It took nearly three days to stop the escape of gas, which contained trace amounts of deadly hydrogen sulfide.

The attacks followed a menacing letter published in a local newspaper demanding EnCana "and all other oil and gas interests" cease operating in the area, which has seen a huge boom in drilling and pipeline building in recent years.

That boom, however, continues, although those who are operating projects in the area now say they are re-examining how to protect their assets. EnCana has hired private security workers to help protect its assets while Spectra Energy Corp., which has built and operated gas infrastructure in the area for more than five decades, has put its employees on high alert. It is also taking reports of intruders far more seriously.

In the past, the company would send a truck to check out an unknown vehicle reported near a compressor station or pipeline right-of-way, a common occurrence this time of year as hunters frequent the backwoods. Now it is dispatching helicopters.

"We're reacting certainly more quickly to anything that sounds out of the ordinary," said Al Ritchie, Spectra's vice-president of operations. "We try to get there as quickly as we can just to make sure that we're on top of this."

Both Spectra and Sem-CAMS have also examined what they can do to better protect new assets in the area. SemCAMS hopes to begin construction next year on its Redwillow Pipeline, and Mr. Marine said the company is now adapting its plans to a reality where it "could be a target at any time."

"Safety's always a very high concern for us, but this certainly has heightened our awareness," he said.

SemCAMS is now considering erecting chain-link fences and barbed wire around surface pipeline infrastructure, Mr. Marine said. Gas pipelines are typically buried, but connection points and emergency shut-off valves are often above-ground, where they are generally left unsecured for ease of access. In the past, when pipeline security meant planning for equipment malfunction or corrosion, that was sufficient, since the risk of sabotage was negligible.

"Other than Wiebo [Ludwig's] fight with the guys up in Grande Prairie country, there hasn't really been any vicious attacks on oil industry equipment in Canada," said Rod Phipps, the managing partner of Concise Design, a mid-sized engineering firm that designs gas pipelines.

RCMP have not announced any arrests in connection with the three attacks.

With the current threat, industry may consider using more security cameras or encasing above-ground connections in bunkers. That, however, brings the risk of creating dangerous confined spaces, Mr. Phipps said. Companies could even consider using thicker surface pipe, a more expensive -- and not necessarily effective-- solution.

"If someone is really interested in causing destruction to something, you can't make piping so that it can't be blown up," he said. "That's not physically possible. If it's a large enough explosive and [the bomber] does it right, he'll cause piping to fail."

See also

Third blast rocks B.C. pipeline

Inside an explosive situation

Six recent pipeline incidents, commission says

Oil vandal questioned in B.C. pipeline bombings

Somebody local with a grudge targeting oilpatch?

2nd explosion rocks northern B.C. pipeline

RCMP terror squad probes pipeline bombing

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:31 PM

November 10, 2008

Going Up to the Landfill in the Sky

by Delores Broten
Watershed Sentinel
November-December 2008

Its proponents call it “Waste to Energy” or WTE, but recycling advocates call it “The Landfill in the Sky.” The great incineration debate, which the environmental movement had pretty well won across North America, is back with a vengeance. Metro Vancouver is considering several incinerators as a solution to its municipal solid waste (MSW) garbage problem.

Right now, BC leads North America in responsible actions around waste. The Extended Producer Responsibility Program requires manufacturers to run “take back” programs for an expanding set of consumer residues, from paint to batteries to electronics. It is through programs like this that BC could eventually land on the negative side of the waste issue – Zero Waste.

In the meantime, the landfills are filling, and more jurisdictions are looking to dispose of their waste through assorted forms of burning, be it old fashioned incineration, even older incineration like Green Island Energy’s retrofitted pulp mill at Gold River , or newer concepts like gasification and PlascoEnergy’s plasma gasification conversion of garbage into “products” like syngas.

But even the most advanced incineration schemes resemble a three-for-one pollution option – you get to pollute the land, the air, and the water. This is made abundantly clear by the Recycling Council of British Columbia’s (RCBC) thoughtful examination of Waste to Energy in comparison to landfills. In particular, the report examines Plasco, which is targeting Vancouver among other cities around the world with a heavy sales pitch for its as yet unproven technology. A much-vaunted Ottawa demonstration plant has not yet dealt with fulltime loads of real garbage after 10 months of set up, due to operational problems.

In discussing air pollution, RCBC’s white paper, Examining The Waste-to-Energy Option, states: “If a Plasco facility performs as predicted, heavy metals will primarily be an airborne issue. In a landfill, heavy metals are primarily a water pollution issue. It is not clear which of these scenarios is preferable from a human or ecological health perspective. The priority, therefore, needs to be in removing these metals from the MSW stream in the first place.”

The report goes on to examine the various aspects of pollution, with particular attention to greenhouse gas generation, including trucking.

A big advantage of Waste to Energy is energy production. However, the energy produced is dependent on the energy-intensive materials left in the solid waste – wood, paper, plastic and compostable material, all of which can be largely diverted through recycling programs. Since the bulk of greenhouse gases are released during the initial raw resource extraction of any material, from oil to aluminium, the best line of action is to ensure maximum reuse. Which brings us back to Zero Waste.

Proponents of WTE point out that Europeans run state- of-the-art incinerators to dispose of their waste, but recycling activists assert that in Europe, reuse and recycling initiatives are more advanced than in North America. The entire EU has a target of 50% reduction in MSW by 2020, and countries like the Netherlands and Germany already recycle two-thirds of their materials. Incineration is truly a last resort in Europe.

RCBC says that the use of Waste To Energy does not encourage waste reduction, and that WTE would be quite unnecessary if full extended producer responsibility programs (product stewardship) and full organics diversion were in place. A Zero Waste strategy that relies on reducing, reusing and recycling waste will conserve more energy, produce fewer air pollutants and GHG emissions, and will help solve the residual problem still present in any WTE scenario.

Meanwhile, the Cache Creek landfill environmental assessment is underway to expand by 40 hectares, to take 15 million tonnes of Vancouver’s garbage over the next 20 to 30 years.

If that landfill expansion proceeds, perhaps by the time the great debate re-ignites, the need for sustainable resource use will have become an imperative which makes such waste unthinkable.

Download the WTE option paper at www.rcbc.bc.ca

For information on the Plasco process, see www.plascoenergygroup.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:31 AM

Fraser Valley politicos trash incinerator plan

Glenda Luymes
The Province
November 09, 2008

Fraser Valley residents are trash-talking a Metro Vancouver proposal to burn the region's garbage in "waste-to-energy" incinerators.

"The people of the Fraser Valley are extremely upset about this," said Chilliwack mayoral candidate Norm Smith. "For years we fought SE2, and here comes a threat from within our own region that's five times the pro-blem."

Smith and the two other Chilliwack mayoral candidates will put politics aside for a few hours tomorrow to rally against the incinerators, which they say will further contaminate the delicate Fraser Valley air shed.

The rally, which Smith hopes will be the first of many, is reminiscent of

rallies against SE2, a huge power plant proposed for Sumas, Wash., in the early 2000s. The proposal was eventually denied.

Smith said he wants the Metro Vancouver board to reconsider waste-to-energy incinerators, which he claims release lead, mercury and nano-particles into the air.

Waste-to-energy proponents claim the waste will be turned to energy that could be used to heat and power businesses and residences near the plants and downplay the other by-products of the process.

- The rally is planned for Nov. 10 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. outside the Chilliwack court-house.

gluymes@theprovince.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:15 AM

November 06, 2008

Pipeline company opens office - Roger Harris

Terrace Standard
November 04, 2008

A company proposing to transport oil through a multi-billion pipeline between Alberta and Kitimat will be officially opening their offices in Terrace and Kitimat next week.

Enbridge will use the offices in the two communities to inform the public about the project.

The project needs federal regulatory approval. Construction would require skilled workers.

The company's vice-president of communications and aboriginal partnerships, Roger Harris, said both offices will act as some degree as public outreach.

Harris is a former Liberal MLA for Skeena and is based in Terrace.

"I think it's important," Harris said of the offices being opened in the area. "I think local presence is always important for any project. I think it gives visible life to a project for people to see."

People can now come into the office and get more information about the pipeline project.

Enbridge will have an official opening in Kitimat next Wednesday, Nov. 12 in the old Alcan modernization office in the mall.

The official opening in Terrace will be Thursday, Nov. 13 at Dr. Elorza's old vet office on the 4600 block of Park Ave. across from the library. Harris says Enbridge is planning open houses in Terrace, Kitimat and Prince Rupert in the first week of December.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:18 AM

'Tape and twine' aid aging Hydro assets

COMMENT: " The "tape and twine" phrase certainly got everyone's attention. "The lights will go out" got everyone's attention in 2000, as well, when everyone from BC Hydro's CEO and its Board Chair to the pr flacks on the bottom were trying to ram through the GSX Pipeline and the Duke Point Power projects. The lights out threat was BS, but there was in fact a transmission system being held together at the time by tape and twine. It's been operating ever since, too - good tape, I guess - and soon will be given relief by the startup of the new Vancouver Island Transmission Reinforcement system (See New Vancouver Island Power Line Charging Up).

Big lies break down a lot of resistance, and open the way for big projects. BC is a "net importer" of electricity - that's another. "Weapons of mass destruction" - that's probably the all-time winner of the last generation.

So, is the "tape and twine" story just the opening volley of a new campaign of misinformation? Or a reasonably accurate telling of the current situation? Given the appalling state of BC Hydro's debt, that the policies of the NDP regime of the 1990's exacerbated the situation and did nothing to encourage proper maintenance of BC Hydro's facilities; and given that nothing has changed under the Liberal regime, I'm inclined to buy the "tape and twine" story.

But maybe that's just an indication of effective messaging.

Nevertheless, the phrase caught the attention of BCUC's Commissioner Milbourne. He asked if the degraded situation of BC Hydro's facilities stemmed from internal decisions, or whether there were other influences at play (page 2408).

"In terms of the general statement, the general theme of aging assets and deteriorated condition and so on, and I think I heard the kind of metaphoric expression here today of tape and twine holding a certain power station together, which I'm not too really would reassure a whole bunch of folks. But my question again is more of a policy nature. Is there any influence outside of B.C. Hydro's management decisions that's resulted in those circumstances, that you're describing today as being the driver of this whole investment program? Is there some policy environment that's prevented you from keeping current with respect to the condition of your assets, and dealing with the known demographics of the assets, which are no different than the demographics for people, which you've seen the programs in place to deal with? But you've -- is there any influence other than Hydro's management decisions that have resulted
in these circumstances?

Mr. O'Riley then probably realized the trap he'd set for himself, and his verbal dance to avoid falling into it is quite amusing. (again, it begins on page 2408.

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, November 05, 2008

BC Hydro is using "tape and twine" to keep some of its oldest power stations in operation, according to testimony at a hearing into electricity rates.

Hydro is seeking a 12.63-per-cent rate hike over two years for residential customers, and is proposing a massive ramp-up in capital spending to either upgrade or replace its heritage hydroelectric facilities around the province.

Some of those facilities are in exceptionally poor shape due to their advanced age, according to documents on file with the British Columbia Utilities Commission.

Meanwhile, major hydroelectric facilities such as Mica and W.A.C. Bennett/G.H. Shrum need large infusions of cash for new equipment that will make them more dependable during cold winter months when demand for electricity is greatest.

Hydro requires the BCUC's approval in order to impose the rate hike, and is making its case to spend $2.4 billion by fiscal 2011 on projects to sustain its heritage system.

Hydro also wants to increase spending on growth projects - such as adding additional generators at the existing Mica and Revelstoke Dams, as well as renewal and expansion of its transmission system.

All of those initiatives, if approved by BCUC, would boost total capital spending to $6.4 billion by 2011.

Renewal of the existing hydro system requires $2.8 billion of that amount.

David Austin, a B.C. energy sector commentator, suspects most people would be surprised by the scope of what Hydro is planning - and agrees all the work is necessary to maintain the reliability of the system.

"The general misconception is that the existing system is going to last forever and you won't have to put any money into it. That's not correct," Austin said.

Testimony at Hydro's rate requirement hearing before the BCUC, which wraps up Dec. 19, shows that senior Hydro officials are concerned about the potential for damage to local fish and wildlife resources from equipment failures at B.C.'s oldest power stations.

Hydro senior vice president Chris O'Riley testified that Hydro in September suffered an oil spill at Ruskin generating station on Stave River near Mission.

"But for the grace of God, it could have been an absolute disaster," O'Riley said. "It turned out we lost 100 litres of oil at a time of year when there wasn't really any impact on the salmon. [But] it could have been 2,000 litres of oil at a time of year when there were fish in the river, either the eggs and the smolts or the returning salmon.

"That's the risk that goes with having an 80-year-old plant that you're trying to hold together with tape and twine, essentially, until we get the thing replaced."

In an interview with The Vancouver Sun on Wednesday, O'Riley said Hydro has similar concerns about its 61-year-old John Hart generating facility on the Campbell River, one of the province's most famed salmon streams.

The facility's penstocks, which are the conduits carrying water from the dam into the generating station, are made of wood and need replacement to minimize risk that an earthquake or other breakdown would cut off the flow of water to fish downstream of the Hart dam.

"We have the risk of shutting off the flows to one of the best salmon rivers in the province. It's a very, very significant risk for us," Hart earlier testified at the rate hearing.

He told The Sun that Hydro has an electrician on site round-the-clock, rather than on call, in order to reduce the risks associated with a penstock failure.

O'Riley oversees engineering, aboriginal relations and generation for Hydro, and notes that in the past two years, his group has added 430 people as it prepares to accelerate its efforts to renew the system.

"We are not adding finance, and human resources and computer people. We are adding engineers, people to run projects, people on the ground turning tools and such," he said.

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

© Vancouver Sun 2008

BC Hydro's 2009-2010 Revenue Requirements

"Tape and twine" transcript, 21-Oct-2008

MR. O'RILEY: A: Well, I think we've talked a lot in the past about how we manage the business of B.C. Hydro and we're not like an investor-owned utility that all we care about is our income and our shareholder earnings. So, we have -- we consider very broadly the impacts on the shareholder, on the ratepayer, on other stakeholders in communities that are impacted by these assets. For example, the John Hart, the concern with John Hart is actually less of a reliability issue, less of a dollar issue, it's more of an environmental issue. Because we have the risk of shutting off the flows to one of the best salmon rivers in the province. It's a very, very significant risk for us. So, there is a very broad concern in B.C. Hydro about managing the risks that flow from these assets. Some of them are financial. Some of them flow through the deferral account. Some of them are externalities that we impose on society.

A recent example that had negligible financial consequences, in September, we had an oil spill at Ruskin and, but for the grace of God, it could have been an absolute disaster. We lost -- it turned out we lost 100 litres of oil at a time of year when there wasn't really any impact on the salmon. It could have been 2,000 litres of oil at a time of year when there were fish in the river, either the eggs and the smolts or the returning salmon. So that's -- and that's the risk that goes with having an 80-year-old plant that you're trying to hold together with tape and twine, essentially, until we get the thing replaced.

So that's a risk that doesn't, on the face of it, necessarily flow through the financial statements or the deferral accounts, but it's a risk we take very, very seriously as a company. So, we're not just motivated by the dollars that go to the shareholder, we're motivated broadly by the impacts that we impose.
Testimony of Chris O'Riley, Sr Vice-President, BC Hydro
B.C. Hydro Revenue Requirement F2009, F2010
Volume 13 Proceedings - October 21, 2008
Pages 2236-2237

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:27 AM

November 04, 2008

Tony Duggleby, 1955-2008

COMMENT: Tony Duggleby's impact on energy matters on the coast was impressive; there were times in which his influence was evident wherever people were talking about wind, transmission, small hydro, and most recently, tidal energy.

Anthony Oliver Duggleby June 11, 1955 - October 15, 2008

Anthony "Tony" Duggleby died Wednesday, October 15, 2008, in Vancouver of complications from pneumonia. A brilliant and generous spirit, Tony was a Marine Engineer, a licensed Commercial Ship's Captain, private pilot, accomplished machinist, and truly one of BC's renewable energy pioneers. During his career in renewable energy, Tony made contributions to Sea Breeze Power, Katabatic Power and most recently Orca Power. As CEO or COO, he led or contributed to teams that achieved for Sea Breeze the first BC Environmental Assessment Certificate for a Wind Project, and for Katabatic, one of the first three wind energy EPA's in the province. He played a key role in initiating the Juan de Fuca transmission line between Canada and the United States. He was currently developing tidal power projects in BC. He strived to make the world a better, safer place, doing everything with full enthusiasm. He will be greatly missed by his family, friends and colleagues. Tony is survived by his partner Nancy Levidow, daughters Auriane Chouinard-Duggleby and Elize Duggleby-Chouinard, mother Hester Elliott, brothers Mark and Dan, and sister Mary. A Memorial will be held on Wednesday October 22, 2008, at 3:30 p.m., at the Vancouver Museum, 1100 Chestnut St., Vancouver.

Published in the Vancouver Sun and/or The Province on 10/21/2008
link

Orca.jpg

ORCA ANNOUNCES PASSING OF CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

OCTOBER 15, 2008 CNQ Symbol: OP

Orca Power Corp. (the "Company" or "Orca") today announced the unexpected death of Anthony O. Duggleby, the Company’s Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Duggleby died this morning of pneumonia at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. He joined the Company as a Vice President in June 2008 and played a key role in new business development. He was appointed Chief Operating Officer in October 2008.

President Patrick Lavin stated, "We are deeply saddened by Tony’s sudden and unexpected death. He was a British Columbia wind energy pioneer and a leader in every respect – extremely creative, passionate and driven to achieve excellence in his work. He will be missed by all our employees and his colleagues."

The Company is proceeding with its plans to develop its key assets and acquisitions brought to the Company by Mr. Duggleby.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Patrick Lavin"
President
Orca Power Corp.
http://www.orcapowercorp.com/releases/2008-10-15-tony-passing.pdf

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:31 AM

November 01, 2008

Third blast rocks B.C. pipeline

WENDY STUECK
Globe and Mail
October 31, 2008

VANCOUVER — A third attack has been discovered on a pipeline in the Dawson Creek area of northeastern British Columbia.

The target was a natural gas wellhead about 12 kilometres northwest of Tomslake, a small town near Dawson Creek.

A small amount of gas leaked, but the public is not in danger, the RCMP said in a statement. EnCana engineers were containing the leak, and the blast was in a rural, isolated area.

The blast site was discovered about 12:30 p.m. PT Friday.

364pipelinebig.jpg RCMP explosive experts investigate a bomb explosion at an EnCana sour gas pipeline near Dawson Creek, B.C., Oct. 17, 2008.

EnCana spokeswoman Rhona DelFrari said there was “very minimal damage.”

“There are residents in the area but no one even living close enough that they would fall into our emergency response plan,” she said.

EnCana community representative Brian Lieverse, reached as he was driving to the scene, would not speculate on whether it was industrial sabotage or a Halloween prank.

“We are concerned,” Mr. Lieverse said.

The first two blasts occurred in October after local newspapers received a handwritten letter demanding that oil and gas interests leave the area.

Although residents had been on edge over the possibility of another attack, news of the damage at the third site still came as a surprise, said Cliff Calliou, chief of the nearby Kelly Lake Cree Nation.

“I was surprised; it is a surprise that someone would do that,” said Mr. Calliou, who lives in Kelly Lake, a small community in an area criss-crossed by pipelines.

“It's someone going and challenging the law, and it's really a serious matter.”

The attacks have targeted EnCana pipelines that carry sour gas – natural gas that contains hydrogen sulphide, which has a characteristic rotten-egg smell at lower concentrations and can be lethal at higher concentrations.

Several Kelly Lake residents have been questioned in connection with the pipeline investigation, Mr. Calliou said.

Members of the blast investigation team last week travelled to Alberta to arrest a man on outstanding B.C. warrants. The RCMP have not said whether the man, 21-year-old Kelly Lake resident Ian Gladue, is a suspect or a person of interest in the investigation.

The attacks have resulted in both EnCana and RCMP stepping up security around natural gas facilities.

Calgary-based EnCana is a major player in the region. The company's Steeprock plant, a $60-million processing facility opened in 2006, was the biggest such plant to be built in B.C. in a decade.

EnCana has been operating in the area for about 14 years. The company says its sour gas pipelines are equipped with automatic emergency shutdown valves that would “shut in,” or contain, an affected part of a pipeline if a change in pressure – from, for example, a rupture resulting from an explosion – were detected.

The RCMP's anti-terrorist unit, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, has taken the lead in the investigation because the attacks were directed at Canada's critical infrastructure, the force says.

In October, the RCMP took the unusual step of ruling out convicted bomber Wiebo Ludwig as a suspect, after media reports quoted Mr. Ludwig saying that he had spoken to police and was not a suspect in the investigation.

Mr. Ludwig lives on a commune-style property near Hythe, close to the B.C.-Alberta boundary and about an hour's drive from the area where the recent blasts occurred.

He was released from jail in 2001 after serving 19 months of a 28-month sentence for charges related to bombings and other vandalism of oil and gas wells in Alberta in the 1990s.

The attacks have brought back memories of Mr. Ludwig's anti-industry campaign in Alberta and triggered speculation there could be some connection between him and the incidents in B.C.

The Peace River area has been the focus of intense oil and gas activity for the past several years, with BP Canada planning to drill 132 new wells near Kelly Lake and the building of EnCana's $60-million Steep Rock gas plant in 2006. Along with all this activity have come growing concerns voiced by area residents.

Landowners near the hamlet of Tomslake, 28 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, protested on a gas-industry access road this summer and the Kelly Lake Cree Nation blockaded a road for two days to underline their safety concerns.

Investigators are at the latest blast site and the RCMP have set up a tip line in relation to the investigation.

With a report from The Canadian Press



Pipeline bomber sets off 3rd blast

Steve Lillebuen, with files from Alexandra Zabjek
The Edmonton Journal
November 1, 2008

Latest brazen attack in isolated area baffles landowners

pipeline210_tn.jpg
EDMONTON - A third explosion site was discovered Friday near the Alberta-British Columbia border, close to the site of two earlier bombings that targeted EnCana sour gas pipelines.

It's not clear when the deliberately set explosion occurred at the isolated natural gas wellhead about 12 kilometres northwest of Tomslake, near Dawson Creek, B.C.

There was no danger to the public.

Oil and gas pipeline owners expressed frustration over the third pipeline attack in the region in less than a month.

"We condemn clearly what is a criminal and cowardly act that has no place in a civilized society," said Jeff Angel, a spokesman for the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.

Since the two earlier October bombings, oil and gas companies have increased security.

Landowners who live close to the latest explosion were baffled that someone would be so brazen to attack a site with such heightened security.

Jim Zacharias, who lives near the targeted wellhead, said access to the area is only available through a private road that's had a man in a pickup truck stationed at its entrance 24 hours a day since the last two bombings.

"He's there when I go to bed and he's still there when I wake up," he said. "So whoever came in and did this, I don't think they could have come in from the road."

An EnCana contractor was driving by the site around noon Friday when he heard a small leak from the well.

Workers later found a "small amount of damage" to the wellhead and to some of the area surrounding it, EnCana spokeswoman Rhona DelFrari said.

The leak was stabilized Friday night to the low-volume, low-flow wellsite, which contained natural gas with trace amounts of hydrogen sulphide, which can be deadly. No hydrogen sulphide was detected by air-quality monitors, she said.

"At no point was the public ever at risk," she said.

The pipeline was expected to continue leaking small amounts of gas overnight. Engineers will assess the pipeline again early today.

Investigators from the RCMP's Integrated National Security Enforcement Team were already in the area investigating the two previous bombings.

Dawson Creek Coun. Bud Powell said it was bold move to strike a pipeline, considering a specialized anti-terrorism police team is in the area hunting for the suspect in the two previous bombings.

"To hit the pipeline again is pretty serious," he said.

While some residents were anxious after the previous pipeline bombings, concerns have dwindled in the past few weeks, he said.

Two bomb sites were found in October after an unsigned, handwritten letter was sent to the Dawson Creek Daily News warning EnCana to close operations and leave the Tomslake area by noon on Oct. 11. "We will not negotiate with terrorists, which you are as you keep on endangering our families with crazy expansion of deadly gas wells in our homelands," the letter stated.

The first blast site was found Oct. 12 On Oct. 16, a second bomb was detonated under a pipeline, leaving a crater that caused a minor leak that was quickly contained. Some residents expected attacks to continue and were surprised that there was a lull in activity until Friday's discovery.

slillebuen@thejournal.canwest.com



Third explosion rocks pipeline in eastern B.C.

Lisa Rossington
CTV News
Fri Oct. 31 2008

CTV News has learned that the pipeline infrastructure in northeastern British Columbia has been hit by yet another explosion.

500_bc_pipeline_explosion_thrid_081031.jpgCTV has learned that a third explosion has rocked northeastern B.C.'s pipeline infrastructure.

Sources have told CTV that the latest explosion occurred in an area about 12 kilometres northeast of Tomslake, just west of the B.C./Alberta border.

Police say it was discovered at an EnCana natural gas well head containing sour gas at 12.30 p.m. on Friday. It appears to have been deliberately set, police added.

Word of the blast comes on the heels of two explosions, which targeted pipelines operated by EnCana near the B.C.-Alberta border in recent weeks. The first was on Oct. 11, the second on Oct. 16.

The RCMP's Integrated National Security Enforcement Team has arrived at the scene of this latest blast, which caused a small gas leak that is currently being contained.

500_bc_lisa_richmond_081031.jpg Lisa Richmond lives about two kilometres from the well head blast. Oct. 31, 2008.

While police say the public is not in any danger, it appears that this is another attack on the pipeline sector in B.C.'s Peace River area.

Last week, the RCMP's anti-terrorism unit arrested a 21-year-old man from Kelly Lake, B.C. He remains in custody but has not been charged in connection with the pipeline bombings.

Local residents shaken

Police say he is being held for unrelated and as yet unspecified matters.

Residents, who live in the vicinity of the Encana well head, were shaken up by news of this latest blast.

"They really need to get the guy before someone gets hurt,'' said Lisa Richmond. "It's bad enough when it happens 10 or 15 kilometres away,'' she said. "But it's really scary when it's right in your own back yard.

With a report by CTV British Columbia's Lisa Rossington



3rd pipeline explosion in northeastern B.C. this month

CBC News
Friday, October 31, 2008

EnCana pipeline targeted again

bc-081016-pipe-explosion1.jpgRCMP Sgt. Tim Shields said the explosion on Friday appeared to have been deliberately detonated.

Another explosion hit an EnCana Corp. sour-gas pipeline in B.C. Friday afternoon, this time near the small community of Tomslake, south of Dawson Creek near the Alberta border, the RCMP said.

"The site of an explosion was discovered at a natural gas wellhead at approximately 12:30 p.m. today," Sgt. Tim Shields said in a news release Friday.

"The site is about 12 kilometres northwest of the community of Tomslake … The explosion appears to have been deliberately detonated and is located in a rural isolated area," he said.

The explosion caused a small gas leak that was quickly contained by EnCana engineers.

The leak did not pose any danger to the public, and there is no report of any injuries, Shields said.

Members of the RCMP Integrated National Security Enforcement Team are at the scene.

'Right now I am very scared. I don't know what to do. I've been trying to find my family, load them up and get out of here.'— Eric Kuenzl, Tomslake resident

A contract worker discovered the gas leak at the well site and informed operations engineers, EnCana said in a news release Friday.

EnCana has notified the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission about the latest incident.

"Given the two previous vandalism events earlier this month in the region, EnCana immediately contacted the RCMP, and officers are at the scene investigating the cause of the leak and whether it is connected to the previous pipeline explosions in the region," the release said.

It's the third sour-gas pipeline explosion targeting EnCana's infrastructure in northeastern B.C. this month. All three have been in the same general area, but police have not determined whether Friday's blast is linked with the other two, which took place on Oct. 11 and Oct. 16.

A threatening letter was sent to Dawson Creek media prior to the first explosion. The letter called Encana, which is based in Calgary, and other energy companies "terrorists" for expanding deadly gas wells and gave the companies a deadline to shut down their operations.

Tomslake resident Eric Kuenzl said he only heard about the Friday blast from the media.

"Right now I am very scared. I don't know what to do. I've been trying to find my family, load them up and get out of here," Kuenzl told CBC News in a telephone interview.

He said local authorities should have notified nearby residents immediately after the explosion.

"Our own people wouldn't tell us what was going on here and apparently this happened at about 12:30 this afternoon. What took until six o'clock for the world to tell us about what's going on?" Kuenzl said.



Third gas pipeline bombed in B.C.

Larissa Liepins
Canwest News Service
Friday, October 31, 2008

Natural gas wellhead bombed near Dawson Creek; police say 'no danger to public safety'

OTTAWA - The third explosion in a month targeting sour-gas pipelines in northern British Columbia is scaring people in a nearby community who say they weren't warned toxic gas began leaking Friday afternoon.

Around 12:30 p.m. an explosion site was discovered at a natural-gas wellhead, about 12 kilometres northwest of Tomslake, near Dawson Creek, B.C.

The RCMP say the explosion - at the Encana-owned pipeline in a rural, isolated area - appears to be a deliberate act.

The leak is not a danger to the public, officials say.

An Encana spokesman told Canwest News Service late Friday night that sour gas continued to leak from the pipe, and it could be several hours before the pipe was repaired.

But Tomslake resident Eric Kuenzl said both EnCana and the RCMP have been keeping people in the dark.

"I've never heard about any of this until about a half-hour ago," he said about six hours after the blast. "They haven't told nobody in this community. . . . nobody's had the balls to even warn the community."

However, Encana's Alan Boras said residents in the "near vicinity" were notified, and Tomslake did not fall into that zone.

Marilyn Belak, Dawson Creek's acting mayor, said RCMP confirmed no one had been injured in the latest bombing.

RCMP told her an "incident occurred in the wilderness," in the same area of the other bombings.

Investigators from the RCMP's Integrated National Security Enforcement Team were at the scene Friday.

EnCana insisted the volume of gas released from the pipe was "very small and does not present a danger to field workers, area residents or the public."

"Residents living near the well, located about 14 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, have been notified of the incident and there is no need for evacuation," the company said in a news release. "The natural gas from this well contains a trace of hydrogen sulphide, 0.0005 to .0010 per cent."

The assurances notwithstanding, news of this latest attack is certain to ramp up the fear level in this already anxious rural community.

On Oct. 10, an anonymous writer of letters received by news outlets in Dawson Creek - which is about 580 kilometres northwest of Edmonton - warned "EnCana and all other oil-and-gas interests" to close down operations near the community of Tomslake, and vowed not to "negotiate with terrorists" taking part in the "crazy expansion of deadly gas wells in our home lands."

The writer set a deadline of Oct. 11 for the energy companies to get out of town.

Two days after that letter arrived, a blast crater was found beneath an EnCana pipeline in the district. Evidence of a second blast, which caused a small leak that was reportedly contained, was found by workers on Oct. 16 at another EnCana pipeline site about 500 metres from the Alberta border.

Police said they believe the two attacks are related.

The town has been the scene of considerable friction between energy companies and residents fighting the expansion of sour-gas wells in the area.

Sour gas is natural gas tainted with toxic hydrogen sulphide. Many in the area believe sour-gas wells pose a risk to human and livestock health.

With files from the Edmonton Journal

See also

Inside an explosive situation

Six recent pipeline incidents, commission says

Oil vandal questioned in B.C. pipeline bombings

Somebody local with a grudge targeting oilpatch?

2nd explosion rocks northern B.C. pipeline

RCMP terror squad probes pipeline bombing

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:29 AM

October 28, 2008

New Vancouver Island Power Line Charging Up

Frank Stanford / Ryan Price
CFAX 1070 News
27-Oct-2008

They've started charging up the power lines that will eventually become the chief source of electricity for Vancouver Island.

BC Transmission Corporation was to begin charging lines on the mainland side of the "Vancouver Island Transmission Reinforcement Project" on Friday. One circuit is to be completely charged by the end of the week; and charging the entire system is targeted for the end of the year.

There has been one glitch identified in the system: a piece of cable that did not meet specifications has to be replaced in Trincomali Channel, between Parker Osland and Salt Spring Island.

The new cables replace transmission lines that were more than 50 years old and not considered reliable any longer.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:49 AM

October 12 Vancouver Island Outage Explained

INFORMATION BULLETIN
BC Transmission Corporation
October 20, 2008
For immediate release

October 12 Vancouver Island Outage

VANCOUVER – BCTC has determined that a fault on a transmission line in Victoria was the triggering event that caused the protection and control system to shut off power to the Southern Vancouver Island area.

Similar to a household circuit breaker tripping, the protection and control system shut off power to the area where irregularities were detected in Victoria and there was a cascading effect. BCTC has made adjustments to the protection and control system so that similar faults will not result in a widespread outage in the future.

Through the efforts of line crews and staff who operate the provincial electricity system, power was restored within 90 minutes to Southern Vancouver Island on October 12th.

-30-

MEDIA CONTACT:
BCTC Public Affairs
604.699.7298
www.bctc.com

BCTC News Release, 20-Oct-2008

See Vancouver Island power outage leaves thousands in the dark

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:39 AM

October 27, 2008

Garbage and Landfills: Thinking Before Dumping

by Ray Grigg
Shades of Green
27-Oct-2008

News Item: CUMBERLAND EYED FOR HUGE NEW GARBAGE DUMP. Village may have to take waste from Campbell River and Comox Valley (Campbell River Courier Islander, Oct. 3/08).

Every community must eventually confront its garbage, the waste that seems to be proliferating by volume and toxicity in direct proportion to the rise in consumerism. Aside from reducing our consumption to create less garbage, the next wisest strategy is to recycle everything - this is "going well" in the Strathcona and the Comox Valley Regional Districts but apparently not well enough. Now, faced with 72,000 tonnes of annual garbage for disposal, their reflexive response is to collect it and dump it in landfills.

The term "landfill" attempts to give an air of respectability to a practice that is little removed from archaic. At least "garbage dump" is honest. But the garbage is still dumped. And we now know that on a round planet, the garbage has a way of returning the garbage to us, in one devious form or another. As if to confirm this obvious danger, board members from the regional districts heard that the new landfill "would include a vast impermeable liner and other equipment [that] could be installed to handle potential pollutants and prevent contaminants leeching through to the soil and surrounding land" (Ibid.).

Adding to the toxic concoctions that would be flowing downward from the landfill is the methane gas that would be exuding upward as the garbage degrades. This gas has a warming effect about 20 times more potent than the carbon dioxide that is causing climate change. Carbon taxes on such greenhouse gases are inevitable, so unless this methane is caught and collected, communities will soon be paying for its escape ‹ either in dollars or in aberrant weather from global warming. Regardless, all garbage contains chemicals, minerals and energy that has economic value. Why not recover that value to make money, minimize environmental damage, reduce risk to our health, and assume an environmentally defensible ethical position at the same time?

Thoughtful and foresighted communities all over the planet are avoiding future problems for themselves and the rest of us by employing modern technology to process their garbage. These solutions usually require more research, planning and investment than landfills. But the rewards are obvious. And, since the two regional districts have established a "joint advisory committee" to "start planning how and where future waste will be handled" (Ibid.), perhaps the committee might begin by exploring options to landfills. The following are suggestions that the committee might consider. With a little time, effort and professional advice, they could find many more.

Thermal Depolymerization: This is a closed-system industrial process that "masticates" every imaginable kind of garbage, digests it under heat and pressure, and in a couple of hours distils the slurry into high-quality oil, industrial-grade minerals, pure water and clean-burning gas. The gas is used to power the system at efficiencies of 85 percent or higher, while the excess can be added to natural gas pipelines to heat homes or generate electricity. TDP, as the system is called, will process virtually anything that contains carbon: wood, tires, plastics, dredged muck, sewage, medical wastes, pulp-and-paper effluent, offal and carrion ‹ virtually all municipal garbage including biological weapons and anthrax spores. Even computers and refrigerators with their electronics and plastics can be shredded and digested into the same four elemental products. The beneficial prospects are countless. Tipping fees, the sale of excess gas and byproducts could even make such a project profitable.

Plasma Gasification: Two of these experimental plants exist in Japan, each processing about 30 tonnes of municipal garbage per day. Waste of all kinds is ground and then injected into a gas and electric "plasma" heat of 6,000° C. The result is a "molecular dissociation", like TDP, that converts the waste into "syngas", metals and slag. The metals can be recycled and the slag, which looks like obsidian and is 5% of the input volume, can be blown in its hot state into rock wool, an inert insulative material that is twice as resistant to heat transfer as fibreglass. The syngas can be cleaned by scrubbers, then used to either operate the system or go to natural gas pipelines for domestic uses. Excess heat and gas generated by the system - it is about 50% efficient - can be used with turbines to produce electricity.

Bio Recovery: Several companies now convert organic garbage into soil-enhancing fertilizers or useable gas. International Bio Recovery (www.ibrcorp.com), with licensed projects throughout the world, processes mixed organic wastes into safe, high quality agricultural nutrients. StormFisher Biogas uses technology - about 5,000 facilities now operate in Europe - to transform organic waste into commercial-grade gas that can be added to natural gas pipelines for domestic and industrial energy. Either of these processes could be coupled with sophisticated recycling facilities to replicate San Francisco's recycling success: 69% presently, 75% by 2010 and 100% by 2020. San Francisco uses a three-bin household sorting system: blue for paper, bottles and cans; green for food and yard wastes; and black for everything else (Econews, Oct/08). Plastic shopping bags and styrofoam food trays are required to be biodegradable and compostable - the non-recyclable kinds have been banned from use in the city so they don't enter the waste chain.

These options are a reminder that political will, smart thinking and a modicum of education can get us beyond landfills and all the risks they entail to ourselves and our environment. Campbell River and the Comox Valley have time enough to explore these and other options before their present landfills are full. With a little vision, research and wisdom, they could move us into a waste-free future.

Ray Grigg lives on Quadra Island. He writes Shades of Green, a weekly essay covering subjects of environmental and other public interest. His work is published in the Campbell River Islander, and his articles are available online at the Cumberlander, Shades of Green.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:52 AM

October 25, 2008

Inside an explosive situation

WENDY STUECK AND MARK HUME
Globe and Mail
October 25, 2008

ChristineMortensen_encana500big.jpg Cattle rancher Christine Mortensen stands near a flare from an EnCana compressor site next to her property that she says is giving her headaches. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)

TOMSLAKE, B.C., VANCOUVER — For Christine Mortensen, it's the headaches. Ms. Mortensen and her husband run a cattle operation near Tomslake in northeastern B.C. and live across a gravel road from an EnCana compressor site that, on occasion, flares gas 24 hours a day.

At those times, Ms. Mortensen is plagued by headaches that sap her energy and that she's convinced are related to emissions from the EnCana stack.

So she can imagine how someone might be frustrated enough by a gas operation to want to blow it into smithereens. Imagine – but not understand.

“What's blowing up a pipeline going to accomplish?” Ms. Mortensen said in a recent interview near her home. Like many other residents in the area, she is frightened and angered by two attacks this month that targeted EnCana pipelines, leaving behind craters in the earth and the realization that the results could have been much worse.

“They're here to stay,” said Ms. Mortensen, whose home is within walking distance of several wells and pipelines. “They're not going away. What we have to do is find some way to live with it.”

That won't be easy. This month's explosions are under investigation by the RCMP; police made an arrest on Thursday, but it's not yet clear if it ties in to the investigation.

In any case, the bombings highlight a rift between a profitable industry and local residents who say their land has been despoiled and their concerns ignored. EnCana says it works hard to build relationships with landowners and others in communities where it operates.

At the heart of the conflict is the reality that in British Columbia, as in the rest of Canada, landowners do not own subsurface rights to minerals, oil or gas beneath their property. The split between what's under and above ground typically doesn't matter much to those who live in towns and cities. But it can become the stuff of nightmares for those in rural areas.

In the Peace River district, landowners such as Rick Koechl have watched with alarm as wells popped up in pastures and pipelines crisscrossed the region like spider webs.

Companies have been drilling for oil and gas in the district since the 1920s. But most of the activity has occurred in recent decades and has been especially busy since 2003, when the Liberal government unveiled an Oil and Gas Development Strategy for the Heartlands that included tax breaks to spur more drilling.

A teacher in Fort St. John, Mr. Koechl lives along Old Hope Road, about eight kilometres northwest of the city. With other area residents, he's been lobbying for increased setbacks – the minimum distance that wells, pipelines and other facilities must be from homes – since 2003.

To date, he's gotten nowhere. “The response we've had has been a resounding silence,” Mr. Koechl said.

Sour gas is natural gas that contains hydrogen sulfide, which has a characteristic rotten-egg smell at low concentrations and, at higher concentrations, can kill a person in a matter of seconds. Current regulations allow sour-gas wells to be as close as 100 metres to homes.

The province last year said it would review setbacks as part of its new energy plan. But no new guidelines have been announced, and others share Mr. Koechl's frustration.

In Kelly Lake, a native community just inside the British Columbia border with Alberta and about 50 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, there is so much oil patch traffic going through the community that people have started talking about moving, says spokesman Cliff Calliou.

But nobody knows where to go.

“In the last 10 years, it's changed dramatically here, really dramatically. There is no privacy any more,” Mr. Calliou said. “Anywhere you go, there's a road or a pipeline or a well site, in any direction that you go from the community.”

Kelly Lake residents last summer put up a blockade to protest against heavy traffic and the lack of an emergency response plan.

Some members of the community also objected to the location of EnCana's Steeprock gas plant, a $60-million processing facility opened with fanfare in 2006 a few kilometres north of Kelly Lake. RCMP and EnCana representatives met with Kelly Lake residents last Tuesday, looking for help in finding the pipeline saboteur.

On Thursday, members of the RCMP's anti-terrorist Integrated National Security Enforcement Team travelled to Alberta to arrest Ian Gladue, a 21-year-old Kelly Lake man wanted on outstanding B.C. warrants. Mr. Gladue is in custody in Dawson Creek and expected to appear in court on Monday. The warrants related to uttering threats, sexual assault, obstruction and breach of conditions.

No new charges have been requested and the RCMP have not said if the man is a suspect or person of interest in relation to the bombings.

Whoever is attacking the pipelines is putting everyone at risk, Mr. Calliou said.

“People are worried about it,” he said, adding that some residents have curtailed traditional activities such as hunting and picking berries while the investigation is under way.

“You have a fear [a pipeline explosion] could happen while you are out there. And of course what is your protection if something did happen out there and you're way out in the bush?”

EnCana has heightened security at some of its operations and the RCMP is also patrolling the area, while emphasizing that it's impossible to have an officer at every crossroad.

In Dawson Creek, it's business as usual, with trucks rolling in and out of town and hotels and restaurants hopping with oil-patch workers. Nearly everybody in the region has at least some connection to the industry. Ms. Mortensen and her husband, for example, complement their ranch operation with a machine shop that gets much of its business from oil companies.

Further north, the Doig River First Nation has its own service company, Doig River Energy, and counts on the oil and gas industry for jobs and training for its young people.

But the band is frustrated by a system that treats each well as a separate entity, said band manager Warren Reade. The band estimates there are about 5,000 wells in the area it considers its traditional territory. Each new proposal unfolds against a backdrop of other wells, pending new mines and a resurrected proposal for the Site C dam on the Peace River.

“This is something that the [Oil and Gas Commission] won't deal with, or the companies,” Mr. Reade said.

An example of the tensions between industry and landowners can be found in a letter Arthur Hadland, a seed-farm operator in the Fort St. John area, wrote to a pipeline company in September.

Mr. Hadland complained to officials of the company, which was seeking a pipeline route across his land, that his family was tired of the “dictatorial tone” the company was using.

“Our experiences with your company and hired representatives have exposed us to bullying, disrespectful, and presumptive actions,” he wrote. “I and my family will no longer allow ourselves to be exposed to bullying behaviour and will iterate that your company and your hired representatives are not welcome on our property.”

Gwen Johansson, a representative of a group called Custodians of the Peace Country Society, said many landowners are upset about the lack of control they have over oil and gas activity.

Meetings with government and industry representatives will take place in Vancouver next week to try to work out a new surface leasing policy, she said. Until that's in place, frustrations are bound to be high because landowners feel the oil and gas industry holds all the cards, she added.

Still, people shake their heads over the sabotage, saying there is no excuse for putting workers and residents at risk.

“I've been around here for 35 years and I know a lot of the farm people and the rural people and I just don't think any of them would take this kind of action,” said Paul Gevatkoff, a city councillor in Dawson Creek and president of South Peace Oilmen's Association.

“Because what they are doing is, if they consider oil and gas a problem, they are exacerbating it.

“I think it's somebody who's got an axe to grind or somebody who's just got loose marbles and they think it is a lark.”

Speculating on a motive for the bombings is pointless, Mr. Gevatkoff said. His short answer, when people ask about the issue, is: “It's illegal. It's dangerous and whoever is doing it, I don't know what his motives are. But it should be stopped.”



EnCana British Columbia Gas Pipelines in Service After Bombings

By Reg Curren
Bloomberg.com
October 24, 2008

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- EnCana Corp., Canada's biggest natural gas producer, said pipelines in British Columbia damaged in separate bombings earlier this month have been repaired and shipments on them have resumed.

A 12-inch pipe able to send 60 million cubic feet of gas a day, and an 8-inch line, moving 40 million a day, returned to service over the past few days after testing, Alan Boras, a spokesman for the Calgary-based company, said in an interview.

Investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police continue to probe the explosions on the lines, which carry sour natural gas. Sour gas contains hydrogen sulfide and can be deadly if inhaled. The explosions happened near Dawson Creek, British Columbia, about 890 kilometers northwest of Calgary.

The pipelines are in a remote region that's difficult to monitor. The company hasn't received any direct demands, Boras said last week.

Two processing plants in the region were able to continue operations, taking gas from other lines, the company said. The second blast occurred at a junction where pipelines come from below ground for short distances.

A hunter discovered the first explosion on Oct. 12 on a 12- inch line on the same pipeline network and police believe it happened the previous night. The second explosion was discovered Oct. 16 by pipeline workers.

To contact the reporters on this story: Reg Curren in Calgary at rcurren@bloomberg.net.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:11 AM

October 24, 2008

Energy board predicts rosy future for B.C. gas

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
October 24, 2008

Better technology for difficult production seen as boost for province

Natural gas reserves in British Columbia may be large enough to overcome declining gas production in Alberta in the coming decades, according to the National Energy Board.

Canada's natural gas production has been in slow decline, year over year for most of this decade because conventional gas reserves in the nation's largest fossil fuel reserve, the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, are slowly running dry.

Those reserves account for 98 per cent of annual Canadian gas production for domestic and export markets, and they've been central to Alberta's dominance as a gas producer on North American markets.

However, improved technology to extract gas from unconventional shale and "tight" underground formations has opened a lot of eyes to the possibility of increased production from B.C., which has a more complex geology than Alberta.

Gas exploration and drilling companies, notably EnCana, have been methodically taking positions in unconventional areas around Fort Nelson and Dawson Creek for a few years.

But this year, as the potential of the areas became more evident, competition for drilling rights in the Montney region near Dawson Creek and Horn River Basin near Fort Nelson became frantic.

Gas exploration and drilling companies looking for a share of Montney and Horn have this year already boosted B.C. gas lease revenues to a record $2 billion.

Now the NEB has taken stock of that optimism and, notwithstanding the volatility of natural gas prices on North American trading markets, concluded that B.C.'s future as a gas producer may be robust.

"Advances in drilling techniques and technology in recent years are allowing companies to access the shale and tight gas, which was previously difficult to produce," the NEB said in a press release accompanying its Short Term Natural Gas Deliverability 2008-2010 report.

"Although this development is still in the early stages, it has the potential to dramatically alter previous projections for a decline in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin."

NEB chair Gaetan Caron stated in the release that "in our consultation with producers we heard a great deal of enthusiasm for the resource potential on the western [B.C.] side of the Basin."

B.C. Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Richard Neufeld said the NEB's assertions were bold, but they confirm the province's conviction that it has ample room for growth as a gas producer on the North American market.

"I guess it took the players to come in and spend big dollars in both the Montney and the Horn to get the attention. It bodes very well for British Columbia," Neufeld said in an interview.

He said the volume of drilling activity will depend on market prices for gas, but the money that companies spend to secure a portion of the plays shows that the work will proceed.

Gas is trading at around $8 US per unit on North American markets, and the NEB estimates that's the floor price needed to make drilling in Horn and Montney cost-effective.

Richard Wyman, oil and gas analyst for Canaccord Adams, said Horn and Montney "do represent significant growth potential. There is no doubt about it."

Wyman listed several infrastructure issues that will need to be addressed before development of the areas can begin in earnest, including gas processing facilities, pipeline capacity, pipeline routing, road construction and local community capacity to support increased activity.

"The comments from the NEB are probably accurate and there are moves afoot to remedy some of these constraints that are looming but it's going to take a few years, maybe even five or six, to build all of this up to a point where it resembles what is currently [just] a concept," Wyman said in an interview.

Short Term Natural Gas Deliverability 2008-2010
National Energy Board, October 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:00 AM

October 23, 2008

Rio shifts gears on Kitimat

ANDY HOFFMAN
Globe and Mail
October 23, 2008

The board of Rio Tinto PLC has delayed giving final approval to a $2.5-billion (U.S.) aluminum smelter expansion in Kitimat, B.C., and has instead committed an additional $300-million to advance the project while it assesses the impact of the commodities crash.

Rio Tinto, which paid $38.1-billion for Montreal-based Alcan Inc. last year, had planned to make a decision on the project by the end of the month. But the vicious downturn in metals prices forced the company to announce last week that it is reviewing all of its capital expenditure projects, including those in Canada.

Jacynthe Cote, president of Rio Tinto Alcan's primary metal operations, said the new funds will be used to move the Kitimat project forward.

"We want to be flexible. The decision was made more than a week ago. We want to continue to progress the project at very good pace and that is what we are doing," she said.

The price of aluminum has declined by more than a third in the past three months and hovered near a three-year low yesterday. Aluminum fell as much as 4.8 per cent to $1,976 a tonne or 89 cents a pound on the London Metal Exchange.

The $300-million, which brings total investment in the project to $520-million, will fund activities at Kitimat well into 2009, Ms. Cote said.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:49 AM

October 22, 2008

Six recent pipeline incidents, commission says

Globe and Mail
October 22, 2008

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. -- In the past three years, there have been six pipeline incidents involving hydrogen sulphide that meet Level 3 criteria - the highest - in British Columbia, a spokesman for the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission said yesterday.

Those six incidents include two in the Dawson Creek area - the region where police and other authorities are now investigating two explosions that appear to have been deliberately set.

The commission defined a Level 3 emergency as something that may contain one or all of the following factors:

At the time of the incident a danger exists to the public or environment;

Control of the situation has been lost (such as rare occasions of a well blowout);
Release of hazardous substance;

Extensive involvement of external emergency services, federal and/or provincial agencies;

Emergency extends beyond company property.

Bomb experts have been combing the area of the two explosions all week, but answers are still few.

The two explosions were aimed at sour-gas pipelines near Dawson Creek, near the B.C.-Alberta boundary. Police believe the attacks near Dawson Creek are related to a letter sent to local media demanding a stop to oil and gas operations.

Commission spokesman Lee Shanks said in a statement that all incidents at oil and gas facilities in the province are reported to the commission, which tracks everything from tipped-over water containers at a well site to gas leaks and fires.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:22 AM

October 21, 2008

Wind Turbine Making a Noise in Vancouver

GLOBE-Net
October 20, 2008

A 65-meter high wind turbine will be built on the grounds of Grouse Mountain, a ski resort in the District of North Vancouver in British Columbia. The split-vote approval by the North Vancouver District’s council on October 6th came after a heated debate between those who approve green initiatives and those who fear the turbines’ swirling long blades will harm the environment.

Grouse Mountain is one of Vancouver’s most popular destinations. Its ski slopes can be seen from almost anywhere in the city’s downtown core. Tourists flock to the resort’s aerial tramway that whisks them to the snow-covered mountains in less than 10 minutes during winter months. Visitors can paraglide or watch a lumberjack show while hikers walk on backcountry trails in the summer.

Yet success comes at a price. With so many tourists vying for access to nature, Grouse Mountain requires increasing amounts of electricity to operate chairlifts, power kitchens, illuminate its chalet and flood the slopes with light during night-time skiing. The resort’s carbon footprint can only be reduced with an alternative approach: Its planned wind turbine, with a capacity of 1.5 megawatts, is expected to generate one fifth of the resort’s electricity needs once operating at full capacity in 2010, just in time for the Winter Olympic Games.

The 21-storey structure - 34 stories if you measure to the top of the blade -- will stand at the top of Peak Mountain, right next to two chairlifts. It will be located in a windy corridor and its white blades will blend with the sky, according to the company proposal. A viewing platform for 24 people will hover 58 meters above ground. Naturally, standing alone on a mountain peak, the wind turbine will be visible for miles around.

3801_20081020.jpg

"Why are we doing this? Not only is it for sustainable energy purposes, I think it’s also for another tourist attraction," says District of North Vancouver Councilor Janice Harris who strongly opposed the project during the heated debate approval process.

She adds that the turbine presents a "clear and present danger to bats" that internally hemorrhage near the structures due to the sudden drop in wind pressure. "My concern is the environmental impact can’t be quantified or known at this stage," she adds in the North Shore News, a local weekly newspaper.

Grouse Mountain Resorts, which operates the tourist facility, argues that it has secured an environmental study of the local wildlife. The potential impact on the habitat loss and disturbance of bats is "negligible," according to its author. Birds, on the other hand, might be killed by the blades on low-cloud or foggy days, a common occurrence in southwestern British Columbia.

Residents who live at the bottom of the mountain also worry about the noise the blade will make as it spins for days on end. Yet, according to Grouse Mountain Resorts, the whooshing sound will be inaudible beyond its property boundaries. Besides, it argues, the sounds at the base of the turbine will not be louder than a car driving through a residential neighborhood.

The controversial turbine is part of a renewed interest in wind-generated power in Canada. Today this renewable energy process powers the equivalent of 563,000 homes in the country, according to the Canadian Wind Energy Association. If Canada used its untapped wind resources it might be able to provide 20 percent of its electrical needs, enough to power 17 million homes.

Yet issues remain. When wind turbines are built in remote areas they often get often a free pass on their environmental risks, but when they pop up near human settlements, residents raise concerns. On the one hand people want technology that reduces the country’s reliance on fossil fuels. On the other they cling to a "Not in My Backyard" mentality that wants to protect the landscape and in the case of wind turbines the lives of migrating birds. This duality amplifies the fact that saving the environment is rarely a zero-sum game.

This is why the wind turbine on top of Grouse Mountain comes as a double-edged sword. The resort will gain publicity for its environmentally-friendly posture but this stand will remind everyone that a price needs to be paid to save the planet. Unfortunately for the resort, it might find itself in the middle of a green controversy for years to come.

For More Information: Grouse Mountain



DNV council approves wind turbine for Grouse

Hollie Latulippe
North Shore News
Wednesday, October 08, 2008

dnvcouncil-approves_bigger.jpg A computerized image illustrates the height of the wind turbine planned for near the peak of Grouse Mountain. The turbine will generate 20 per cent of the resort's power needs. CREDIT: photo illustration supplied

A split vote after a lengthy debate Monday night saw District of North Vancouver council agree to issue the development permit for a 65-metre wind turbine near the peak of Grouse Mountain.

The 21-storey white tower, which will be visible to much of North Vancouver, is expected to generate a fifth of Grouse Mountain Resort's energy. It will be a leading example for future green-energy initiatives, said Mayor Richard Walton.

But several council members were concerned about the turbine's impact on wildlife and its visual impact on the skyline. The vote eventually passed 4-3, after Coun. Lisa Muri's motion to defer the decision failed.

John Williamson, a North Vancouver resident who lives within view of Grouse Mountain, said he wasn't aware of the turbine proposal until last weekend. "To date, I still believe people are not aware of this project," he said.

Williamson said he has seen wind turbines during his travels in Europe, and they look like "giant aliens" to him. He said he is also concerned about the turbine's impact on birds.

Stuart McLaughlin, president of Grouse Mountain Resorts, said the majority of the 25 people who attended the Sept. 4 public information meeting were satisfied with plans for the turbine.

As for its environmental impact, "you won't build anything in the district without an impact on birds and bats," he said.

Grouse has worked closely with district staff, and the development permit was made known to the public four months ago, he added.

Coun. Janice Harris said she is strongly opposed to the project.

"My concern is the environmental impact can't be quantified or known at this stage," she said.

And the turbine is a "clear and present danger to bats," who internally hemorrhage near the structures due to the sudden drop in wind pressure, said Harris.

She was also concerned about the noise of the turbine, saying it will be another "low-level constant sound" on the mountain. "Why are we doing this? Not only is it for sustainable energy purposes, I think it's also for another tourist attraction."

Muri said she received many e-mails of concern from the public after a story about the wind turbine proposal was published in the North Shore News on Sunday.

"That triggers something in me as a council member, that maybe we didn't go as far as we should have," she said.

"The visual impact, I don't know if it's that high up on the radar. Yet the e-mails received, mostly today, show a huge concern over loss of the skyline."

Coun. Alan Nixon said the risk to birds and bats was too great for the project to receive his support.

"At what point do we as a society say it's OK to go ahead with these things? We've got to start developing, in my opinion, almost zero tolerance when it can be proven to us bats are suffering mortality as a result."

But the mayor said the district needs to "take some risks and we have to take some leadership."

"I spend most of my available time in the bush," he said. "I spend a lot of time paying attention to making sure these spaces are preserved. I take comfort the very first issues Grouse Mountain brought to us as council were about the environmental concerns."

Coun. Mike Little said the turbine is an excellent project, and once erected, people will notice it for "about two weeks, and then it will just disappear into the horizon."

The vote passed with Harris, Muri and Nixon opposed.

McLaughlin said the turbine should be up and running for the 2010 Olympics.

© North Shore News 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:21 AM

Oil vandal questioned in B.C. pipeline bombings

Darcy Wintonyk
ctvbc.ca
Mon Oct. 20 2008

As B.C. police search for more evidence of last week's two pipeline bombings near Dawson Creek, a man convicted of similar crimes says investigators have questioned him about these recent attacks.

160_bc_ludwig_weibo_081020.jpg Weibo Ludwig, an Alberta farmer who spent nearly two years in prison on charges related to bombings against oil and gas wells in 1997 and 1998, calls the oil industry “serial killers.” October 20, 2008.

Wiebo Ludwig is an Alberta farmer who spent nearly two years in prison on charges related to bombings against oil and gas wells in 1997 and 1998. He is an outspoken critic of oil and gas expansion in rural Alberta.

CTV's Lisa Rossington asked Ludwig whether he thought the violence attacking the pipeline would escalate in light of the two recent bombings in northeastern B.C.

"You still want to go there where you shouldn't be going," said Ludwig from his home in Hyth, Alberta -- about 70 kilometres southeast of Dawson Creek.


160_cp_search_081018.jpg
Authorities conduct a grid search at the site of the second pipeline explosion near Dawson Creek, B.C., on Friday Oct. 17, 2008. (RCMP / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

"The industry is escalating its developments -- that's the escalating that you should be concerned about. That's where the violence is. That's where the dangers are."

Ludwig says although he had nothing to do wtih the recent bombings, he is very moved by the plight of B.C. farmers affected by sour gas pipelines and could understand how landowners could commit an act of vandalism out of frustration.

"Yeah, but I think we should stop yakking about that, frankly, because the industry is killing lots of people," he told CTV News. "They're serial killers."

Two explosions

In the past week, two explosive devices have erupted under two sour gas pipelines owned by energy giant EnCana in Northeastern B.C.

The first blast blew a nearly two-metre crater in the ground near a pipeline last Saturday. Four days later, a second blast blew a small leak in a pipe 20 kilometres away.

No one was injured in the blasts, but the RCMP's anti-terrorism unit is investigating.

160_BC_Pipeline_Letter_081019.jpg The letter that was sent to a local newspaper just days before the pipeline bombing.
"I think that the alarm bells are going off and that is indicated by the fact that the RCMP are bringing in the people who deal with terrorism to look at this," Mercedes Stephenson, a military analyst, told CTV Newsnet Sunday.

She said that there are 2,000 wells around Calgary and most of them are unmonitored and easy targets.

Stephenson said that the cost of protecting the pipelines would be immense and that gas companies would could feel terrorism was a significant possibility before investing in pipeline security.

Meanwhile, EnCana Corp. says it is expanding security around the pipeline but says the networks of pipes are difficult to patrol because of the massive area of land they cover.

Search expands

As investigators wrap up their work at the scene of last week's second pipeline bombing, police are expanding their search for a truck spotted near the area.

160_bc_dawson_creek_pipeline_2_081017.jpg Experts say the blast shows just how vulnerable Canada's pipelines are. Oct. 17, 2008.
Hunters report seeing the truck at around 6 a.m. on Thursday -- just hours after the second blast. It's described as a new model, full-sized pickup truck with square LED lights.

RCMP Sgt. Tim Shields says a number of exhibits have been seized from the second blast site but it's too early to tell if any will help crack the case.

No arrests have been made but police are focusing on a threatening letter sent to local media complaining about the oil and gas industry.

With files from CTV British Columbia and The Canadian Press

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:39 AM

End to moratorium on offshore drilling urged

SCOTT SUTHERLAND
Globe and Mail
October 20, 2008

VICTORIA — Two former premiers warned Monday that British Columbia's economic survival may rely heavily on the federal government scrapping a moratorium on development of offshore oil and gas resources.

“The moratorium ought to be lifted,” Dan Miller, former B.C. New Democratic Party premier, said of the federal ban that's been in place for more than three decades.

His comment followed a postelection panel in the B.C. capital featuring three former premiers from Canada's three major political parties: Mr. Miller, former Newfoundland Liberal premier Brian Tobin and former Ontario Conservative premier Mike Harris.

Mr. Miller told a chamber of commerce lunch crowd that B.C.'s once-dominant forestry sector is in its worst shape in history.
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Before becoming premier for seven months in late 1999 and early 2000, Mr. Miller held several top cabinet posts, including forestry minister.

He said much of the economic growth in B.C. in the past year or two was due to residential construction, government and consumer spending, and oil and gas development in the northeast corner of the province.

“What's going to drive growth in the B.C. economy?” he asked, noting that residential construction and consumer spending are already decreasing.

Mr. Miller made it clear he feels the development of offshore petroleum resources coupled with new pipelines to the coast to help move Alberta oil to Asian markets could be the best way to foster investment in coming years.

Mr. Tobin, who was a cabinet minister in Jean Chrétien's federal government, agreed that B.C. must move soon to develop its offshore oil and gas.

He said his province safely developed a multibillion-dollar oil and gas industry in one of the harshest ocean environments on the planet.

“I think Canada and North America needs those resources and the people of British Columbia, of course, can benefit incredibly from their proper and careful development.”

But as a former fisheries minister, he acknowledged the environmental concerns.

“I'm a great believer and passionate about these wonderful natural resources we have here in British Columbia, in particular the salmon stock and the preservation of that stock,” he said.

“But the fact is we have the technology, we have the know-how, we have the capability … to responsibly, appropriately and safely develop these resources.”

He said the reason that it hasn't happened so far is understandable.

“A high level of fear and concern,” he said.

But B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell isn't nearly as gung-ho.

Reached by phone at a premier's conference in Montreal, Mr. Campbell said his government will agree to go down that road only when all the science is in and when all the community consultations have been done.

“I can tell you in talking with the energy industry in Canada, they are far more interested in pursing right now the opportunities in the northeast … which are land-based,” he said.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:26 AM

October 17, 2008

Somebody local with a grudge targeting oilpatch?

Stephen Hume
Vancouver Sun
October 20, 2008

News of a second pipeline bombing in British Columbia's Peace River district splashed across headlines from New York to New Zealand.

Almost as quickly, anxious residents of Tomslake, about 700 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, speculated about al-Qaida, first nations militants and eco-extremists.

In these hypersensitive days when IED (improvised explosive device) is coffee-break vocabulary, news that the RCMP's anti-terrorist unit had taken over the investigation was a sure media trigger.

But Andrew Nikiforuk, the Calgary-based writer who made an exhaustive award-winning study of Albertans' conflicted relationship with the oil and gas industry, was quoted by Reuters as saying that he wouldn't describe the events as "eco-terrorism."

More likely somebody local with a grudge, he mused. That's how the last round of oilpatch violence from 1995 to 1998 turned out. Wiebo Ludwig, an Alberta farmer who said his family and livestock were harmed by gas emissions, went to jail.

And recently, local farmers and first nations in the Peace River have all protested against petroleum development, citing similar concerns to those expressed by Ludwig.

So history and circumstance -- the attempts to damage remote installations owned by EnCana were pretty inept-- make Nikiforuk's theory more plausible than hasty conclusions about a campaign by some sinister ideological underground.

However, the dramatic events of the last few days do point to underlying factors that should cause everybody to take notice.

First, these thankfully clumsy attacks demonstrate that Canada's oil and gas infrastructure is extraordinarily vulnerable and, by extension, so are citizens who live in proximity to well-heads, pipelines or gas plants.

Second, despite governments' enthusiastic support for the oil and gas sector -- it generates billions in annual cash flow -- disquiet among citizens regarding the industry's impact upon themselves, their families and their communities is far from isolated.

Complaints about infringements on property rights, elevated health risks and public safety have simmered in oil patch communities for almost 50 years. These fears endure despite scientific research, stringent safety regulations and intensive publicity campaigns intended to reassure. They are characterized by a visceral mistrust of authorities perceived to be in bed with industry.

For the most part, concerns are advanced not by environmental extremists but by the mainstream -- ranchers, suburban property owners, parents and school teachers, municipal politicians and elected Indian band councils.

Complaints at Pincher Creek in southern Alberta date from the 1960s.

In Turner Valley, Alta., where Western Canada's oil age began 86 years ago, residents petitioned the auditor-general of Canada over health and environmental worries associated with a gas plant there as recently as 2005. Just two weeks ago, an Alberta school board asked government to end plans to drill wells surrounding a rural elementary school.

Much concern revolves around sour gas exposure, either from catastrophic drilling accidents, pipeline ruptures or the practice of "flaring" or burning off surplus gas.

For natural gas to be defined as "sour" rather than "sweet," it has to contain one per cent or more hydrogen sulphide, a toxic compound so lethal that in concentrations as small as 250 parts per million, deaths can occur in minutes. Concentrations in the wells that caused the recent uproar among Alberta parents, teachers and school trustees are 160,000 ppm.

About 30 per cent of Western Canada's natural gas is sour and it travels through a pipeline network so extensive that if laid end to end, it would reach the moon. Yet industry has a long history of accidents.

Sour gas blowouts have bracketed Alberta's provincial capital. The downwind plume of one in 1982 carried hydrogen sulphide as far as Winnipeg. In 1979, a gas pipeline rupture forced evacuation of a whole Edmonton suburb of 18,000. A sour gas pipeline failed near Pincher Creek in 2007, forcing an evacuation. A well blowout in 2004 created a massive crater and spewed gas for 30 days. The most recent blowout was contained southeast of Calgary on Oct. 3.

shume@islandnet.com



B.C. blasts ‘way too close to home'

WENDY STUECK
Globe and Mail
October 18, 2008

DAWSON CREEK, B.C. — When Christine Mortensen heard about a second attack on a pipeline near Dawson Creek, she didn't need to stretch her imagination to speculate how such an attack could affect her.

Within a 10-minute walk in any direction from her home are pipelines, wells and a stack that on occasion flares natural gas day and night, shooting a banner of flame into the sky.

“It is just way too close to home,” Ms. Mortensen said yesterday in her front yard across the road from an EnCana site dominated by a flare stack. Like others in the region, she is worried and frightened by the attacks, which RCMP say are linked and occurred after a threatening letter was sent last week to local newspapers demanding that oil and gas interests leave the area.

Yesterday, RCMP explosives experts were combing the site of the second blast, which was discovered on Thursday morning after two workers doing routine maintenance work heard a hissing noise, depressurized that section of the pipeline and called police.

The first blast occurred on Saturday night and was discovered by a hunter who came across a two-metre-deep crater beneath an EnCana pipeline in a stretch of bush about 50 kilometres southeast of Dawson Creek.

The second occurred nearby, at an EnCana site only a few kilometres off the main highway between Dawson Creek and the Alberta line. Like the first, it caused minimal damage to the pipeline and no injuries to workers or area residents, resulting in black humour among residents about a hapless bomber.

But both targeted pipelines carry natural gas that contains hydrogen sulphide, a potentially lethal chemical, and residents are unnerved by the prospect of other explosions.

Both EnCana and the RCMP have increased security around oil and gas operations, but it's impossible to guard every facility all the time, RCMP spokesman Tim Shields told reporters yesterday.

The attacks took place in an area of the province where oil and gas activity has boomed and where some residents have complained about the wells and pipelines springing up on their pastures and fields.

EnCana on Thursday said the natural gas in the pipes contained a very small percentage of hydrogen sulphide, about 0.07 per cent, and that the amount of gas released was very small and did not present a danger to the public.

The post-blast specialists will try to recreate what happened and determine what kind of explosives were used, RCMP spokesman Sergeant Tim Shields told reporters yesterday.



Sour gas anger may be root of pipe attacks

By Allan Dowd
Calgary Herald
October 17, 2008

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The saboteur who attacked two pipelines in northeastern British Columbia in the past week is likely somebody who has been hurt by sour gas development, according to an author who has studied past attacks on Canada's energy infrastructure.

Police asked the public for help on Friday in their probe of the blasts, which have not caused any injuries but rattled nerves in the area around the town of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, a hotbed of energy development.

Police believe the pipeline bombings are linked, and likely connected to a letter sent to media last week warning the "terrorist" energy industry to stop the "crazy expansion of deadly gas wells in our home lands."

"I wouldn't describe it as eco-terrorism. I don't know many environmentalists who are handy with dynamite. It's more likely this is a local landowner ... somebody who has been harmed," said Calgary-based author Andrew Nikiforuk.

The attacker could also be from the area's aboriginal community, which has sparred with the industry over drilling for sour gas, natural gas that contains high levels of toxic hydrogen sulfide.

Nikiforuk wrote a book about Wiebo Ludwig, a rural commune leader in Alberta convicted of bombing gas wells and other vandalism in the 1990s to protest sour gas drilling.

The attacked lines carried gas to an EnCana Corp, facility that removes the hydrogen sulfide so the gas can be sold to consumers. The letter called for the facility to be closed.

The recent attacks were likely done by somebody who knows enough about explosives to damage but not destroy the lines, which would have created a fireball and released a deadly cloud of gas that would have spread quickly, Nikiforuk said.

"I think we have somebody here who is very skillful at making headlines, and if they wanted to kill a whole bunch of people they would have done so," Nikiforuk said.

There was no gas leak following the first blast last week and only a small one in the second incident, which was quickly sealed when workers discovered it on Thursday.

Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police anti-terrorism squad collected evidence on Friday from the scenes, which were not far from the Alberta-British Columbia border.

"The intention of these criminal acts to harm important Canadian infrastructure is not being tolerated," police said in statement, which called on anyone who has information about the attacks to "do the right thing" and come forward.

Security has been stepped up around pipelines and other energy facilities in northeastern British Columbia, but experts say there are limits to what can be done. The province has about 43,000 km (27,000 miles) of pipelines.

"You can put up all the chain link fences in the world. If they want to do it, they're going to do it," said Steve Simons, corporate affairs leader at the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission.

The most recent incident was on a line carrying between 40 million and 50 million cubic feet of gas a day. The first bombing was on a line carrying 60 million cubic feet per day, according to EnCana.

A company spokesman said the line that suffered a small leak was still shut down, but the company's other facilities in the area were operating normally.



Second pipeline explosion bears marks of sabotage, RCMP say

WENDY STUECK AND MARK HUME
Globe and Mail
October 16, 2008

An RCMP van blocked the gravel road going past an EnCana transfer station near Dawson Creek, B.C., as investigators scoured a pipeline site Thursday searching for clues to the second apparent sabotage within a week to target the company's operations.

The site, in an area where horses graze amid trees and gas flares stand out against the sky, is home to one of many EnCana operations in the area and seems an unlikely battleground.

But RCMP said on Thursday the attack bore all the hallmarks of a previous incident.

The latest occurrence ruptured a pipeline in northeastern British Columbia, causing the escape of dangerous hydrogen sulphide gas and raising tensions in a region where intense resource activity is under way.
Damage caused to a natural gas pipeline is seen east of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, in this October 12, 2008 handout released by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Police said on Thursday that another pipeline, this time owned by Encana, was hit by another explosive device.
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Damage caused to a natural gas pipeline is seen east of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, in this October 12, 2008 handout released by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Police said on Thursday that another pipeline, this time owned by Encana, was hit by another explosive device. (Reuters/RCMP/Handout)

The first attempt to sabotage an EnCana gas pipeline occurred Saturday night, about 50 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, and the RCMP reported that damage from the second blast, at a nearby location, was discovered Thursday morning.

Several police units, including the RCMP's terrorist squad, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, are investigating the two attacks.

While EnCana described the incident Thursday as “a natural gas leak at a field facility,” RCMP Sergeant Tim Shields described it as a second sabotage attempt.

“There certainly appears to have been [a bomb]. We have a crater in the ground about four feet across and there is damage to the pipeline. It's dented in. There was also a small leak that was quickly contained by pipeline workers. This is within 20 kilometres of the first incident … and it has all the earmarks of the first incident,” Sgt. Shields said.

“We don't know exactly when it occurred because there were no witnesses who heard the explosion.”

The first blast blew a similar hole in the dirt and damaged, but did not breach, the pipeline.

Sgt. Shields noted that both lines were carrying sour gas, which contains hydrogen sulphide, a potentially lethal gas that can drift several kilometres.

In a statement, EnCana said the second incident was discovered by company workers who, since the weekend, have been on the alert for any suspicious activity in the area.

“The facility was quickly shut down and the leak was stopped once the line was depressurized,” the company said. “The amount of gas that leaked was very small and it did not present any danger to employees or the public. The natural gas contained a very small percentage of hydrogen sulphide, about 0.07 per cent. There were no injuries and residents were notified of the event.”

The company said police were immediately notified. “EnCana's primary focus is on the safety of employees, workers and the residents in and around our facilities,” the statement said.

The attacks on the gas lines came shortly after a small-town publication, the Coffee Talk Express, in Chetwynd, received a letter warning oil and gas companies to stop production and leave the area by noon Saturday. The letter did not contain any specific threats, but referred to the oil and gas industry as “terrorists … endangering our families with crazy expansion of deadly gas wells.”

The Peace River area has been the focus of intense oil and gas activity for the past several years, with BP Canada planning to drill 132 new wells near Kelly Lake and the building of EnCana's $60-million Steep Rock gas plant in 2006. Along with all this activity has come growing concerns voiced by area residents.

Landowners near the hamlet of Tomslake, 28 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, protested on a gas-industry access road this summer, and the Kelly Lake Cree Nation blockaded a road for two days to underline their safety concerns.

Iva Tuttle, a retired rancher in Tomslake Valley, said a lot of people are upset over how rapidly the gas industry has been drilling sour gas wells in the area – but she couldn't imagine any of her neighbours sabotaging a pipeline.

“There is worry but I don't think they are going to go out and do something like this,” she said of the two bomb attacks. “I think somebody's boiled over. And you know what? It surprised me.

“I've never had somebody come up and say I want to blow up a line or, you know, it needs to be blown up. The people I deal with … know the risk of what could happen if something would go wrong. I can understand frustration. I can understand anger … But to do something like that is really stupid because you are only endangering your neighbours.”

At the Tomslake General Store, patrons shook their heads over the event, saying that the attacks show a lack of regard for people in the region.

“There's been a lot of concern about pipelines being close to residential areas and schools,” said long-time resident Bonnie Brait, voicing common concerns about the release of hydrogen sulphide gas. “If you have a leak, and the big pipeline is right across the road, you don't have a hope.”

Another resident, Rick Site, said he and his wife have their home up for sale, in part because the area has become too busy as a result of oil and gas activity. A member of the volunteer fire department, he recalls an incident last summer when people had to be evacuated from an area across the highway from the home where he lives with his wife and two young children.

In summer months, the noise of nearby rigs was so loud, he kept his windows closed most of the time. But the main reason he's moving, he said, is because his home has become too small for his family.

One of many local people who rely on the industry for his livelihood, he says any person who would attack or sabotage a pipeline is “going overboard.”

“You may not like everything you see, but that's not a way to go about changing it,” he said.

See:
2nd explosion rocks northern B.C. pipeline
RCMP terror squad probes pipeline bombing

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:46 AM

October 16, 2008

2nd explosion rocks northern B.C. pipeline

The Canadian Press
Thursday, October 16, 2008

A second explosion has occurred along an EnCana pipeline east of Dawson Creek, B.C.

RCMP say the explosive charge was deliberately set next to a natural gas pipeline and detonated sometime overnight Wednesday, but was not discovered until 9 a.m. MT Thursday.

Investigators believe it is linked to an incident on the weekend that damaged but did not rupture a sour gas line in the same area.

The previous week, letters sent to a local newspaper and television station warned oil and gas companies operating in the area to cease operations.

No one was hurt in either of the explosions, but pipeline workers in the area are being warned to be extremely vigilant.

Former CSIS director and security consultant David Harris told CBC News the second explosion shows it's time to start looking at a political motive and to do more to protect Canada's critical infrastructure.

© The Canadian Press, 2008

See RCMP terror squad probes pipeline bombing

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:11 PM

RCMP terror squad probes pipeline bombing

Location of 'targeted attack' at heart of dispute over booming development's environmental effects

MARK HUME
Globe and Mail
October 16, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Gas industry employees have been put on alert and the RCMP's terrorist unit has been called in after an attempt to blow up a sour gas pipeline near Dawson Creek, in northeastern British Columbia.

Concerns were raised after a hunter found a two-metre-deep crater blasted out of the earth beneath an EnCana line that carries 60 million cubic feet of gas a day to the Steep Rock gas plant.

"This is a targeted attack on the infrastructure of British Columbia," RCMP Sergeant Tim Shields said yesterday in explaining why the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team has been called to help other police units with the investigation.

The role of INSET, according to the RCMP, is to "detect, prevent, disrupt and investigate terrorist targets and ultimately bring terrorists to justice prior to serious, violent, criminal acts being perpetrated in Canada and/or abroad."

The EnCana pipeline was damaged but not ruptured by the blast, which occurred at a point where the pipeline emerges from the ground, about 50 kilometres south of Dawson Creek near the Alberta border.

Sgt. Shields said the hunter who found the damage Sunday had passed by the same location the day before, indicating the bomb exploded some time overnight Saturday.

Sgt. Shields said oil and gas workers are "being asked to trust their instincts" and call police if they see any suspicious activity.

The location of the sabotage attempt is in the heart of a booming oil and gas area, where there have been aboriginal blockades and complaints by some landowners about the environmental impacts of development.

Alan Boras, manager of media relations for EnCana, said the company has not been the target of any vandalism or threats.

"This obviously is a very, very rare event. It is a very concerning one, yes. What we've done is inform employees, contractors and people who work in the area for other companies about what's occurred and asked them to increase their vigilance, in their day-to-day efforts, to keep an eye open," Mr. Boras said.

"Our primary concern is the safety of our employees, our contractors, the public, the people who live and operate in our communities," he said.

The attack on the gas line came one day after a small-town newsletter, the Coffee Talk Express, in Chetwynd, received a letter warning oil and gas companies to stop production and leave the area by noon on Saturday.

The letter did not make any specific threats.

Ramona Davidson, owner of the Coffee Talk Express, declined to discuss the letter, which she did not publish, instead turning it over to the local RCMP detachment.

"I'm not allowed to comment on any part of it. I know you want the story and so do I," she said yesterday.

Maggie Behn, editor of the Chetwynd Echo/Pioneer newspaper, said she hasn't heard any animosity directed at the gas industry.

"It's definitely unexpected," she said of the attack on EnCana. "The biggest thing we get outrage over is wind farms."

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:51 AM

Another LNG player emerges

By Malcolm Baxter
Kitimat Northern Sentinel
October 15, 2008


KLNG is not the only company looking at exporting liquefied natural gas through Kitimat.

KLNG announced last month (Sentinel, September 24) it was reversing direction on its planned Kitimat plant, looking at exporting rather than importing.

Now an outfit called LNG Partners LLC is looking to do the same thing.

And as part of that it is seeking an arrangement with Pacific Northern Gas to use its existing pipeline to transport the gas here.

Greg Weeres, PNG vice-president of operations and engineering, told the Sentinel his company had made application to the BC Utilities Commission to approve that arrangement.

What it involves is LNG Partners paying PNG a non-refundable fee of $1.5 million in exchange for an exclusive six-month option to book the currently unused capacity in the PNG line to Kitimat.

That excess capacity exists because of the 2005 closure of the Methanex methanol plant - it had been PNG's biggest customer.

"The purpose of the option period is to allow them to evaluate whether they can make their proposed project work," said Weeres.

But if they cannot nail down all the numbers within that six months, LNG Partners has the option of purchasing a further six month option, again for $1.5 million.

And if they conclude they can make a go of it, LNG Partners would then negotiate a deal with PNG that would see the former's exclusive rights to use the spare capacity continue for between three and five years.

The arrangement is potential good news for PNG's existing customers even if the LNG Partners never get into production - at least in the short term.

That's because PNG proposes two-thirds of the option fee be used to reduce delivery rates - the amount the utility charges to deliver the gas to your door.

That rate has been hiked substantially over the past three years, in the main to make up for the loss of the Methanex revenue, but also to cover lost revenue resulting from a rate decrease for Eurocan and reduced usage by commercial and residential customers.

At the moment the delivery charge is almost one half of the cost per gigajoule of natural gas PNG charges.

But the company cannot yet say how much of a break customers might get. Weeres explained because this is very early in the process, PNG hasn't yet crunched the numbers.

However, he added, "Clearly there will be a benefit, you bet."

That benefit would rise dramatically should the LNG Partners project go-ahead - PNG calculates having its pipeline run at 100 per cent capacity would generate close to $15 million in extra annual revenue, $3 million more than it was getting from Methanex.

As for what an LNG Partners deal would mean for the proposed KLNG-PNG Pacific Trail pipeline project, Weeres emphasized it would have no impact on the Kitimat-Summit Lake line.

"It is certainly our intention to continue development of the KSL project regardless of what happens with LNG Partners," he said.

That position is echoed by KLNG - see KLNG says project timetable still intact

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:58 AM

KLNG says project timetable still intact

By Cameron Orr
Kitimat Northern Sentinel
October 15, 2008

The Kitimat LNG liquefaction terminal - a recent turnaround from the originally proposed regasification facility - is still on track for a late 2009 or early 2010 groundbreaking.

So says Ilene Schmaltz, vice president of supply marketing with KLNG, who gave an update on the project to city council.

“Prices in Asia are quite a bit higher [for natural gas] than North America and we expect that to be a long term situation,” she said, noting Asia’s heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels because of their own lack of domestic supply.

Schmaltz said the largest buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the world are the Asian markets, including South Korea and Japan.

European countries, which rely on the gas heavily in the winter months, are also significant buyers of LNG,

The “icing on the cake” as far as the decision to change the LNG direction was talk of world scale natural gas reserves - in the form of shale or unconventional gas plates - in Northeastern BC and Alberta which will be coming onstream over the next few years.

That spike in supply is a good thing for natural gas exports, especially as KLNG may now be competing for supply against another operation, LNG Partners LLC.

The LNG Partners venture would use excess capacity in western BC’s pipeline system to take natural gas to a liquefaction vessel which would be owned and operated by Maverick LNG Holdings.

Councillor Mario Feldhoff asked if this operation would affect the KLNG plans.

“No, we don’t believe that really affects us at all,” said Schmaltz. “We believe there will be lots of gas for our project.”

Feldhoff also noted oil sands projects themselves had a high demand for natural gas.

But Schmaltz responded that her company has talked with oil sands producers which had been interested in KLNG’s import facility, and “with the changes in development of natural gas reserves not only in Canada but in the US, they are much more comfortable that there is going to be lots of natural gas for everybody.”

Schmaltz said the liquefaction facility, to be located at Beese Cove, will occupy the same footprint as the regasification plant but will actually have lower air emissions and ocean disposal.

The number of vessels using the port will be the same, or potentially slightly fewer.

They will be exporting approximately 3.5 to 5 million tonnes annually, and the Pacific Trails Pipeline, a partnership between KLNG parent company Galveston LNG, and PNG, will still be built.

That will be a 470 kilometre, 36-inch diameter pipe.

Provincial approval for the pipe was given in June - the pipe was permitted as bi-directional - and federal approval is expected at the end of the year, although Schmaltz said a slight delay may be expected due to the current election.

Mayor Rick Wozney wished KLNG the best after Schmaltz’s presentation.

“Construction will certainly be a welcome aspect in our community,” he said. “One-hundred jobs will certainly go a long ways to trying to recoup our economy in our community.”

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:55 AM

October 15, 2008

First Nations to debate BC pipeline plans

By Amanda Follett
The Tyee
October 13, 2008

First Nation groups will band together in Hartley Bay later this month to discuss the cumulative impacts posed by pipeline projects that would slice through northern British Columbia.

Office of the Wet’suwet’en natural resources manager David deWit said he hopes to see roughly 40 communities between Fort Chipewyan, near the Alberta oilsands, and Kitimat represented at the meeting.

“We’ve all been dealing in isolation,” deWit said. “But I think there’s a reality of creating this alliance.”

Read the rest of this article at the Tyee. Click here.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:25 AM

Nelson's power trading draws Hydro's wrath

City raking in $50,000 a month from exporting Hydro-generated power to markets outside British Columbia

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
October 15, 2008

BC Hydro wants to shut down a power trading scheme in which the city of Nelson is making $50,000 a month by exporting Hydro-generated electricity to markets outside British Columbia.

In documents filed with the B.C. Utilities Commission, Hydro says the scheme relies on loopholes in a 15-year-old energy supply agreement and could balloon into a $17-million-a-year drain on Hydro finances unless the agreement is rewritten.

Hydro says Nelson is effectively "arbitraging" a public resource -- cheap power intended for customers in B.C.

Nelson is buying the power at Hydro's rock-bottom industrial rate, three cents a kilowatt hour, and selling it on the North American spot-trading market for two, three times as much or more.

Nelson has a rare ability to trade on the North American market due to its ownership of a small run-of-river hydroelectric utility on the Upper Bonington River in the West Kootenay.

Nelson is using FortisBC's transmission network to move power to buyers outside B.C. FortisBC is a utility with 108,000 customers in south-central B.C.

It also has a standing order with BC Hydro to take delivery of Hydro power whenever demand exceeds supply in its customer area, including Nelson.

Hydro's mandate -- to provide all British Columbians with benefits from its roster of hydroelectric facilities around B.C. -- means it cannot refuse calls for power from FortisBC.

Since Nelson began selling power in earnest last June, its monthly exports jumped from two megawatt hours to 151 megawatt hours, the bulk of it coming ultimately from Hydro.

Nelson has stated in documents that it made $150,000 in its first three months selling power.

Hydro worries that unless the Nelson scheme is eliminated, other FortisBC customers with their own generating facilities, such as the Celgar Pulp and Paper Mill, will join in, costing BC Hydro $16.7 million a year in lost power sales opportunities.

"BC Hydro and its ratepayers should not be required to incur incremental costs to support the city of Nelson's arbitrage activities and potential arbitrage opportunities of other FortisBC customers with self-generation," Hydro said in a Sept. 16 letter to the utilities commission.

The city is arguing that the economic benefits it reaps should be considered as part of any decision on the merits of the scheme.

Alex Love, general manager of Nelson Power, said the city undertook a thorough examination of Hydro's power supply contracts with FortisBC before moving ahead.

The city, he added, does not begrudge Hydro's objections. "We took a good look at the contracts that are in place. FortisBC did, as well, because when we purchase power from them, they have to make sure their T's were crossed and their I's were dotted," Love said in a telephone interview.

"Certainly, contractually we are allowed to do this, but from BC Hydro's perspective, they need to look at it and say, 'Well, is it good for [our] organization, or not?'

"They came to the conclusion they would be better off if we didn't do it. The question is, does the benefit to Nelson outweigh any detrimental effects to BC Hydro, or vice-versa?"

Hydro thinks the scheme is bad news for its customers. Its Sept. 16 letter, on file with the commission, says: "BC Hydro believes that it, and its ratepayers, will incur direct and unwarranted financial losses" as a result of the exports.

A FortisBC spokesperson said the company is simply transmitting the power and not profiting from it.

Hydro spokesperson Susan Danard said the Crown-owned utility doesn't object to Nelson selling power; it just doesn't want it selling Hydro's power.

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:18 AM

October 14, 2008

B.C. enters wind energy era

By Tom Fletcher
BC Local News
October 13, 2008

B.C.'s first commercial wind turbine has been erected on a ridge west of Chetwynd, and concrete tower foundations are nearing completion at another project site outside Dawson Creek.

9590BCLN2007BearMountainWindweb.jpg From left: Dawson Creek mayor Calvin Kruk, AltaGas vice-president Jim Bracken and Steve Rison, president of the Peace Energy Cooperative, visit a wind turbine foundation on Bear Mountain that is ready for concrete. Don Pettit, Peace PhotoGraphics

It's B.C.'s debut as a wind energy producer, long after other provinces have begun harnessing wind to help light homes and industry. The Dokie Wind Project near Chetwynd aims to be first to produce power from seven turbines early next year, with 48 huge windmills spinning by the end of 2009 and phase two to follow at a nearby site.

Bear Mountain Wind near Dawson Creek is on time and on budget for completion of its 34-tower wind farm next November, says its president, Jim Bracken. He acknowledges that the Dokie project may have "bragging rights" for the first producing turbine, but both should be at their full 100 megawatt capacity around the same time next year. Each will provide enough power for 30,000 or more average homes.

Despite B.C.'s reputation as clean, green and nuclear free, there are already dozens of wind farms in the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, across the prairies to Alberta and even one in Yukon. It wasn't until the B.C. government required BC Hydro to reach self-sufficiency with new clean energy from independent sources that investors turned to this province.

"I think perhaps it was just a matter of independent power projects generally being later to come on in British Columbia than in other areas," Bracken said in an interview. "Wind projects tend to be developed by independent power producers as opposed to the utilities themselves."

Bear Mountain was conceived by a local cooperative in Dawson Creek. It's now 100 per cent owned by Calgary-based AltaGas Income Trust, which is diversifying its natural gas production with power projects, including B.C. run-of-river and its first wind farm.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association is hosting its annual conference in Vancouver Oct. 19-22. David Huggill, CanWEA policy manager for Western Canada, says there are several factors making wind a better investment in B.C. One is a recognition that wind and hydro work well together, with utilities able to hold back water when the wind is blowing.

Another is that the best hydro sites are now being developed, and both their construction cost and environmental impact are better recognized.

Once it has an environmental certificate to proceed, "a wind farm can be on the ground and generating power to the grid within two years," Huggill said. "I think you'd be hard pressed to find a hydro project that could match that kind of time frame."

Wind generally costs more to build per megawatt, and CanWEA will release a strategy document at the conference calling for a monetary value to be placed on its smaller ecological footprint. On the horizon is another incentive, wind projects as a carbon offset for energy companies such as AltaGas.

"That is really what I affectionately refer to as icing on the cake," Huggill said.

Bracken said AltaGas expects to gain revenues from offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, but until a carbon market evolves in Canada, projects like Bear Mountain have to stand on their own.

B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said BC Hydro's latest call for clean power produced bids that averaged around $75 a megawatt hour, with wind on the high side compared to run of river. Tidal and wave generation, by comparison, is estimated to cost $250 to $400.

"It wasn't that long ago the NDP was criticizing us for not having wind energy in the province," said Neufeld, who has been trading political shots with the opposition over its proposed moratorium on private power projects.

NDP leader Carole James said recently she would support some private projects if aboriginal communities share the profits with investors, but in general BC Hydro should develop and own the province's power assets.

bclocalnews.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:05 AM

In B.C., it’s ‘stupid’ against ‘liars’

Tom Fletcher
Revelstoke Times Review
October 13, 2008

VICTORIA – Premier Gordon Campbell never gets drawn into federal or local politics, except when he does.

At the annual municipal convention, in the midst of both federal and local election campaigns, Campbell offered some logger’s advice to national NDP leader Jack Layton on scrapping the softwood lumber agreement: “Give yer head a shake.”

Campbell’s looking at a grim winter, with his carbon tax taking a daily beating as they days grow chilly. And he knows his main opposition is a vertically integrated machine running at all three levels. A strong federal result for the NDP feeds into a better push in local elections and it all builds up towards next May where the NDP has its only provincial growth opportunity.

It’s been mostly lost in the noise of the federal vote, but the B.C. Liberals have gone into full campaign mode, and there’s truth to B.C. NDP leader Carole James’ claim that Campbell is spooked as Halloween draws near.

Forests Minister Pat Bell piled on after Campbell’s initial hit, circulating a letter from the CEOs of Canfor, Interfor and West Fraser Timber that politely describes Layton as “misinformed” and his suggestion a recipe for further disaster in the industry.

Then came Finance Minister Colin Hansen, jumping on a James TV interview in which she skated around the softwood agreement, and promised a “moratorium” on independent power projects (IPPs). Reckless, job-killing schemes, fumed Hansen. The NDP fired back that he’s “resorting to lies,” and offered vague quotes from James’ TV appearance. The B.C. Liberals sent out more quotes from James and other NDP MLAs to support their claims.

The B.C. Liberals and IPP supporters are really getting bent out of shape over a union-backed campaign against private power developments. Hydro unions and the Wilderness Committee just held a conference in Vancouver under the banner of B.C. Citizens for Public Power. A rival group calling itself B.C. Citizens for Green Energy, whose leaders deny any connection to the IPP industry, described it this way:

“Looking at the conference program, it appears to be a two-day boot camp heavy on indoctrination, strategy, communications and networking. The result will probably be many more small, supposedly grassroots groups across the province.”

Soon Energy Minister Richard Neufeld was making time in his schedule to phone me, “blown away” that James had called for a moratorium as 1,100 people go to work at high-paying rural jobs to build wind power and run-of-river projects.

“It’s actually stupid politics on their part,” Neufeld said. “They’re working on the idea that BC Hydro could be privatized. Hell, nothing could be further from the truth.”

NDP energy critic John Horgan’s suggestion that BC Hydro should instead continue to purchase power on the open market is “so ridiculous, so stupid, it’s hard for me to believe.”

Neufeld says if B.C. stopped power development, in 40 years we’d be importing nearly half of our supply, from Alberta (all private power) and the U.S. (mostly private power).

A slightly more polite slagging match over private power broke out on the Simon Fraser University campus where professor Mark Jaccard took on his colleagues John Calvert and Marvin Shaffer. Jaccard, the premier’s special advisor on climate change, offered a negative “peer review” of books by Calvert and Shaffer that were source material for the public power conference.

Jaccard dismisses Calvert’s Liquid Gold: Energy Privatization in British Columbia as “best read as a political propaganda tract. …Indeed, facts are wrong and evidence is distorted in a manner that consistently supports a sinister conspiracy theory.”

I’m not going to lie to you, that’s professor-speak for stupid.

Alas, not the last word

As I was writing the above, another NDP “reality check” arrived, referring to further “lies” propagated by Neufeld. What James really said on TV: “We’ve said a moratorium on independent power projects, not the end of them. There may be, actually, opportunities to partner up with an independent power project, but control should sit with BC Hydro.” Projects that help aboriginal communities, not just investors, would also continue.

Furthermore, Neufeld misquoted Horgan in the Revelstoke Times Review and even got the date wrong. The NDP then poses this question:

“Is Richard Neufeld as ignorant about energy policy as pundits say vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is about foreign policy? You be the judge.”

Housing up next

There’s no fall session at the B.C. legislature, but we’re now getting almost a daily question period in the form of dueling news releases.

Fresh from the power tussle, James and Vancouver MLA Jenny Kwan got together at a Downtown Eastside church for some gritty testimonials from the homeless about life in the Campbell regime.

Housing Minister Rich Coleman responded with election war-room speed: “Carole James is good at photo opportunities but when it comes to action she’s opposed and voted against every single measure introduced over the last seven years to help the homeless and low-income British Columbians.”

In what may be a record, Coleman was responding to an event that hadn’t even happened yet.

Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press newspapers. tfletcher@blackpress.ca

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 08:08 AM

October 13, 2008

Vancouver Island power outage leaves thousands in the dark

Cindy E. Harnett
Victoria Times Colonist
Sunday, October 12, 2008

A massive power outage that caused many Vancouver Island families to eat Thanksgiving dinner by candlelight created chaos for the island's emergency workers.

Firefighters and police officers responded to dozens of burglar alarms and calls from people trapped in elevators.

"It was mayhem," said Victoria firefighter Patricia Core. "Every line was lit up and it was impossible to keep up. It was craziness. I've never seen it like that in here."

Firefighters responded to "multiple, multiple" calls from people trapped in elevators and alarms sounding. "There were no tragedies, thank goodness," Ms. Core said.

Others mistook the smoke from generators starting up to be fires. More still called the fire department to find out why the city had slipped into darkness.

The massive power failure put much of southern Vancouver Island in the dark at about 5:40 p.m. PT. About an hour later power was restored to areas around Victoria. The rest of the Island was back on the power grid shortly afterwards, said B.C. Hydro spokesman Ted Olynyk.

Saanich, B.C., Police Staff Sgt. Gary Schenk said much of the chaos for police started when the power was re-started about 6:40 p.m.

"I can't remember a power outage of this scope," Sgt. Schenk said. While some traffic lights continued to function on back-up power at major intersections, other lights were out during the power outage. There were no known traffic accidents as a result, Sgt. Schenk said. "We're relieved it was as short as it was," Sgt. Schenk said.

However, when the lights came back on, it seemed like "basically half the alarms in the municipality went off," he said. Because police couldn't assume the alarms going off in businesses and households were false, officers were sent out to investigate each call.

"They just kept going to the next one, and the next one, until they were all done," he said.

Although Saanich, a city in the greater Victoria region, has a three-strikes policy for false alarms at homes and businesses which can result in a hefty fine, the police cancelled the policy for Sunday night with the understanding the power failure was to blame. Meanwhile, the power failure turned out to be a blessing in disguise for some.

"Thankfully we had just finished cooking a huge spread for Thanksgiving dinner when the power went out so we lit candles and had a family feast by candle light," said Victoria Times Colonist reader Matt Amedro in a post to the newspaper's website. "It was nice."

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:41 AM

October 12, 2008

Northern oil tanker route is hot south Island issue

Tories' resources minister Lunn faces criticism from Liberal, Green rivals

Judith Lavoie
Times Colonist
October 12, 2008

Hundreds of kilometres away from the inlets and islands of northern B.C., the largely suburban riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands is ground zero in a controversy over whether tankers should carry Alberta oil through wild northern waters to energy-hungry Asian countries.

While pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. and some northern communities are pushing to ship oil from the Alberta oilsands to a tanker port at Kitimat, others fear spills would be inevitable -- and with Minister of Natural Resources Gary Lunn as the Conservative incumbent in the riding, the issue has become part of the election campaign.

The Dogwood Initiative environmental group is heading the push for a legislated ban on oil tankers in coastal waters, since the legal status of such a ban is currently unclear. Lunn is on the record as saying the Inside Passage is currently covered by a "voluntary exclusion zone," one that has never been firmly set into law.

Former environment minister David Anderson, however, has frequently said a formal moratorium is already in place.

"We want a new ban that's crystal clear," said Dogwood spokesman Eric Swanson.

"The NDP and the Liberals and the Green party support it. The only party that's not in support of this concept is the Conservatives."

Lunn says the moratorium never existed and, as nothing has changed, an all-out ban is not necessary.

It will be years before the planned Enbridge pipeline goes through all the necessary reviews, and the decision will then be based on science, environmental protection and public input, with the final decision made by the entire cabinet, he said.

Lunn said he will never support tankers going down the Inside Passage, and he accused his opponents of spreading disinformation.

"There's another way to go; it's called out in the open water. Why put them down a narrow channel?" he said.

However, Lunn defines the Inside Passage as the channel between Vancouver Island and the mainland, and opponents accuse him of comparing apples and oranges.

Will Horter, Dogwood executive director, said he wonders how tankers can get to Kitimat without going through Hecate Strait and Douglas Channel.

"Are they going to beam them in, like Star Trek?"

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's platform includes formalizing the tanker moratorium, and Liberal candidate Briony Penn is adamantly against allowing tankers into northern B.C. waters.

"I have worked all up that coast, and it's rocky and stormy and utterly wild. It's a huge seismic zone. I don't think it can be done safely," Penn said.

The Queen of the North ferry sank in the same area.

The ban is already being broken by tankers carrying condensate to Kitimat, Penn said. Condensate, which is used to dilute the heavy oil produced by the oilsands, is shipped to Alberta by rail after landing at Kitimat.

"We need someone at the table who will staunchly defend the interests of coastal British Columbians, who stand to lose an extraordinary amount," Penn said.

Green party candidate Andrew Lewis, supporting a legislated ban on tankers in the northern coastal waters, acknowledged it would kill plans for a pipeline.



Oil transport projects floated

Times Colonist
Sunday, October 12, 2008

Several projects are in the works to bring oil from Alberta's oilsands to the port of Kitimat, where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to Asia.

The most advanced is the $4.5-billion Enbridge Northern Gateway Project, a twin 1,200-kilometre pipeline, running from near Edmonton and across the mountains to Kitimat. The pipelines would export 400,000 barrels a day of oilsands crude and import condensate -- thinner used in the oil industry.

The project has to go through an extensive public review process, led by the National Energy Board and the Environmental Assessment Agency. Enbridge plans to apply by next year. If approved, the pipeline could be in operation by 2014.

The company's marine plan calls for vessels going into Kitimat to be modern and double-hulled, with travel speed in marine channels reduced to between eight and 12 knots.

The tankers will be tethered to powerful, state-of-the-art super-tugs in coastal waterways.

First response stations will be located at the terminal and in local communities and, while docked at the terminal, vessels will be surrounded by a "floating environmental protection system."

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:39 AM

October 02, 2008

Shell Canada files suit in battle over who caused Burnaby oil spill

COMMENT: Canada's Transportation Safety Board is still investigating or producing its report on the Burnaby oil spill. These are lengthy investigations, disclosure of evidence and fault seldom if ever happens, and the usual recommendations are for procedural or technical changes that might reduce the risk of a similar incident in the future.

In the meantime, just about anybody with a grudge is suing. Shell is suing everybody but itself. Kinder Morgan is suing Burnaby and its contractors. Burnaby blames KM. Burnaby residents are suing Burnaby, the contractors, and KM.

WorkSafe BC "guidelines" put the ultimate onus on the excavator, who is expected to hand expose a pipeline before digging. Between KM, Burnaby, and its contractor, you can see the finger pointing started from the moment the excavator realized what he'd just opened up.

Sadly, it's a happy outcome for only one profession.

Neal Hall
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Vancouver - Shell Canada is suing the City of Burnaby, Trans Mountain Pipeline, Kinder Morgan Canada and two contractors for an oil spill in Burnaby last year.

It is the latest legal action in a flurry of lawsuits filed after more than 200,000 litres of crude oil gushed onto Inlet Drive when a contractor hired by the city was using an excavator that ruptured a pipeline during a sewer upgrade project on July 24, 2007.

The oil spill forced dozens of people from their homes and coated the nearby shoreline, causing millions in damages and cleanup costs.

The lawsuit, filed this week in B.C. Supreme Court, also names R.F. Binnie & Associates Ltd. and B. Cusano Contracting Inc. as defendants.

Cusano was hired by Burnaby to provide excavation services for the sewer upgrade and Binnie, an engineering and surveying services firm, was hired to oversee the project, the legal action says.

The lawsuit alleges the defendants were negligent in failing to ensure the sewer upgrade project complied with regulations when working within three metres of a pipeline, including having accurate maps and charts setting out the exact location of the pipeline.

Shell is seeking damages for the cost of cleaning up the oil spill and loss of business while its wharf and terminal facilities were shut down.

Earlier this year, Trans Mountain and Alberta-based Kinder Morgan Canada Inc. launched a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court claiming Burnaby and its contractors were negligent in carrying out the sewer work.

Burnaby later filed a statement of defence, blaming the pipeline's owner and manager for supplying inaccurate maps.

At least a dozen Burnaby residents affected by the oil spill have also filed lawsuits.

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:02 AM

October 01, 2008

SFU energy economist blasts critics of B.C.'s Energy Plan

Scott Simpson,
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, October 02, 2008

VANCOUVER - The most vocal critics of British Columbia's Energy Plan are relying on skewed research and "political propaganda" to bolster arguments against independent power producers, a former chairman of the B.C. Utilities Commission said on Wednesday.

Simon Fraser University energy economist Mark Jaccard, who served as BCUC chair from 1992 to 1997, said he found significant gaps in both facts and logic when he examined critiques of the emerging independent power sector in B.C.

He said there is no evidence to support critics' argument that electricity prices would be lower if BC Hydro, rather than independents, was responsible for all new power generation, nor will the government's decision to lessen dependence on cheap import power push prices up here.

jaccard.jpg
Mark Jaccard is an SFU expert on energy and the environment.
Bill Keay/Vancouver Sun file

Jaccard was contracted last spring by the Independent Power Producers association of BC to review work done for IPP opponents by two SFU colleagues, John Calvert and Marvin Shaffer.

Calvert's 2007 book Liquid Gold suggests that the emergence of private producers to develop small-scale electricity generation means "needless environmental damage" and "much higher energy prices."

Shaffer last year released a series of papers, arguing that the B.C. government's push for electricity self-sufficiency by 2016 and surplus power by 2025 inflates Hydro's costs and ignores opportunities to buy cheaper import power.

Jaccard, who chaired a 1998 task force on B.C. electricity market reform, said he agreed to take on the job only after a commitment from the producers that they have no input into his work in advance of its public release.

He produced a 34-page report that was released Wednesday by IPPBC.

Jaccard said the principal thesis of Calvert's book is "that the B.C. Liberal government headed by Premier Gordon Campbell has, since its election in 2001, been executing a well-orchestrated plan to privatize the B.C. electricity system, by stealth if necessary. Calvert's book is best read as a political propaganda tract... . Indeed, facts are wrong and evidence is distorted in a manner that consistently supports a sinister conspiracy theory."

Jaccard says Calvert argues that IPPs transfer wealth from taxpayers to "private, profit-seeking friends of the government."

In rebuttal, Jaccard notes that technological developments have improved opportunities for small-scale electricity generation - but there remains a "high risk" that any single independent project may fail, and it's better to load that risk onto the private sector.

Jaccard also dismisses Calvert's claim that the "corporate interests" such as IPPs and industrial customers are the major beneficiaries of funding for intervenors seeking to advance their own interests at hearings of the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Jaccard, who founded the BCUC's intervenor funding system in 1992, noted that over the last 10 years, "corporate interests" received $2.2 million while "small non-profit organizations [unions, consumer groups, environmentalists, regional representatives] got $8.4 million.

"Calvert is wildly incorrect."

Jaccard had milder criticisms for Shaffer's work, but said it overlooks the risk that dependence on import power would leave B.C. consumers vulnerable to soaring electricity prices as higher consumer demand and new carbon taxes push market prices up - whereas IPP contracts lock prices in.

Citizens for Public Power, which actively promotes Calvert's book, found the timing of the release of Jaccard's report curious. The group, which advocates for BC Hydro to be the sole developer of new electricity resources, is staging a conference this weekend "to discuss the negative consequences of British Columbia's rapidly expanding use of private power."

The group's executive director, Melissa Davis, said Jaccard's statements were not particularly new. "Private power producers and the B.C. Liberal government have made similar criticisms," Davis said, "and this is to be expected, since these groups are focused on the advancement of business opportunities in B.C., while Liquid Gold argues the benefits of public control and ownership of BC Hydro."

Craig Orr, executive director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said that regardless of the criticisms, there's no denying that run-of-river hydro power developments by IPPs "can trump other values associated with rivers." Orr said he expects controversies about IPP developments to persist without a commitment by the government to "some kind of a watershed-based planning process. A lot of people have been asking for that, and they've refused."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com



Jaccard Assesses BC Electricity Policy in Peer Review of Two Controversial DocumentsIndependent Power Producers of BC (IPPBC)
October 1, 2008

Dr. Mark Jaccard, past BCUC Chair and SFU professor reviews two manuscripts that strongly criticize BC’s current electricity policy: Liquid Gold, by John Calvert, and Lost in Transmission, by Marvin Shaffer. Jaccard contrasts Calvert’s quotes “with real-world evidence and analysis to show that Calvert’s book is best read as a political propaganda tract.” The Executive Summary of Jaccard’s Review states that “the government’s current electricity policies appear to have sound ‘public interest’ rationales, and these policies are consistent with those of governments in other jurisdictions. The effort to expand electricity generation in BC makes sense in terms of security of supply for domestic consumers, even if the generation assets are not publicly owned. The increased role for IPP generation is a much-needed response to the high risk of electricity generation investment today as a way of reducing financial risk to ratepayers and taxpayers.”

For more information see attached Peer Review Report, Press Release and Highlight Quotes from the Report.



Professors go to battle over our energy

Les Leyne
Times Colonist
Thursday, October 02, 2008

It's the academic equivalent of a Code 3, screaming-on-the-front-lawn domestic dispute. They're staging World Wrestling Federation in the faculty lounge.

The subject matter is a bit dry -- B.C. Liberal energy policy. But the passion in the raging argument more than makes up for the mundane nature of the disagreement.

For the past year or so, critics of the B.C. Liberals' electricity plans have been relying on two eminent professors to support their contention that the government has got it exactly wrong.

Those critics know deep in their hearts that the Liberals have ulterior motives in backing private power and pursuing energy independence. They don't need books or papers to support their suspicions. But the books provide a convincing aura of legitimacy to their arguments, so they've been cited the length and breadth of B.C. as the definitive word on the topic.

One is Liquid Gold: Energy Privatization in B.C. by John Calvert, a professor at Simon Fraser University.

The premise is that -- despite fervent promises to the contrary -- the Liberals are quietly engineering the privatization of B.C.'s power system. It's designed to benefit corporate friends of the Liberal party here and elsewhere and it involves handing control of the grid to private interests and allowing power rates to go higher than they need to be.

The general premise has been enthusiastically endorsed by the New Democrat Opposition. Two NDP MLAs earlier this year cited it as a must-read for people who want to know what's really going on. And a Globe and Mail writer called the energy plan the worst policy in the history of B.C., just on the strength of Calvert's book.

The other is a series of three papers written by Marvin Shaffer, another SFU prof.

Lost in Transmission: A Comprehensive Critique of the B.C. Energy Plan shares the same outlook and makes the specific case that the Liberals are artificially hyping the market for independently produced power.

They're exaggerating the need for new supply from independent producers, which results in higher than necessary rate hikes. They're discouraging conservation and forcing B.C. Hydro to acquire expensive independent power.

Arguments over these views have simmered for quite a while. But they burst into the open yesterday at a carefully engineered news conference held by the Independent Power Producers of B.C. -- people with millions of dollars at stake in this argument.

That association of firms with contracts to build small power projects and supply Hydro with electricity hired a professor of their own to go after the SFU duo. And he's a big gun -- Mark Jaccard. He's an energy analyst, the philosophical father of the carbon tax, an editor of the pivotal international report on climate change.

Jaccard has shredded the work of Shaffer and Calvert to a remarkable degree. He's treated them like lazy first-year students who need detentions.

"Were I conducting this peer review for an academic publisher, my recommendation would be against publication until substantial revisions were made," Jaccard wrote of Shaffer's opus.

Ouch!

As for Calvert, his book "is best read as a political propaganda tract," Jaccard sniffed.

"The author does not present a balanced weighing of the evidence... Facts are wrong ... evidence is distorted in a manner that consistently supports a sinister conspiracy theory. That is why I would not recommend publication if this were a peer review for an academic publisher."

Jaccard's stinging critique was presented as a belated "peer review" of the two profs' work. Jaccard himself said peer reviews are an important part of academic publishing. But he acknowledges they're usually done anonymously, prior to publication.

This one kicked off with a big news conference at a Vancouver hotel. And he was hired by outside interests to write it.

It reads more like a drive-by shooting than an academic review.

One example from dozens involves B.C. Hydro's expensive decision to abandon the natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island. Calvert blamed the $120-million loss incurred there on the newly elected Liberals, who ordered a utility commission review of the project, which eventually led to its demise.

Jaccard, however, said he entirely missed the point. The project was a dog from the beginning, invented with no risk analysis and no public involvement.

He uses it as an example of how a big publicly owned utility can run off the rails, and why more private involvement is needed.

There are enough cross-currents and differing interests at work to keep this argument going for years. The ferocity of the counter-attack launched yesterday is an indication of how big the stakes are.


Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:34 PM

September 29, 2008

'They are flexing their muscles'

Companies want to mine a remote region of B.C., but, unlike some previous bands, the Tahltan insist on controlling access to the area

MARK HUME
Globe and Mail
September 27, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Between the abandoned mining town of Cassiar and the struggling port of Stewart, in the northwest corner of British Columbia, Highway 37 runs through one of the most dramatic and resource-rich landscapes in Canada.

It is the kind of place where the cabins are festooned with moose antlers, where grizzly bears can be seen fishing for salmon and where caribou herds stand dumbstruck by the roadside because they seldom see traffic.

The Stewart-Cassiar region, home of the Tahltan First Nation, is as remote an area as you can find in B.C. and isn't a place you'd expect highlighted on political and corporate agendas.

But a significant shift taking place in the native political structure there has drawn attention all the way from Victoria to Europe, as the Tahltan strive to assert control over a region that contains such abundant mineral resources that it has been dubbed the Golden Triangle.

There are eight mining projects proposed along Hwy. 37, and a recent study projected that they could generate $3.5-billion in capital investments, create 2,000 jobs and result in more than $300-million in annual revenues.

That is the kind of resource activity that the B.C. government, now in a run-up to a spring election, is starved for. And with a dead mining town at one end of the highway (Cassiar closed in 1992 when asbestos mining halted), a bulk shipping port at the other that is struggling because of a logging downturn, and with two active mines facing scheduled closing, the Tahltan need new job opportunities.

Drive Hwy. 37 north from Stewart and it isn't long before you see heavy lift helicopters clattering overhead carrying mining supplies. But there are also protest signs, declaring "Get the Shell Out." And close to the native community of Iskut there is a spur road that runs off into a region named the Sacred Headwaters where, for the past three years, Shell and Fortune Minerals have run into roadblocks set up by Tahltan elders.

Shell wants to drill 1,000 wells to extract coal-bed methane gas, and Fortune wants to mine 123 million tonnes of high-grade metallurgical coal. But first they need the band's approval.

The Sacred Headwaters, named because three major salmon rivers - the Skeena, Nass and Stikine - were born there, has become the symbol of wider conflicts in B.C. between native bands and resource companies.

Annita McPhee, the newly elected head of the Tahltan Central Council, says that, before dealing with any proposed mines, the band must first find a way for everyone to express their views.

"We're developing a process for decision making, a new governance structure, and it's going to take some time," she said in an interview this week.

"There's a high concentration of development proposed in our area and our people need to have a say in what is developed, and what isn't. ... We want to find a balance between protecting the land and providing employment for our people."

Ms. McPhee, who has a law degree from the University of Victoria, was elected in July on a ticket that emphasized the need for the Tahltan to speak with a united voice. Her decision to enter politics was spurred largely by a burning debate over Shell's controversial proposal to drill for coal-bed methane gas in the Sacred Headwaters.

Will Horter, executive director of the Dogwood Initiative, a non-profit group that helps indigenous people gain control over their traditional lands, said the Tahltans are at the forefront of a growing movement in B.C., which is seeing bands demand more say about resource development.

"There's a handful of vanguard first nations that are working internally and with partners like us and others ... to promote a positive vision of how they want their region and their territories to be managed," Mr. Horter said. "They are flexing their muscles."

He said that, in the past, resource companies have been able to push their projects through over the objections of often poorly organized local bands. But the Tahltan have realized that if they speak with a unified voice, they can gain control over which projects proceed and which do not, Mr. Horter said.

Other bands in B.C. are watching with interest, he said, and a coming native mining summit, to be held in Prince George next month, is an indication that native leaders want direct control over what resource activities take place in their regions.

For Shell and Fortune Minerals, the go-slow approach of the Tahltan has caused some obvious difficulties.

But spokesmen for both corporations expressed patience in interviews this week, and said they remain optimistic they will eventually proceed, with full Tahltan support.

Larry Lalonde, a Shell representative, said the company had planned to do test drilling in the Sacred Headwaters region this year, but called it off to allow the Tahltan to reorganize their governance structure.

"We aimed to go back in [drilling] this fall, but we've put a pause on that," Mr. Lalonde said in a phone call from The Hague. "... We realized that in order to have effective conversations and dialogue with them, [we have to] give them the opportunity to work out the issues that they have on governance."

Mr. Lalonde said Shell remains "hopeful" it can get its project under way soon.

Robin Goad, president of Fortune Minerals, is also watching with interest. He said there have been conflicting opinions within the Tahltan community for years over resource development, which has made it hard for industry to know exactly where the goalposts stood.

But he rejected the suggestion his project has been stalled because of resistance from the Tahltan. The roadblock in 2005 did halt Fortune Minerals work on site, but Mr. Goad feels the protesters represent only a small group within the Tahltan First Nation.

"We are not running into resistance from the leadership of the Tahltan. We have had some resistance from a fringe group which have backing from what I would describe as radical environmental movements. But we have an excellent relationship with the leadership," he said.

Mr. Goad said the native community remains "fractured" over the issue of resource development, and he hopes Ms. McPhee can lead the community to consensus - and that the view will favour the project his company is proposing.

He said that while the Tahltan may not agree to all the proposals in the area, he's certain they'll go for some of them.

"There are some people within the Tahltan community who are very pro-development, there are some that are very aligned with the radical environmental groups that want no development whatsoever, and then the vast majority of the people fall somewhere in between," he said.

The big question is, how will that "majority" vote when the Tahltan Central Council asks the people where they stand on the new projects proposed for the area?

And that's a $3.5-billion question.

OPPOSITION MOUNTS

Shell's proposal to drill for coal-bed methane in the Mount Klappan area has run into increasing opposition.

While the Tahltan First Nation is still formulating its official position, elders have blockaded an access road for the past two years, keeping Shell drilling rigs out of the area. And while the group of elders, known as the Klabona Keepers, have stalled Shell's plans on the ground, opposition has grown outside the area.

This week, the Union of B.C. Municipalities passed a resolution calling on the B.C. government to shelve Shell's plans, saying the Sacred Headwaters area, at Mount Klappan, should not be put at risk.

The City of Prince Rupert sponsored the resolution, with support from the towns of Hazelton, Fernie and Princeton.

And Friday, the First Nations Summit, a provincial native leadership organization, passed a resolution calling for a 10-year moratorium on all coal-bed methane drilling in B.C.

The resolution states that coal-bed methane extraction "has caused significant harm to water, wildlife and rural economies" in other jurisdictions in North America.

It notes that coal-bed methane projects are currently proposed in the Sacred Headwaters area, in the Telkwa coalfield, and near the cities of Fernie, Princeton and Hudson's Hope.

"The areas of B.C. in which coal-bed methane development is proposed are areas of culturally, economically and ecologically significant fish and wildlife populations, including three of North America's most important wild salmon runs," the resolution states.

It says that in assessing coal-bed methane projects, B.C. "does not consider cumulative regional impacts, the interests of downstream communities or meet the Crown's obligation to consult and accommodate aboriginal title and rights."

It calls for a moratorium in order to allow British Columbia to develop more rigorous regulations.

After that is done, it says, the province should proceed only with coal-bed methane development "in areas where it does not infringe aboriginal title and rights."

ROCK AND COAL

A mountain of coal lies in the Sacred Headwaters area, but while it has been the focus of a lot of interest, it still hasn't been turned into a mine.

And if the Tahltan reject the proposal, the project may never go ahead.

A series of resource companies have been interested in the Mount Klappan coal deposit since 1981, when Gulf Canada Resources Ltd. began to do preliminary work on the site. Between 1981 and 1991, Gulf spent $70-million trying to bring the mine into operation, doing engineering, transportation, power, environmental and socioeconomic studies.

Gulf also did extensive drilling. Of 33 coal seams identified, 12 were identified as being good targets for mining.

In 1985-86, a 200,000-tonne bulk sample was mined and processed in a pilot plant at the site, with half of that amount shipped to customers in North America, Asia and Europe.

The Mount Klappan property became inactive in 1991, however, after the collapse of one of Gulf's major shareholders.

In 2001, Fortune Minerals Ltd., a London, Ont.-based resource company, purchased the property from Conoco Canada Resources Ltd., which had taken over Gulf.

Fortune has spent about $5-million on the project, including doing studies on various transportation options. Fortune sees three possible ways to get the coal out of the area: by truck down Highway 37 to Stewart; by a slurry line to Stewart; by rail to Prince Rupert.

The rail option would require laying about 70 kilometres of track along an old BC Rail right-of-way that runs through the mine site.

The Fortune proposal would see about two million tonnes of coal mined in an open-pit operation each year.

The Tahltan First Nation, however, has not yet given approval for the project.

Mark Hume, mhume@globeandmail.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 06:35 PM

September 27, 2008

UBCM calls for LNG tanker ban and GHG ban

Local government delegates attending the Union of BC Municipalities annual convention in Penticton this past week endorsed two resolutions put on the docket by the Powell River Regional District:

B76 calls on the provincial government to require zero greenhouse gases from new natural gas-fired generation plants.
http://ubcm.fileprosite.com/contentengine/launch.asp?ID=3884

At present, a new gas-fired plant must emit "net zero" greenhouse gases - which means that a plant can emit the GHGs into the atmosphere as long as it purchases carbon offsets or green credits. The policy for coal doesn't allow this - it says that no GHGs are allowed to be released. B76 would apply the uncompromising rule for coal, to natural gas.

B143 calls on the federal government to ban liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers in Georgia, Malaspina, and Haro Straits, and in Boundary Pass.
http://ubcm.fileprosite.com/contentengine/launch.asp?ID=3885

The LNG import terminal would entail 36 large tankers per year arriving at Texada Island. The safety and security issues with LNG tankers is serious stuff, not to be accepted with the blithe assurances offered by industry. US communities are strongly resistant to LNG import proposals, so coastal communities in Canada and Mexico are being targeted as neo-colonial doormats to satisfy US appetites for energy.

Powell River Regional District originated these resolutions in May 2008, in response to a proposal by WestPac LNG to build a LNG import terminal and a huge gas-fired generation plant on Texada Island. In the promoter's dreams, the generation plant could grow to 1200 megawatts - nearly five times the capacity of the Duke Point Plant which was cancelled by BC Hydro in 2005.

Both resolutions were supported by regional governments around Georgia Strait, including the Islands Trust, through the summer.

In the federal election, candidates will be asked: "Do you support a LNG tanker ban in Georgia Strait? Will your party work in Ottawa to implement a LNG tanker ban?”

You can help. If you are at an all-candidates meeting or other place where candidates are assembled, please ask them these two questions. And please let us know what they say.

The Alliance to Stop LNG is 15 environmental, labour, conservation and other public interest groups who came together in 2007. More info at www.texadalng.com.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 03:56 PM

Streams go to work for green power sector

Run-of-river hydroelectric facilities currently provide about 10% to 15% of BC Hydro's electricity

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Friday, September 26, 2008

2609tunnel.jpg
Tom Cleugh, aquatic biologist and environmental monitor, walks the tunnel
that, when completed, will run 4.5-kms long and be a conduit for the water
flowing from farther upstream on the Ashlu River at the intake.
CREDIT: Bonny Makarewicz/Special to the Vancouver Sun

Kelly Boychuk is standing on a steep ridge overlooking Ashlu Creek, a fast-flowing stream that is one of the environmental movement's poster children for the presumed sellout of BC Hydro's legacy of cheap electrical resources.

At present, the Ashlu is as wild and untamed a creek as you could find anywhere in the world, but soon it will become a working stream in British Columbia's vast industrial forest.

Down at the base of the ridge where Boychuk stands is a broad gravel plain, the bed of the Ashlu, where a backhoe is packing huge broken chunks of granite in preparation to divert the creek's course as part of a new power project about a half hour's drive northwest of Squamish.

It is a scene that has already been played out on 32 small streams around B.C., where so-called run-of-river hydroelectric facilities built by private developers are currently contributing about 10 to 15 per cent of the electricity that flows each year through BC Hydro's provincial grid.

A further 46 independent projects are in development.

Billions of dollars, typically sourced from public sector pension funds and insurance companies looking for slow, steady rates of return, have already been invested - $135 million for the Ashlu project alone.

Over the last decade, the B.C. environment ministry has received 562 applications for water licences, including 97 new applications since January 2008.

An application is no guarantee of a project. Since 2001 the ministry has issued 70 licences for power generation, including 12 replacement licenses for existing BC Hydro facilities.

This summer, Hydro issued a call for new supplies of green power and 25 companies responded with proposals for 168 projects - mostly run-of-river enterprises like Ashlu.

The Independent Power Producers association of B.C notes that the offers represent about five times the amount of electricity Hydro is looking for.

"There is only one buyer, and that buyer only swings by every three years," IPPBC president Steve Davis noted.

Of course, not all of the projects will succeed.

"A hundred staked hydroelectric sites will quickly narrow down to five sites or less that can be developed to economically produce electricity for more than the cost to build them," said Boychuk, construction project manager for Vancouver-based Ledcor Power Inc.

The Ashlu is one of the successful ones.

By the time the project is complete, the Ashlu will be responsible for the generation of enough electricity at peak times to light 23,000 homes.

Come back to the ridge a year from now and you will see the stream broadening into a modest pond at this location, resting against a rubber-and-concrete barrier that will trap a portion of the Ashlu's flow and divert it into a man-made tunnel.

This barrier - you can't really call it a dam - would fit onto a football field, twice over.

The remainder of the Ashlu's flow will continue on its natural path, plunging steeply downhill through a perilous Class Five whitewater route known to extreme kayakers as Commitment Canyon - once you are in it, there's no way out except down.

The surface and tunnel portions of the stream rejoin about 4.5 kilometres downstream, where a small, 49-megawatt hydroelectric generating station is, like the diversion upstream, still under construction.

At both locations, excavators and gravel trucks clang and rumble, dust flies, and there are still-raw scars on the stream banks that were cleared to make room for the hydro facilities.

To Boychuk, the primary allure of a creek like the Ashlu is the rapid descent of its stream course - impassable for migrating salmon, but ideal for the production of electricity.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," he avers.

"A nice, flat, meandering stream is a fish-bearing stream, and that's the last place you'd want to build a hydroelectric project."

Ledcor is working with Quebec-based Innergex on 18 potential small-hydro projects in B.C.

The partners are also building a much smaller run-of-river project on Fitzgerald Creek in Whistler, where the ski resort operator lauds the local enterprise as a sterling model of sustainable development.

Ledcor and Innergex haven't been so lucky at Ashlu, where the Squamish Regional District council expressed such strong opposition that it eventually forced the provincial government to revoke the authority of local governments to regulate independent power projects, or IPPs.

Whitewater kayakers were opposed as well, on the premise that water diverted into the hydro project's tunnel would rob them of the flow volume they deem necessary to travel down the stream.

However, an agreement was struck that obliges the plant operators to relinquish some of their water volume on weekends in spring and fall in order to accommodate the paddlers. There's no issue with stream flow during summer peak.

Ledcor and Innergex also struck a deal with Fisheries and Oceans Canada to compensate for their impact on the stream, by creating 5,000 square metres of new fish habitat in backwaters off the lower Ashlu.

The companies unilaterally bumped their habitat quota to 60,000 square metres.

They were told to carve out tiny brooks and ponds, and fill them with woody debris as refuge for baby salmon, effectively enhancing an old project undertaken by fisheries a decade earlier, and upgrading some existing intermittent backwaters.

"We placed the stumps and root wads from the various work areas in here for the fish. A few years ago I would have said it was just a mess, a bunch of junk, but now I understand that it's actually a good thing," Boychuk said.

Most of that work was completed in August 2007. A month later, the project's full-time biologist Tom Cleugh counted 40 adult coho salmon in there, and this spring, an estimated 14,000 coho fry had taken up residence.

"It's in our business model," said Richard Blanchet, western region vice-president of hydroelectric energy for Innergex.

"We do the extra mile so that the project will contribute to the community. These projects are there for 40, 60, 80 years, so you need to have good communication with the community."

Most public attention on the project, meanwhile, has been negative.

This spring the Western Canada Wilderness Committee produced a video highlighting the construction impacts on the stream-scape at Ashlu, and representing the emergence of independent power projects across the province as "the biggest heist of public resources in Canadian history and an enormous threat to the future of British Columbia's environment, economy and society."

Melissa Davis, executive director of Citizens for Public Power, said run-of-river power is "not quite as green as it appears on the surface."

"True, the power that is generated is greenhouse gas-neutral, but the developments themselves cause significant adverse environmental impacts . . . all of which have significant impacts on area wildlife, fish, and other aquatic species."

The government's decision five years ago to order BC Hydro to shift low-volume power projects to the private sector came "because the provincial government wants to create opportunity for business," Davis said.

"That kind of decision is more difficult to rationalize when you've got an incredibly profitable Crown corporation that provides fair rates to consumers and significant revenues to the public purse."

Proponents counter that a primary reason for Hydro's profits is its insulation from the financial risks associated with developing small projects.

"In many cases it's two years of fisheries work just to understand whether or not you an undertake a project," said David Andrews, an engineer with Cloudworks Energy.

"We will probably look at 20 possibilities for every application we put in. We've been around for a little while, and we have been involved in the development of two projects that have been constructed, and we are now working on a third that involves six facilities. But that's it.

"If you wanted to go out right now in the midst of the credit crisis and built a project, it's going to cost a lot more. If you are a taxpayer, that's the beauty of having these private-sector guys out there. That's not BC Hydro's risk, it's the private guys'."

One of the highest-profile operators has been Donald McInnes, a lapsed mineral exploration promoter who has used his considerable entrepreneurial skills to assemble one of the richest project rosters in the sector.

His company, Plutonic Power, has already spent $200 million, and arranged financing for a further $460 million, for a cluster of run-of-river projects at Toba Inlet on the B.C. coast north of Powell River.

The company's financial model is straightforward - go to the stock market to raise venture capital for the initial, multi-million-dollar exploratory stages of a project and if your engineers, hydrologists and biologists determine it's viable, talk to pension funds and insurance companies about financing the actual construction.

"I'm typically investing our company's money [through equity offerings] when the risk is highest and we have no certainty of outcome," McInnes said.

"Once the projects are construction-ready and all of that development risk is gone, then other companies typically come in to make an investment - but they're looking for less of a return."

In all cases, the company first looks for streams that have a waterfall - a natural barrier to migratory salmon.

But even then, there are risks.

"We were working on one stream near Gibsons called Rainy River. The natural barrier for fish wasn't a waterfall, but it was a fish ladder that the pulp mill told us had never worked.

"In our first two years of studying this stream there were no fish. In the third year there were two fish above the ladder and in the fourth year there were six.

"So all of a sudden the economics of the project changed. We were going to have to move our powerhouse upstream, which meant a loss of revenue.

"I still think Rainy River is a good project, but it's not of interest to us any more."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

© Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 02:44 PM

Northwest power line worth $15 billion: study

NorthwestTransmission.jpg
Click for larger map

Northwest power line worth $15 billion: study

Province announces $10 million to restart environmental assessment

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Friday, September 26, 2008

Establishing a high-voltage transmission line in northwest British Columbia could attract at least $15 billion in new investment in mining and power generation for the remote region, according to a new study.

The study, commissioned by the Mining Association of B.C., says a power line along the Highway 37 route in B.C.'s distant northwest has the potential to create more than 10,000 new jobs, allow new green power projects to link to the provincial transmission grid, and annually generate $300 million in new tax revenue.

The report was released just as Premier Gordon Campbell announced to the Union of B.C. Municipalities in Penticton Friday that the provincial government will invest $10 million to restart the environmental assessment process for the line.

Mining Association of B.C. President Pierre Gratton applauded the government's move, noting that the assessment is an essential first step in any development of the line.

The $400-million power line near Telegraph Creek has been stalled since Teck Cominco and NovaGold announced in November 2007 that the cornerstone development for the project, a proposed gold mine at Galore Creek, needed a substantial financial review.

When Galore Creek stalled, a promised $158-million contribution to the power line was also put on hold, and so far the provincial government has spurned calls from the mining association to assume full development costs and recover the money later.

"The electrification of Highway 37 is an important part of the ongoing economic diversification of rural British Columbia," Campbell said in a news release. "It builds on the success we're already seeing in the northwest, including the new container port in Prince Rupert, the resurgence of the mining industry and the potential new Alcan smelter. We're making the investments needed now to continue that growth and help communities seize opportunities to diversify and create jobs."

The new 287-kilovolt line will extend 335 kilometres from Terrace to Meziadin Junction and north to Bob Quinn Lake, providing access to the electricity grid for customers while supporting the economic diversification of the area, according to the news release.

Currently, the electrical power grid along Highway 37 ends at Meziadin Junction to the north and Stewart to the west.

"We have the potential to create more than 10,000 jobs in a region where unemployment is high," Janine North, CEO of the Northern Development Initiative Trust, said in the news release. "Electricity can spur economic development through mining, tourism, clean power, transportation and supply industries in the northwest."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

© Vancouver Sun 2008



Northwest power line could create thousands of jobs, attract billions in investment – Study

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mining Association of B.C.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2008

Northwest power line could create thousands of jobs, attract billions in investment – Study

- Power line along Highway 37 could create 10,700 jobs
- Potential for $15 billion in capital investment
- Improves access to clean electricity sources
- Potential benefits include more than $300 million in annual tax revenues to governments

Vancouver – According to a new report by the Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC), building a power line along Highway 37 in northwest B.C. has the potential to create thousands of jobs, generate new sources of clean power and provide additional revenues to government to help pay for important programs and services.

“A new power line has the potential to spur economic development in mining, tourism and clean power projects,” said Pierre Gratton, president and CEO of the Mining Association of B.C. “The findings of the report provide a strong case for First Nations, the provincial government, industry and communities to work together to make the power line a reality.”

The study, MABC Report on the Electrification of the Highway 37 Corridor, cited ten potential mining projects in the study, and found that the power line has the potential to attract more than $15 billion in investment, create 10,700 jobs and generate $300 million in annual tax revenues to governments.

Demand for power in the northwest is driven largely by the mining sector, independent power projects and regional municipality growth, with additional opportunities to revitalize the tourism sector.

“We have the potential to create more than 10,000 jobs in a region where unemployment is high,” said Janine North, CEO of the Northern Development Initiative Trust. “Electricity can spur economic development through mining, tourism, clean power, transportation and supply industries in the northwest.”

“In principle, we support the new power line, as it provides opportunities for joint ventures with First Nations,” said Bill Adsit, President of the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation. “However, first there must be a process that considers all potential social, cultural and environmental impacts.”

“As one of the founding members of the Highway 37 Coalition, the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs are longstanding supporters of the proposed power line,” stated Chief Negotiator Elmer Derrick. “This study confirms that work should continue towards this important project.”

News Release, MABC, 26-Sep-2008

Download report



B.C. to move forward with northwest transmission line

News Release
Office of the Premier
26-Sep-2008

PENTICTON – Premier Gordon Campbell has announced the Province will immediately start the environmental assessment process and First Nations consultation on the Northwest Transmission Line along Highway 37. This is the first step towards building a powerline that has the potential to generate billions of dollars in capital investment, create thousands of new jobs and open economic opportunities on a global scale in the Northwest.

“The communities in the North have a vision to further open their region to economic opportunities on a global scale, and today I want them to know that we share their vision and we are going to pursue the Northwest Transmission Line,” said Premier Campbell, who made the announcement during his annual Union of B.C. Municipalities address. “According to the Mining Association of BC, this project has the potential to attract $15 billion in new capital investments and create almost 11,000 jobs, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing the reliance on dirty diesel-electric power for industry and communities in that region.”

The Province will invest the estimated $10 million to immediately restart the environmental assessment process, the first step towards building the Northwest Transmission Line (NTL). The new 287-kilovolt line will extend 335 km from Terrace to Meziadin Junction and north to Bob Quinn Lake, providing access to the electricity grid for customers while supporting the economic diversification of the area. Currently, the electrical power grid along Highway 37 ends at Meziadin Junction to the north and Stewart to the west.

“The electrification of Highway 37 is an important part of the ongoing economic diversification of rural British Columbia,” said Premier Campbell. “It builds on the success we’re already seeing in the Northwest, including the new container port in Prince Rupert, the resurgence of the mining industry and the potential new Alcan smelter. We’re making the investments needed now to continue that growth and help communities seize opportunities to diversify and create jobs.”

The environmental assessment is the first stage of the project and must be complete before construction begins. The Province is still seeking a partnership with the private sector to fund the total project, which is estimated to cost approximately $400 million.

Gross mining revenue in B.C. has nearly doubled over the last seven years, from $3.6 billion to nearly $7 billion, and 10 new mines have opened in that time. Investment in mineral exploration soared to a record high of nearly $416 million in 2007, up 1,300 per cent since 2001.

-30-

Media contact:
Bridgitte Anderson
Press Secretary
Office of the Premier
604 307-7177

News Release, Office of the Premier, 26-Sep-2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:57 PM

September 26, 2008

LNG Partners books pipeline capacity with PNG

On September 25, 2008, Pacific Northern Gas (PNG) submitted an application to the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) to enter into an agreement (a "term sheet") with LNG Partners, whereby PNG would deliver 75 million cubic feet of natural gas from Summit Lake to Kitimat. LNG Partners would source the gas, and would be the shipper on the pipeline.

The BCUC proceeding and documents are at:
http://www.bcuc.com/ApplicationView.aspx?ApplicationId=211

A description of the companies and the business arrangement is contained in PNG's letter of application to the BCUC:


On August 21, 2008 PNG was approached by a representative of Maverick LNG Holdings
Ltd. ("Maverick") to secure an option to contract PNG's uncontracted firm pipeline capacity (approximately 75 MMcflday) to transport gas sourced from Northeast B.C. to Kitimat. The gas would then be cooled to LNG on a offshore floating liquefied natural gas production ("FLNG") vessel moored in the Douglas Channel and stored on board for eventual offloading to an LNG carrier for export to Asian LNG markets. Maverick advised of their plan to commence their FLNG operations in the fourth quarter of 2010 or first quarter of 2011.

Maverick requested PNG to prepare toll proposals assuming a 3 to 5 year term and potential contract demands of 75 MMcUday, 120 MMcUday and 180 MMcfIday. PNG advised Maverick that the latter two expansion scenarios would require hydraulics studies to determine the new pipeline facilities required to meet the higher contract demands. It was subsequently acknowledged that the capital additions for the expansion scenarios would be significant in terms of both cost and scope having regard to the anticipated contract term of only 3 to 5 years. Therefore, PNG and Maverick decided to focus on negotiating the terms under which PNG could provide 75 MMcUday of firm gas transportation service to Maverick. In slightly less than a month, the parties were able to reach agreement on the Term Sheet. At Maverick's request, the Term Sheet was entered into with LNG Partners, one of the partial owners of Maverick. Background information on LNG Partners and Maverick is provided in the next few paragraphs.

LNG Partners, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, was formed in late 2000 by Thomas P. Tatham and Frank C. Wade for the purpose of applying developing LNG technology to the monetization or commercialization of "stranded" or undervalued natural gas resources. The two principal owners have been involved in many grass roots oil and gas projects historically and were responsible for developing a good part of the deepwater pipeline infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico through Leviathan Gas Pipeline Partners, LP and Offshore Pipelines, Inc. respectively.

LNG Partners initial focus was on opportunities in Eastern Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador in particular. It was responsible for developing a multi-purpose LNG terminal and gas to wire strategy for Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro in the 2000-2003 time frame. While the initial proposed facility at Holyrood, Newfoundland was not built, an alternate site at Grassy Point, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland was obtained in 2005 by Newfoundland LNG Ltd., a partially owned LNG Partners subsidiary which has recently received (August 2008) all provincial and federal environmental approvals to construct a multi-purpose LNG terminal with up to 3 berths, 8 LNG storage tanks, a tug basin and up to 200 MW of local power generation.

In late 2005, LNG Partners initiated a second LNG project to develop small scale LNG production on board existing LNG caniers. Based on the results of conceptual engineering studies conducted with Hamworthy Gas Systems AS (Asker, Noway) and SNC-Lavalin (Canada) in early 2006, Maverick was formed in July 2006 and Maverick contracted to purchase its first LNG vessel, the Hoegh Galleon, which was delivered in October 2007 and renamed the Margaret Hill. Current plans are to modify the Margaret Hill to include the latest Hamworthy gas liquefaction technology for FLNG use. Maverick's current plans are to complete the conversion of the vessel and obtain all requisite classification society permits for FLNG use by the fourth quarter of 2010. If this timetable is met, it is likely that the Margaret Hill will become the world's first FLNG vessel to be placed in service with the intention that it be deployed to the Kitimat area. Evaluation of alternative mooring locations, related costs and permitting issues are currently in progress for the Kitimat operation. Maverick is in the process of acquiring 3 additional LNG carriers for prospective conversion to FLNG service and is also in the process of evaluating a number of prospective sites for initial production activities.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:35 PM

September 09, 2008

Company to test tidal power potential

COMMENT: The provincial government continues to accept applications for ocean and river power sites without anything other than a "first-come, first-served" policy guiding it in the appropriateness of sites or proponents.

Orca Power has applications for five tidal energy sites. For maps and a very few more details, click here.

By Grant Warkentin
Campbell River Mirror
September 02, 2008

For years the Orca Tidal Power Corporation has been eyeing the power generation potential of Campbell River’s tides.

Now, the company believes the time is right to do some field research.

Orca Tidal Power Corp. has applied to the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands for three investigative use permits to look at the feasibility of tidal power generation around Campbell River. The company has applied for permission to use Crown land sites in three areas: in the water immediately northwest of Surge Narrows Provincial Park; in Discovery Passage immediately south of of McMullen Point; and in the Seymour Narrows south of Browns Bay.

Five years ago the company expressed interest in setting up a tidal power research station – a small barge with instruments measuring tidal flows in the water – in the Dent Rapids, northeast of Sonora Island. At the time, Tony Duggleby, one of the company’s directors, said the company believed the area had huge tidal generation potential.

“We think it’s large, our assumption is that it’s quite, quite large,” he said. “I don’t think it would be economic to go in there for less than 200-300 megawatts, and I think it’s there.”

In comparison, the Island Cogen plant at the Elk Falls mill generates about 240 megawatts using natural gas.

In recent years, several companies have expressed interest in the tidal power potential of the Campbell River area. A 006 report prepared for Natural Resources Canada identifies potential sites around Canada that could be used to generate energy from the tides and the study ranks the Seymour Narrows as the ninth best site in Canada, with the potential to generate 786 megawatts, enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes.

However, the tides are too strong – Glen Darou, director with Clean Current Power Systems, told the Mirror in March 2007 that current and emerging underwater tidal technology would be ripped to pieces or seriously damaged in the strong 6.56 meter-per-second average currents through the narrows.

However, the Discovery Passage is the 14th-best site in Canada according to the study, with the potential to generate 327 megawatts. The currents in the Discovery Passage site have an average velocity of 3.06 metres per second – perfect for the technology with which Darou’s company is experimenting, and which Orca Power is considering.

Clean Current Power Systems has a $7 million pilot project operating at Race Rocks in Victoria and is keeping an eye on the Campbell River area. Closer to home, local businessman Thor Peterson and Chris Knight, chair of the 60-member Ocean Renewable Energy Group, plan to build generators under a bridge or walkway through at Canoe Pass between Quadra and Maud Islands.

Orca Power representatives could not be reached for comment prior to the Mirror’s deadline.

Orca Power recently purchased Orca Tidal Power Corporation. Orca Power was purchased in June by Creation Casinos, which has experience running casinos in Lithuania. Creation Casinos changed its name to Orca Power “to better reflect the new business direction,” according to a company news release.

Duggleby was appointed as the company’s vice-president of new business development.

To view Orca Power’s applications, or make comments, visit www.arfd.bc.ca and use the advanced search to look for file numbers 1413161, 1413162 and 1413163. The deadline for comments is Sept. 18.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:43 PM

August 26, 2008

Rockies wilderness at risk from latest dash for gas

Between two national parks lies a corridor rich in wildlife - but also in fossil fuels. Will protection follow now that the gas extraction drillers want to move in?

Jim Giles
The Guardian
August 6, 2008

FlatheadRiverCougar460.jpg
A cougar on the banks of the Flathead river in the Canadian Rockies.
Photograph: Getty Images/Panoramic RR

It has been called one of North America's wildest places. Just north of the US-Canada border, the wooded slopes of the Canadian Rockies channel unpolluted water into a valley that remains free of human development. Grizzly bears, cougars and wolverines prowl the banks of the Flathead river. Outside of a national park, there is probably no wilderness like it on the continent.

But outside of a national park could mean outside of legal protection. Somewhere in the workings of the British Columbia government, an application from global energy company BP is working its way around civil servants' desks. In it, the firm outlines a proposal that has horrified local environmentalists: the installation of up to 1,500 gas wells covering an area of 500 sq km (310 sq miles) amid the lush 1,580 sq km wilderness of the Flathead. Some time during the next six months, officials may give approval to the project.

"There have to be some places on the planet where you don't go for energy production," says Jack Stanford, a biologist at the nearby University of Montana. "This is one of them."

Stanford's fascination with the region has spanned 40 years of his scientific career. When he describes the valley, it's easy to see why. To the north lie the mountainous Banff and Jasper national parks. The 4,500 sq km Waterton Glacier International Peace Park straddles the border just south of the river. All these great wildernesses have been declared world heritage sites by Unesco.

Isolated populations

The Flathead valley connects the protected areas, allowing hundreds of bears and thousands of moose to roam between the parks. Sixteen species of carnivore live in the region, a higher density than anywhere in North America. Without a corridor, animals in the parks would become more isolated, inbred and vulnerable to disease. "The grizzlies would gradually decline and disappear," warns Stanford.

Unfortunately for those animals, their route between parks covers mountains that hold valuable fossil fuel deposits. Around a kilometre below the Flathead river region lies the Crowsnest Coalfield. According to BP's initial estimates, the field holds enough natural gas for half a century of drilling. When operating at peak, it should produce over 14m cubic metres of fuel a day, more than enough to supply the 2 million people that live in Vancouver and surrounding parts of British Columbia.

Fossil fuel drilling is never a pretty process, but environmental groups are particularly wary of projects that aim to extract methane from coal seams. Large volumes of salt water flow up the well with the gas and have to be disposed of, for example. The liquid is so saline that it can pollute land and kill fish if allowed to enter rivers.

Coalbed methane drilling is also land intensive. Erin Sexton, a colleague of Stanford's who has studied similar projects in other parts of North America, says energy companies typically install 40 wells on every sq km of a coalbed methane project. Along with the wells come roads and pipelines. "They have taken natural landscapes and turned them into industrial sites," she says.

None of these concerns will be news to BP, which has stressed that detailed environmental studies are needed before any work begins. Hejdi Feick, a spokeswoman for the company, says the British Columbia government decision refers only to tenure, a legal status that would give BP the right to apply for drilling permits. If that's granted, the company will continue with ongoing environmental studies for at least three years before beginning commercial production. The firm also says water from the seam will be pumped back into underground reservoirs and that it plans to have only around three wells per sq km.

Some local environmentalists have praised BP for its willingness to engage with local concerns and its commitment to study the area. But when it comes to details of how the projects may be implemented, differences of opinion arise.

Sexton wants the company to commit to a five-year moratorium on drilling activities. That is the time she feels is needed to conduct a detailed survey of the region's waters, vegetation and wildlife. Only last year, a new species of fish was discovered in the area, she says.

But Feick would not rule out exploratory drilling while the environmental studies were still under way. She adds that the company is "committed to doing this project right" and may still decide not to proceed.

But thousands of miles to the south of the Flathead, rancher Tweeti Blancett questions such assurances. Blancett used to run cattle over 200 sq km in Aztec, New Mexico. Her husband's grandfather leased land to the energy companies in the 1950s, but it was not until coalbed methane wells arrived in the 80s that problems started.

Blancett says saline water often spills from wells and tankers. If the spill runs into a gulley, it wipes out all vegetation in its path. She claims that spills of polluted water or drilling fluids sometimes take weeks to be cleared up and government oversight of the firms is too lightweight to make much difference. Around three years ago, she decided the land was too polluted and moved her cattle.

A BP spokesman disputed Blancett's claims, saying her description of the coalbed methane project was "not consistent with the facts as we know them".

In the Flathead, meanwhile, BP has to contend with a well-organised group representing a dozen organisations from both sides of the US-Canada border. The Flathead Coalition was first formed when coal mining began in neighbouring Elk Valley in the 70s, says Dave Haddon, the coalition's director. Its strength stems from its diverse membership, which includes local landowners, environmentalists and biologists.

Broad objective

Not everyone agrees on everything. Some landowners have no interest in designating new wilderness areas, for instance. But Haddon says the group reaches consensus by focusing on the broad objective of preventing inappropriate development in the region.

With that diversity of interests behind him, Haddon has more of an impact than niche groups with tighter focuses. This April, for example, he met with the managers of nine investment funds that own substantial amounts of BP stock. Haddon says BP has so far declined to share documents relating to its environmental studies and that the managers might pressure BP into being more transparent about its plans for the region. The coalition is also asking Unesco to declare the Flathead a world heritage site.

"The coalition gives us the chance to increase the volume and to represent ourselves as mainstream," says Casey Brennan of Wildsight, a local environmental organisation that is part of the coalition.

Asked if the coalition would allow any amount of coalbed methane drilling, Haddon admits that the issue is tricky. The coalition position is that development can take place, provided BP has adequate plans in place to protect the valley's flora and fauna. But the words Haddon uses to describe the Flathead - a "cornucopia for wildlife", a fragile corridor that could easily be "severed" - makes clear his concern about any threat to what makes the area unique.

Other coalition members are more blunt. Brennan says: "I don't think this can go ahead. This area is far too valuable. There is a saying in business: 'If you want to make omelettes you have to break eggs.' We don't want to be those eggs."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:29 PM

Shell won’t drill in Klappan this fall, official confirms

By Kat Lee
Terrace Standard
August 19, 2008

SHELL CANADA has decided to suspend its planned exploration of coalbed methane in the Klappan this fall to keep communication lines open with interested parties in the area.

“Shell is taking a pause from it’s planned drilling activity in the Klappan this year,” said company official Larry Lalonde. “We’re doing this to have some dialogue with the newly elected Tahltan Central Council and leadership from the Tahltan band council and Iskut First Nations.”

The company was scheduled to re-enter two wells drilled in 2004 this fall. They wanted to conduct further testing on gas flows, and see if there was produced water associated with natural gas in the coal.

Shell had previously drilled three test wells in 2004, but opposition from Tahltan who don’t want industrial activity on their traditional territory and last year’s flood destroying the access road has slowed progress.

The area, also known as the Sacred Headwaters, is 400 kilometres north of Smithers and contains the headwaters for the Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers.

Shell is licensed by the provincial government to drill up to 14 more exploratory wells in the area. Lalonde says since they company already hold the permits, the decision to suspend drilling is voluntary.

“First and foremost, we’re listing to what the Tahltan and Iskut First Nations has told us,” Lalonde said. “For an open dialogue to occur, it would be beneficial to have a pause...in drilling in 2008.”

The company sent out an email to inform stakeholders of the pause in early August.

While he does not know when the company will reassume the drilling, Lalonde said Shell will continue to talk with people in the region and provide people with more knowledge of what the oil and gas industry actually does.

Shell hosted five open houses in the Northwest in the past month, and Lalonde said they have heard from people who are both supportive of and concerned about the planned activity.

However, Shell will continue with its environmental studies in the Klappan to better understand the area’s natural resources.

The company has completed 25 environmental studies to date, and have planned more studies on wildlife, fisheries and water.

Shannon McPhail, executive director for Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, a group trying to stop coalbed methane development in the area, says this is only the first step.

“I do applaud them for pulling out,” she said. “They’ve most certainly done the right thing.”

She said the group will not slow down simply because Shell is suspending their drilling for 2008; the coalition will continue to educate people until the deal is off the table.

“At this point, it’s an experiment, and a risky one,” McPhail said. “The people of the North are saying: we will not be your lab rats, we will not be your guinea pigs.”

She noted that there has been much public opposition to Shell’s activities, and that many municipalities and surrounding regional districts have signed a resolution in opposition to the development.

Opposition has also come from a group of Tahltan called the Klabona Keepers, who have previously set up blockades to the Klappan in protest of the development.

“I hope that Shell will continue to do the right thing and listen to the people,” McPhail said.

Last month, a number of non-governmental organizations including the Pembina Institute, Sierra Club B.C. and the Dogwood Initiative issued a call to the provincial government for a 10-year moratorium on coalbed methane to provide time for scientific studies to take place and improve regulatory systems.

Coalbed methane is natural gas found next to coal and often with water. Extracting it generally requires more wells than needed for conventional gas pockets and environmentalists say the water brought to the surface can be harmful to the environment.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:26 PM

August 10, 2008

B.C. Hydro tiered rate plan a jolt for Islanders

Watchdogs say Vancouver Island faces steep leap in electricity costs by 2010

Scott Simpson
Canwest News Service
Victoria Times Colonist
August 09, 2008

B.C. Hydro's proposal for two-tier electricity rates is so uneven that
it fails to meet a basic test of fairness for the utility's
residential customers, according to several watchdog groups.

Final arguments on the proposed rates, on file at the B.C. Utilities
Commission, indicate that the electricity pricing scheme is drawing
everything from praise to skepticism to outright condemnation.

A Vancouver Island group calculates by 2015, electricity will be
priced 36 per cent higher for an average Island resident, compared
with a resident of the Lower Mainland.

Meanwhile, the group representing Hydro's large industrial customers
says the pricing scheme "targets a few people with extreme bill
impacts for no good reason."

"Under B.C. Hydro's proposal some customers could experience
three-year bill impacts of up to 60 per cent or more," says the Joint
Industry Electricity Steering Committee.

"Hydro is wilfully blind to the extent of the harm it may inflict on
some of its customers," the steering committee says in its final
submission to the BCUC.

Other documents on file for the two-tier or Residential Inclining
Block (RIB) hearing confirm that, on average, people living in single
family homes and duplexes on Vancouver Island will be taking on a
disproportionately large share of the cost increases associated with
the scheme.

Island residents in single family homes and duplexes face an average
$190 increase in electricity rates by 2010, compared to a provincial
average of $111, and $89 in the Lower Mainland -- even though the
Island has the most moderate climate in the province.

That's because the Island has a preponderance of residents who rely on
electricity for home heating and hot water, and are more dependent on
power than Lower Mainland residents who have better access to natural
gas for heat energy.

Based on data gleaned from two separate hearings now underway, an
average Island resident in a single family home or duplex will pay
more each year for tier-two electricity than he or she does for a
larger amount at the base price, by 2010.

Moreover, intervenors in Hydro hearings have noted that the rates are
being kept artificially low due to a Hydro decision to defer about
one-third of its actual cash requirements for payback at some
unspecified future date.

The two-tier system establishes a baseline amount of electricity for
residential customers at a lower "tier-one" rate -- with all power
consumption above that amount priced significantly higher.

Hydro's proposal calls for the tier-one rate to remain relatively
stable, whereas the tier-two price jumps 33 per cent by 2010.

Hydro has about 1.5 million residential customers across B.C. and
900,000 of them -- or 60 per cent -- live in single family homes or
duplexes.

"People using electricity for heat are trusting B.C. Hydro and the
government to protect them from higher rates, and they don't really
know what's going on -- and some of them are going to get whacked,"
JIESC executive director Dan Potts said.

"If it's totally impossible to be fair and non-discriminatory in the
rate, why do we have to go ahead with it?"

Ludo Bertsch, a spokesman for the Energy Solutions for Vancouver
Island watchdog group, said Island residents on average use 45 per
cent more electricity than their mainland counterparts. "We expect to
pay more. We are consuming more," he said in a interview. "Hydro is
trying to encourage conservation. We understand that. The big skill
behind a proper rate design is that you do it in a fair manner."

According to Hydro, 75 per cent of its customers will be better off
under a two-tier system than if Hydro had opted for an
across-the-board increase in its existing, single-rate system.

Dag Sharman, B.C. Hydro senior media relations adviser, said Hydro has
been instructed by the province to make B.C. self-sufficient in
electricity production by 2016, and to meet half of all new demand
growth through conservation by 2020.

"That's our goal here and we think this is the best way to do it,"
Sharman said.

He said Hydro's Power Smart program and LiveSmart B.C. offer lots of
energy saving tips, inspection programs and rebates for customers who
want to cut their power consumption. "We are asking a lot of people to
conserve, and we are trying to help them out.''

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:42 AM

August 02, 2008

Teck Cominco buys Fording in $14.1-billion acquisition

COMMENT: Greenhouse gas emissions in BC are the target of the BC government's climate change agenda. GHG emissions are the target of everybody's climate change agenda.

But here's the catch. The emissions we're looking at, something above 66 megatonnes (MT) annually, are really only a third of what this province is really on the hook for. Because all of the natural gas we produce, gets burned somewhere. And all of the coal we produce (actually, the Teck Cominco/Fording/Elk Valley Coal Corp. mines produce virtually all of it) gets burned somewhere. And each of those - the annual production and combustion of 1.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and of 27 million tonnes of coal - is each the source of another 60 MT (very round numbers here). So all in, BC is the source of 180 to 200 MT of GHGs annually, not 66 MT.

The province's climate change policies aren't even looking at the gas and coal part. Both are economic engines and government hasn't tossed any carbon reduction spanners into those engines. So what's with this editorial whining from the Vancouver Sun?

Teck Cominco's Doug Horswill briskly anticipates another 100 years of coal production from the properties in the East Kootenays. In another recent article we noted that China is firing up a new coal-fired generation plant every ten days.

Whew. I just installed another compact fluorescent. That should balance things out a bit.



Record-breaking deal by Teck-Cominco says it all: Coal is the future


Editorial
Vancouver Sun
August 02, 2008

Teck-Cominco's eye-popping, $14-billion purchase of Fording Canadian Coal this week sends a clear signal that coal will play an important role in the future of British Columbia. The deal makes Teck-Cominco the world's second-largest producer of metallurgical coal -- the kind used in steelmaking -- and solidifies its status as Canada's largest diversified mining company.

Oil and gas grab all the headlines, but coal is B.C.'s -- and the world's -- most abundant hydrocarbon resource, with estimated B.C. reserves of 20 billion tonnes, and proven global reserves of more than 892 billion tonnes, or enough to meet demand at current consumption rates for two centuries.

It is also the most secure. More than 26 per cent of the world's coal reserves are in North America, compared with just five per cent of oil and six per cent of gas. Forget ethanol. Coal is the obvious answer to energy security for the United States and its neighbours.

While much of the coal B.C. exports is used to make steel (70 per cent of global steel production depends on coal), B.C. also digs up more than a million tonnes of thermal coal, used to generate power, with much of it sold to Japan and Korea.

Coal meets 50 per cent of U.S. electricity needs, 20 per cent of Canada's and 40 per cent of the world's. If energy demand grows as predicted, by as much as 60 per cent over the next 30 years, the world will increasingly depend on coal to satisfy it.

Coal gets a bad rap from environmentalists who don't like the fact that, like most everything else on earth, it emits carbon dioxide. But the industry has taken giant steps towards making the production and use of the mineral more environmentally benign. All manner of technologies are being actively pursued, including carbon capture and storage, hydrogen from coal, gasification and coal liquefaction.

The first coal-to-liquids plant in the U.S. has been greenlighted in West Virginia by Consul Energy and Synthesis Energy Systems. With the help of ExxonMobil, they hope to produce up to 100 million gallons of gasoline a year and sequester the carbon emissions, making it a "clean-coal" gasification plant.

Making gasoline from coal isn't a new idea. It fuelled the Luftwaffe in the Second World War.

Perhaps its hard for politicians to grasp that the battery of environmental and social tests mining projects are required to meet have doubled the length of time it takes to bring a greenfield mine into production to 10 years from five -- and that this delay drives up the cost of development as well as the price of the commodity, while exacerbating a demand-supply imbalance.

Environmentalists may not like it but our political leaders should recognize the value of coal, not only as a key export, but as a plentiful and accessible source of energy that can serve as a substitute for expensive oil and gas. To rule it out on the basis of a Dickensian view of a coal-fired world is wrong-headed and short-sighted.

Teck-Cominco, a company that knows a thing or two about minerals, believes coal is the future. Those responsible for ensuring we have sufficient energy to fuel economic growth should pay heed.



Teck Cominco buys Fording in $14.1-billion acquisition


Purchase of its Elk Valley partner is biggest coal deal on record

Fiona Anderson
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, July 30, 2008

It was the wee hours of Tuesday morning, close to 4 a.m. in Vancouver, when the final "i" was dotted and "t" crossed in British Columbia's largest takeover -- Teck Cominco's offer to buy out its Elk Valley partner, Fording Canadian Coal, for $14.1 billion.

At that price, the Fording acquisition is also the biggest coal deal on record, according to Gerard McCloskey, chairman of U.K.-based McCloskey Group, a coal-industry research company.

By phone and in person, representatives of the two companies, and their bankers and lawyers, worked around the clock in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and elsewhere. At least one negotiator had as little as eight hours sleep in four days.

"Everybody has been working around the clock," said Doug Horswill, Teck's senior vice-president for environment and corporate affairs.

And the timing couldn't be better. Vancouver-based Teck will pay $82 US per unit of Fording, an income trust, $3 of which represents the trust's last distribution to unitholders. Unitholders will also receive 0.245 Teck Class-B subordinate voting shares, the company's widely held class of shares. While technically a purchase of assets, the unitholders will receive the cash as a distribution, and the units will be collapsed.

Together the offer amounts to $93.76 Cdn a unit, based on the closing trading price of Teck shares and the exchange rate on July 28, the last day before the deal was announced. This works out to an 18-per-cent premium on the average weighted unit price over the 20 days up to July 25, Teck said in a news release. But it's below $97.50, the price Fording units traded at just a few weeks ago at the end of June.

But Horswill said Teck has been negotiating with Fording since the beginning of June, and while the unit price has softened recently, closing at $83.80 on Monday, Teck was in for the long term, not a short-term gain.

"We think there's an opportunity in the short run here to acquire this and pay down the acquisition relatively quickly," Horswill said. "But really, it's a 100-year asset that will keep us in a good steady business for generations."

Fording's principal asset is its 60-per-cent interest in the Elk Valley Coal Partnership which owns most or all of six metallurgical coal mines, five in British Columbia and one in Alberta. Teck owns the remaining 40 per cent, plus almost 20 per cent of Fording, which brings its actual ownership interest to 52 per cent.

As a result of its ownership in the partnership, Teck was already in "a very comfortable position," Horswill said.

"Our revenues even without buying [Fording] will be substantially up from last year," Horswill said.

That's thanks to the rising price of coal, which is negotiated company-by-company on a yearly contract basis. In April, Fording was able to secure an average price of $275 US per tonne, almost three times higher than the $93 US it was paid between April 2007 and March 2008.

Teck's main goal in acquiring Fording was to increase the amount of income it received from "non-exchange-traded commodities," Horswill said.

Much of Teck's business comes from zinc, copper and lead, whose prices fluctuate. But coal, with its annual contracted price, provides a steady, known stream of income, Horswill said.

"And the market normally pays a higher multiple [which translates into higher share prices] for that kind of business."

"So our belief is that as we move forward and get to where we want to be -- one-third of our normalized revenue from steady known income streams -- we think we'll start to get the multiples that big companies like [global resource company] BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto get," Horswill said.

"It's like a portfolio of assets which is worth more as a whole than it is in its parts."

Fording announced in December that it was looking at its options, including possible purchasers, in light of the federal government's announcement a year earlier that favourable tax treatment for income trusts would end in 2011.

The offer has to be approved by Fording unitholders and the court.

Fording units closed up $6.55, or 7.8 per cent, at $90.35, on the TSX on Tuesday while Teck shares rose $2.44, or six per cent to close at $42.85.

fionaanderson@vancouversun.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 05:22 PM

July 29, 2008

Ocean energy adrift in B.C.

Province not taking the initiative to become a world leader

Paul Luke
The Province
Sunday, July 27, 2008

121273-41466.jpg
New Energy Corp.'s president and CEO Clayton Bear (left) and business development vice-president
Bob Moll are among those pushing development of ocean energy across Canada.
CREDIT: Gerry Kahrmann, The Province

B.C.'s chance to become a global leader in ocean energy may drift out of reach unless the province decides to help the infant industry stay afloat.

Canada's west coast is blessed with enormous ocean energy resources and a handful of companies with world-beating technology, says Chris Campbell, executive director of Nanaimo-based Ocean Renewable Energy Group.

But unlike several European countries, B.C. has shown little desire to nurture the industry. Campbell predicts B.C. will be generating a significant amount of wave and tidal power in 15 to 20 years, but he worries that it may be using foreign technology.

"We're really at a critical point," says Campbell, whose non-profit organization pushes development of ocean energy across Canada.

"When we put in a wind farm or even a run-of-river project we're buying that technology from somewhere else."

"We've got a B.C.-based wave and tidal technology that could be among the world's leaders but if don't do something soon we may as well just get the box cutters out and open the boxes with the Scottish thistles on them."

Campbell is referring to the United Kingdom's aggressive support for ocean energy research and development over much of the past decade. While there's no clearcut leader in ocean energy technology -- "that's going to be decided over the next four to five years" -- Scotland may emerge as the country to beat, he says.

Vancouver-based Clean Current Power Systems could spoil that for the Scots. Clean Current has developed technology to convert the kinetic energy of tidal currents into electricity.

Clean Current has tested three prototype tidal turbines. One of these, a 65-kilowatt device, was tried out two years ago in the Race Rocks ecological reserve near Victoria.

The company is currently designing and building a commercial-scale turbine with a 17-metre diameter blade to be installed in the Bay of Fundy off Nova Scotia by fall of 2009.

Clean Current CEO Glen Darou says his company's turbines, which work like underwater windmills, are among the few such devices with a proven track record.

"There are something like 46 tidal energy businesses," Darou told last week's meeting of the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region in Vancouver. "There are only about four that have actually been in salt water operating."

B.C.'s other ocean energy companies have yet to go as far towards commercialization. That's one reason the industry was crestfallen when the provincial government bypassed it for funding earlier this month.

No ocean energy initiatives were among the first 15 projects chosen for funding from the government's $25-million Innovative Clean Energy Fund.

Nigel Protter, president of Pemberton-based SyncWave Systems, says B.C. is swimming in a policy vacuum when it comes to ocean energy.

"The possible outcomes of the B.C. government's neglect of the industry is that companies are withering, will wither and may have to leave," Protter told the PNWER meeting.

SyncWave's made-in-B.C. technology targets ocean energy's other stream: wave power. Its system absorbs energy from waves by resonating to the ocean's wave frequencies.

SyncWave hopes to have a demonstration device in the ocean next year. By 2012, it wants to have hybrid wave-diesel systems in place to serve remote communities.

Alberta's New Energy Corp. had, until recently, focused on extracting energy from freshwater streams. The company is developing tidal current applications for its technology by partnering with Campbell River-based Canoe Pass Tidal Energy.

The partners plan to develop tidal-current projects in the channel between Quadra and Maude islands. New Energy hopes to have two 250-kilowatt turbines in the water next year for demonstration purposes, says Bob Moll, New Energy's vice-president of business development.

B.C., the northern tip of Scotland and, perhaps, Chile are among the few areas in the world endowed with immense tidal and wave resources. Mike Tarbotton, head of Vancouver-based Triton Consultants, says B.C. has about 89 tidal energy sites adding up to about 4,015 megawatts of power.

Annual mean wave power off B.C.'s coast totals about 37,000 megawatts, according to a two-year-old inventory by the Canadian Hydraulics Centre.

On paper, that's equivalent to about half of Canada's electricity consumption. In practice only a fraction can be converted into useful power.

Ocean power, which is not affected by changing levels of precipitation, should become part of B.C.'s energy portfolio, Campbell argues.

Ocean energy projects, however, are expensive in their early stages. Venture capitalists after quick payoffs haven't exactly been flinging money at a sector that, like wind energy before it, will need years to test technology and cut costs.

B.C. Hydro, Campbell suggests, could commit to pay for 20 to 50 megawatts of installed ocean power capacity without imposing a heavy burden on ratepayers.

"We need to build an environment that makes it a little easier to attract financial investment," Campbell says. "That isn't simply government writing a cheque, although that helps, but government flying a flag that says we want to see ocean energy as part of the mix for British Columbia."

pluke@theprovince.com

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:58 AM

July 27, 2008

CRD urged to oppose Texada gas facility

Tanker traffic in strait poses danger: environmentalists

Bill Cleverley
Times Colonist
July 27, 2008


Capital Regional District directors want to hear from both sides before they weigh in on whether a liquefied natural gas plant, with its accompanying tanker traffic on the Inside Passage, should be built on Texada Island.

CRD environment committee members this week heard from representatives from the Georgia Strait Alliance, the Alliance to Stop LNG and Texada Action Now urging them to join the Powell River Regional District in opposing Alberta-based WestPac LNG Corp.'s plans to build a liquefied natural gas facility on Texada.

Saltspring Island director Gary Holman proposed the CRD add its voice to that of Powell River's.

Were the proposal to go ahead, coastal communities would be taking on the health and environmental safety risks associated with a project designed to ship natural gas to the U.S., said Holman.

"I think we should be supporting the Powell River Regional District," he said.

But committee members said they wanted to give proponents of the plant an opportunity to present their case before making a decision. Representatives from WestPac will now be invited to speak to the CRD board.

If the plant were built, LNG tankers the size of three football fields would travel up or down the Strait of Georgia every five days, Deborah Conner, executive director of the Georgia Strait Alliance and Arthur Caldicott, of the Alliance to Stop LNG and Texada Action Now told directors.

"Anything that's plying down the strait is of concern to us to us if it does have an environmental impact on the marine environment," Conner said.

The project could also feed LNG to the Lower Mainland and to Vancouver Island via existing pipelines.

Caldicott said the Texada proposal is designed to move natural gas into the high-demand U.S. market.

"B.C. produces far more natural gas than we use domestically. So any new gas coming in to Texada would net out with the same amount moving out of British Columbia elsewhere," Caldicott said.

"So in effect it's an import scheme to move more gas into the high-demand U.S. market. The other reason for Texada is that it's right on the B.C. Hydro transmission grid. It's the main line for Vancouver Island and with the gas-fired generation plant they have an easy connection to the grid."

He said tankers would travel through the Juan de Fuca Strait, up Haro Strait and then up the Strait of Georgia to Texada Island.

"This is one of the most densely travelled waterways in North America," Caldicott said.

The Powell River Regional District has passed a resolution calling on the federal government to implement a ban on LNG tanker traffic in the Strait of Georgia.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:23 AM

July 25, 2008

Oil and gas commissioner: no problems with Shell yet

COMMENT: A comment worth highlighting here is this, from OGC Commissioner Alex Ferguson:

"Ferguson said the commission prefers dealing with large companies who already know the rules and regulations. "They have pretty sophisticated planning. At least we know they've got the ability. It's a matter of reminding them of that," he said."

This statement confirms the concerns that other communities have had where small, ad hoc companies show up to develop coalbed methane. Companies in which it's clear they have no expertise, no financial capacity. Yet the OGC gives them drilling permits, too.

Terrace Standard
July 22, 2008

THE PROVINCIAL government's oil and gas regulator so far hasn't had any issues with Shell's plans to drill for coalbed methane natural gas in the Klappan area, its representatives say.

Approvals for three wells drilled in 2004 and approvals to drill up to 14 more starting this fall in the area north and to the east of here all met guidelines, says Alex Ferguson, the commissioner with the provincial regulator known simply as the Oil and Gas Commission.

"There's no hydrogen sulphide here, which is extremely dangerous, and there's no high pressure gas issues here," he said.

"The equipment footprint here is smaller [than with other drilling] and it's the same drilling equipment that you would use to drill a water well with," Ferguson added.

Shell's plans, so far, haven't come close to triggering more comprehensive environmental assessments that would be required by, for example, mining companies or other resource users.

As for Shell itself, Ferguson said the commission prefers dealing with large companies who already know the rules and regulations.

"They have pretty sophisticated planning. At least we know they've got the ability. It's a matter of reminding them of that," he said.

Ferguson and another commission official, Steve Simons, were in Terrace July 14 at the invitation of Terrace city council to explain how the commission works.

That was the first day of a two-day Shell open house here explaining its Klappan plans and the day before a anti-Klappan drilling rally was held here.

Environmental groups, individuals and some Tahltan whose traditional territory takes in the Klappan say the prospects of environmental damage from drilling aren't worth the risk.

Ferguson and Simons said the timing of their meeting with council was a coincidence.

And, they said, the commission has no part in the discussions or approvals as to whether Shell should be in the Klappan or not.

"That tenure's been sold," said Ferguson of the deal struck back in 2004 in which Shell bought drilling rights from the provincial government. "We get involved after tenure's been sold."

Simons said the commission makes sure the applications are technically sound and working within the laws of the province, as well as ensuring that oil and gas exploration are done in a safe manner.

"We act on the public's behalf," Simons said.

Ferguson said the commission's level of involvement will increase if and when Shell's drilling turns up enough information for it to think it could have a commercially viable venture on its hands.

If Shell does find enough natural gas to justify a large-scale project, that means it'll need to build a pipeline south.

That'll trigger another response by the commission since it has the responsibility for pipelines that start and end in B.C.

Pipelines that cross provincial borders generally fall under the jurisdiction of the federal National Energy Board.

There are about 300 companies involved with oil and gas exploration operating in the province.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:15 AM

Offshore debate heats up as talks continue

By Shaun Thomas
The Northern View
July 22, 2009

The debate over offshore oil and gas development off the B.C. coast heated up last week with North Coast MLA Gary Coons saying that drilling in the Queen Charlotte Basin would not be tolerated by the people of the North Coast.

"We want a living ecosystem; even if everyone else in the world thinks that money is more important than life, we don't. This is our home. We won't let anyone wreck it, not for money, not for oil," said Coons in response to a statement by Finance Minister Colin Hansen that the province continues to work with the Federal Government to open offshore oil and gas development.

"We don't care who says it is safe, we don't care who says that the risk is worth the money. We don't need it."

Calling offshore development "a huge economic opportunity" for the province, Minister of Energy and Mines Richard Neufeld said the province is continuing its push to lift the moratorium, but that any development would still be a long way off.

"I know some people say we would just jump in there, but that's not quite so."

"Let me be very clear, even if you lifted the ban you would not start drilling on the coast for a long time after that because there first has to come some consultation and some work on that front, you have to update the seismic that is there and you have to develop the final agreements between the federal and provincial government on responsibilities and regulations."

And when it comes to the economics of drilling, the two share very different views on the role oil and gas development play in the operation of the province.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:05 AM

Drill logs show Shell struck water

By Quinn Bender
Smithers Interior News
July 23, 2008

Royal Dutch Shell's claim that no water is being produced by coalbed methane test wells is being refuted by the company's own drill logs.

The oil giant has repeatedly claimed that three test wells drilled in 2004 exploring for coalbed methane did not produce any water, but drill logs obtained by The Interior News show that, in fact, the testing at one well site has on four instances caused artesian flow at depths from 179 to 311 metres.

Opponents to proposed coalbed methane exploration and extraction in the Klappan Valley, known colloquially as the Sacred Headwaters, said the drill logs conclusively prove Royal Dutch Shell is not forthcoming with their findings

"[The drill log] defeats Shell's mantra that they haven't found any water up there," said Shannon McPhail, executive director of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition (SWCC).

As a result of the artesian activity, Shell suspended drilling at the site and has since capped the well and reclaimed the surrounding area, according to a company spokesperson. Shell also stressed the water was not produced from a coal seam, but found at random depths in fresh ground-water tables.

"What's in this document is actually not produced water [from the coal seam], it's water that you would experience as you drill through different layers of rock," said Shell spokesperson Larry Lalonde. "What we're drilling for, where we would get the gas from the coal, is much deeper than the water that was experienced."

Whether or not the water was the dreaded flow from the coal seam, toxic to above- ground ecosystems, the SWCC is concerned the potential for such water threatens to mix with groundwater, and enter the environment through natural aquifers.

Lalonde insists produced water from the coal seam could not penetrate their well structure, four layers each of steel and concrete, to mix with subterranean fresh water.

Shell faced a battery of protests last week, during a series of public information sessions attended by a Royal Dutch Shell representative from the company's head office in the Netherlands.

The SWCC hand delivered a large box containing 1,730 letters from North Americans opposing Shell's project in the so-called Sacred Headwaters, the ecologically sensitive watershed where three of the province's major salmon-bearing rivers begin. The package was handed to Barnaby Briggs, from Shell International's Social Performance Management Unit, to hand deliver to Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer.

The handoff occurred amidst one of several protests outside Elks Hall, with representatives from several community and First Nations groups shouting anti-Shell slogans.

Despite the protests, Shell said the open house was well attended with approximately 80 people dropping in over the two-day period.

The protests fell on the heels of an official letter of opposition released by Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs.

"The Wet'suwet'en are in full support of the Tahl'tan in their fight against [Royal Dutch Shell] and have passed an agreement in principle to support the Friends of Wild Salmon Declaration."

That declaration was signed by the councils and board of directors of several Northwest towns and their districts, including the Town of Smithers. The Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako is awaiting a presentation from Shell Canada before voting on their endorsement of the declaration.

Having routinely promised the most environmentally sensitive operation possible, Shell is asking the public to await data from this season's test drilling before they pass judgement on the project. The company said it plans to drill six wells to determine whether the gas will flow, if those wells will produce the potentially toxic waste water and what scale of an operation will be needed if the project is green lit.

During an information session delivered to the Chamber of Commerce Thursday, the company hinted that the government permitting process would eventually require them to file an application for at least 1,000 wells total in the Klappan, Prudential and Nass Valleys.

"You want a company like Shell doing this," said spokesperson Kathy Penney. "Not five or six separate companies who will all do it their own way."

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/interior-news/news/25764174.html

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:03 AM

July 24, 2008

What went wrong? Still no answers

One year ago this week, an accident ruptured a pipeline in North Burnaby and sent nearly a quarter of a million litres of crude oil spurting over homes and into Burrard Inlet. Below, in the first part of a special report, reporter Brooke Larsen looks at the impact of the spill a year later.

Brooke Larsen
Burnaby Now
Wednesday, July 23, 2008

what-went-wrong.jpg
The aftermath: Workers begin the task of cleaning
the shoreline after last summer's oil spill.
CREDIT: File photos/BURNABY NOW

A year after a massive oil spill wreaked havoc on Inlet Drive, investigators aren't saying what went wrong.

Art Nordholm, lead investigator for the Transportation Safety Board, said it will be three or four months before the board releases its findings on the oil pipeline rupture.

Nordholm said the board's investigation focused on the cause of the break, which is also under investigation by the National Energy Board and Environment Canada.

Nearly a quarter of a million litres of oil spurted onto Inlet Drive on July 24, 2007 after a city-hired contractor struck an underground pipeline owned by Kinder Morgan Canada.

The spill caused millions of dollars of damage to homes and city property and launched a large cleanup of Burnaby's shoreline.

Nordholm said a draft report is finished and must be sent out to interested parties for review.

"So it would be a while yet before it's going to be released," Nordholm said, adding he hasn't seen a copy of the report.

National Energy Board spokesperson Sarah Kiley said the National Energy Board's report won't be released until the Transportation Safety Board report is released because the two agencies work together.

Kiley said the energy board is looking at whether there were any violations of the National Energy Board Act, which governs the operation of oil pipelines and carries maximum fines of $1 million.

A spokesperson from Environment Canada declined the NOW's request for an interview.

Headed for the courtroom?

The outcome of the investigations could play a role in the various lawsuits stemming from the spill, city solicitor Bruce Rose said in an interview.

"Potentially, they could be used as evidence," Rose said, adding it's up to the courts to decide who is liable for the spill.

Rose said residents whose homes were damaged have launched "at least a dozen" lawsuits. The suits have not progressed past the initial statements of claim.

"They were filed, but I mean there's been no examinations for discovery," Rose said.

In 2007, Shell Canada filed the first lawsuit stemming from the spill, naming Kinder Morgan Canada, the City of Burnaby and the city's contractor, Cusano Contracting.

Shell wants to recover costs from 11 days of lost production after the spill.

Trans Mountain Pipeline, owned by Kinder Morgan, has also launched a lawsuit, claiming Burnaby failed to locate the company's underground pipeline before it started sewer work on Inlet Drive.

Among the damages in its statement of claim, the company lists loss of reputation, lost oil and the cost of repairing private properties.

The City of Burnaby, meanwhile, maintains that Kinder Morgan supplied the city with inaccurate maps of the pipeline's location.

A pipeline map signed by Kinder Morgan early last year was off by several metres, a City of Burnaby engineer says.

The map, viewed by the Burnaby NOW last week, is part of a crossing agreement prepared by consultant R.F. Binnie and Associates. The city hired R.F. Binnie to prepare the crossing agreement between Burnaby and Terasen Pipelines, operated by Kinder Morgan Canada, for sewer work the city planned to do, Geoff Tsuyuki said,

The agreement, dated Feb. 9, 2007, gave Burnaby permission to carry out sewer work near the company's pipeline.

Tsuyuki, who is manager of contracts and inspections in Burnaby's engineering department, said R.F. Binnie mapped the pipeline's location using information supplied by Kinder Morgan.

"They (R.F. Binnie) have to prepare these drawings based on information they receive from the utilities," Tsuyuki said.

The map was then sent to Kinder Morgan for approval, he said.

The map, which was initialled by two Kinder Morgan employees, bears a stamp that reads, "All information is subject to field verification by a Kinder Morgan inspector."

Tsuyuki said that, while the initials relate to the location of the crossings, it's common for utilities to say at that stage whether they have an "issue" with the maps or the project.

"If they think there's an issue with it, they may say, 'That's too close,'" Tsuyuki said.

He added, "I'm not sure what their (Kinder Morgan's) process is."

Tsuyuki said the map shows the pipeline's location as running a few metres south of where the pipeline rupture occurred.

"According to the map, it's just under three metres," Tsuyuki said.

A spokesperson for Kinder Morgan Canada did not return phone calls before Burnaby NOW deadlines.

blarsen@burnabynow.com

© Burnaby Now 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:27 AM

July 22, 2008

Risks escalating on maxed-out BC hydro grid

Power so tight that Hydro will pay industrial users to shut down on peak winter days

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, July 19, 2008

Our electricity supply is so tight that BC Hydro is asking permission to pay industrial customers to shut down operations on peak winter days when the system gets close to capacity.

B.C. will be in that situation "for the next several years" according to documents recently submitted to the B.C. Utilities Commission.

BCHydroCapEx1990-2010.jpg

This situation illustrates how the flaws and risks of failure in BC Hydro's aging electricity system don't stop with the faulty cable splices that blacked out downtown Vancouver this week.

The entire system, every bit of it, from the dams that capture water to generate power, to the wires distributing electricity to people's homes, is maxed out.

Or, in the words of the Crown corporation itself, "BC Hydro is facing capacity constraints in all parts of its system."

Recent Hydro filings with BCUC state that the B.C. electricity grid is "significantly exposed" to the risk that Hydro won't have enough power in the system when four million residents flick on lights, furnaces and other appliances on the coldest, darkest days of the winters ahead.

So far, there's no indication that Hydro's overall ability to deliver electricity is fading to black.

In spite of a blackout in Vancouver's core business and tourism district for up to three days this week, the reliability of service is comparable to other North American jurisdictions, according to internationally established performance measures.

Nonetheless, it's clear from the documents that the Crown corporation's dedicated corps of electrical engineers and linemen will be holding their breath when the mercury drops, and counting on steady performance from hydroelectric facilities that are already showing signs of age.

Remedies are years away. Hydro and its critics acknowledge that chronic under-spending on the system in the 1990s, and a lack of recruitment of electrical line workers and engineers all the way back to the early 1980s, make it difficult to catch up.

Last year, for example, "inadequate long-term planning" left BC Hydro with a "skill shortage" that forced it to forego $105 million worth of system improvement projects because it didn't have enough workers to carry out of all the work it planned.

New independent power facilities are not the answer. They offer intermittent production that is not reliable enough to serve baseline needs in crucial situations.

Other potential sources such as Burrard Thermal and Columbia Treaty power require advance scheduling and force Hydro into an iffy situation where it must bet, in advance, how much power people will use the following day.

Reliance on market-priced power imports from the U.S. isn't just expensive, it's also in conflict with orders from the provincial government to make B.C. self-sufficient in electricity by 2016. Moreover, Hydro notes, the power lines themselves already run at capacity in winter, particularly along border connections.

Hydro is proposing to spend $3.4 billion by 2010 -- paid for by customers through a 15-per-cent rate increase over two years -- to begin to "renew and upgrade" its dams, generating stations and the complex system of wires that distribute power to customers. That won't be enough to overcome the strains on a system that has not had a major expansion since 1984.

Hydro thinks paying big industrial users to shut down will leave enough room in the system to meet sudden spikes in demand. Documents show that without the industrial "load curtailment" program, there is only a 55-to-60-per-cent likelihood that Hydro will have electricity to spare at peak times this winter.

That means 40 to 45 per cent of the time, the system will run flat out.

That is far from Hydro's ideal. Its "operational planning criteria" target is to have surplus power at least 90 per cent of the time.

The industrial program already exists in a scaled-down version on Vancouver Island, where the possibility of blackouts has already been raised in the absence of new high-voltage cables to bring more power from the mainland.

The new cable route is mostly built, save for a controversial section through Tsawwassen that continues to meet vigorous opposition from some residents.

A spokesman for industrial users said in an interview he sees no problem in his members striking accords with Hydro. But even so, there are substantial challenges. In March 2008 for example, one of the turbines at Shrum Generating Station on the Peace River -- the largest hydroelectric station in the province -- suffered what engineers describe as a "catastrophic failure" and is out of commission for a year. Four others on the same bank of turbines are showing similar symptoms of stress, and all have been in service since the 1960s.

"Aging infrastructure, if not adequately maintained or replaced when conditions warrant, can have a profound effect on the safety and reliability of the electric system," Hydro states in its revenue requirements application to the BCUC.

Hydro president and CEO Bob Elton said in an interview this week the Shrum unit failure "is not going to affect our reliability" and he says Hydro is "accelerating" its expenditures on the system.

"If you see the condition of [Hydro assets] deteriorating, and you see the demands on them increasing, which is what we see, then we know we need to invest."

Elton noted that Hydro is preparing to add almost 2,000 megawatts of new generating capacity, almost 20 per cent more than what Hydro has at present.

Hydro looks to add two additional generators at Revelstoke and two at Mica, the second- and third-largest hydroelectric facilities in the province.

"We feel strongly that these are necessary investments," Elton said. "We need to pass on to the next generation a system that's better equipped for the demands of our modern life."

By 2010, Hydro proposes to spend $1.7 billion in a single year, compared to $412 million in 2001, the year the BC Liberal Party took power.

The construction of new generating assets, as well as new high voltage transmission and lower voltage distribution lines, is projected to alleviate the current squeeze.

But Hydro warns that in the meantime, "the system remains significantly exposed to risks" including delays in construction at Revelstoke and Mica, and delays in maintenance work on broken units, such as the failed turbine at Shrum.

B.C. energy sector commentator David Austin, who expressed alarm in 2000 about Hydro's apparent failure to spend enough money to maintain its system, said one of the largest challenges is simply getting the refurbishment of the system underway.

The lead time to purchase a new turbine is measured in years, not weeks or months, for example.

"There was under-spending in the 1990s, but you can't suddenly turn the tap on and correct the problem overnight," Austin said.

"It's like jump-starting a car. It takes a while to get it moving."

Dan Potts, executive director of the Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee, which represents the interests of large industrial customers of BC Hydro, said he doesn't perceive this week's three-day blackout in downtown Vancouver as a symptom of any looming system failure.

"We're not dissatisfied with the level of reliability we typically receive from BC Hydro," Potts said. "Now, if I was in downtown Vancouver and lost a freezer full of food, I don't know what I'd think.

"BC Hydro does need to build some new infrastructure, without question."

Gwenne Farrell, president of Canadian Office and Professional Employees Local 378, representing Hydro inside workers, said her members remain concerned that the provincial government's priority remains the expansion of private-sector power rather than fixing the grid.

"If you look at BC Hydro's own application to the BCUC for their revenue requirement, the largest amount of the rate increase they are going for is energy purchases from private producers, not the maintenance of the infrastructure. You have to question how that is appropriate," Farrell said in an interview.

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:00 PM

July 16, 2008

Canada's Kitimat LNG hopes to start terminal construction Q3 2009

COMMENT: There are a set of interdependencies here. It's a variation on "for want of a button ..."

- No dirt will be dug until the capital to build the Kitimat LNG (KLNG) import terminal (estimated in 2005 as $500 million, likely substantially higher today) has been secured.

- No capital will be secured for the LNG terminal, until the capital to build the Kitimat-Summit Lake expansion (KSL) of the Pacific Natural Gas pipeline (estimated also since 2005 as costing $1 billion) has been secured, because without the KSL, the gas from KLNG is as locked in as if it were still in the ground in Deeper Petrostan. The two projects, KLNG and KSL are for each, a sine qua non. That is, it's neither or both.

- No capital for either project will secured until KLNG can demonstrate to lenders or investors that the project(s) will safely provide a return on the investment.

- That means, KLNG has to secure customers who want gas from its operation, and KSL has to secure shippers who will utilize the pipeline. And we're not talking a token, here - the ROI will only be secured by a high utilization rate of both the terminal and the pipeline - which again, mean the same thing, really.

- The exception to this equation is if KLNG can persuade anyone (including itself) to build a honking big gas-fired generation plant in Kitimat. Hello, BC Hydro. Kitimat LNG has pondered this possibility.

- No customer will commit to either project unless it knows gas will be forthcoming. At best, customers might sign contingency agreements, or take options, requiring KLNG to show them the money, that is, show that it has long term LNG supply contracts.

- Securing long term contracts for LNG may be the biggest challenge KLNG and other importers face. There may be enough gas in the world, but there isn't enough liquifying capacity to meet demand. Japan, Korea, China - these are the global price setters. Not North America. Also, the price of LNG, like the price of natural gas, follows the price of oil. LNG suppliers have no incentive at present to sign long term supply contracts. The oft-repeated wisdom is that carriers are rerouted at sea, as the shippers, or owners of the contents, discover better spot pricing. Not good when you are depending on gas for your tar sands cooker, need to know your pipeline is full and flowing, and are depending on ships arriving at your terminal.

This article confirms that Kitimat LNG still does not have customers, and that it has made no headway with the only possible supplier mentioned (and the nearest source), Russia's Gazprom. My take is, this is a bad news article for KLNG and KSL, not good news. My track record with predictions? Ah, did you have to ask?

Platts
www.platts.com
15-Jul-2008

Tokyo (Platts)--15Jul2008

Calgary-based Kitimat LNG expects to start construction of its proposed LNG import terminal in British Columbia, Canada in the third quarter of 2009, if it finalizes commercial agreements in the next six months, Kitimat LNG president Rosemary Boulton said Tuesday.

"We are working closely with potential customers, and if we can finalize commercial arrangement in the next six months, we will start construction in the fall of 2009, in the third quarter," Boulton told the 3rd Annual LNG World conference in Tokyo.

That would fit in with the environmental assessment issues, she added.

Kitimat LNG plans to commission its 1 Bcf/d LNG import and regasification terminal near the port of Kitimat in 2012-2013, Boulton said, adding that 2013 was the "most likely" start-up timeline.

The facility can be further expanded to 1.6 Bcf/d, "once we get commercial certainty, contracts," she said.

Boulton declined to name the customers Kitimat LNG was in talks with, saying the company was "in the middle of discussions."

With Russian gas giant Gazprom, which has been increasingly looking at North American terminal capacity for its future LNG, Boulton said Kitimat LNG has not progressed towards any commercial agreement with the company.

"We had preliminary discussions with them, but we have not really been able to progress [anywhere] towards commercial arrangements with Gazprom," she said on the sidelines of the conference.

The terminal will be able to handle LNG carriers of up to 266,000 cubic meters and is permitted to have three LNG storage tanks with a capacity of 160,000 cu m each.

A gas transmission system, Pacific Trail Pipelines, is to be built from the LNG import terminal to Summit Lake in British Columbia, from where the gas can further access key North American markets, including California, through a number of existing pipelines.

PTP has already received provincial environmental approval in June, and expects to receive federal approval in the third quarter of 2008, Boulton said.

PTP, a $1 billion, 470 kilometer pipeline will provide the terminal with a direct connection to the existing Spectra Energy Transmission pipeline system on the West Coast, which is linked with other major pipelines running to a number of Canadian and US destinations.

If the LNG terminal is later expanded to 1.6 Bcf/d, more compressors will be added to PTP, Boulton said.

PTP is a 50:50 partnership between Canada's privately-owned Galveston LNG, which is Kitimat LNG's sole parent, and Pacific Northern Gas, which owns and operates gas transmission and distribution systems.

--Anna Shiryaevskaya, anna_shiryaevskaya@platts.com>anna_shiryaevskaya@platts.com
--Takeo Kumagai, takeo_kumagai@platts.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:28 PM

First Nations support green run-of-river power projects

Ken Brown, Walter Paul and Darren Blaney
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Over the past few months the NDP Opposition, union leaders and organizations formed and backed by these political groups have implemented a campaign of public meetings and media misinformation on run-of-river power projects.

Seemingly lost in this disturbingly paternalistic and blatantly ideological campaign against run-of-river green energy projects are the interests of first nations communities partnering with independent power producers.

The majority of these green projects -- whether they are run-of-river, wind, tidal or biomass -- exist in the core traditional territories of first nations across this province. For many years first nations have been working to put what we believe are the appropriate environmental, economic and social decision-making processes in place to assess whether an individual project(s) should receive the consent.

Despite what the anti-IPP movement would have you believe, first nations are the front line environmental and economic stewards of our territories. These are the lands and waters that must sustain our nations in perpetuity. We participate in the environmental assessment process and often augment it with our own traditional use studies and archaeological studies. To suggest these studies are not done is blatantly untrue and is disrespectful. In many cases, these IPP projects are directly helping to re-build a sustainable economic base to replace what has been lost.

While there are undoubtedly projects and developers that have no business coming into our traditional territories, the suggestion that the entire IPP sector should be shut down is nothing more than self serving, politically inspired rhetoric. In our view there is a very welcome place for private sector partnerships, direct first nation equity ownership and better agreements with BC Hydro for our nations involved in the power production business. To eliminate any of these options, when our province clearly needs renewable energy to stop importing dirty power from foreign jurisdictions, is foolhardy and runs contrary to all of our interests.

For too many years first nations in this province have been purposely shutout of economic activities on the land base and therefore stuck in a negative and destructive framework of economic dependency. Despite its relatively short history, we believe strongly the IPP sector is resulting in more jobs, steady revenue streams, and capacity building for our nations. By working together, we believe this positive start can continue to mature and will become an even more important foundation for many of our nations.

The anti-IPP movement would be wise to tone down the rhetoric, get their facts straight and work positively with us to build a better industry.

Chief Ken Brown is with the Klahoose First Nation; Chief Walter Paul is with the Sliammon First Nation; Chief Darren Blaney is with the Homalco First Nation.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:55 PM

July 12, 2008

Bechtel Gains $200-Million (U.S.) Contract For Kitimat Project

Nickle's Energy Analects
11 July 2008

Bechtel Corporation says it has signed a $200-million (U.S.) contract to provide engineering, procurement and construction management for the Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. modernization project at the smelter complex in Kitimat, British Columbia.

The proposed $2.5 billion Kitimat Modernization Project would increase production capacity at the smelter by 40%, taking it up to 400,000 tons per year and increase Rio Tinto annual global primary aluminum production capability by more than three per cent.

This will make Kitimat one of the largest Rio Tinto smelters in the world.

Plans call for the Kitimat aluminum production capacity to increase by 125,000 tons by using hydroelectric power from the generating station at the complex. The modernization and green power usage is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40% per year.

First metal from the modernized smelter is expected in 2011.

In January, the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) accepted the approach and objectives proposed by BC Hydro and Power Authority in a long-term electricity purchase agreement (EPA) reached with Alcan Inc for supply from the Kemano hydroelectric facility.

The term of the EPA was retroactive from Oct. 1, 2007 and extends to Dec. 31, 2034.

Subsequent to submitting the proposed EPA, Alcan was acquired in November 2007 and renamed Rio Tinto Canada Holding Inc. (RTCH).

The commission concluded the net benefits to ratepayers, calculated by comparing the cost of the 2007 EPA to other resource alternatives, would still be positive under most reasonable scenarios and likely range between $65 million and $120 million under a natural gas price forecast by by the Energy Information Administration in the United States.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:41 AM

July 08, 2008

Power line needs mining money, says energy minister

Terrace Standard
July 08, 2008

MINING COMPANIES can forget about any government effort to build a power line up Hwy37 North unless one or more of them has a project ready to go and money on the table, says provincial energy minister Richard Neufeld.

He's rejected even reviving technical and environmental studies on what's commonly called the Northwest Transmission Line until that happens.

The multi-million dollar line was to run from Terrace to Bob Quinn Lake and was announced last fall by Premier Gordon Campbell as a partnership between the province and mining companies.

The province was to pay nearly $250 million and NovaGold Resources and TeckCominco, partners in the Galore Creek copper and gold mine construction project, another $158 million for the $400 million line.

Galore Creek was going to get the power it needed by building a feeder line to connect to the larger line at Bob Quinn Lake and other power would be available to other mining companies who needed it when their own projects began.

But when work on Galore Creek stopped last fall as costs far outran the construction budget, the province also stopped any and all work on the line.

Since then, mining companies, companies which serve the mining industry and local and regional governments, have amassed a $300,000-warchest to finance a lobbying campaign to keep the Northwest Transmission Line alive.

But even requests to do all of the paperwork, including reaching agreements with area First Nations, so the line is construction-ready when mining companies themselves are ready have been rebuffed by Neufeld, who said taxpayers would blast the province for spending tax monies in that fashion.

"What would Fred and Martha say to the government if it wanted to spend $400 million on a line and there's nothing there. Are there any projects? We had one and that was Galore Creek," said Neufeld.

Even doing all of the paperwork in advance of there being an actual mining project wouldn't fly because it might be outdated by the time a mining company had its permits and financing, the minister added.

"I guarantee you we can get a line there in the same time frame. I'm confident we can do it in parallel," said Neufeld of a company building a mine while the province constructed a power line. "That makes sense."

"What if Galore Creek was five years away? You'd be back to Square One," he said of environmental and other approvals needed for a line's construction.

Mining companies - and the public - shouldn't doubt the province's commitment to build a power line once conditions warrant it.

As proof, Neufeld said the province provided the Galore Creek partnership a guarantee as part of the Northwest Transmission Line agreement.

"They wanted assurances the line would be there. What we said was that if we could not get power to them by 2009, then BC Hydro would have put in diesel generators," he said.

Neufeld also questioned the contrast between companies wanting the province to move ahead with the power line compared to the money they'd make from operating mines.

"I had one company say they'd recover the $2.5 billion it would cost them [in mine construction costs] in three years. So if they can do that, what's the hold up with $158 million for a line? Why are they asking the taxpayers to fund the whole line?" he said.

"We're as committed as we ever were but we're looking for partners," he added.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:53 AM

July 03, 2008

Kinder Morgan ramping up pipeline plans

Dormant northern leg being revived

Jon Harding
Canwest News Service
July 02, 2008

CALGARY -- A second large shipper of oil from Canada to the United States has confirmed interest is heating up between Canadian producers and refining customers in Asia and along the United States' West Coast.

As a result, Kinder Morgan Canada began two months ago to ramp up internal planning work on a long-talked-about -- but basically dormant -- northern leg concept for the company's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, according to chief executive Ian Anderson.

The proposed northern leg, a concept Kinder Morgan has had in the wings for years, would stretch in British Columbia from Valemont to a deep-water port at Kitimat on the West Coast, passing by Prince George on the way.

Kinder Morgan is in the midst of expanding its system between Edmonton and Vancouver, and will have completed the looping of its anchor line by the end of the year to boost capacity between Edmonton and Valemont to 300,000 barrels of oil a day.

In an interview this week, Anderson said interest in a West Coast crude outlet is growing. Anderson also talked about progress being made in Alberta around carbon capture and storage and the movement of carbon dioxide, via pipeline, from large emitters to either storage locales or to companies ready to use the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery.

American parent Kinder Morgan Inc. is the largest transporter of CO2 in the U.S.

Q: So what's your take the "dirty oil" talk emanating from the United States and does it pose a threat to the Canadian oilsands industry?

A: Our views are that ultimately producers will look for optional markets

. . . . The political rhetoric coming out of the U.S. is just that, largely posturing (around a U.S. presidential election) and the right conclusions will be reached. I think it's important for the producers, the Alberta and Canadian governments to have their eyes on it and be responsive to it, though.

Calmer heads will ultimately prevail. In the long run, it's the largest market in the world and (Canada's oilsands) are right next door to it.

Q: Has the mood at all changed on either side of the border about doing business together, with Canadian oilsands producers on one side and refiners based in the United States on the other?

A: I think there is increasing interest in the West Coast. I don't know if that is only or directly attached to the "dirty oil" conversations in the U.S. We're in the midst of expanding to the West Coast (Vancouver) today, we have our rout to Kitimat as well, just like Enbridge does. By this fall, we'll be looped right through those parks (Jasper National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park) to Valemont and Valemont is the takeoff point to go to Kitimat. That infrastructure is to serve a northern route as well, so we'll have pipe in the ground if that's where the market wants to go.

Q: Why, from your standpoint, did the West Coast pipeline option turn quiet two years ago?

A: Supply contracts couldn't reached and they (producers and customers) still aren't underpinning it. It's in the business development phase. What we saw in the last 12 months was a more concerted attention looking at the U.S. Gulf Coast and the pipelines responded. Now it's reverting back to the West Coast again, which is where it was a couple of years ago.

Q: How can a deep-water port be developed at Kitimat when there is an oil development moratorium in place that some believe includes a ban on oil supertanker traffic off the West Coast of Canada?

A: That's debatable. Whether the offshore moratorium on development includes, as it does in some people's minds, tankers. It's a political debate. We have an Aframax (a type of smaller oil tanker) -sized facility in Vancouver that, given the economics today on oil, after transportation is facilitating producer business developments overseas.

Q: Why then have you been working with the B.C. government, First Nations communities and talking with Alberta producers about the TMX's northern leg in the last two months?

A: With all the Gulf Coast alternatives out there for consideration, what market access is the next wave? I think the West Coast is it and I think we're very well-positioned with existing assets and relationships to advance expansion to the West Coast.

Q: How large and how expensive would a northern leg pipeline be?

A: It would carry 400,000 barrels a day. We did a cost estimate 18 months ago, but I wouldn't want to speculate now.

We've seen pipeline construction costs, steel costs probably go up by 20 to 25 per cent in the last year to 18 months.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:50 AM

July 01, 2008

Water expert raises alarm about coal-bed mining in salmon rivers

MARK HUME
Globe and Mail
July 1, 2008

VANCOUVER -- When John Stockner talks about water, people listen.

Dr. Stockner, now retired from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is one of Canada's most eminent scientists in the field of limnology, the study of lakes and other fresh water.

More than 30 years ago, he did groundbreaking research that allowed DFO to boost sockeye productivity by fertilizing nutrient-starved lakes in British Columbia.

Dr. Stockner was among a small group of scientists who first realized that the harvesting of adult salmon on the West Coast was robbing lakes and rivers of annual injections of marine nutrients.

Instead of decomposing after spawning and thereby releasing phosphorous and other valuable nutrients into the water, the bodies of the salmon were going off to market.

As the level of nutrients fell, stocks declined even more because young salmon feed on plankton, and the plankton crops were failing because of a lack of fertilizer.

When Dr. Stockner looks at a watershed in B.C. then, this is what he sees: an intricate web of life that involves everything from the top predators down to the tiniest algae.

And all of that, he knows, has to be in balance if salmon are to flourish.

So it is significant that Dr. Stockner is now raising alarms about the threat coal-bed methane mining holds for salmon rivers in northern B.C.

Dr. Stockner raised his concerns recently in an e-mail letter to Premier Gordon Campbell.

"I have studied and written about lakes and reservoirs in this province for over 35 years, including studies on lakes of the Nass, Skeena, Fraser, and Nechako rivers and lakes of the north and central coast, Queen Charlotte and Vancouver islands," he wrote.

"I have also studied lakes in Montana, Idaho and Washington states and collectively written about the productive capacities of Pacific Northwest lakes to support wild sockeye salmon; offering, where possible, effective means of enhancement and run restoration. I have read and talked with colleagues in the Pacific Northwest about the implications of coal-bed methane extraction on lakes and rivers and seen pictures of the effects of their operations in Wyoming on aquatic biota and their habitat.

"I strongly object to this province even contemplating the extraction of methane and allowing a multi-national company to enter a pristine region of B.C. - wherein lies the birthing-place [source] of three of B.C.'s major northern rivers. To use a medical analogy, the environmental damage from coal-bed methane extraction operations are not as some would like to believe - 'benign,' rather they are 'malignant' and of long-term duration. Effluents once in the ground then entering groundwater and eventually surface flows can severely impact the physico-chemical balances of rivers and streams for several decades!"

It is not like Dr. Stockner to use an exclamation mark in his writings.

But he is deeply worried about the threat coal-bed methane mining poses in an area known as the Sacred Headwaters, where three of B.C.'s greatest rivers - the Skeena, Nass and Stikine - are born.

"In my vision as an aquatic scientist, I firmly believe that this Province cannot afford to play with any exploration or production of coal-bed methane in the headwaters of these major salmon bearing systems," Dr. Stockner wrote.

"Please carefully consider the options before you - to preserve the sanctity of these three major northern rivers and their wild salmon or continue the madness of pursuing coal-bed methane in their headwaters. In my eyes, your legacy as a forward-thinking 'green' premier is at stake with my three children and six grandchildren."

The Premier's office gets flooded with e-mails every year and it is likely that Dr. Stockner's letter was probably never put in front of Mr. Campbell to be read.

If that's the case, the Premier's staff should dig it out of the pile now and make sure he gets it.

Dr. Stockner knows water better than just about anybody in Canada.

And if he's this worried about coal-bed methane mining, Mr. Campbell should know about it.

Shell Canada Ltd. has been granted tenure to drill on 412,000 hectares of land about 150 kilometres northwest of Smithers, where the Skeena, Nass and Stikine all have headwaters.

Shell's project is in the early exploratory stages, but the plans call for more than 1,000 wells to be dug to extract methane.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:19 AM

June 30, 2008

Loopholes offer sweet deal for big polluters

One columnist making cheap'n'easy journalistic hay (3 columns: like the old Batman show - biff! bam! kapow!) ...

Loopholes offer sweet deal for big polluters
Out-of-province cruise ships, flights, trucks won't pay

Michael Smyth
The Province
Sunday, June 29, 2008

Gordon Campbell says his carbon tax will whallop everyone equally, but read the fine print of the regulations and what do you find?

Loopholes big enough for Arnold Schwarzenegger to drive his fleet of Hummers through! Check out who WON'T be paying the carbon tax come Tuesday:

Cruise ships

Cruise ships with a port of call outside of British Columbia -- pretty much all of them -- won't have to pay the carbon tax. This despite the fact that cruise ships pump out more carbon dioxide on a per-passenger basis than a Boeing 747.

International shipping

Local ships plying our domestic waters must pay the carbon tax, but international ships won't. So if a tugboat hauls a log up the coast to a local sawmill, it gets whacked with the tax. But export a barge of raw logs to the United States or China and those logs travel carbon-tax-free. How is this good for the environment again?

By the way, the shipping and cruising industries fought hard for these carbon-tax exemptions.

"This decision follows discussions between government officials and the Chamber of Shipping members over the previous month," the chamber revealed on its website. "The Chamber of Shipping is pleased the department engaged industry in the regulatory development, listened to the marine carriers' concerns, and decisively took the appropriate action."

Well, bully for them! Now don't you wish there was a Chamber of Barbecuing that could have snagged an exemption for your propane tank?

Out-of-province flights

Aviation fuel used for flights within B.C. get whacked by the carbon tax, but flights in and out of the province do not.

That means if you fly from Vancouver to Prince George to visit your sick mom, or if you hop a floatplane to Victoria on a business trip, get set to pay the carbon-tax man. But when Campbell flies to Hawaii to relax at his vacation property, he flies carbon-tax-free.

Or consider this scenario, which shows the regional unfairness of the carbon tax: A direct flight from Vancouver to Toronto is exempt from the carbon tax. But if you live in the boonies and have to take a connecting flight that touches down at YVR, the connecting flight gets whacked. Take that, B.C. heartlands!

Visiting military forces and diplomats

No carbon tax on American submarines at Nanoose Bay. You're welcome, Dubya.

Fuel used on, or delivered to, native reserves by aboriginal people

That includes the Tsawwassen reserve. They don't start paying taxes under their new treaty for another eight years.

Fuel used to manufacture anodes in an electrolytic process for smelting aluminum

Translation into English, as spoken at the head office of Alcan: "Score!"

Fuel used as a reductant in the production of lead or zinc

Translation into English, as spoken at the head office of Teck-Cominco: "Sweet!"

Cross-border trucking

Truck a load of organic carrots up the road to the local farmers market and you get whacked with the carbon tax. But import a truckload of lettuce across the border from California, and that foreign food enters B.C. carbon-tax-free. Guess Campbell never heard of the 100 Mile Diet.

And many, many others

Including "industrial processes" in the cement and oil-and-gas sectors and "fugitive emissions" from farms and landfills.

Whalloping everyone equally, eh? When it comes to Campbell's carbon tax, some are more equal than others.

E-mail: msmyth@direct.ca

© The Vancouver Province 2008


Carbon tax could be Campbell's undoing
As federal Tories slam Stephane Dion, B.C. premier may face fallout

Michael Smyth
The Province
Friday, June 27, 2008

Saying Gordon Campbell's gas tax is facing a "perfect storm" of public anger has become something of a cliche in B.C., but it's hard to look at the political weather chart and come to a different forecast.

Take a look what happened just yesterday: Oil hit $140 a barrel for the first time ever, triggering triple-digit stock-market plunges in New York and Toronto. Gas prices in Vancouver ticked up another penny a litre, topping out at more than $1.48 in some locations. TransLink said it was considering new highway tolls or vehicle levies to raise money.

In other words, it was another day of terrible news for anyone who has to drive a car or truck to make a living or get on with their lives.

And here comes Campbell with his 2.34-cents-a-litre gas tax to give you another kick in the chops this Tuesday. Campbell's tax could have the dubious distinction of pushing the price at the pump past the psychological barrier of $1.50 a litre.

Happy Canada Day, chump, and enjoy the salt in your wounds.

For the first time ever, meanwhile, public anxiety over soaring energy prices has become the No. 1 concern of British Columbians.

According to the Mustel polling company, worries about energy costs have trumped the environment, the economy, health care, crime and every other worrisome category. Talk about a bad time to raise the anxiety level.

It's starting to take a toll on the Liberals. The governing party has dropped two points to 47-per-cent support in the Mustel poll, while Carole James and the NDP have climbed six points to 37 per cent.

Now that's still a healthy 10-point gap for the Libs. And the thought of Gordon Campbell losing the May election because of his carbon tax is still difficult to imagine, despite the rising tide of anger.

Think about it: The New Democrats would probably jack up your taxes even higher if they ever got back into power. (And don't forget James has said she would bring in a carbon tax, too, but she's awfully shifty about how much it would be and who would pay it.)

But the polls are still going in the wrong direction for Campbell. And now the federal Conservatives are piling on a with a relentless campaign of negative attack ads against federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's call for a national carbon tax.

"It's the same old story: The Dion tax trick," say the Tory radio ads burning up the airwaves yesterday. "Everybody sees through it."

Do you think the average ticked-off, taxed-out driver is going to make the distinction between the federal and provincial Liberal parties when he hears those ads? Campbell will get hit with the collateral damage.

Now I'm starting to wonder just how much resolve either Liberal outfit has to weather this perfect storm. The federal Libs hinted this week at special accommodation for coal-dependent Nova Scotia while B.C. Finance Minister Colin Hansen said he was willing to "work with" the B.C. trucking industry, which will get severely hammered by Campbell's gas tax.

If they start cutting special deals -- while the little guy gets whacked -- that could be the last straw for many voters.

E-mail: msmyth@direct.ca

© The Vancouver Province 2008


NDP laughing all the way to the bank
Issue breathes life into Opposition as Libs remain arrogant

Michael Smyth
The Province
Thursday, June 26, 2008

Just five days to go before British Columbians get whacked by Gordon Campbell's gas tax and now the Liberals are suddenly figuring something out:

With gas prices already soaring, people don't like having salt rubbed in their wounds. And unless the Liberals change their tune, this grossly unfair and ineffective carbon tax is going back up on them like a bad burrito.

So Campbell sent his newly minted finance minister out to defend the tax yesterday. With the NDP going to town with an Axe The Gas Tax campaign, Colin Hansen went on the offensive.

"It is totally disingenuous," Hansen railed against the New Democrats. "They profess to be in favour of a carbon tax and then go out and launch a campaign to oppose the carbon tax."

Notice his tricky use of grammar in the above sentence: Yes, the NDP supports "a" carbon tax -- just not his.

Yesterday, NDP critic Shane Simpson said the NDP favoured a system of "carbon pricing" that doesn't include a new tax at the gas pump.

No duh. Even federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion was smart enough to realize you don't hammer people with gas taxes when the price has gone up 33 per cent in four months.

But Dion's call for a federal carbon tax just means more trouble for Campbell.

Now the federal Conservatives under Prime Minister Stephen Harper are getting set to launch a vicious national campaign of attack ads against Dion's proposed tax.

The Tories will be brutal in their assaults. Harper has already called Dion's carbon tax an "insane" policy that will "screw everybody."

I doubt the approaching attack ads will be as polite.

And Campbell is going to get slimed with the collateral damage. Voters won't make the federal/provincial distinction. They'll just hear "Liberal" and "carbon tax." And then they'll get mad.

So now Hansen is trying to fight back. But his shots yesterday were pathetically weak.

"They've got big challenges within their own party," he insisted about the NDP. "They've got people who are ripping up their NDP membership cards."

Ripping up their membership cards? He wishes! The NDP are delighted Campbell is pushing ahead with his gas tax. It's the best issue they've had in a long time.

Now the New Democrats are even encouraging people to donate their $100 climate-change cheques from the government to the NDP so they can fight the gas tax. They're laughing all the way to the bank!

Campbell could stop the bleeding today if he wanted to. He could simply announce the soaring price of gas is doing the job of his carbon tax.

Then he could just cancel or postpone it.

But he's already crossed the Rubicon. The premier's famous stubborn streak will hurt the Liberals this time.

E-mail: msmyth@direct.ca

© The Vancouver Province 2008


Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:55 PM

June 21, 2008

U.S. utility keen on B.C. power

In a multi-part series, Vancouver Sun reporter Scott Simpson and photographer Ian Lindsay are documenting the new infrastructure and coming challenges involved in B.C.'s massive $5.1-billion effort to create a modern, efficient and reliable electricity transmission grid

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, June 21, 2008

In a matter of days, a California energy utility will announce the results of a $14-million US study of B.C.'s vast green electricity potential -- and opportunities to bring that power to the American market.

California wants to be the biggest consumer of green power on the western North American transmission grid, and documents show that B.C. Transmission Corp. and BC Hydro are working in support of that ambition.

The initiative, entirely separate from BCTC's $5.1-billion project to upgrade British Columbia's aging transmission system, has a projected value of $17 billion -- not counting the benefits that would flow to B.C. from heightened electricity trade with utilities in the United States.

BCTC estimates that private-sector investment of $13 billion for development of wind, small hydro and bioenergy resource projects could boost electricity production in the province about 40 per cent above BC Hydro's present annual output by 2015.

The installed, or theoretical, capacity of all that development is more than twice the output of the largest hydroelectricity facility in the province, the Bennett Dam/Shrum Generating Station on the Peace River in northeastern B.C. -- although both wind and small hydro are intermittent energy sources that depend on the variable nature of stream flow and wind.

The power would travel from B.C. to central California on a proposed $4-billion transmission line running south from Selkirk substation in southeastern B.C., through Washington and Oregon to central California.

B.C. already sells power into the U.S. on this route, and since Selkirk substation is only a few kilometres from the U.S. border, its contribution to the new transmission line is nominal.

B.C.'s green energy resources, however, are central to the project.

Pacific Gas and Electric, which serves 15 million customers in north and central California, is leading the effort and is poised to release a $14-million study of B.C.'s potential to feed the state's appetite for green power.

According to Fong Wan, PG&E's vice-president of energy procurement, the shareholder-owned utility has already locked up enough new power development to meet a state-mandated goal of 20-per-cent renewable energy in its portfolio by 2010.

However, Wan noted that legislation developed by the state assembly aimed at curtailing greenhouse gas emissions will push that standard higher. And that's why the utility is looking at B.C.

It will present its findings to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which regulates utilities in the state in much the same manner that the B.C. Utilities Commission regulates BC Hydro and BCTC.

"We've always been told that B.C. has a vast amount of potential renewable energy," Wan said in a telephone interview earlier this week. "So our desire to explore this possibility is to see what's really there, and how it compares to what else is available in the marketplace."

Early studies have suggested that B.C. power would be affordable for PG&E customers under a variety of economic scenarios.

Wan did not want to discuss the conclusions of the study until it is released.

"We are going to be filing our report with the CPUC in a matter of a week or less. I'm not comfortable with disclosing [its findings] prior to that.

"But I can let you know that I expect in general our comments to be very positive."

Electricity trade has been a boon to British Columbia since then-premier W.A.C. Bennett beat Prime Minister Lester Pearson and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson at the negotiating table for the Columbia River treaty in 1964, and opened the floodgates on a stream of power sales revenue that continues to this day.

The flow of cash was enhanced 20 years ago with the creation of Powerex as a power-trading subsidiary of BC Hydro to market surplus power from hydroelectric facilities across the province.

The trading concept is simple in both theory and execution: Open the dams and export B.C. power when electricity prices south of the border are high, and close the dams and import power when U.S. prices are low.

This arrangement usually works to B.C.'s benefit, but that advantage is eroding due to a lack of major new generation development since the Revelstoke Dam was completed more than two decades ago.

This has prompted the provincial government to order BC Hydro to bring the province back to a net export position through the development of new renewable electricity resources by independent power producers.

Carbon dioxide emission-free power is attractive to traders south of the border as governments move to curtail greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.

Trade can't grow without an improved transmission system. The western grid was never set up to serve a far-flung group of power-trading utilities, and it is frequently running at the limit of its reliability.

Pacific Gas and Electric, BC Transmission Corp. and other utilities along the grid are working on a project to fix it -- the Canada/Pacific Northwest to Northern California Transmission Project, a $4-billion initiative that will complete the first phase of planning in August.

If it goes ahead, it will be the first major expansion of the system in a generation.

"I think the transmission can be built because we built similar infrastructure several decades ago, but it is by no means an easy process," PG&E's Wan said.

B.C. green power resources are one of the keys.

"California and British Columbia have had a long-standing seasonal trading relationship, and that's because down in California we are summer-peaking [in electricity consumption] and you in B.C. are winter-peaking," Wan said.

"We have been able through decades of trading to share our resources on a seasonal basis, and that has gone quite well, in general. From that perspective, we are trading parties ... we share resources."

Doug Little, vice-president of customer service and strategy development at BCTC, said discussions are at "at a very preliminary stage," and while the project looks "promising" from B.C.'s side, "it's too early to say whether it will go ahead or not."

"We can say we have taken a preliminary look at the overall economic feasibility of the line, and concluded it makes sense to go on to the next step and start doing some engineering studies and so on."

There is also an elaborate system of checks and balances to determine whether it's a good deal for B.C.

Little said the project would need approval from both the B.C. Utilities Commission and the National Energy Board before it could go ahead. There would be similar scrutiny in the U.S., he added.

This is not the only project aimed at taking B.C. resources south.

Sea Breeze Power Corp., a Vancouver-based company trading in the 40-cent-a-share range on the TSX Venture Exchange, already has authorization from Canada's National Energy Board and the U.S. Department of Energy to run an undersea cable from the southern tip of Vancouver Island to Port Angeles, Wash., via the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

This link, notes Sea Breeze president Paul Manson, would give power another route to flow between B.C. and the U.S. grid, enhancing the reliability to Vancouver Island's power supply, as well as providing an additional framework -- and an extra market -- for wind power projects on the island.

"There are just vast renewables in the northwest, right up into Alaska. The first of these great renewables is wind. What we need to realize this potential is additional transmission," Manson said in an interview.

The ballpark cost of the full project is about $450 million, and Manson said Sea Breeze is unlikely to attract investment until it has a full roster of engineering studies and other background work to accompany the federal permits.

Nonetheless, the notion of a privately owned transmission line facilitating the delivery of electricity into the U.S. market, without the comfort of public ownership, is drawing critics.

So is the Selkirk-to-California project.

"It's no secret that the U.S. -- particularly western states such as California -- is desperate for additional sources of energy," said Melissa Davis, executive director of B.C. Citizens for Public Power. "And it's no secret that B.C. possesses the natural resources to generate this additional power. But at what cost?

"Hydro power is 'green' only insofar as it generates no greenhouse gas emissions. But there are numerous additional environmental impacts to consider if new projects are required in order to supply power to the U.S. -- logging, road construction, flooding, and threats to numerous aquatic species and wildlife."

Analyst John Calvert -- whose recent book, Liquid Gold, asserts that B.C. is "rapidly losing public control of our electricity system" -- concurred.

"There is a significant environmental impact from these wind farms, and the worst-case scenario is that we get the environmental damage while utility firms in California plus the investors who own these facilities get all the benefits.

"The question is, what's in it for the people of B.C.?"

B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said the benefits of the Selkirk line are mutual, not exclusive to the United States.

"We are dependent on the U.S. for a big part of our electricity today, and have been for seven of the last 10 years. If it hadn't been for that transmission line, our lights wouldn't be on. We actually need electricity from them to keep going," Neufeld said.

"We need to actually keep increasing the capacity of those transmission lines to meet our own needs. That's what we have to do first. But in the meantime we should be looking at opportunities to actually have green power and export it to the U.S., and make money at it. I don't think there's anything wrong with that."

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:40 AM

$5-billion fixup a B.C. grid priority

In a multi-part series, Vancouver Sun reporter Scott Simpson and photographer Ian Lindsay are documenting the new infrastructure and coming challenges involved in B.C.'s massive $5.1-billion effort to create a modern, efficient and reliable electricity transmission grid

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Friday, June 20, 2008

grid_137582-46268.jpg
Station C field operations manager Scot Jackson
stands alongside a massive 230-kilovolt transformer,
sealed to contain carbon dioxide emissions, at the
underground substation that keeps the lights burning
in downtown Vancouver.
CREDIT: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

grid_137582-46290.jpg
One of the 230-kilo volt lines supplying the underground
substation comes through the wall before curving
gracefully toward the switching chamber.
Scot Jackson of BC Hydro inspects.
CREDIT: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

Scot Jackson was on the job a week when the trouble started. Deep in the guts of a $3-million high-voltage transformer buried in an underground electrical substation in downtown Vancouver, swaddled in 50,000 litres of cooling oil, a $50 component had begun to cause an electrical arc.

Acetylene gas was building up in the transformer's oil-filled shell. Unattended, it could elevate the risk of an explosion or fire that would damage the transformer -- a custom-built unit that plays a critical role in keeping the lights on in the heart of Vancouver's business district.

It was, according to BC Transmission Corp. capital programs adviser Gerhard Kehl, "the mother of all problems."

BC Hydro and BC Transmission Corp. maintain a constant vigil on equipment at 291 substations around the province -- but none more intent than Station C, where a minor repair might take weeks but the replacement of a 120-tonne transformer would take 18 months due to the unique location.

The transformers rest on concrete pads six stories below street level, in a compact venue less than half the size of a comparable ground-level substation.

Nobody expected trouble here.

Most of the transmission equipment on the B.C. power grid is 40 to 50 years old, and many of those aging assets -- transmission towers, substations and electrical circuits -- are in "poor or very poor condition," according to a BCTC study.

The most recent estimate to upgrade the system is $5.1 billion over the next decade, but the Crown corporation is warning that the final bill could be billions more.

The transformers at Station C are merely middle-aged and were not considered immediate candidates for replacement.

Jackson took over as field operations manager in July 2007, with his predecessor telling him confidently that he'd done a Station C walk-through the month before and found it to be as robust and stable as ever.

"He said, 'We haven't had a lick of problem with these transformers since they were installed,'" Jackson recalled.

The downtown demand for air conditioning had both transformers -- original equipment dating to the 1984 opening of Station C -- humming.

Either one of the transformers was individually capable of meeting all demand without overheating. But the system would have no backup unit if one failed.

One did. And Jackson had been on the job for less than a week.

The gas monitor inside one of the transformers triggered an emergency shutoff. It took two tanker trucks and a permit from Vancouver city hall just to drain the oil off so that workers could begin to look for the source of the failure.

BC Hydro and BCTC urged downtown building operators to cut back on electricity consumption by tweaking their thermostats up a couple of degrees.

"We were coming into the hottest weather in July," Jackson said.

The sole remaining transformer "was almost at capacity and so we didn't know, with air conditioners set at 20 or 21 degrees, how much more load that would put on the system."

As it turned out, the functioning transformer never got close to overheating as Jackson and his crews worked, for 21 days straight, to find the problem, fix it, and get the failed transformer back in operation.

It was, nevertheless, an anxious time.

"We never did have to move any transformers out. If we did, that would have been a major, major effort to get it up to street level, and out onto the street," said Gerhard Kehl.

Electrical engineers don't like risk.

"When one [transformer] fails, everybody gets antsy because, geez, if the other one fails then the customers served from this station would be without power."

As it turned out, the system functioned smoothly on a single transformer.

If it had needed replacement, however, BCTC would still be scrambling, even now, to install a new one.

With the Olympic Games coming in less than two years, and both residential and commercial construction booming downtown, BCTC is taking no chances of a similar occurrence in the future.

"We have an empty transformer space downstairs, and we will be filling that up in the next year," Jackson said.

"We want that third one so we will always have two transformers to take the load, and be able to take that third one out for servicing."

As a measure of the difficulty associated with squeezing a transformer into an underground bunker, consider this: A new transformer is worth $3 million, but the full cost of putting one into Station C is $13.6 million.

Adding another transformer makes the downtown grid more reliable, but there is also a vast amount of BCTC equipment across British Columbia that's 20 years older than Station C, and considered more likely to fail.

Coming into 2007, BCTC's prevailing estimate was approximately $3.2 billion over 10 years to carry out all the necessary work.

Greater scrutiny revealed far greater problems -- and earlier this year, BCTC announced it would need about $5.1 billion.

That's more than a $1.8-billion price increase just within the past year.

And so, while that increase is about five times the cost overrun of the new Vancouver Convention Centre (which, coincidentally, draws its power from Station C), there is no apparent scandal about runaway costs at BCTC.

The biggest criticism appears to be the Crown corporation's failure, since it was broken off from BC Hydro in 2003, to dare to put a big enough pricetag on the work ahead.

A recent independent appraisal of BCTC's performance in managing its assets found that the corporation, while a "solid asset manager," was not spending enough money to maintain the province's grid.

The system includes a transmission line circuit of 18,336 kilometres, 291 switching, distribution and capacitor stations, and interconnections to Alberta and the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

"The majority of the B.C. transmission system was built between 1960 and 1970, and is now between 40 and 50 years old," according to a BCTC news backgrounder on the $5.1-billion, 10-year project to improve the grid.

BCTC estimates $1.6 billion for "state of the art" replacement equipment that will bring the grid fully into the digital era.

System growth and expansion costs are projected at $3.4 billion, including $1 billion to connect new, clean and renewable energy sources to the grid as B.C. moves toward a stated government objective of being energy self-sufficient by 2016.

BCTC cautions that final cost of some projects could run far higher than estimates.

For example, just two years ago BCTC was predicting it would cost $300 million to construct a new transmission line between the southern Interior and the Lower Mainland.

Today, the project is estimated at $600 million, and BCTC is so concerned about rising costs that it is unwilling to confirm the final price -- in fact, it's asking the BC Utilities Commission to approve it without any firm price guarantee.

BCTC also said the cost of linking independent power producers to the grid jumped $600 million, and needs an extra $700 million to replace assets and keep pace with demand for energy in a growing province.

All of this adds up to a challenge for BCTC, which must transform itself from a low-profile power line utility into a fast-moving, dynamic construction entity with one of the largest public infrastructure budgets in B.C. history.

"When you take a look at a total of $5 billion, there will be hundreds and hundreds of projects," Jane Peverett, BCTC president and CEO, said in an interview.

Peverett is a former senior executive with a western natural gas utility who moved into the top job at BCTC three years ago.

"We're on what I call Phase Three of BCTC.

"Phase One was startup -- getting ourselves established as a separate company, getting our work processes in place, getting the skills to augment the very good talent we got out of BC Hydro.

"Phase Two was being fully operational -- actually conducting all the business we needed to conduct, doing it as a separate stand-alone company, doing it better and better every day.

"Phase Three is where we are right now. In addition to being a fully operational company, we are a huge growth and construction company.

"When we were setting up BCTC, we did not anticipate that."

Nor is BCTC confident that its current working price tag is enough to fix the system.

"There are projects we know of today that are either in the works or are well-planned. But then there are a number of projects that are future projects and they really need further study," BCTC chief financial officer Janet Woodruff said in an interview.

Julius Pataky, BCTC vice-president for system planning and asset management, said that trend is pushing up costs in a "very real" way.

"We are talking about a single transformer costing $2 million [in 2006] that is now costing us $3 million," Pataky said in an interview.

"The suppliers of our equipment are running flat out. The lead times have gone from eight months to 24 months, and in some cases to 48 months. We are basically reserving factory space to get some of this equipment manufactured."

B.C. energy sector commentator David Austin said the biggest reason for the $1.8-billion jump isn't skyrocketing equipment prices, or demand growth. It's the fact that British Columbia's transmission assets were taken for granted through the 1990s, and not enough was spent to maintain them.

The former NDP government, he said, diverted potential grid maintenance funds to support other political priorities, and the long-term cost of that decision has finally begun to manifest itself.

"When you look at BC Hydro's accounts during the 1990s, they weren't even investing enough money to cover off the depreciation of their equipment, let alone the requirement to expand the electrical transmission system," Austin said in an interview.

"The electric utility business is like investing in your RRSP. You have to keep up with investment on an annual basis. If you defer it, you get caught by the inevitable ups and downs of the market -- including equipment, availability, inflation, currency exchange rates, and interest rates.

"Because the utility business is such a long-term business, investment should be made on an incremental basis and not on a stop-start basis.

"It's a long-term, boring business, where the winner is inevitably the tortoise and not the hare."

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:12 AM

Bad mix

Rachel Pulfer
Canadian Business Online
June 18, 2008

Spectra Energy (NYSE: SE) builds pipeline infrastructure for natural gas. Based in Houston and valued at US$17.5 billion by market cap, the company boasts networks that span North America. These include a series of new developments in Fort Nelson, near the Horn River area of British Columbia.

As Alex Mlynek reported in her Briefcase blog earlier this year on Canadian Business Online, sales of oil and gas rights in the Horn River region have hit record highs in recent months. On June 16, Randy Eresman, the CEO of EnCana (TSX: ECA) announced the company had secured the rights to drill on 220,000 acres of gas shale deposits in the Horn River area. Eresman says Horn River holds the potential to eventually become among the largest resource plays in North America — comparable in size and scope to the Barnett Shale in north central Texas, which produces 3 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day.

So far this fiscal year, the province of British Columbia has derived more than $480 million from these sales of rights. Yet curiously (for a province where the oil and gas sector is so rapidly expanding) British Columbia is also among the first jurisdictions in North America to introduce a tax on carbon. That tax, announced in the February provincial budget, is set to go into effect July 1. It will tax carbon at a low “starter” rate of $10 a tonne. By 2012, that will ramp up to $30 a tonne. (Lest you think British Columbia is alone in this effort, on Thursday June 19, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion proposes his own version.)

Environmentalists applauded B.C.’s decision, and many economists agree that putting a price on carbon is the most immediate way to reduce emissions. People respond to price signals, and a tax is the strongest policy lever a government has to price the environmental cost in to carbon-intensive activity — thus encouraging low-carbon alternatives. Or so the theory goes.

But B.C.’s odd mix of policies — allowing record sales of rights to develop oil and gas, the sectors that generate the most greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, while taxing carbon — presents an interesting conundrum. On the one hand, the government is encouraging a mushrooming oil and gas sector; on the other, it’s proposing to tax emissions (much of which will come from that sector) to the hilt.

This situation may help explain why the B.C. government put $3.4 million towards Spectra Energy’s effort to test whether the Horn River area is ready for the magic of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). That’s the technological alchemy whereby greenhouse gas emissions are removed from the atmosphere and pumped deep underground for permanent storage.

Like Alberta, B.C. faces the dilemma of how to grow an expanding resource sector while bringing emissions under control. CCS is seen by many as Canada’s best hope for reducing the carbon footprint of a fossil fuel-intensive economy. So on May 26, Spectra Energy announced it is conducting a $12 million feasibility study of CCS at Fort Nelson near Horn River, together with the support of the provincial government and the good wishes of the U.S. Department of Energy. (The DOE will study whether it is possible to sequester natural gas this way — and develop a manual of best practices.)

Spectra Energy’s Western Canadian initiative is headed by Doug Bloom. In a conference call with Gary Weilinger, another Spectra VP, and Canadian Business, he said CCS is a “safe, proven technology.” (Spectra already operates seven other CCS projects elsewhere in Canada.) For Bloom, “Fort Nelson is simply a good opportunity to try it out on a larger scale.” The goal is to pump 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases underground each year. The feasibility study will test the geology of the region and ensure the cavity in question can store that amount of gas, leak free.

Some, such as Ian Bruce, a climate change expert with the David Suzuki Foundation, have questioned whether public money should be going towards such projects, particularly at a time when commodity prices — and in particular those for natural gas — are through the roof. But Bloom says the public spend is justified by the public benefit. Spectra literature claims that sequestering 1 million tonnes of carbon a year is the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road.

More of a concern is the economic and environmental impact of this provincial government’s decision to implement two policies at direct cross-purposes — at the same time.

By taxing carbon, the Gordon Campbell government earned kudos from an environmentally-aware electorate. Yet by allowing drilling activity to expand, the government is filling its coffers with rights revenues and encouraging the emissions-intensive activities its carbon tax is supposed to discourage.

Attempting to square this circle by putting public money into carbon capture isn’t going to make the problem go away anytime soon. Assuming the geology is leak free, the Fort Nelson CCS project won’t be in operation for several years; drilling on one well for the feasibility study starts later this year, and the other in 2009. Meanwhile, emissions from new drilling activity in Horn River will rise, and the government will collect additional revenue from the carbon tax on those emissions.

A government that allows its oil and gas sector to expand — while simultaneously introducing a carbon tax — undermines, at least in the short term, the point of having the tax in the first place. Meanwhile, Bloom says the company’s strategy for coping with its carbon tax liability will be to pass the costs on to shippers, who will eventually have to pass those costs on to consumers. That means higher energy costs, at a time when consumers are already hurting.

If the B.C. government really wants to encourage green growth, a smarter approach might be to let industry test out and implement a CCS strategy first, before auctioning off rights. As it is, all this mix of policies will achieve for certain is increased revenue for the government. That may be a great for government finances, but it’s a lousy way to promote an economically savvy green policy. Too bad consumers and taxpayers end up paying a disproportionate amount of the price.

Rachel Pulfer is the U.S. correspondent for Canadian Business. A journalist since 1999, and features editor of Canadian Business from 2005 to 2007, she has been nominated for three National Magazine Awards. In Letter from America, her online column, Rachel comments on economic and cultural developments in the U.S. and their significance for Canada.



Spectra Energy to Pursue Feasibility of Large-Scale Carbon Capture and Storage Project in British Columbia


News Release
Spectra Energy
May 26, 2008

VICTORIA, BC – Spectra Energy (NYSE: SE) today announced plans to pursue a large-scale integrated carbon capture and storage (CCS) project near its existing Fort Nelson natural gas plant in northeast British Columbia (BC).

The project represents a partnership between Spectra Energy and the provincial government in BC which has provided a $3.4 million grant to help fund an initial feasibility phase, intended to determine whether deep underground saline reservoirs and associated infrastructure in the area are appropriate for CCS.

“Addressing the challenge of climate change requires a commitment of both government and the private sector to innovation and deploying new technologies,” said Doug Bloom, president, Spectra Energy Transmission West. “We believe carbon capture and storage technology holds real promise in providing a safe and effective means of reducing greenhouse gases and addressing climate change.”

“We’re excited to work in partnership with the Province to build on Spectra Energy’s existing experience with CCS and to explore the feasibility of a large-scale project at our Fort Nelson plant,” said Bloom.

"As part of the BC Energy Plan, we said our government will explore new technologies for safe, underground sequestration of carbon dioxide from oil and gas facilities – or CCS – which is exactly what Spectra Energy proposes to do,” said the Honourable Richard Neufeld, Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. “If the exploratory drilling program achieves good results, Spectra Energy’s project has the potential to deliver major CO2 reductions for BC."

During the initial phase of the project – which will evaluate geological, technical and economic feasibility – Spectra Energy will drill two test wells to determine whether surrounding geology is suitable for the permanent storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S). These compounds are present in the raw natural gas produced in the area and removed during processing at the company’s Fort Nelson gas plant.

“While there is a significant amount of research and development required, our initial work has identified two potentially suitable saline reservoirs – over two kilometers underground – which may be suitable for large-scale CCS,” said Gary Weilinger, vice president, strategic development and external affairs, Spectra Energy Transmission West. “If proven viable, we believe the project has the potential to capture and store in the range of one million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually — the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road each year.”

Spectra Energy has been recognized by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a world leader in CCS technology. Currently, four of Spectra Energy’s gas processing facilities in BC, and four in Alberta, are equipped with CCS technology. Together, these facilities remove about 200,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere each year.

Spectra Energy Corp (NYSE:SE) is one of North America’s premier natural gas infrastructure companies serving three key links in the natural gas value chain: gathering and processing; transmission and storage; and distribution. For close to a century, Spectra Energy and its predecessor companies have developed critically important pipelines and related energy infrastructure connecting natural gas supply sources to premium markets. Based in Houston, Texas, the company operates in the United States and Canada approximately 18,000 miles of transmission pipeline, 265 billion cubic feet of storage, natural gas gathering and processing, natural gas liquids operations and local distribution assets. Spectra Energy Corp also has a 50-percent ownership in DCP Midstream, one of the largest natural gas gatherers and processors in the United States. Visit www.spectraenergy.com for more information.

Forward-Looking Statement

This release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements represent our intentions, plans, expectations, assumptions and beliefs about future events. This release includes forward-looking statements concerning future developments at our facilities, including the anticipated timing and amount of planned capital expansions. Such statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside our control and could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by those forward-looking statements. Those factors include: the timing and success of efforts to develop infrastructure projects; the timing and receipt of required regulatory approvals. These factors, as well as additional factors that could affect our forward-looking statements, are described in our Form 10-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other filings that we make with the SEC, which are available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the events described in the forward-looking statements might not occur or might occur to a different extent or at a different time than we have described. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Media Contact:
Lise-Ann Jackson
(403) 699-1506
(403) 483-0822 (cell)

Analyst Contact:
John Arensdorf
(713) 627-4600

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:57 AM

June 17, 2008

B.C. Hydro plan alarms air-quality officials

Bid to boost electricity output at aging thermal plant in Port Moody would greatly increase greenhouse-gas emissions, regulators say

JUSTINE HUNTER
Globe and Mail
June 16, 2008

VICTORIA -- Metro Vancouver's air-quality officials are prepared to rewrite B.C. Hydro's pollution licence if it goes ahead with a plan to dramatically increase operations at its Burrard thermal generating plant in Port Moody.

A plan filed last week with Hydro's regulators seeks approval to boost the aging gas-fired power plant's annual output of electricity - along with the cocktail of pollutants it spews into Metro Vancouver's air - to six times the current level.

Company officials immediately played down their own 2008 long-term acquisition plan. Hydro wants the plan approved only to keep its options open in case the power is needed at any time over the next 11 years, the officials said.

However Ray Robb, air-quality district director for Metro Vancouver, is concerned because the plan suggests the Burrard Generating Station, which now operates only in periods of peak demand, would once again become a base source of Hydro's electricity production.
Print Edition - Section Front

Section S Front Enlarge Image
The Globe and Mail

At full capacity, the thermal plant is the largest single source of greenhouse-gas emissions in British Columbia, with a measurable impact on Metro Vancouver's air quality.

"Nothing in B.C. Hydro's permit now would prevent them from doing this. We'll have to consider whether something should prevent them," Mr. Robb said in an interview. As the official who hands out air-pollution permits for Metro Vancouver, he will be asking for a meeting with the authors of the plan to find out what they really mean.

Any increase from current levels would flow against Metro Vancouver's - and British Columbia's - greenhouse-gas emission targets.

Hydro's director of energy planning, Cam Matheson, said his report - which has been filed with the B.C. Utilities Commission for approval - does not spell any change in the Burrard plant's current operations.

Hydro is asking the commission to approve a plan to rely on the plant, for planning purposes, for 3,000 gigawatt hours a year of firm energy.

"B.C. Hydro's current plan is that Burrard must be capable of reliably providing its capacity and energy capability at least through 2019," it says.

Although the document describes changing the station's status from a "swing plant" for occasional peak use to a "base load plant" that would churn out a steady supply of energy, Mr. Matheson said that's not the intention.

"There's no intention of making Burrard thermal a base load plant," he said. "Burrard is essentially an insurance policy."

Mr. Matheson said Hydro is adopting one scenario of the four that were drafted by consultants. It's the "compromise" option that would run the facility at half of its full capacity, which can produce 6,000 gigawatt hours of energy per year. It's still enough that the Crown corporation anticipates it will have to buy carbon offsets starting in 2010 when the province's greenhouse-gas reduction targets come into force.

The Burrard plant has attracted many opponents over the years, including Premier Gordon Campbell, who vowed, during the 2001 election campaign, to mothball it. Instead Hydro has lowered its dependence on the facility since 2001, using it only as a "swing plant" for peak demand that has produced an average of 500 gigawatt hours of power annually.

The public might accept increased production to 3,000 gigawatt hours per year - a measure Hydro calls its social licence - because it has operated at that level as recently as 2001, the plan states.

In 2001, just months before he became Premier, Mr. Campbell said the health risks posed by the plant's operations were unacceptable.

"Burrard Thermal plant is one of the largest single-point producers of pollution in the Lower Mainland's air shed that exists. It creates health problems for people in the province. ... One of our objectives should be to have Burrard Thermal shut down."

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:26 AM

June 14, 2008

B.C.'s power pitch: You take the risk, we'll take the gravy

COMMENT: "But prospective investors should take this new demand for what it is: A warning sign that British Columbia is growing cool on the notion of private ownership of power generation." Whooh! I wouldn't go that far!

PATRICK BRETHOUR
Globe and Mail
June 13, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Try pitching this one to the board of directors: Let's invest billions in a capital-hungry power plant, in a risky construction environment. If all goes well, we'll earn single-digit returns.

And then, when the capital costs are accounted for, and decades of higher profits beckon - let's sell.

Such is the predicament of investors in British Columbia's power sector today, now that B.C. Hydro has given itself a pry bar to buy out any power project that seems particularly profitable. The utility has just issued a call for proposals from the private sector to build a whopping 5,000 gigawatt-hours a year of power, equal to about 10 per cent of the province's current generating output. All of it is to be clean power: hydro, geo-thermal or wind, for the most part.

Those kinds of projects are desperately needed if B.C. Hydro is to meet its own goals for clean power and energy self-sufficiency, not to mention the strictures imposed by the province's push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Although opponents of private power will deny this strenuously, outside investment capital is needed to make this happen. That is the foundation of the B.C. government's policy of allowing private firms to turn a profit while they help to fulfill the public interest.

The foundation has just gotten shaky, however. Buried in the depths of the document asking for proposals is a paragraph that will give B.C. Hydro the ability to buy the "residual rights" to a power project once the term of the initial electricity-purchase agreement expires.

Even though some of the agreements are for 40 years, the power plants being proposed are expected to be generating electricity for decades beyond that point, just as much of B.C. Hydro's generating capacity comes from projects built, and paid for, decades ago. Because of that, the utility's cost for producing electricity is lower than for new projects (whether it or the private sector builds them).

The turbines in NaiKun Wind Energy Group Inc.'s proposed offshore wind power project, for instance, will work just fine for 40 years.

Until now, investors have had an entirely reasonable expectation that if they shouldered the risk of construction, and operation, they would be the ones allowed to reap the benefits when their projects saw their costs drop, and profits rise.

However, B.C. Hydro is, in effect, expropriating those profits and demanding that any bidder spell out, now, how much it will be willing to sell for two, three or even four decades down the line. (In a similar vein, B.C. Hydro is requiring bidders to commit to construction costs in November for their proposed projects, while waiting until mid-2009 to actually award contracts. If, or more precisely when, costs spike in the meantime, it will be the bidders who pay the price for the utility's languid pace of decision making.)

Of course, B.C. Hydro is not so crass as to label its demand as such, or to articulate why the clause is necessary. Instead, it "invites" proponents to include a sidecar proposal on residual rights - and later spells out that the presence of such a proposal will form part of the calculus used to decide which bids will be accepted. Hint taken.

Firms preparing bids for the latest call for proposals are being circumspect - why snap at the hand you hope will feed you, after all? While the call for bids is generating enthusiasm, it's clear that those warm feelings don't extend to the prospect of having to hand over an asset just as its returns start to rise.

Bruce Ripley, president of Plutonic Power Corp., zeroes in on one practical difficulty: How exactly do you price a power plant for a sale in, say, 2048, a period in which climate change, greenhouse gas policies and energy technology are going to warp the economics of electricity. "They're going to be fascinating discussions," he says. Mr. Ripley, while measured in his critique, does allow that the residual-rights clause will make power projects less attractive for financial investors.

If one goes strictly by the numbers, the residual-rights clause might not seem like such a big deal. As Nick Hann at MacQuarie Capital Markets Canada points out, the current value of profits 40 years in the future is negligible. And firms were always going to need to renegotiate deals with B.C. Hydro, even without an explicit residual-rights clause.

But prospective investors should take this new demand for what it is: A warning sign that British Columbia is growing cool on the notion of private ownership of power generation.

pbrethour@globeandmail.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:07 PM

B.C. Hydro evaluating gas-fired power plants

Charlie Smith
Georgia Straight
June 12, 2008

As B.C. Hydro prepares to release its long-term energy strategy, a document suggests that the Crown utility is considering securing electricity from natural-gas-fired power plants. According to a presentation from a B.C. Hydro workshop held on April 25 at the Sutton Place Hotel in Vancouver, there is a 24.8 percent “relative likelihood” that three natural-gas-fired plants will be built: a 494-megawatt plant at Kelly Lake near Clinton scheduled in 2016; a 243-megawatt plant at the same location in 2024; and a 243-megawatt plant somewhere on Vancouver Island in 2025.

However, B.C. Hydro spokesperson Susan Danard told the Georgia Straight that no new electricity will be generated in natural-gas-fired plants in B.C. “In no way is B.C. Hydro even contemplating any new gas-fired generation,” she claimed. “That’s not us.”

These types of plants emit millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases, which have been linked to climate change. When asked if B.C. Hydro might buy electricity from independent power producers who burn natural gas, Danard replied, “I don’t believe that’s correct either because just today, actually, coincidentally we launched our clean call [for electricity from independent power producers].…That is the direction we’re going in…we’re looking at clean power projects: hydro, wind, solar, geothermal energy—proven technologies that have to meet the provincial guidelines for cleaner renewable energy. We’re not looking at purchasing or building gas-fired generation at this point.”

COL_News_JulianDarley_2112.jpg

The Clean Power Call complements the Standing Offer Program that was launched in April 2008, and the two-phase Bioenergy Call for Power, which released its Phase I RFP in February 2008. The Standing Offer Program targets smaller clean projects that generate up to 10 megawatts of power, while the Bioenergy Call for Power targets projects that utilize wood infected by the mountain pine beetle as well as other wood fibre fuel sources.

The design of the Clean Power Call RFP reflects stakeholder and First Nations engagement held in 2007.

Contact:
Susan Danard
Media Relations
Phone: (604) 623-4220

Note: BC Hydro/BCTC Information Session, July 8, 2008

2008CleanPowerCallRFPSchedule.jpg

Clean Power Call

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:22 AM

June 13, 2008

Vital power route faces epic hurdles

In a multi-part series, Vancouver Sun reporter Scott Simpson and photographer Ian Lindsay are documenting the new infrastructure and coming challenges involved in B.C.'s massive $5.1-billion effort to create a modern, efficient and reliable electricity transmission grid

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Friday, June 13, 2008

ILM_sun0307b-bctc16.jpg
Photos from a helicopter survey of the main
transmission line between Vancouver and Kamloops
where the BCTC wants to undertake a project to
twin the line as part of a $5 billion system upgrade.
CREDIT: Ian Lindsay/Vancouver Sun

In a province of violent geography that demands great ingenuity of its engineers, we are in a helicopter, scrutinizing one of their greatest feats.

We pick it up near Westwood Plateau Golf and Country Club in Coquitlam, follow it 246 kilometres northeast, and end up at another grass-covered plateau - one where cattle, not golfers, are scattered.

"It" is a 500-kilovolt transmission line that carries electricity on the final segment of its journey from distant generating stations in northern and eastern B.C. to the southwestern corner of the province where 70 per cent of electricity is consumed.

British Columbia Transmission Corp. calls it the Interior-to-Lower Mainland line, or ILM, "the most critical transmission path in B.C."

It is also emerging as the most controversial, and challenging, pathway in the province.

Documents on file with the B.C. Utilities Commission indicated that failure to get an additional line on this route by the winter of 2014 could lead to something that electrical engineers call "load shedding" - or what newspaper headline writers call "blackouts."

The documents also indicate that BCTC does not want to commit to a firm cost estimate for the project - the working figure is $600 million - and is instead asking that the final cost be scrutinized in a formal review once the project is complete.

Part of the uncertainty arises from issues that go beyond the actual installation of transmission towers and electrical cable.

There are spotted-owl and grizzly-bear habitats to skirt, and fish-bearing streams to avoid. There are 60 first nations with territorial interests along the route, and part of accommodating them involves the largest archeological-impact assessment ever undertaken in this province.

BC Transmission Corp. vice-president of major projects Bruce Barrett describes First Nations and aboriginal issues as the Crown corporation's foremost consideration - taking precedence over the construction of the line, and even the cost of the project.

"As engineers, we can build something almost anywhere," Barrett explains. "It's a matter of compromising our technical and cost aspects to accommodate environmental and first nations considerations.

"There are other things as well, including visibility along the Trans Canada Highway. There are places along the highway where the existing lines feel as if they're right in your face. We want to find places to cross where the lines will be less visible."

Power first flowed to the Lower Mainland along this line in 1968.

From a kilometre in the air, it looks delicate, a few strands of wire strung across tidal marsh and plunging river valley, over snowy mountain peak and bone-dry high country ranchland.

There are concrete pads to keep the transmission towers bearing the high-voltage lines from sinking into the tidal mud flats of the Lower Pitt River, just north of the Lougheed Highway in Pitt Meadows.

Ten minutes' flight east and we see towers clinging to the side of a mountain, with exposed beds of gravel revealing spots where November rains have beaten away the surface soil and triggered landslides - some directly above the towers, forcing the installation of concrete berms to deflect away any potential debris flow in future.

In the most spectacular circumstances, the towers perch on granite outcroppings barely large enough to sink footings into, or the lines themselves hang unsupported in downward arcs for distances up to a kilometre in length as they span the valley of the Harrison River, and the Fraser River canyon.

Only about half of the existing right-of-way route is suitable for the installation of additional towers. On the other half, a new route must be developed because squeezing more towers onto the existing path would expose them to the same risks as the original set - increasing, rather than reducing, the threat of a major blackout during a wind or ice storm.

"You don't want to put a [new] 500-kilovolt line right next to [an existing] 500-kilovolt line in an area where there are geotechnical risks," explained Melissa Holland, BCTC's senior project manager - and The Vancouver Sun's tour guide on the helicopter trip.

"If there was a landslide, and it takes two lines out, then you are going to be in trouble."

In historic terms, the most difficult area on the entire route is on the outskirts of the Lower Mainland, at Cascade Creek ridge on the east side of Stave Lake near Mission.

"The Cascade ridge is where we have probably some of the biggest challenges for the lines in terms of weather," said Holland.

True to form, the helicopter had to skirt the top of the 3,250-foot ridge, and the sturdy tower perched at its western edge, on the morning of the tour because they were shrouded by clouds.

"The cloud ceiling is low here, and you get icing and loading during the winter months. Even though it's very close to the Lower Mainland, it's one of the most challenging spots to build the towers so that they can withstand the weather systems that move through here."

A hundred kilometers northeast, in the richly forested Anderson River drainage east of the Fraser River canyon, the issue is wildlife, not weather.

"There is a challenge here with spotted-owl habitat and grizzly-bear habitat," Holland explained. "We're trying to find a route alignment that will by-pass these. There's a nice little window between the two habitat areas and we will try to thread the needle, if you will.

"It's about a 500-metre corridor between the two habitats that we are going to try to scoot through. It's not a lot of room when you are trying to site a transmission line."

Gwen Barlee, policy director for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, said the project means B.C. will lose less electricity through transmission line losses, "and there are efficiencies there that lead to conservation."

"But on the other hand, when you look at the potential impact of that project on all the wildlife habitat along that 274-kilometre route, there are concerns," Barlee said in an interview.

"The main concerns are because we don't have adequate protections in this province to protect species at risk - so groups like the Wilderness Committee have to look at projects like this very, very closely to make sure there aren't undue impacts on spotted-owl habitat, or what this project means for the north Cascade grizzly-bear population."

It will be several months before the transmission corporation is ready to submit its final route plans to the province's Environmental Assessment office.

Preliminary discussions on the project are already under way before the B.C. Utilities Commission, which regulates BCTC, BC Hydro, ICBC, and Terasen Gas.

Documents submitted to the commission indicate no one is disputing the need for the route.

But all are expressing alarm over BCTC's request to avoid binding itself to any hard cost estimates, but to instead submit to what it calls a "prudency review" after the project is done and the money is spent.

If BCTC fails to keep a lid on project costs, the overrun would not be recovered through higher electricity rates - it would fall to taxpayers as a whole to make up the shortfall.

"It is beyond debate that after-the-fact prudency review is an inadequate mechanism to hold utilities accountable for the wisdom of their capital projects," said Jim Quail, executive director of the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre, in a letter filed recently with the utilities commission.

"But even more to the point, the opportunity will be long gone to ensure that the course that is selected is in fact the best one for ratepayers and the people of the province as a whole."

The Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee, which represents all of British Columbia's large industrial consumers of electricity, thinks the transmission corporation should be leashed with a "cost collar" for the project.

"The JIESC has strong reservations about the effectiveness of an 'after-the-fact prudence review', and accordingly is supporting a cost collar mechanism with incentives and penalties to encourage cost-effective performance by BCTC," the committee says in a letter to the utilities commission.

The Independent Power Producers association of BC says in a submission to the BCUC that post-project reviews "do not create an environment of cost discipline." The association notes that private electricity project developers "are subject to the same cost pressures and uncertainty", but are expected to shoulder all the economic "risks" when they contract to sell their power to BC Hydro.

Not everyone shares that apprehension, or believes it's appropriate to focus on costs to the exclusion of other considerations.

Gordon Mohs, heritage resource advisor for the Chehalis First Nation, ranks the transmission corporation's involvement with the Fraser Valley aboriginal group as "fabulous."

"I think they've been extremely good about everything," Mohs said in an interview. "The consultation has been excellent. They want to do what they can in terms of accommodation on the project."

The corporation is paying for consultants to work on behalf of first nations along the route, including a 30-kilometre strip through traditional Chehalis territory.

"It's a very good opportunity to do some very good science and investigations into prehistory as part of the project to bring power and security of power to the Lower Mainland.

"There has been one fabulous little discovery made just north of the Chehalis Indian Reserve," Mohs said. "It's the Oregon spotted frog, and it's only one of three places in all of British Columbia where these little critters are found.

"They've made alterations to their power line alignment to make sure there are no severe environmental impacts to the frogs."

Mohs said the corporation is showing similar sensitivity toward cultural and archeological sites.

"The idea is that you don't want to impact them - avoid them if you possibly can. Move the tower 50 feet to the left or the right, or north or south just to avoid that impact, because it gets very expensive when you have to excavate."

Meanwhile, BCTC's Barrett suggests that the route is starting to get tight because of all the competing interests along it.

The next step will probably be to rewire the existing transmission towers with lines capable of carrying much higher voltages.

"I don't know if we'd ever put another line in this corridor."

Instead, he says, "We will look at new adjustments that allow us to get more power out of existing corridors."

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

© Vancouver Sun

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:24 AM

June 12, 2008

The money rolls in for the Liberals as natural gas prices take off again

Vaughn Palmer
Vancouver Sun
June 12, 2008

VICTORIA - While surging oil prices will hurt consumers and business alike, they likely mean good news for the balance sheet of the B.C. Liberal government.

B.C. is not a big oil producer. It is a much more significant player in natural gas, which as a substitute for oil has racked up major price increases as well.

That means a windfall for the provincial treasury, because the price is already considerably higher than forecast in this year's provincial budget.

The lowballing wasn't deliberate. The finance ministry compiles natural gas forecasts from two dozen internationally respected sources and averages them into a comparable price in Canadian dollars.

The process, while independent, doesn't always produce flattering results on the bottom line. Last year gas prices ran about 20 per cent lower than forecast, producing a half-billion-dollar hit on provincial revenues.

This year the results are running in the opposite direction.

The budget forecast for natural gas royalties was predicated on a price of $5.65 Cdn per gigajoule "at plant inlet." That last bit refers to the base price used to calculate provincial royalties.

Currently, at-plant-inlet prices are running well ahead of the forecast. About $3.50 higher according to the most recent reckoning.

If natural gas prices remain high -- or go even higher as some analysts suggest -- then the province can look forward to collecting much more in the way of royalties over the year.

The finance ministry calculates that for each $1 rise in the price of natural gas over the forecast, the treasury collects an additional $300 million in royalties.

So if -- note the "if" -- the average price for the entire budget year were to be the current roughly $9.15 instead of the predicted $5.65, then the provincial treasury could look forward to a $1 billion top-up.

Nor is that the end of the potential revenue windfalls.

The treasury is also enriched by the sale of drilling rights, essentially up-front cash payments for the option to explore for natural gas.

Those sales have been running ahead of expectations as well. Better prices for the product means more interest in exploration, particularly where drilling involves greater financial risk.

B.C. benefits especially because some of its potential is locked up in shale gas deposits, which are more expensive to develop.

Expectations of a "land rush" were borne out in a May 21 press release from the energy ministry: "$441-million monthly rights sale largest ever."

Some 40 parcels of land covering 46,284 hectares fetched an average of $9,538 per hectare, three times the previous mark.

The record may not stand for long. When I mentioned the May sale to Energy Richard Neufeld recently, he said there's every expectation those returns will be exceeded in the next round.

B.C. is regarded as having the greatest untapped potential for gas exploration on the continent. Six of the 10 best sales of drilling rights in provincial history have been recorded in the past 12 months.

Accordingly, Neufeld's ministry has put up 99 parcels totalling 61,482 hectares for the June sale. If the bids are in the same range as last time, the take will exceed half a billion dollars.

The finance ministry, in its prudence, would ask me to note that not all of the benefit from increased sale of drilling rights will be registered in the current financial year.

The rights are a form of tenure. Companies buy in for a fixed period, usually five to 10 years.

Though the buyers commit cash up front, provincial accounting rules demand that the payments be apportioned over the length of the tenure, averaging eight years.

If the province collects $1 billion now -- as it may well do from the combined May and June sales -- only about $125 million will show up on the bottom line for the current year.

Still a tidy sum, and Neufeld notes a further benefit of the tenure system. "If they don't exercise those rights within the specified period of time, they revert to the Crown and we can sell them again."

Yes, as with the fabled hucksters of swampland, the government can sell the same plot of land -- or rather the drilling rights under it -- more than once.

All this good news from the gas sector has political implications.

With the forest industry battered, the tourism sector anxious and an election year approaching, the Liberals have good reason to worry about the health of provincial finances.

Any windfall in gas revenues will come in handy as they are squaring up the books and rolling out the goodies for a spring election campaign.

vpalmer@direct.ca

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:28 PM

June 10, 2008

Municipality challenges BCTC authority

Utility told to provide proof of its right to access civic properties without consulting local government

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
June 10, 2008

DELTA - The corporation of Delta is challenging the BC Transmission Corp.'s authority to carry out a planned upgrade of a high voltage power line through Tsawwassen.

BCTC is accessing civic properties that are outside its power line's right-of-way, and Delta is demanding proof that it can go onto those properties without consulting the local government, Delta municipal solicitor Greg Vanstone said Monday in a telephone interview.

Vanstone said Delta is also concerned that BCTC is refusing to provide a work schedule for the project to enable area residents to plan their way around traffic and property disruptions that will occur during construction.

BCTC spokeswoman Thoren Hudyma responded that Delta had never previously indicated a concern about access for construction of the line.

Tsawwassen is one of the final incomplete sections of a $280-million, 67-kilometre power line upgrade between the B.C. mainland and Vancouver Island.

Thousands of Delta residents have voiced opposition to the project, which will put new overhead high-voltage lines along an existing 3.7-kilometre transmission right-of-way that runs through backyards of 137 Tsawwassen homes.

Work crews began arriving in the community last week to commence work on the publicly owned sections of the route, with several residents threatened with injunctions after refusing access to their property.

"We have not issued any permits, approvals, licences, any formal authorization for them to do what they're doing," Vanstone said.

"In addition to going onto private property they are going onto some municipal property, some dedicated roads and lanes and this sort of thing. Those are properties that do not have a right-of-way dedicated against them.

"So, because we haven't given them any approval and because they don't have a right-of-way, we've asked them what their authority is to enter the right-of- way for this purpose. They've not yet told me what their authority is."

In addition, Vanstone said Delta also believes BCTC should respect the municipality's customary practice of announcing in advance any civic works likely to cause a local disturbance to traffic or the community in general.

"We'd like to be able to tell the residents, you can be expecting this to happen on 12th Avenue on these days, and this to be happening on this street on these days, so you can decide whether you go get your milk today at this store, or whether you go somewhere else, those sorts of things," Vanstone said.

He said Delta expects BCTC to post signs on affected streets, or publish or mail public notices to inform residents how their movement around the community, or the enjoyment of their backyards, will be affected on a day-to-day basis during construction of the new lines.

"When we have a road project or a waterworks project, if we are going to block a road, we put up signs. We say this road is going to be affected for these days. We'd like to be able to tell our citizens that sort of information, [but] we don't have it." He said Delta has no plans "at this time" to take the issue to court.

Hudyma said BCTC "has the legal right to construct this line. The right-of-way agreements include the provision allowing us to pass and repass over the land for the purposes of ingress and egress to and from the right-of-way."

She noted that Delta opposed the project at hearings before the B.C. Utilities Commission, but said "at no time did they ever indicate that they took the position that BCTC did not have the right to use municipal streets or other infrastructure in constructing the BCTC has been in "ongoing contact" with Delta, and with residents, about construction in and around the lines

"As for receiving copies of individual property owner construction management plans, these are confidential documents and we are speaking about these to individual property owners," Hudyma said.

A tentative date has been set for Wednesday in B.C. Supreme Court to hear BCTC's application for an injunction against four Tsawwassen residents who have refused work crews access to their properties.

"We expect some kind of answer by the end of the week, very shortly after the hearing," Hudyma said. "We know that we do have the legal right as per the right-of-way agreements that have been in place since the '50s. So the idea of going to the courts is to have those rights reaffirmed," Hudyma said.

"We know we have them, but if people are more comfortable hearing that kind of reaffirmation from the courts then that's fine too."

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:49 AM

June 09, 2008

Spilled gov't gravy proof of questionable lobbying

'Insiders' insiders' net clients big deals in Campbell controversy

Michael Smyth
The Province
Sunday, June 08, 2008

The decision by B.C. Hydro to contract out much of its functions to giant multinational corporation Accenture for $1.4 billion is one of the biggest controversies surrounding Premier Gordon Campbell's privatization agenda.

But, until now, British Columbians only knew part of the story. Now we discover a Vancouver company led by senior Liberal political organizers Patrick Kinsella and Mark Jiles was helping the deal along behind the scenes.

That was just one of last week's revelations contained in an amazing series of documents obtained by hard-digging Internet blogger Sean Holman.

Kinsella co-chaired the Liberal election campaign in 2001 and 2005. Jiles was Campbell's personal campaign manager in Vancouver-Point Grey.

Apparently this situated them perfectly to land lucrative government deals for their clients, Accenture being only one on a long list.

The Progressive Group -- the company operated by Kinsella and Jiles -- also helped Alcan land a sweet deal to expand its Kitimat smelter. It helped the B.C. Motion Picture Production Industry Association bag $65 million in provincial tax breaks. And on and on.

B.C. lobbyist registrar David Loukidelis is now investigating whether Kinsella and Jiles broke the rules by failing to publicly register as lobbyists while delivering all this government gravy to their undoubtedly delighted clients.

After several days of silence, the Progressive Group on Friday issued a written statement saying its activities did not constitute "lobbying" under the law in B.C.

Hmm. The dynamic duo brag in their resume that they were hired by the motion-picture association "to convince the provincial government to extend the foreign tax credits" to their clients.

If that's not lobbying I'd like to know what is. I look forward to Loukidelis's report.

In the meantime, the bigger story is about special deals for Campbell's political friends and their deep-pocketed clients. Kinsella and Jiles are insiders' insiders, two of the most powerfully connected Liberal party operatives in B.C.

And, man, what those connections can get you! In 2006, for example, Progressive was contracted by the state of Washington to help the Americans cash in on our 2010 Olympic Games.

"At that time, the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee had a policy . . . that British Columbia firms were going to get a priority treatment in the bidding and solicitation of Olympic contracts," the resume says.

"However, after hiring the Progressive Group, we were able to develop a marketing strategy which focused on Washington State companies assisting B.C. companies win these Olympic contracts."

Well, isn't that special? B.C. companies are supposed to get first dibs on Olympic contracts, but if you hire Gordon Campbell's buddies, a foreign country can get part of the action!

By the way, the only reason we know about all this is because Holman was able to obtain the documents from the Washington government under that state's freedom-of-information law.

With a simple e-mail request, he obtained 153 pages of uncensored documents outlining the activities of Kinsella and Jiles. The documents were released by the state in just eight days. That's openness and accountability at work.

But that would never happen in B.C. Our FOI law is so shot through with exemptions and loopholes that these documents would never have seen the light of day.

Campbell promised to end special deals for friends and insiders. He promised to run the most open and accountable government in Canada.

This case shows he has failed on both counts.

© The Vancouver Province 2008



Making progress?


Sean Holman
Public Eye Online
04-Jun-2008

Today, in 24 hours, Public Eye published the results of an exclusive investigation into statements by The Progressive Group that the firm has helped win major government contracts and benefits on behalf of powerful foreign and business interests. Progressive's chairman is Patrick Kinsella, who headed the provincial Liberal's election campaigns in 2001 and 2005. And it's president is Mark Jiles, Premier Gordon Campbell's former constituency campaign manager. The investigation was the result of documents obtained via an access to information request with Washington State. The following are links to parts one, two, three, four, five and six of those documents.

Permanent link


Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 08:11 AM

June 07, 2008

BCTC seeks injunction to get access to power line

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
June 07, 2008

The British Columbia Transmission Corp. is asking B.C. Supreme Court for an injunction to stop Tsawwassen residents from blocking access to a power line right-of-way, the Crown corporation announced Friday.

As The Sun's "Wired" series highlighted on Friday, the BCTC has been attempting since Monday to enter the 3.7-kilometre right-of-way section running through backyards in the Delta community, only to be refused access by a number of residents.

BCTC is attempting to upgrade a high-voltage power transmission line between the B.C. mainland and Vancouver Island, and the Tsawwassen right-of-way is part of the route.

The corporation has a "legal right and obligation" to conduct the work, it stated in a news release. BCTC said it is attempting to amicably resolve access and transmission line construction issues with residents.

"Offers of voluntary compensation, appropriate indemnification and restoration of properties post-construction have been ongoing with affected property owners," the news release stated. "BCTC has been working directly with residents for two months on minimizing and mitigating the impacts of construction.

"Some property owners have been cooperative in allowing access for crews to prepare sites for construction, but others have not. The BC Transmission Corp. recognizes and respects the right of citizens to voice their opinions in a legal fashion."

However, BCTC noted that existing right-of-way agreements give itself and BC Hydro crews the legal right to go onto the properties in order to carry out the power line upgrade.

"BCTC has been left with no other option than to file an application to the B.C. Supreme Court to obtain an injunction to stop people from denying access to their properties and preventing construction from taking place, thereby jeopardizing the in-service date of the project," it stated. "The courts will be asked to make an order confirming BCTC and BC Hydro's ability to access these properties to build the project."

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:25 PM

June 06, 2008

$5-billion plan for B.C.'s aging power infrastructure

In a multi-part series, Vancouver Sun reporter Scott Simpson and photographer Ian Lindsay are documenting the new infrastructure and coming challenges involved in B.C.'s massive $5.1-billion effort to create a modern, efficient and reliable electricity transmission grid

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Friday, June 06, 2008

dunn_48181-15979.jpg
Cecil Dunn is among Tsawwassen residents
who object to a BC Transmission Corp. project that
strings new power lines through residents' backyards.
CREDIT: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

The Crown corporation charged with managing the province's electricity grid is undertaking a massive spending program

The steel towers and high voltage lines that make up British Columbia's electricity grid are getting old, and the existing infrastructure is too small for a growing province.

There are literally hundreds of places around B.C. where the transmission grid needs attention. It's going to cost a minimum $5.1 billion to fix it.

The work facing the grid's caretaker, BC Transmission Corp., encompasses everything from painting rusting towers to stringing new lines through some of the most spectacular terrain in the province.

Beginning today, and in the coming weeks, The Vancouver Sun is going to tell you about some of those projects in stories by energy reporter Scott Simpson and pictures by photographer Ian Lindsay, in a series entitled Wired.

In today's opening story, we visit Tsawwassen, where residents are outraged with BCTC and the provincial government's mishandling of a project to run new transmission lines through their backyards. Elsewhere, stakeholder groups including the B.C. Old Age Pensioners Association and the Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee -- which represents B.C.'s 25 largest industrial consumers of electricity -- are worried about runaway costs for projects under the $5-billion umbrella.

Groups such as B.C. Citizens for Public Power worry that the rush to rewire the province is serving the interest of private-sector power developers and electricity buyers in the United States at the expense of ratepayers in British Columbia.

These and other controversies amount to a huge test for the transmission corporation. That entity was split off five years ago from BC Hydro to focus exclusively on maintaining the reliability of the provincial power grid, but now must evolve into a fast-paced growth and construction company capable of handling one of the biggest public investment projects in British Columbia history.

ssimpson@png.canwest.com


© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:29 AM

May 31, 2008

B.C.'s natural gas riches ensure a bright future despite energy woes

Editorial
Vancouver Sun
May 31, 2008

It's hard to find good news stories about energy during these days of the $100 fill-up, peak oil panic and carbon taxes. But here's a tale of buried treasure in British Columbia's backyard.

Exploration in the remote northeast region of the province has revealed vast reserves of natural gas -- more than enough to make B.C. self-sufficient for decades. Production and investment could double or triple in the next five to 10 years, says EnCana, Canada's largest energy company and a pioneer in opening up the area where many players are now bidding for rights to drill and develop the land. Companies scrambling for a piece of the action include Talisman, Apache, Devon, Canadian Natural Resources, Quicksilver, Suncor and Husky -- even ExxonMobile has staked a claim.

EnCana executives told The Vancouver Sun editorial board this week that B.C. can become a real powerhouse in North American natural gas. Two key plays are Cutbank Ridge, from which EnCana produced 234 million cubic feet a day in 2007; and Greater Sierra at the northern extremity of the province near Fort Nelson, which yielded 211 million cubic feet a day. Estimates of reserves in the Horn River Basin area of Greater Sierra alone exceed 50 trillion cubic feet.

The gas rush has driven land prices from as little as $800 a hectare when EnCana first scouted the area five years ago to $25,000 a hectare today. The auction for leases in the region this month set a record of $441 million.

This money goes directly into the B.C. treasury. That's on top of the $1.2 billion in revenue the provincial government has budgeted from natural gas royalties.

With the forest industry moribund, oil and gas is the largest commercial contributor to government coffers. Fortunately, the Liberal government seems well aware of the industry's importance and has resisted opposition calls to terminate successful programs, such as the net profit royalty program, which recognizes that development of unconventional resources has higher operating costs and expensive technology, and infrastructure programs that ensure access to these remote regions.

In fact, EnCana said the government has, by and large, put in place the right policies to maintain a vibrant industry. Even the regulator, the Oil and Gas Commission, wins praise for efficiency -- something of an irony since it was established by a New Democratic Party government, and remains one of few NDP initiatives the Liberals didn't expunge.

B.C.'s natural gas industry is vital not only to provide government with revenue, but to guarantee energy security. With nuclear power still in the distant future, coal-fired energy relegated to the past and conventional oil becoming increasingly uncertain, natural gas gives us assurance that there will be light, heat and fuel far into the future.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:44 PM

May 28, 2008

Jilted band, company want compensation

But environment minister just says: See you in court

Michael Smyth
The Province
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

In late March, the Gordon Campbell government effectively killed the proposed Upper Pitt River hydro project, reaping the praise of environmental groups. [See BC government rejects Pitt power project]

But now they're reaping the whirlwind: A local First Nation that stood to profit from the $350-million project is suing the government for breach of process, while the private company that planned to build it is threatening to do the same.

Delta-based Run of River Power Inc. first proposed the 180-megawatt project on the Upper Pitt, confident Campbell's new enthusiasm for zero-emission hydro-electricity would seal the deal.

But as opposition to the plan ramped up, the company began to worry -- quite rightly, it turned out -- that the government would get cold feet.

"I am concerned that organized groups and agitators are attempting to hijack the process," company president Jako Krushnisky wrote to Campbell on March 3.

"In the middle of an attack -- which is what we are all under -- you do not back down," he implored. "You stand up. You stand up when standing up is the toughest thing to do."

But that's not what the government had in mind. Public opposition to the project hit a fevered pitch on March 25, when over 1,000 protesters packed a public meeting in Pitt Meadows.

That morning, Krushnisky faxed a letter to Campbell alleging B.C. Parks staff had given advance notice of the meeting to opponents identified as "unions, the B.C. New Democratic Party and other disgruntled organizations."

The next day, Environment Minister Barry Penner announced he would not change the boundaries of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park to allow power lines to pass through, effectively killing the project. The company, and the local Katzie First Nation, were furious.

"We are the rightful decision-makers when it comes to our land and its resources," the First Nation said yesterday.

In a May 2 letter to Campbell, Katzie Chief Mike Leon said the First Nation has lost $400,000 in annual royalties as well as jobs, training, student scholarships and an equity position in the project promised by the company.

"We want the province to resume its review of the park boundary process in a way that properly respects our rights and interests," Leon wrote. "Failing that, we demand compensation."

The company is also threatening to unleash its lawyers, saying Penner unfairly jumped into the park-boundary review before it was completed.

"This is contrary to the law," Krushnisky wrote to Campbell on May 9.

Then to Campbell again on May 16: "Mr. Penner's approach seems to be designed for us all to end up in court. Premier, I am seeking to resolve this on an amicable basis. Accordingly, I look forward to meeting with you."

But Penner, a lawyer himself, fired off a return salvo to Krushnisky that amounted to: See you in court.

What a fine mess this is! The lawyers are loving it. Taxpayers, stuck with the legal bills, will pay the price of a bungled project.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:23 PM

May 26, 2008

Site C Consultations - June 2008

June 2008
Open House Notice for the Peace River Site C Hydro Project

BC Hydro is inviting communities, stakeholders and the public to participate in Project Definition Consultation for the potential Peace River Site C Hydro Project. Site C is one of several options available to help meet BC’s future electricity needs.

Project Definition Consultation is being undertaken in two rounds – the first in May/June and the second in the Fall of 2008. Feedback gathered through this consultation will be used, along with technical and environmental information, to help update the potential project’s design and definition.

As part of Project Definition Consultation, we would like to invite communities, stakeholders and the public to attend Open Houses.

SiteC-ConsulationSchedule-June2008.jpg

You can provide feedback and learn more by:

- Attending Open Houses

- Accessing Online consultation discussion guide and feedback form: www.bchydro.com/sitec

- Written submissions: sitec@bchydro.com or PO Box 2218, Vancouver, BC, V6B 3W2

- Visiting the Community Consultation Office:
9948 100th Ave, Fort St. John

- Toll-free phone: 1-877-217-0777

- Fax: 604 623-4332 or 250 785-3570

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:07 PM

May 23, 2008

No GHGs or tankers from Texada LNG: Powell River Regional District

zero greenhouse gas emissions ... from new gas-fired electricity generation stations

implement a ban on LNG tankers ... in Malaspina and Georgia Straits

The following resolution was adopted by the Powell River Regional District Board, May 22, 2008.

WHEREAS the Board of the Powell River Regional District supports the objectives of the BC Energy Plan of the Government of British Columbia which states:

1. Achieving electricity self-sufficiency is fundamental to our future energy security and that BC shall achieve electricity self-sufficiency by 2016.

2. For existing an new electricity plants the government will set policy around reaching zero net emissions through carbon offsets from other activities in British Columbia.

3. The government is committed to ensuring that British Columbia's electricity sector remains one of the cleanest in the world and that the province will require zero greenhouse gas emissions from any coal thermal electricity facilities which can be met through capture and sequestration technology.

AND WHEREAS WestPac LNG is soliciting interest to build an LNG import facility and and associated 600MW gas-fired electricity generating plant on Texada Island, the emissions from which could negatively impact the environment throughout the Powell River Regional District and beyond;

AND WHEREAS WestPac LNG's plans will involve the passage of a significant number of LNG tankers in the Georgia Strait, which will interfere with existing commercial and recreational marine traffic, put at risk these ecologically important and sensitive inland waters, and negatively impact upland development along this route;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that, consistent with the Province's goal of energy self-sufficiency and clean power, the Board of the Powell River Regional District urge the Provincial government, as part of achieving the BC Energy Plan, to zero greenhouse gas emissions from new gas-fired electricity generation stations and to support a federal government ban on the passage of LNG tankers in the waters of the Malaspina and Georgia Straits;

AND FURTHER that the Regional Board request the federal government to implement a ban on LNG tanker as indicated above.

AND FURTHER that the Regional Board seek support for these initiatives from other Vancouver Island and mainland communities potentially impacted by WestPac LNG import plans.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:47 PM

April 28, 2008

Miller Creek project failing: report

Power project is not meeting its commitment to go green and to protect species at risk

Larry Pynn
Vancouver Sun
Monday, April 28, 2008

An independent power project on Miller Creek near Pemberton is failing to meet its commitments to produce "green power" and to protect species at risk, according to an environmental consulting report.

The 33-megawatt power project, owned by the City of Edmonton's EPCOR Utilities Ltd., had an oil spill on site as well as fish kills resulting from "dewatering" of the creek for four hours during a malfunction last September, reports TRC Biological Consulting Ltd. of Port Coquitlam.

The December 2007 report also notes that harlequin ducks and tailed frogs, both species at risk, have vanished from the creek since construction of the plant in spring 2003.

The report suggests the generating station "does not produce green energy as identified by the BC Hydro power Green Criteria" and "has not fulfilled their commitment, as well as their responsibility respecting the oil spill clean-up and have not protected the species at risk."

The criteria require, in part, that projects "avoid unacceptably high environmental impacts such as damage to fish populations, endangered species or air quality."

The report, obtained by the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, finds that EPCOR lacks an "adequate environmental management system" and recommends "ongoing surveillance to ensure that these deficiencies are fully completed."

It urges removal of all fuel contaminants, re-vegetation of road slopes and annual ditch clean-outs, and compensation for loss of species at risk.

Miller Creek is only the latest in a slew of environmental problems dogging so-called green independent power projects, both run-of-the-river plants and wind turbines, all over the province.

"It's like the Wild West out here," said Gwen Barlee, a campaigner with the Western Canada Wilderness Committee in Vancouver.

Barlee complained the province continues to process scores of applications for similar projects without the ability to monitor them and avoid tragic environmental outcomes.

Tim Bennet, a water-allocation section head with the Ministry of Environment, said the province continues to meet with the company to ensure environmental concerns are addressed. He added the conservation officers' service has an active investigation into the dewatering incident.

Julia Berardinucci, regional manager for water stewardship, added that a lack of solid background data on species at risk in the creek means that further studies are required to better determine the impact of the power plant.

EPCOR spokesman Jay Shukin said that as part of its licence to operate, the company has undergone a five-year environmental monitoring project, ending in 2007.

The company has discussed the latest report with the ministry and is "committed to a second monitoring period using more rigorous methodologies" to ensure "all environmental standards" are met.

The company is already proceeding with road and culvert repairs, slope stability work and a remediation plan for the diesel fuel spill, which he said occurred in 2003 on the plant's access road during the construction phase.

Not more than 100 litres leaked from a fuel truck well away from the creek, he said, adding that some clean-up work was done, but further sampling indicated the "presence of hydrocarbons."

Shukin also noted that flood-control work not associated with EPCOR has had negative downstream impacts on fish in the creek.

He added that the consultant's report does not make the case that the Miller Creek facility is failing to meet its "green energy" obligations.

Independent power projects elsewhere in B.C. have generated fears about environmental and visual impacts from transmission lines, roads and other infrastructure.

The province in March refused a developer's request to punch a transmission line through Pinecone Burke Provincial Park as part of a run-of-the-river development in the upper Pitt River.

EPCOR has water and power facilities throughout western Canada and Washington state, including the seven-megawatt Brown Lake run-of-the-river power plant near Prince Rupert and the Britannia mine water-treatment plant on the Sea-to-Sky Highway near Squamish.

lpynn@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008



Miller Creek Hydro Project


MillerCreek_body14013.jpg
High in the Coast Mountains lays the source of Miller Creek's abundant water supply, the Ipsoot Glacier. Another run-of-river project nestled in the Sea to Sky Corridor, the Miller Creek hydro project, on a tributary of the Lillooet River, lies four kilometres north of Pemberton and produces 29 megawatts (MW) of power.

Owned by EPCOR Power Development Corporation and completed in May 2003, the facility includes water intakes on North and South Miller Creek at elevations of 1,100 metres and 1,200 metres. The water then travels through a 4.2-kilometre steel pressure pipeline linking to a 33-megawatt power station in the lower reach of the creek. Behind the three-metre high concrete dam and steel water-release gate is a two-hectare pond reservoir.

BC Hydro's Miller Creek info page

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:16 PM

April 24, 2008

Innergex Renewable Energy to Acquire Rights to Develop 200 MW of Hydro Projects in BC

CNW Group
Wednesday, Apr. 23 2008

LONGUEUIL, QC, Apr 23, 2008 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) -- Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. (TSX: INE) (the "Corporation") announces it has reached an agreement with Ledcor Power Group Ltd. ("Ledcor") to acquire 66 2/3% of a joint venture, holding rights to develop 18 run-of-river hydroelectric power projects with secured water licences located in Lower Mainland in British Columbia. These projects would represent a potential installed capacity of more than 200 MW and produce over 1,000 GW-hr of clean energy for the Province, filling the needs of approximately 98,000 BC homes.

The Corporation will invest $8 million for this acquisition in addition to issuing 200,000 warrants to Ledcor. Subject to TSX approval, the warrants will be exercisable within 24 months from closing of the transaction, at a strike price of $12.50 per warrant. Ledcor will remain the owner of 33 1/3% of the joint venture.

"We were aiming at developing the sites with a dynamic, serious and experienced development partner, having complementary strengths with Ledcor" said Scott Lyons, President, Ledcor CMI Ltd. "We've seen the success the Corporation already has in BC and elsewhere, and we are confident these projects will provide clean hydropower to the Province in the near future."

"This acquisition will consolidate our position in BC by adding over 200 MW to our existing portfolio of prospective projects, bringing the total to more than 1,800 MW" remarked Michel Letellier, President and CEO of the Corporation. "Pre-development studies, as well as technical assessments were conducted by Innergex' development team which confirmed the projects' feasibility."

Most of these projects are in their early stage of development but some are ready to be submitted to BC Hydro's Clean Power Call and to BC Hydro's Standing Offer Program. The acquisition price for the 18 prospective projects represents an attractive purchase price of less than $40,000 per MW.

The Corporation and Ledcor will work together over the next few months to further finalize the details of the agreement and close the transaction. The closing of the acquisition which is expected to occur within 90 days is subject to customary conditions for similar transaction including satisfactory due diligence review. The Corporation intends to finance the acquisition with cash on hand.

Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. is a developer, owner and operator of hydroelectric facilities and wind energy projects in North America. The Corporation's management team has been involved in the renewable power industry since 1990. The Corporation owns a portfolio of projects which consists of one operating facility (8 MW), interests in nine development projects with power purchase agreements under construction or to be constructed between 2008 and 2012 (gross expected capacity of 565 MW), and prospective projects (gross expected capacity of more than 1,600 MW). Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. also owns 16.1% of the Innergex Power Income Fund, a publicly traded income fund listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (IEF.UN), and acts as its manager under long-term management agreements.

Ledcor Power Inc. is an independent power producer (IPP) currently focused on developing environmentally friendly "green" energy projects in British Columbia. Ledcor Power is a wholly owned subsidiary within the Ledcor Group of Companies. Founded in 1947, Ledcor is a leading, privately-held, employee-owned group of companies, specializing in building, civil, industrial and telecommunications projects and services. Ledcor brings an established history of construction excellence with a team of professionals who measure their success by client satisfaction.

Forward-looking statements

Investors should note that some statements in this press release are forward-looking and may not give full weight to all potential risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are, by their nature, subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results, actions or events could materially differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are only valid as of the date they were made. The Corporation does not undertake to update forward-looking statements except in accordance with applicable laws.

SEDAR: 00026108EF

SOURCE: INNERGEX RENEWABLE ENERGY INC.

Mr. Jean Trudel, MBA, Vice President - Finance and Investors Relations, Innergex
Renewable Energy Inc., (450) 928-2550, jtrudel@innergex.com

Copyright © 2008 CNW Group. All rights reserved.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:52 AM

Possibility grows of spectacular gas find in northeast

Second firm drilling in Horn River Basin cites vast potential natural gas reserves

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, April 24, 2008

The possibility that the remote northeastern corner of British Columbia harbours a spectacular, untapped natural gas resource is growing increasingly certain.

Calgary-based gas explorer Nexen Inc. became the latest company to herald a vast new opportunity in B.C. when it announced that drilling results on its property in the Horn River Basin suggest a potential reserve as great as six trillion cubic feet of gas.

"This is the first time these kind of rock properties have shown up on the radar screen in Canada, and you guys [in B.C.] just happen to have a whole bunch of it," said Nexen's Michael Harris, vice-president of investor relations.
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"This is clearly the most exciting thing we've had in B.C. for a long, long time."

The Nexen announcement follows a similar declaration in February by EOG Resources that its potential net reserve at Horn River is approximately six trillion cubic feet.

All inferences to date about the size of the resource are preliminary -- based on results from barely a handful of holes drilled.

But if the projections are correct, they would collectively increase Canada's total proven natural gas reserves by about 20 per cent -- and that may be at the low end of what's possible.

Earlier this month, the partnership with the largest land holding to date in Horn River, Calgary's EnCana and Houston-based Apache Corp., announced large volumes of gas from three wells drilled this past winter in the basin.

Horn River was the focus of record provincial revenue from gas lease auctions over the past fiscal year, and pending the release of results from April's monthly auction -- which took place on Wednesday -- the spree may continue thanks to gas commodity prices making the venture economic.

The Horn River gas is locked in a shale deposit that is more costly to exploit than conventional gas -- for example, it costs about $10 million to drill a well, compared to $1 million at a conventional deposit.

Shale gas deposits can be cost-effectively exploited -- the Barnett shale deposit in Texas is the second-largest on-shore gas deposit in the United States.

"When our geologists realized that B.C. has these shales, they considered the potential for tight gas and thought we should grab a little bit, and take a look," Harris said.

Projects in the B.C. region likely won't proceed without a trading market price for gas of at least $8 per unit. A unit is 1,000 cubic feet -- a typical B.C. home uses an average of about 10 units per month.

Gas moved into the $10-per-unit range this month amid expectations that prices will range higher than they have for two years, due to a cold winter that took a large bite out of existing reserves.

B.C.'s low-cost royalty framework for unconventional gas reserves also provides incentives for drillers to operate in this province.

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:48 AM

April 19, 2008

Province has 8,000 potential run-of-river power sites: B.C. Hydro study

COMMENT: When it comes to generating power on BC's streams, big numbers abound, bandied about by antagonists of the government's private power policies just as they are by gleeful greedy project proponents - dozens of rivers, hundreds of 'em, 500, 800. This report, claiming 8,242 sites in the province with hydroelectric potential, is about as useful as an inventory of grains of sand on BC's beaches.

This doesn't come easy, friends, but I'm almost ready to agree with Richard Neufeld on this one. Let's get real.

BC Hydro has electricity purchase agreements with about 60 small hydro projects. A large number of those will never get built - the attrition rate on EPAs since BC Hydro started its power calls a few years ago suggests it should improve its filtering for competence and capacity before wasting a lot of time and money on fanciful, but unviable, proposals.

The 60, though, represent a good proportion of the cherry picking. After that, the streams get less productive, more seasonal, more fish-bearing, more remote, further from load centres and transmission lines, more costly. Anybody talking about 800 sites is wasting your time - ain't gonna happen. 8,000 sites, and well, let's start counting sunbeams, and waves, and gusts of wind, too. The estimated cost of power produced at nearly 3000 of the sites KWL identified would be over $1000 MWh. And you thought BC Hydro's reference price of $88 was dear.

The full report is here.

And a map is here.

In conjunction with its 2008 Long Term Acquisition Plan, BC Hydro put together a set of resource option sessions with presentations and reports, including this one. There is info on biomass, coal, wind, and small & large hydro. It's all here:
http://www.bchydro.com/planning_regulatory/integrated_electricity_planning/2008_ltap.html

As a matter of interest, here's what they've been paying per megawatt hour for electricity on the spot market in California over the last 24 hours. It's a good time to be in British Columbia, with all our reservoirs full - selling hydroelectricity from our legacy infrastructure is very profitable at the moment. But if we're paying a marginal rate of $88/MWh, what happens to the netbacks?

CAISO_19Apr2008.jpg

By Stephen Hui
Georgia Straight
April 16, 2008

There are more than 8,000 sites in the province with the potential to be developed as run-of-river power projects, a study commissioned by B.C. Hydro and the B.C. Transmission Corporation has found.

All together, the 8,242 sites would have a potential installed capacity of more than 12,000 megawatts and could generate nearly 50,000 gigawatt hours of energy per year, the November 2007 report, prepared by Kerr Wood Leidal Associates Ltd., says.

The electricity from 121 of those potential sites would cost less than $100 per megawatt hour, the study found. There are 450 sites in British Columbia where the energy would cost $100 to $149 per megawatt hour, while 7,671 sites would produce power at a cost of more than $150 per megawatt hour.

“There is large potential for future development of run-of-river hydroelectric projects in BC,” the report concludes.

“The density of projects in BC relative to the density of the transmission / distribution and road network in BC, in addition to the large portion of the province that would be considered remote, indicates that clustered developments or construction of new transmission lines and road infrastructure could greatly improve the cost effectiveness of many projects.”

If all of the 121 sites with a potential energy cost of less than $100 per megawatt hour were to be developed, they would have a combined capacity of 1,388 megawatts, produce 6,113 gigawatt hours of power annually, and impact a total land area of 7,205 hectares (assuming 10-metre-wide corridors for roads, power lines, and penstocks, and excluding intakes and powerhouses). In total, these sites would have a dependable capacity of 60 megawatts and generate 4,925 gigawatt hours of firm energy.

Sixty of the 121 sites with a potential energy cost of less than $100 per megawatt hour lie in the Lower Mainland transmission region. Thirty-nine of the 121 sites would have an individual capacity of more than 10 megawatts.

In the legislature on April 15, New Democrat environment critic Shane Simpson cited the report and asked if Minister of Environment Barry Penner would support the Opposition’s call for a moratorium on private power projects until the government has studied their impacts and developed a provincial plan with consultation.

“If this doesn’t perpetuate a gold rush mentality, then I don’t know what does,” Simpson said, according to Hansard.

Responding to Simpson, Penner attacked the NDP’s record on energy but didn’t address the report.

But, following a question from NDP energy critic John Horgan, Minister of Energy Richard Neufeld did.

“I’m glad they dream in 8,200 numbers, but what they should get to is reality,” Neufeld told the legislature. “British Columbia needs 30,000 gigawatt hours of electricity within the next 20 to 25 years, with the anticipated growth. That’s not my number. That’s the B.C. Utilities Commission’s number and B.C. Hydro’s number.”

Responding to another question from Horgan, Neufeld said: “Always interesting to hear the NDP try to blow everything out of proportion. I guess 8,200 is the new number today. Maybe tomorrow it’ll be 10,000. I don’t know. Maybe the next day it’ll be a hundred. They don’t speak reality at any given point in time.”

B.C. Hydro and the B.C. Transmission Corporation hired Kerr Wood Leidal in August 2007 to assess the run-of-river potential of the province. The Burnaby-based engineering-services company used a geographic-information-system model to complete the resulting Run-of-River Hydroelectric Resource Assessment for British Columbia report and map.

Run-of-River Hydroelectric Resource Assessment for British Columbia (Kerr Wood Leidal) Report Map

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 07:11 PM

Save Our Rivers, Indeed

Why the private power battle is so critical.

By Rafe Mair
The Tyee
April 14, 2008

I must, in fairness, tell you that I support, and have publicly spoken for the Save Our Rivers Society, which, along with other groups and countless British Columbians, is actively opposing the privatization of our power and the abuse of up to 750 of our rivers and streams to make great wads of cash for the private sector. I'm sure you will bear my prejudice in mind.

...

The questions we must ask ourselves are these: Do we want private companies -- many of them large American outfits -- to develop our hydro power and make huge profits for largely offshore shareholders?

Or do we want to develop our own power and set our own course?

...

But there is one question that overrides all else. Were you consulted on this matter of enormous consequences? Was this even an election issue?

The answer is, of course, no. This has been policy by stealth.

Click here to read this article in its entirety, at The Tyee.ca

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 06:47 PM

April 14, 2008

B.C. gains on Alberta's power pain

Deregulation handed $500M bonanza to BC Hydro, critics say

Darcy Henton
The Edmonton Journal
Monday, April 14, 2008

The deregulation of Alberta's electrical system may be controversial here, but it has been a bonanza for British Columbia, say industry observers.

They say B.C. has made windfall profits -- more than half a billion dollars -- selling its cheaply produced hydro electricity on Alberta's power market at prices that rocket to nearly $1,000 per megawatt hour (MWh) -- or $1 per kilowatt hour -- when supply is short.

By contrast, John Calvert, an associate professor of public policy at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., says BC Hydro produces electricity at a cost of about 0.6 cents per kilowatt hour (KWh) and sells it to B.C.'s 1.7 million customers for around 6.4 cents per KWh to cover transmission, distribution and other costs.

Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald says it is obvious B.C. taxpayers are the winners in this province's electrical deregulation experiment and Albertans are the losers.

"It's like BC Hydro won a lottery -- only they get a prize on an annual basis," he said. "They will get an annual dividend from our major mistake: electrical deregulation."

MacDonald suspects BC Hydro uses the Alberta revenue to keep its electricity prices amongst the lowest in Canada while Alberta prices are heading in the opposite direction.

"We have gone from some of the lowest prices in North America to some of the highest costs in North America and deregulation is to blame," he said.

NDP Leader Brian Mason said deregulation was supposed to bring lower prices and increased generation and it hasn't accomplished either.

"We're buying more power from B.C. at prices that must be a world-record mark-up," he said. "They are making out like bandits."

Neither Alberta Energy nor BC Hydro would reveal the exact dollar value of the electricity that is purchased by Alberta from B.C., but Alberta Energy reports on its website that it purchased more than $668 million worth of power from B.C. and Saskatchewan in the five years between 2002 and 2006. The province imported nearly $200 million in 2006 alone -- the last year for which figures are available.

While both B.C. and Saskatchewan export electricity to Alberta, the lion's share comes from B.C. SaskPower officials wouldn't say how much electricity it sells to Alberta, but its annual reports suggest it is a minimal amount -- about $13 million in 2006.

Wayne St. Amour, a vice-president with the non-profit Alberta Electric System Operator, said BC Hydro has the ability to close its spillways in the early morning hours and purchase power from Alberta's coal-fired plants when market prices are low. It then taps its recharged reservoirs when demand peaks and sells power into the Alberta grid at prices as high as $999 per MWh.

"Those are the market dynamics," he said. "That is a price that is entirely reasonable when we think about the level of reliability it provides us to ensure the lights stay on in Alberta."

Alberta deregulated its electricity market in 2001. Since 2002 it has been a net importer of electricity, St. Amour said.

Jim Wachowich, a lawyer for the Alberta Consumers Coalition, said Albertans paid the costs of creating the deregulated system and all the rules and entities that operate it and now B.C. is cashing in on the rewards.

"The jurisdiction next door is enjoying the benefits of electrical deregulation without suffering any of the costs," he said. "I really do believe Albertans have paid costs and not seen commensurate benefits from those costs."

But Alberta Energy spokeswoman Tammy Forbes says the power line between B.C. and Alberta supports the sharing of electricity during high- and low-demand periods to ensure a reliable supply and Alberta benefits from that.

She added that restructuring the electricity system has enabled Alberta to lead the nation in generating wind power and resulted in proposals to build 7,200 megawatts to meet the province's staggering demand for electricity.

"Our load growth in 2007 was equivalent to Ontario's load growth and they have three times our population," Forbes said. "The amount of electricity that has been added -- 4,600 megawatts -- is estimated to be $5 billion in private investment that didn't use taxpayers' money ... That is adding an entire Saskatchewan worth of new generation."

Alberta's plans include construction of a second power line into B.C. within the next decade. Critics say that may only increase Alberta's dependence on B.C. power.

"There is always concerns around too much interconnectedness," Wachowich said. "If someone else's system goes down, it can bring you with it."

Calvert said B.C.'s electricity can be produced cheaply because most of its dams were built in the 1960s and 70s.

"We're paying prices that are 30 to 40 years old," he said.

Alberta electricity, which is produced by private companies primarily from coal-fired plants and natural gas-fired plants, is considerably more expensive to produce and it is sold into a supply-and-demand-based electricity market.

Joseph Doucet, who teaches energy policy at the University of Alberta, says B.C. is well positioned to take advantage of Alberta's restructured market.

"The juxtaposition of a hydro system and a thermal (coal) system is ideal," Doucet said. "You have a market that is close to you that you can serve and, by virtue of two things -- good luck in geography and good planning -- you can profit from that market."

He said Alberta would need more generation if it wasn't for its easy access to B.C.'s electricity. And the power it purchases is emissions-free, he added.

"I would suggest that before your readers get too hot under the collar about this, it's not that different from the way we Albertans feel about expensive oil and our proximity to the U.S. market," he said. "We can't begrudge them their hydro capacity. They should be able to profit from it."

BC Hydro, which trades power and natural gas through its subsidiary Powerex, earned $511 million from sales to other provinces in 2006 and more than $2 billion in the past decade.

The Crown corporation carries a $7-billion debt, but it is required to pay a dividend of 85 per cent of its annual surplus to the B.C. treasury. It made a $407-million profit in 2006-07.

Calvert, the author of Liquid Gold, which argues against efforts to privatize part of B.C.'s electricity system, is a strong proponent of a publicly-operated electrical system. "BC Hydro is a good deal for people here," he said. "The public is not keen to have it privatized."

Both Alberta's main opposition parties have vowed to pull the plug on electrical deregulation if they get into power.

"I never thought it was a good idea to restructure your system, but no one consulted me at the time," Calvert said.

dhenton@thejournal.canwest.com

© The Edmonton Journal 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:27 AM

April 12, 2008

BC Hydro introduces Standing Offer Program

BC Hydro launches Standing Offer Program to acquire clean energy
News Release, BC Hydro, 11-Apr-2008

STANDING OFFER PROGRAM
Program Overview
May 6 Information Session

Hydro hunts small power sources
Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun, 12-Apr-2008



BC Hydro launches Standing Offer Program to acquire clean energy


News Release
BC Hydro
April 11, 2008

VANCOUVER – BC Hydro launched its Standing Offer Program today to help ensure the province can meet its growing electricity needs with power from clean or renewable sources. The program offers a standard contract with set prices and a streamlined administrative process to give smaller scale projects the opportunity to contribute to B.C.'s supply of clean electricity.

Specifically, the Standing Offer Program targets projects that generate up to 10 megawatts of power. A 10 megawatt project typically provides about 40 GWh per year of energy or enough electricity to power 4,000 households.

"The Standing Offer Program will help the province achieve two important goals of the BC Energy Plan – becoming electricity self-sufficient by 2016 and generating 90 per cent of electricity in the province from clean or renewable sources," said Richard Neufeld, Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

To be eligible for the Standing Offer Program, projects must generate clean or renewable energy or involve high-efficiency cogeneration. Projects must be located in B.C. and use proven technologies.

"This program will help us meet our future energy challenges by developing innovative, sustainable solutions that will help B.C. maintain its natural, competitive advantage of having a clean and renewable energy supply for generations," said BC Hydro President and CEO Bob Elton.

Feedback received through extensive stakeholder engagement influenced the design of the Standing Offer Program, resulting in revisions to the draft program rules and contract. These revised terms and conditions were part of the program application filed with the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) for regulatory review. The BCUC approved the program in March 2008.

Developers interested in applying to the Standing Offer Program are encouraged to review the Program Rules, Electricity Purchase Agreement and other documents, and to attend an upcoming information session.

Contact:
Susan Danard
Media Relations
Phone: (604) 623-4220

http://bchydro.com/news/2008/apr/release55742.html



STANDING OFFER PROGRAM


Program Overview

As directed by the provincial government in its BC Energy Plan: A Vision for Clean Energy Leadership, BC Hydro is implementing a Standing Offer Program to encourage the development of small and clean energy projects throughout British Columbia. The Program is a process to purchase energy from small projects with a nameplate capacity greater than 0.05 megawatts but not more than 10 megawatts.

Through a series of informal stakeholder engagement sessions and written comments, we received extensive feedback from stakeholders about previous calls for power and the design of the Standing Offer Program. As a result, the Program has been designed to:

* simplify the process, the contract and its administration
* decrease the costs of participation for developers while remaining cost-effective for the ratepayer
* meet the need identified by the BC Energy Plan and embody its policies and principles.

The Standing Offer Program Rules explain Program details including eligibility requirements, the application process and the Standard Form Electricity Purchase Agreement (EPA) terms.

Upcoming information sessions

BC Hydro invites you to attend an information session on May 6, 2008 in Vancouver to review the Program Rules and the application process. This session is intended for developers that are ready, or are planning, to submit an application.

* Register for this information session

We are also planning to hold regional information sessions over the coming months. Details on these sessions will be posted shortly.

Standing Offer Program details



Hydro hunts small power sources


Call goes out for projects generating up to 10 megawatts to join the grid

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, April 12, 2008

BC Hydro scaled its hunt for green electricity down to the micro level on Friday, announcing that it will welcome prospective producers of incremental bits of power any time they're ready to join the grid.

Projects of 10 megawatts or less are eligible and Hydro says it will take all it can get -- promising a streamlined application process for small-scale producers.

Proponents of larger projects must wait for the Crown corporation to issue a call for power before seeking an electricity sales agreement.

Under the Standing Offer program launched Friday, the little guys can fill out some standard application forms online and -- provided they have all necessary permits and other documentation -- they can join whenever they're ready.

Hydro has been working on the program for two years with independent power producers, and it was approved in March by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Small run-of-river power projects would seem to be obvious candidates, but Hydro spokesperson Susan Danard said generating projects involving landfill gas, wind, solar, co-generation at industrial sites, and other green technology will qualify.

The program runs indefinitely, and Hydro is uncertain how many projects will join the grid in the near term -- it could be anywhere from 10 to 50 by 2010, Danard said in a telephone interview.

Standardized power sales agreements make it easier for proponents to contract with Hydro, but Danard noted that the list of other required documentation is lengthy, running to two pages in online documentation posted Friday afternoon on Hydro's website

"They have to have all their permits in hand to be ready to go," Danard said.

Hydro will pay between $71.37 and $84.23 per megawatt hour for power from small producers, which is more or less in line with the $71 to $74 amounts contracted in Hydro's major 2006 call for power.

There's a $3.10-per-megawatt-hour bonus for producers who get eco-certification.

Energy sector commentator David Austin said he expects most of the projects will be near the province's main population-electricity consumption centres, since additional transmission costs will eat into revenue at more distant locations.

Austin said he does not expect the program to trigger a gold rush.

"It's one thing to identify a resource, it's another to be able to produce it at the price being offered. This is always the hurdle that people have to overcome in order to be able to sell their electricity."

Melissa Davis, executive director of Citizens for Public Power, said the group is concerned that the process lacks the oversight that would be applied if Hydro itself were developing the same sources.

Davis said the electricity acquired under the program would be a "drop in the bucket compared to the provincial government's stated need for new generation -- unless Hydro is understating the scale of the response it expects."

"Can we expect to see a doubling or tripling of the more than 600 existing water licences and applications for private power projects on B.C.'s rivers and creeks through this program?" Davis asked.

ssimpson@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:19 AM

April 11, 2008

Another Side to Private Power

First Nations, municipalities explore controversial energy source.

By Colleen Kimmett
The Tyee
April 11, 2008

Environment Minister Barry Penner decided not to go against a very vocal majority when he nixed a plan to run a power line through Pinecone Burke Provincial Park last month.

Groups opposed to the project, which had been rallying for months in advance of the decision and packed rowdy public hearings in Mission and Pitt Meadows, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Underlying the controversy around this high-profile project is a greater concern about the private sector's role in power production.

...

Increasingly, First Nations and municipalities are the IPPs, working with the private sector but retaining full or partial ownership of their utilities and the revenue stream they provide.

Click here to read this article in its entirety, at the Tyee.ca

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 06:59 PM

April 10, 2008

Tribal council allowed to appeal Rio Tinto deal

B.C. Court of Appeal decision stalls BC Hydro's efforts to renew sales

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
April 10, 2008

BC Hydro's troubled efforts to renew a power sales deal with Rio Tinto Alcan have hit a new, and potentially monumental snag.

The British Columbia Court of Appeal has granted the Carrier Sekani Tribal council leave to appeal the multi-billion-dollar electricity purchase agreement that was approved in January by the British Columbia Utilities Commission.

The agreement gives BC Hydro long-term access to a portion of the electricity produced at Alcan's Kemano generating station near Kitimat.

The deal was struck in the context of Alcan's plan for a $2 billion modernization plan for its Kitimat smelter -- a plan that would lower the smelter's overall electricity requirements and leave about 15 per cent of annual electricity output for sales to Hydro.

However, the Carrier Sekani are looking for a new deal, either through a court fight or a negotiated settlement, to give some of that water back to Nechako River fish populations downstream of Kemano that have been devastated by the dam.

If they're successful, Hydro may lose some of the electricity production it negotiated with Alcan -- cheap, reliable power that is at a premium in B.C. and across North America.

The tribal council notes that Hydro has set ample precedents that recognize the crown's responsibility to first nations on this issue.

Over the past decade, Hydro has dedicated tens of millions of dollars in environmental restoration funds and foregone power generation in the form of improved water flows in rivers downstream of its dams around the province as a means of compensating for the adverse effects of its facilities.

The Carrier Sekani think Hydro needs to support the same sort of measures on the Nechako, although Hydro and Alcan were able to persuade the utilities commission otherwise in a ruling handed down last January.

The BCUC, in its ruling, stated that it had no authority to make a ruling on first nations issues.

Now, the tribal council says, the whole issue has been reopened.

In an interview, Carrier Sekani Tribal Council tribal Chief David Luggi said neither the province, nor a Crown agency such as BC Hydro, can absolve itself of a duty to consult first nations in matters involving traditional territory or interests.

"The province can't sign off on aboriginal rights or title. It's been long documented that they don't have that capability. So this is where we come in," Luggi said in a telephone interview from Prince George.

BC Hydro declined comment because the matter is still before the courts, spokesperson Susan Danard said in an interview.

"It's potentially a very significant decision," Greg McDade, legal counsel for Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, said in an interview.

"The grounds here are quite far reaching in terms of the utilities commission's role in dealing with first nations issues. They have tried to avoid that, despite the rest of the province and every other agency of the Crown becoming involved in aboriginal consultation."

An Alcan spokesperson said the company believes that the B.C. Utilities Commission made a correct decision, and is continuing with its plan for modernization of the Kitimat smelter.

"Rio Tinto Alcan believes that the BCUC decision is correct and specifically, the 2007 Electricity Purchase Agreement between the company and BC Hydro does not impact the flows in the Nechako River, therefore Rio Tinto Alcan is confident [that the BCUC ruling will stand]," corporate affairs and community relations manager Colleen Nyce said in an e-mail.

Nyce, whose office is located at Kitimat, said Rio Tinto Alcan's managers "are completing the necessary final pre-engineering and feasibility work before taking the Kitimat modernization business plan to the company board of directors for final approval."

That approval is expected later this year.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:31 AM

April 09, 2008

NEW: Oil and Gas Activities Act

The BC Government has introduced the new Oil and Gas Activities Act (OGAA) in the Legislature. OGAA consolidates a number of related statues, including the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act, the Oil and Gas Commission Act, the Pipeline Act and the Forest Practices Code Act.

OGAA also introduces more results-based "regulation" of the oil and gas industry, in which companies are expected to be self-policing. We have long maintained that the purported benefits of this approach to regulation - reduced cost and onus on government - are hugely offset by the risks, indeed likelihood, that companies will cut corners, dodge responsibility, and prefer to pay penalties if they are ever caught. The greatest risk is damage to the environment that will be discovered long after the event, at which point penalties etc. are an empty resolution.

Bill 20 at First Reading

MEMPR News Release, 08-Aug-2008

B.C. makes it easier for companies to exploit natural gas reserves
Wendy Stueck, Globe and Mail, 09-Apr-2008



B.C. makes it easier for companies to exploit natural gas reserves


WENDY STUECK
Globe and Mail
April 9, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Bracing for a boom, British Columbia has overhauled its oil and gas rules to nurture a sector where major players are sitting on what are believed to be some of the biggest discoveries in Canadian history.

The new Oil and Gas Activities Act is aimed in part at making life easier for companies that want to exploit, in particular, natural gas deposits that, while large, are technically difficult. Excitement surrounding exploration results in the province generated a breakthrough $1-billion in land rights sales last year.

B.C. has a "strong interest" in developing the province's emerging gas plays, energy minister Richard Neufeld said in a statement.

Northeastern British Columbia is the heart of the province's natural gas boom and the Horn River Basin, north of Fort Nelson, appears to be home to some of the most promising discoveries.

Yesterday, Apache Corp. of Houston, which is working with EnCana Corp. of Calgary, announced three new wells drilled this winter all delivered big amounts of gas. EOG Resources Inc., also Houston based, has made large discoveries as well.

Apache and EnCana have locked up about 400,000 acres at the centre of the Ootla shale play in the Horn River region.

Horn River is a shale gas play, for decades considered a fringe resource at best. Last year, to help spur development, the B.C. government adopted an oil sands-like royalty framework for shale and other complicated exploration areas, charging only a nominal 2 per cent until companies recover their costs.

With conventional natural gas deposits on the wane in North America, companies are pouring millions into unconventional gas plays, encouraged by advances in technology such as horizontal drilling and subsurface fracturing of the complex and difficult shale rock in which the natural gas is trapped.

Bidding for new exploration land in B.C. remains at a record rate, with $277-million spent by energy companies this year, leaving the province on pace to break its record of $1-billion set last year.

The new act will replace three existing pieces of legislation, consolidating requirements for industry while protecting the environment, Mr. Neufeld said.

Oil and gas exploration development is a contentious issue in several parts of the province, including northwestern B.C., where Shell Canada Ltd. has run into stiff opposition over its plans to explore for coal-bed methane.

"It's important that we get the regulation of oil and gas right, because it is such a huge economic driver for the province," said Greg Cowe of West Coast Environmental Law, adding that the sector is expected to generate more than $2-billion in royalties and land sales for the province in its current fiscal year.

"At the same time, it accounts for about 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in B.C., so there is a tension of trying to balance those two sides."

The B.C. government has introduced a carbon tax and cap-and-trade legislation as part of its plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2020.

As part of its revamped oil and gas regime, B.C. on Friday launched a landowner notification program to provide registered surface owners in northeast B.C. with information about rights sales.

APACHE (APA) Close: $130 (U.S.) up $1.40
ENCANA (ECA) Close: $78.62, up 57Ct

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:38 AM

April 03, 2008

Amended Utilities Act reflects new government issues

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
April 02, 2008

The British Columbia Utilities Commission is expanding its traditional role from minding the public's money into one where social and environmental issues will also weigh on decisions about the future of crown agencies such as BC Hydro, Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said Tuesday.

Changes to the Utilities Commission Act were introduced this week in the legislature, and were described by one expert observer as the biggest shift in the commission's mandate in a generation.

Neufeld said the amended act is intended to reflect new government priorities including energy efficiency, conservation and demand management.

Key objectives include reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, enhanced regulatory support for clean and renewable energy, and more long-term planning for electricity generating and transmission infrastructure.

Neufeld said in the past the commission has made decisions exclusively upon economic considerations, and the government wanted to change that mandate "a bit."

"We depend on that quasi-judicial body to make some pretty significant decisions for us," Neufeld said in a telephone interview.

"It's not that the commission was doing anything wrong. They were actually living up to what the legislation said.

"The commission has to be aware that we want to maintain competitive [electricity] rates, to stay amongst the lowest rates in North America, but [also] to actually start looking at the social part of the world and also the environmental part of it. That's getting to be much more on people's minds than it used to be."

Energy sector commentator David Austin said government's concern about greenhouse gas emissions is central to the amended act, which incorporates most objectives of the B.C. Liberals' phase one and two Energy Plans.

"The electricity business in this province is at a critical juncture because for years we have been coasting along on the traditional way of generating and supplying electricity without regard to greenhouse gasses," Austin said in an interview.

"People haven't really taken into account what a reduction in greenhouse gasses is going to mean to the electricity business in this province.

"The government is looking ahead. It is not looking at the way we were doing things in the past because the utilities commission act itself was never set up to deal with something of the magnitude of GHGs."

Simon Fraser University energy economist Mark Jaccard, a chair of the BCUC in the mid-1990s, applauded the changes.

"The utilities commission act has needed updating for some time and I see these as welcome amendments that improve the ability of our regulated electric and natural gas companies to contribute to the province's greenhouse gas reduction goals. Once again, B.C. is proving to be a leader in North America and even globally," Jaccard said in an email.

NDP Opposition Leader Carole James said the party will take some time to study the proposed legislation, but she already has doubts that a utility regulator is the best tool for deciding policy on emissions.

"Is BCUC the right vehicle to be monitoring greenhouse gas?" James asked in a telephone interview.

"There will be questions from people I know -- it doesn't seem to us that it's the right mechanism to be doing that examining, to be reporting out.

"That will be the real issue for us to take a look at it."

Bill 15 - Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:40 AM

March 28, 2008

Natural gas bonanza for B.C.

Alberta's energy crown threatened
David Ebner, Globe and Mail, 27-Mar-2008

Natural gas bonanza for B.C.
Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun, 28-Mar-2008



Natural gas bonanza for B.C.


Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Friday, March 28, 2008

The rush for natural gas in northern British Columbia reached a fever pitch in the 2007-2008 fiscal year that closes on Monday, Energy Minister Richard Neufeld announced.

B.C. took in $152 million in bonus bids in March to lift gas and oil rights sale revenue to more than $1.2 billion - almost twice the previous record for single year sales, Neufeld said in a news release this week.

"These exceptional land rights sales show British Columbia is a top jurisdiction for oil and gas investment," said Neufeld in the release. "Our success is the result of first-rate resource potential and strong support for continued industry growth. We have increased our natural gas reserves, expanded infrastructure and attracted new interest to B.C. that will benefit the entire province for decades to come."

The previous record, set in 2003-2004, was $625.7 million.

This year¹s amount also saw a near-doubling in the per-hectare value of bids - $1,863 per hectare compared to $984 in 2006-2007.

Eighty-one parcels covering 89,752 hectares were offered in the March 26, 2008 sale, and bids were accepted on 81 parcels for an average price of $1,694 per hectare, the government said.

Key parcels in the March sale were three drilling licenses located in the Horn River Basin area about 45 kilometres north of Fort Nelson, with bid totals of $22.9 million, $15.8 million and $12.4 million for the trio.

Horn River Basin has immense potential for shale gas development, although the technology to tap gas in deposits of this type is still in development - gas prices must be relatively high in order for them to remain economic.

Natural gas resources in B.C. are increasingly in demand among Canadian drillers, especially in light of the decline in conventional gas resources in Alberta.

British Columbia, by contrast, is relatively unexplored and is believed to contain vast gas reserves - although many of the deposits are in areas such as Horn River which present greater technical challenges for drillers, who may have to pay up to 10 times as much per well compared to conventional gas plays in Alberta.



Alberta's energy crown threatened


DAVID EBNER
Globe and Mail
March 27, 2008

CALGARY — British Columbia and Saskatchewan are on the verge of a huge oil and natural gas exploration boom as companies pour hundreds of millions of dollars into land rights, shifting their focus away from the established energy capital of Alberta.

B.C. raked in $152-million from its latest sale of exploration rights, the province announced yesterday. Buoyed by high natural gas prices and big exploration prospects, energy companies are rushing to stake a claim in the province's northeast.

Last month, Saskatchewan took in $197-million in a single sale of exploration rights, by far its biggest-ever sale – and almost as much as it previously generated in an entire year. Stoked by $100-a-barrel oil, companies are in a frenzy over the Bakken play in the southeast part of the province, where interest has percolated in recent years and has now exploded.

“It's the big M – momentum. There's no question B.C. and Saskatchewan have momentum,” said Gregg Scott, president of Calgary-based land broker Scott Land & Lease Ltd.

New exploration rights are closely correlated with drilling activity, which remains active in Alberta but is poised to notably broaden beyond the province.

Alberta, during its 2004-06 boom years, saw billions of dollars flood into the provincial treasury, peaking in 2006 with a stunning $3.4-billion paid to scoop up fast-disappearing exploration territory, especially in the oil sands.

But now, the best new prospects are not in Alberta but in neighbouring provinces.

And that's expected to continue.

“We'll be seeing more and more competition at land sales in B.C.,” Mr. Scott said.

FirstEnergy Capital Corp. in a recent report said “frantic” land sale activity in B.C. is likely to extend into April, saying it is a “massive land grab equivalent to that of the oil sands binge observed in Alberta during late 2005 and early 2006.”

Bids for the next B.C. sale are due April 23.

In Saskatchewan, April 7 is the deadline for the next rounds of bids.

The province likely will smash its annual exploration rights record of $250-million, set last year, just four months into 2008.

For British Columbia, driving the boom are drilling results from EnCana Corp. and EOG Resources Inc., both of which may be sitting on some of the biggest natural gas discoveries in Canadian history in the Horn River region of northeastern B.C.

The hot Montney play, which is also in northeastern B.C., where companies such as ARC Energy Trust are active, attracted big bids yesterday as well.

Yesterday's $152-million take was the fourth-biggest single sale in B.C.'s history, extending a run that includes $401-million collected in December and $265-million in September. The province's largest sale was in September, 2003, with EnCana leading a charge that month that saw B.C. collect $418-million.

This year, for the first time ever, B.C. is on pace to surpass Alberta in the competition for dollars for exploration rights. Alberta has seen only $202-million spent in 2008.

Beyond high commodity prices and strong prospects, advances in technology underpin the industry's new look at B.C. and Saskatchewan.

Horizontal drilling techniques, and better fracturing of subsurface reservoirs, is helping unlock previously difficult-to-recover oil and gas.

A further factor is royalties. In Alberta, the rates charged on natural gas will rise in 2009, and will hit the most attractive gas plays in the province the hardest.

In B.C., while royalties on gas are roughly the same as Alberta's increased rates, a special deal was instituted last year to encourage investment in emerging gas plays, such as the kind at Horn River, where much of the recent money has been spent.

Land sales are conducted twice a month in Alberta, once a month in British Columbia, and every two months in Saskatchewan.

In other areas, such as Newfoundland and the Northwest Territories, the land sales generally happen once a year.


Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:02 PM

March 26, 2008

B.C. government rejects Pitt power project

INFORMATION BULLETIN
For Immediate Release
2008ENV0032-000418
March 26, 2008

Ministry of Environment

PROPOSAL FOR TRANSMISSION LINES IN PARK REJECTED

VICTORIA - Environment Minister Barry Penner has decided not to recommend to Cabinet or the Legislature that the proposal by Northwest Cascade Power Limited to adjust the boundaries of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park be accepted.

Penner made the decision after a briefing with BC Parks staff this morning, following the last scheduled public meeting regarding the proposed park boundary amendment. He concluded the proposal did not meet the strict environmental criteria set forth in the Provincial Park Boundary Adjustment Policy, nor did it have sufficient support from the public, some First Nations, and local government.

The Provincial Park Boundary Adjustment Policy has been in place since 2004 and makes it clear that a proponent must demonstrate a clear need for a boundary adjustment. The policy is available online at: < href="www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/">www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/

-30-

Media contact:

Kate Thompson
Manager, Media Relations
250 953-4577

http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2005-2009/2008ENV0032-000418.htm



B.C. government rejects Pitt power project


Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The British Columbia government has rejected a controversial proposal by an independent electricity project developer to run a power line through Pinecone Burke Provincial Park, Environment Minister Barry Penner said today.

The announcement comes a day after more than 1,000 people jammed Pitt Meadows secondary school to express their opposition to a proposal by Run of River Power to connect its proposed series of run of river hydro projects in the Upper Pitt River Valley to BC Hydro's provincial electricity grid.

Run of River will now have to find an alternate transmission route for its proposal to build seven run of river hydroelectric generating projects in the Upper Pitt, although the company has indicated that the Pinecone route was its preferred option.

The project still requires an environmental approval from the province, and Run of River must also obtain a power sales agreement with BC Hydro before it can proceed.



Power project rejected


Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Times
Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The provincial government has backed off the Run-of-River project for the Upper Pitt River - less than 24 hours after 1,000 people packed Pitt Meadows Secondary to speak out against the project.

The government issued a brief release that said: "Environment Minister Barry Penner has decided not to recommend to Cabinet or the Legislature that the proposal by Northwest Cascade Power Limited to adjust the boundaries of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park be accepted.

"Penner made the decision after a briefing with BC Parks staff this morning, following the last scheduled public meeting regarding the proposed park boundary amendment.

He concluded the proposal did not meet the strict environmental criteria set forth in the Provincial Park Boundary Adjustment Policy, nor did it have sufficient support from the public, some First Nations, and local government."

The Provincial Park Boundary Adjustment Policy has been in place since 2004 and makes it clear that a proponent must demonstrate a clear need for a boundary adjustment. The policy is available online at: www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks

Opponents who spoke Tuesday night said the project would destroy the fish habitat. Others were furious that transmission lines could cut a swath through the provincial park.

© Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows TIMES 2008


Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:43 PM

March 20, 2008

SFU environment prof named B.C.'s 'academic of the year'

COMMENT: Many people on this list came to know Mark Jaccard's name with an op-ed of his in 2001 in the Vancouver Sun calling the GSX Pipeline "Fast Ferries II". He later joined the campaign against the Duke Point gas-fired power plant in a couple of high-profile public events. At one time chair of the BC Utilities Commission, Jaccard was author of a 1997 report from the Task Force on Electricity Market Reform which recommended most of what the Liberal government has done with electricity markets and transmission in BC since 2001 - and went well beyond that with the proposal that a second unregulated electricity market be established in BC, operating in parallel and in competition with BC Hydro.

Jaccard's book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, says that there are huge fossil fuel resources in the world, largely in coal, and that we're not likely to stop using them. Use them, he says, but put tight fiscal and environmental regulations around them so they don't pollute or emit atmospheric carbon.

I particularly like the idea of generating electricity in big box centralized facilities, where it's practical to implement the waste capture technologies, and run everything on electricity. But maybe I'm getting a bit off on a tangent.

Chantal Eustace
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

jaccard.jpg
CREDIT: Bill Keay/Vancouver Sun
Mark Jaccard, an SFU expert on energy and the environment.


VANCOUVER - A Simon Fraser University resource economist and climate-change expert has won an academic award for his work "challenging conventional wisdom" through environmentalism.

Mark Jaccard, a professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management, will be honoured with the "academic of the year award" at a ceremony at the Law Courts Inn next week.

The Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C. award recognizes faculty members at public universities who use their research and scholarly work to make contributions to the wider community.

Jaccard "has invested an incredible amount of time helping politicians and the public to understand the consequences of failed government policies to combat climate change," the association's president, Chris Petter, said in a news release Wednesday.

Jaccard, a leading expert on environmental policy, is a member of the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy and lead author on the Global Energy Assessment, due in 2010.

His 2006 book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, won the Donner Prize for best policy book in Canada.

Elaine Gallagher of the University of Victoria's Centre on Aging will also be honoured at the March 26 dinner with a career achievement award, for work relating to senior citizens.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:20 AM

March 18, 2008

Project to Ensure Reliable Power for Vancouver Island

See also:
Power lines to proceed
Sandor Gyarmati, Delta Optimist, 18-Mar-2008

Buyouts possible for high-voltage-line homes
Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun, 18-Mar-2008


INFORMATION BULLETIN
Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
March 17, 2008

VICTORIA – Following more than three years of extensive public consultations, two independent studies and input from federal and provincial health organizations, the Province has announced that construction of overhead lines for the Tsawwassen segment of the Vancouver Island Transmission Reinforcement (VITR) Project will move forward. This upgrade has been designed with the strictest health and safety measures and exceeds guidelines endorsed by the World Health Organization.

The VITR project will ensure a reliable supply of power for over 700,000 residents, social infrastructure and business services on Vancouver Island and the southern Gulf Islands.

The three-year process included more than 40 presentations, briefings and public open houses, 1,600 requests for information responded to, validation from Health Canada and input from the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Fraser Valley Health Authority, Vancouver Island Health Authority and First Nations.

The project will remove a total of 58 poles. The current 78 wooden poles will be replaced with 20 new steel poles at 18 locations along the existing right-of-way that have been in place for 50 years.

Of the 18 pole locations on the right-of-way, nine are residential, three are owned by BC Hydro and six are non-residential or public spaces. The two lines that now flank each side of the right-of-way will be removed and replaced by a single set of poles.

Construction on this project will not start before June 1, 2008, which will allow for a full preconstruction notification and survey process and ensure that information is made available to all residents. Government is willing to consider the option of purchasing homes of affected homeowners on the right-of-way if they desire.

The government commissioned two independent studies to review the various proposals that had been brought forward by the British Columbia Transmission Corporation (BCTC) and a community organization. The independent studies confirmed the results of the BCTC cost estimates.

The decision to move forward with the overhead line construction is consistent with the British Columbia Utilities Commission and is scheduled to be in service by October 2008.

-30-

backgrounder(s) attached.

Media contact:
Jake Jacobs
Ministry of Energy, Mines and
Petroleum Resources
250 952-0628
250 213-6934 (cell)

For more information on government services or to subscribe to the Province’s news feeds using RSS, visit the Province’s website at www.gov.bc.ca.

Download this release
BCTC's VITR response to Tsawwassen residents' concerns www.knowthefacts.ca
BCTC VITR webpages



Power lines to proceed


Sandor Gyarmati
Delta Optimist
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

powerlines.jpg
On Monday, the Ministry of Energy issued an information bulletin announcing that work will proceed on the controversial new power lines through the residential Tsawwassen right-of-way as originally planned.
CREDIT: File photo

It looks like the final blow for Tsawwassen residents fighting to prevent high voltage power lines from being strung over their homes.

On Monday, the Ministry of Energy issued an information bulletin announcing that work will proceed on the controversial new power lines through the residential right-of-way as originally planned. The work is scheduled to commence June 1 in order to complete the project by this October to service future power needs of Vancouver Island residents.

"Construction on this project will not start before June 1, 2008, which will allow for a full pre-construction notification and survey process and ensure that information is made available to all residents. Government is willing to consider the option of purchasing homes of affected homeowners on the right-of-way if they desire," the bulletin states.

Saying they will gather to decide their next course of action, Tsawwassen Residents Against Higher Voltage Power Lines (TRAHVOL) co-chair Cec Dunn was angered at the latest setback in their three-year fight against the power lines.

"We have a number of options we'll be looking at and there's a number of considerations based on this answer coming out. We hoped, of course, it would be coming out the other way," said Dunn, who spoke with Energy Minister Richard Neufeld this week.

BCTC wants to remove both of the existing 138 kV (kiloVolt) single-circuit overhead lines (on wooden H-frame poles) and replace them with a new overhead 230 kV double-circuit on 120-foot-tall steel towers. Neufeld recently released the results of two independent studies he commissioned that conclude the cost to bury power lines in a method known as horizontal directional drilling is significantly higher than figures quoted by TRAHVOL.

The ministry noted the two studies, conducted by American engineering firms Black & Veatch and Power Delivery Consultants, show the direct costs were consistent with the estimates provided by the B.C.

Transmission Corporation, which is approximately twice the estimate put forward the firm used by TRAHVOL.

The two companies hired by the ministry came up with cost estimates between $27 million and $37 million. They also noted burying the lines would add 22 to 27 months to the project.

Pointing out several flaws in the studies, including the more general cost estimates being used instead of more specific quotes, Dunn said it looks like the ministry was engaged in nothing more than a public relations exercise.

"They were just doing a show here for us and not anything really constructive," he said.

As far as a government offer to purchase homes, Dunn wonders how much more of a hit his property value will take with new steel towers carrying higher voltage lines behind his home. Dunn, noting his property value has slipped the past three years, said he wouldn't be able to purchase a home elsewhere in Delta without taking out a hefty mortgage.

"If they're willing to give us fair market value for our homes, that's fine. But our assessments have been going down over the last four years because of all of this, yet they tell us in the same breathe that it doesn't affect our assessments."

Karsten Holmsen, who is planning a lawsuit seeking compensation, also wonders how much the government would offer for homes that would be resold. He said homeowners should not receive a government assessment of property values but, at the very least, a market value based what their homes are worth prior to the installation of the towers.

Following this week's announcement, Neufeld told the Optimist he's disappointed at the accusation his ministry was engaged in a public relations exercise, pointing out both firms which conducted the review have superb reputations and experience when it comes to horizontal directional drilling.

Also pointing out the power lines were in place before the homes were built, the minister noted that 78 wooden poles will be replaced by 20 steel ones. Just nine will be in the middle of the 50-year-old residential right-of-way.

"Nine back yards will be impacted by a single steel pole and it's all highly within acceptable ranges of EMF (electromagnetic field)," said Neufeld.

In 2006, the British Columbia Utilities Commission allowed BCTC to upgrade the current overhead lines with the new towers. Concerned about the health dangers of intensified electromagnetic fields, TRAHVOL later lost a court challenge for the commission to consider the precautionary principle.

The B.C Environmental Assessment Office and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency also granted their approvals.

© Delta Optimist 2008



Buyouts possible for high-voltage-line homes


Residents concerned about possible health hazards from the new lines

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Tsawwassen residents living along a controversial electricity corridor may be offered buyouts on their homes, Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said Monday.

Neufeld said, however, that the government has made no final decision to offer buyouts to homeowners living beneath a set of high voltage lines that deliver electricity to Vancouver Island.

Buyouts have been rumoured for several months but Monday's statement, contained in a news release, was the first formal indication that the government is willing to consider purchasing the homes of residents who would rather move than live under new, higher-voltage lines which will be installed along the Tsawwassen corridor beginning in June.

Residents have made several unsuccessful attempts to have the project detoured, including a failed suit in B.C. Supreme Court.

But short of civil disobedience, they appear to have run out of options.

"I think we will talk to anybody along that route," Neufeld said, adding that he expects the government would not find it difficult to find new buyers for any properties it acquired.

"We haven't absolutely confirmed [buyouts] but we will be willing to talk to people. And at the end of the day I don't think they'd be on the market long. If we had to buy them and resell them I think they'd be off the market fairly quickly."

Residents are concerned about possible health hazards from electromagnetic fields in the vicinity of the lines -- although Neufeld noted that the fields will be substantially lower than thresholds established by the World Health Organization.

At present, the Tsawwassen right-of-way is occupied by 50-year-old power lines that are nearing the end of their lifespan for reliability. BC Transmission Corp. has instructions from the B.C. Utilities Commission to upgrade the route with new, higher voltage lines to maintain security of electricity supply to Vancouver Island.

Also on Monday, the government announced that it has rejected as too costly and time consuming a proposal to bury the new lines underground instead of putting them overhead -- Neufeld said the final cost to bury the lines could reach $100 million compared with $7 million to $8 million for overhead lines.

Cec Dunn, spokesman for Tsawwassen Residents Against High Voltage Overhead Lines, said in a telephone interview that the government's decision to proceed with the overhead project is likely to trigger "outrage" in the community.

He said his home is worth about $200,000 less than a comparable home in another part of the community.

"I'm retired, and I'm supposed to go get a mortgage so we can move away from these power lines?"

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:26 PM

March 17, 2008

Run of River Power Inc.: Tsilhqot'in Power Project Submitted to BC Hydro's Bioenergy Call

Press Release:

Run of River Power Inc. (TSX VENTURE:ROR) ("Run of River") is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary Western Biomass Power Corp. ("Western Biomass") has together with the Tsilhqot'in National Government ("TNG"), submitted a formal proposal to BC Hydro, in response to the first Phase of its two Phased Bioenergy Call, to supply energy generated from forest based biomass. In addition, the newly formed Tsilhqot'in Power Corporation has made an Application with the British Columbia Transmission Corporation for a Feasibility Interconnection Study related to the Project.

Jako Krushnisky, President of Run of River stated, "Western Biomass and the TNG have worked very effectively together to ensure that this Application was filed before the March 7, 2008 deadline, placing themselves in a sound position to participate in the first Phase of BC Hydro's much anticipated Bioenergy Call."

T.J Grewal, Western Biomass's President, added, "we are pleased that we met what was a short window of opportunity with BC Hydro and continue to move forward on our mutual objectives to bring the Tsilqot'in Power Project to fruition."

About the Tsilhqot'in Power Project

Western Biomass, working together with the TNG, has completed a detailed engineering and fiber supply analysis for the proposed 60 MW Tsilhqot'in Power Project, located approximately 70 km west of Williams Lake. When completed, this plant will generate in excess of 450 GWh of electricity annually.

Joe Alphonse, Director of Government Services for the TNG expressed "the business relationship between the TNG and Western Biomass demonstrates the ability to work effectively within the Tsilhqot'in territory. The Tsilhqot'in Nation is open to business opportunities as long as the project adheres to our concerns around environmental stewardship and community based economic development such as the Tsilhqot'in Power Project."

About Run of River Power Inc.

Run of River operates an Eco Logo(C) certified hydroelectric power generation station at Brandywine Creek, near Whistler, BC and sells the power to BC Hydro on a long-term 20 year contract.

The Company is currently developing hydroelectric projects in two clusters located near Vancouver, British Columbia. Ten development projects, totaling 213 MW of capacity, will generate over 692 GWh/yr of electricity offsetting over 249,000 tons of CO2 annually, when completed, and will provide in excess of $60 Million per year in gross revenue to ROR, while significantly contributing to the Province of British Columbia's goal of energy self sufficiency.

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this Release.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:10 PM

March 14, 2008

What's Wrong With the Western Climate Initiative?

COMMENT: This is from the Seattle-based sustainability think-tank, SightLine. It offers one insight into the seriousness of intent of the BC government - Premier Campbell is an enthusiastic participant of the Western Climate Initiative - to rein in carbon emissions. Omit transportation fuels from emissions control, and it's like doing finger exercises to lose twenty pounds - ain't gonna work.

A second insight may be the firing this week of Louise Comeau (second article, below), perhaps the one person brought into a senior position on the Premier's Climate Action Team whom the environmental community knew, and thought they could trust.


What's Wrong With the Western Climate Initiative?


Posted by Eric de Place
SightLine News
03/06/2008

First proposal ducks biggest climate problem.

The Western Climate Initiative is a path-breaking effort. Insufficient federal progress prompted seven states and two provinces to join together to reduce climate pollution by means of an economy-wide cap and trade program. It's a momentous opportunity, and Sightline has been working hard to ensure that it's a success.

Unfortunately, there's now cause for serious concern.

Yesterday evening, WCI released it's draft proposal (pdf). It proposes an initial cap that would cover less than half of the region's total emissions. And most surprisingly, WCI does not recommend including emissions from transportation fuels, by far the largest source of climate pollution in the West. [Update 3/7: The recommendation doesn't exclude transportation precisely, but rather defers the decision until further economic studies are completed.]

The proposal is at odds with WCI's own stated principles that include a commitment to cover "as many emissions sources as practical." And for an effort born of frustration with federal lawmakers, it's bizarre that the proposal is significantly smaller in scope than recent federal bills, including Leiberman-Warner.

There are no big technical challenges to including transportation fuels. In fact, the WCI admits that while there are a couple of hurdles, it's administratively feasible to include transportation emissions. So what's going on?

No one knows for sure.

I have every reason to believe that Washington's and Oregon's representatives are taking the responsible approach; that they're negotiating for a broad scope to include transportation fuels.

That's as it should be, since without reductions from the transportation sector, it will be virtually impossible for the Northwest states to reach their climate goals. In fact, fully 47 percent of Washington's emissions come from the transportation sector alone.

Perhaps other states are reluctant to go along with a true economy-wide cap on carbon. Perhaps there are misunderstandings about how href="http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2008/03/06/what-s-wrong-with-the-western-climate-initiative/resolveuid/e15cd882958705d6eb8b78ef5459c9a7">price affects demand. Perhaps there's simply fear of political fallout from pinching oil companies.

Or perhaps I'm being too hard on WCI. The truth is, it's very hard to tell what, exactly, they intend to do in the future. In places, they seem to want to include transportation, but then they also want to consider some other, untried, options as a substitute for an enforceable cap -- things like href="http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2008/03/06/what-s-wrong-with-the-western-climate-initiative/resolveuid/59b8022f5df608c9235045bfac7c5e48">low-carbon fuel standards. They seem to want further economic analysis, and then they seem to gesture at excluding transportation if it's deemed that prices will rise.

Mostly, WCI seems to want to delay making a decision. But it's a decision so fundamental to the program that it affects every other decision. In fact, it jeopardizes the integrity of the entire initiative.

Maybe the best way of understanding what's going on is buried at the end of a technical appendix:

A problem with covering oil upstream is that the only compliance options available to regulated entities are buying allowances, selling or blending non-fossil fuels, or reducing fuel sales.

That's supposed to be a problem. But that's the whole point of a cap and trade program. That's the whole mechanism for reducing emissions. Oil companies will get three -- count 'em three -- options. They can pollute less; they can sell cleaner fuel; or they can buy pollution permits from other companies who will reduce their own pollution instead.

We can be flexible and creative about our approach, but there's no free lunch. If we don't reduce our climate pollution, we could be facing some href="http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2008/03/06/what-s-wrong-with-the-western-climate-initiative/resolveuid/f9a896a0d1bd13c44c004e0e25f295e4">unpleasant consequences. We know what the problem is, and we know how to fix it. The only question now is whether we have the spine for good policy.

***

Postscript: if you want to get down and dirty with Sightline's argument for WCI's appropriate scope, here's the full monty.



Top green advisor sacked by B.C. Libs

By SEAN HOLMAN
24 HOURS
March 13, 2008


Prominent environmentalist Louise Comeau - one of the premier's key climate action advisors - has been fired by the provincial government, 24 hours has learned. Her firing comes just eight months after she was hired as the climate action secretariat's public outreach and strategic engagement executive director.

Reached for comment, Comeau - who was awarded a four-month severance package - gave this brief statement: "It seems the fit wasn't right. And I wish everybody luck. And the issue is very important. And I hope the government succeeds in what it's trying to do."

Government was tight-lipped when contacted about the firing, refusing to respond to repeated requests for details. But New Democrat environment critic Shane Simpson was more verbose.

"Ms. Comeau came to this position with quite a bit of fanfare because of the environmental credentials and the credentials around community engagement that she brought to the table," Simpson said. "She's now been fired. And somebody should be explaining whether it's this government's complete lack of willingness to engage the public and do the right thing that forced her out."

Comeau joined the secretariat following a storied career as an environmental advocate, which included a stint as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' sustainable communities and environmental policy director.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 08:54 AM

March 03, 2008

Opposition to Upper Pitt power project closes public meeting

COMMENT: As noted here, "The Upper Pitt River Water Power Project would include seven small run-of-river hydro-electric components and send a powerline through Pinecone-Burke Provincial Park near Pitt Lake."

We have long maintained that parks are not places to simply park land until someone has a more profitable use for it. Parks are not places that should be subordinated, annexed, or chopped up in the service of the province's energy plans.

But this power developer wannabe has applied to the provincial government to annex Burke Mountain Provincial Park in order to construct a transmission line.

The government accepted the application for water rights fully aware that a transmission line through the park would be necessary.

Subsequently, it issued guidelines on how to go about applying for parkland for transmission lines.

Back in GSX Pipeline days, the proposed pipeline route went straight through an ecological zone between Salt Spring Island and the northern tip of the Saanich Peninsula. A freedom of information request - heavily redacted, we might add - revealed that for two years, starting even before the pipeline project was made public, bureaucrats in BC Parks and government ministers were meeting with BC Hydro to figure out how to accommodate BC Hydro's plans and minimize public awareness and opposition.

Now, it appears nothing needs to be redacted. There's no pretense to cater to public opinion. The government wants this to happen. The meter has run out on Burke Mountain.

If you are in the Lower Mainland, the next public meeting on this project is Tuesday, March 4. It would be great if you could pack it so damn full that they can't find a place big enough to hold a meeting.

A good backgrounder is available from the Burke Mountain Naturalists website: www.bmn.bc.ca/doc%5CUPinfo.pdf

There are three processes under way right now. Please intervene in them all.

1. The project is in pre-application status with the Environmental Assessment Office. The EAO will receive comments on the draft Terms of Reference (TOR) until April 8, 2008. The draft TOR are here:
http://www.eao.gov.bc.ca/epic/output/html/deploy/epic_document_291_25465.html

Your invitation to comment is here: http://tinyurl.com/2v9vp5. Send your comments to UpperPittRiver@gov.bc.ca.

The EAO is pretty anal about what's taken into consideration with these comments - you have to speak to the draft TOR. "THIS PROJECT SUCKS" doesn't carry any weight. - but let 'er rip. Once the final TOR are approved (by the EAO), the company will go away and write up an application containing an environmental impact assessment which will address all the points in the TOR. Then a window will open up for more public comments.

2. The company has applied to have the park boundaries realigned. The deadline for public comment is April 2. You can send them by email to PineconeBurke@gov.bc.ca.

More information, including the application (which you should read before sending your comments (again, "SUCKS" probably will be ignored.)
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/planning/bound_adj_policy.html#pinecone

3. The company is holding three open houses. The first was in Squamish on Feb 27. The second was Feb 28 in Pitt Meadows and so packed that "the Fire Marshall was called in and the meeting was shut down." Hmm. No intent to stifle dissent, we're sure. Just a public safety issue. This meeting will be rescheduled. The third meeting is Tuesday, March 4, 4:00-9:00 pm in Mission (Best Western Mission City Lodge, 32281 Lougheed Hwy). Please car pool if you are coming out from Vancouver. Public transit at that time of day isn't very helpful, but a drive to Mission is worth it.

It's uncivil, and won't persuade anyone that you are correct, but signs and statements that say things like "THIS PROJECT SUCKS", well, we wouldn't counsel that, if you catch our drift.

If enough people are expressive enough for long enough, media and politicians will notice.



Power-full meeting cancelled by attendance


CKNW
Feb, 28 2008

PITT MEADOWS/CKNW(AM980) - A proposed power project near Pitt Meadows cutting through a provincial park brought out plenty of opposition at a public meeting Thursday evening. Too many, in fact.

The Upper Pitt River Water Power Project would include seven small run-of-river hydro-electric components and send a powerline through Pinecone-Burke Provincial Park near Pitt Lake.

But, hundreds of people packed a public meeting to oppose the plan because of environmental and First Nations concerns. So many, the Fire Marshall was called in and the meeting was shut down.

The company behind the project, Northwest-Cascade Power, promises to schedule another meeting.



Communities rally against IPP


Laura Hendrick
Squamish Chief
February 29, 2008

SquamishChiefIPPs.jpg
People from as far as Pitt River delivered passionate pleas to protect Pinecone Burke Provincial Park Monday (Feb. 25). Banners hung outside Sea to Sky Hotel reading, “Save the Upper Pitt!” and “Save BC’S Parks” seemed to set the tone for the open house hosted by BC Parks, the Environmental Assessment Office and Northwest Cascade Power.

The run-of-river company has proposed an Independent Power Project (IPP) on the Upper Pitt River. They have applied to change the boundaries of Pinecone Park to accommodate a transmission line, which would cross over 4.7 kilometres of its northern tip to connect with the Cheekye Substation north of Squamish.

The room of about 60 people broke out in cheers each time someone spoke against the proposal and questions quickly escalated to attacks on the B.C. government.

While some said decent citizens would never propose such a project, much of the criticism hit parks staff rather than the proponent.

“I don’t have a single question for this private company whose job it is to make a profit,” said Joe Foy of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. “I see no information from BC Parks that helps me separate the bull**t from the truth from this company.”

“Where’s your display fighting for the park?” asked Ehor Boyanowsky, adding that park staff seemed to have resigned themselves to being apologists rather than advocates.

BC Parks Planner Brett Hudson said he was required to consider any proposal to change a park boundary, adding that any change would require legislature approval. The change would also have to be in the public’s interest.

According to company president Jako Krushnisky, the project could create enough electricity to power 55,700 homes, adding more renewable energy to the Hydro grid. He said building a transmission line across park is only being considered because there is no other options.

Studies have shown the area has seasonal wildlife use by mountain goats and grizzly bears. It is composed of old growth forest, wetlands and grass meadows.

“The old growth... we’ve tried to avoid them as best we can,” said project spokesperson Russ Tyson. When asked why the open houses were not scheduled for Vancouver and Coquitlam where the push had originally come to create Pinecone Burke Provincial Park in 1996, Hudson said the proponent chooses meeting locations. He said open houses could be scheduled for the city if “amenable” to the proponent.

“...the private company that wants to wreck our park gets to choose where those meeting are and aren’t,” said Foy. The project is in the early stages of the Environmental Assessment Process. The public is invited to comment on the proposed draft Terms of Reference on the EAO website until April 8.


Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:08 PM

The price of power

Inevitable increases in our Hydro bills mostly stem from bad government policy and bad BCUC decisions

BY JIM QUAIL
BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Vancouver Sun
March 3, 2008

The days of cheap electricity in British Columbia are coming to an end. BC Hydro bills will rise dramatically every year for the next decade and beyond.

Some of the cost is unavoidable: The best sites for large power dams have been used up. Any new power resources will cost more. Climate change policy will also push energy prices up.

Clean power sources are more expensive and are unreliable: Wind power is available only when the wind blows, and run- of- river hydro is available only when there is lots of water in the stream.

But the bigger part of the story is the cost of bad policy by government and bad decisions by the B. C. Utilities Commission.

They are needlessly loading cost onto households, and will place those with fixed or limited incomes in a dire situation. Within a couple of winters, many seniors and tenants will have to choose between going cold or going hungry.

The biggest problem is the government’s policy of “electricity self- sufficiency.”

It sounds like a great idea. Why should we rely on our neighbours for energy if we don’t have to?

It’s a nice slogan, but it’s a dumb idea, especially the way Victoria has defined it.

Our need for electricity fluctuates through the year. We use lots to keep warm in the winter, but our demand drops off in the summer. It’s the other way around in California. Their peak is in the summer when air conditioners are going full blast. During the summer our reservoirs are brimming with the spring runoff, and we have far more capacity than we need.

So B. C. imports electricity during our peaks, and exports to the U. S. when our needs are low.

Although we have been net electricity importers, we buy when power is relatively cheap and sell when it’s expensive, so we make money on cross- border trade. The first $ 200 million profit each year is used to keep our Hydro bills down.

The government’s self- sufficiency policy means generating far more than enough to meet our own needs, even in dry years. We will pay for generation resources that will sit idle most of the time, or be used for exports. And we will pay far more than we can hope to get on the international spot market when our glut is sold.

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? The winners are private sector electricity generation companies that the provincial government is forcing BC Hydro to buy from.

As if this isn’t enough, the government wants BC Hydro to install “ smart meters” on all our homes. They can tell what time of day the power is flowing.

The idea is to design rates so you pay more during peak demand hours (around dinner time) and less in off- peak (the middle of the night.)

In theory this will encourage us to run appliances off- peak. However, it does not actually result in any energy conservation — all it does is move the time of day when we consume it. The atmosphere is no better off.

The price tag for these electronic toys is a half a billion dollars and rising. The savings? They will eliminate employing meter- readers, whose wages cost far less than the new meters. And, judging by reliability issues it will cost lots to keep them running.

In case that wasn’t bad enough, the BC Utility Commission recently decided to shift millions of dollars of cost from businesses to households. It said this was so that customer groups would each bear their full share. However, it admitted that its calculations include a margin of error that accounts for roughly half of this 11- per- cent increase over the next three years, on top of all the other increases in the works. After the commission refused to hear an appeal from the decision, the government announced that it will intervene and quash it (the second instalment will come less than two months before the next provincial election.)

And still more bad news: The Commission wants BC Hydro to change its rates so people who heat their homes with electricity will be hit far harder.

It’s not as though people with baseboard heating in their homes could afford to retrofit gas furnaces and ducts to avoid a Hydro rate increase. They will have no choice but to absorb the new high cost, or shiver through cold nights.

Add all this up, and Hydro bills are set to double in less than a decade.

Some of this is inevitable. A large portion is the direct result of shortsighted decisions by Victoria and the BC Utility Commission.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:37 AM

February 28, 2008

City files statement of defence

COMMENT: Background: In summer 2007 the westernmost leg of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific Ocean in Burnaby, was chewed into by a contractor working for the City of Burnaby. 200,000 litres of oil spilled onto the land and into Burrard Inlet.

Instead of "What do we do to ensure this will never happen again?" and "What failed with the One Call?" program, the dialogue devolved quickly into corporate scapegoating. Was it Kinder-Morgan's fault? The City's fault? The contractor's fault?

Huge Burnaby oil spill, 24-Jul-2007

Oil: BC's Hydra-headed Headache, 02-Aug-2008 (excellent article in the Tyee by yours truly.)

Pipeline owner sues Burnaby for oil spill, 08-Jan-2008


City files statement of defence

City says Kinder Morgan is largely to blame for July 2007 oil spill and resulting damages
Brooke Larsen
Burnaby Now
Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The City of Burnaby is rejecting claims it caused July's disastrous oil line burst, saying the pipeline's owner supplied inaccurate maps of its location.

Filed last week, the city's statement of defence blames Kinder Morgan Canada and Trans Mountain Pipeline for the burst, which forced residents out of their homes and blackened Burnaby's shoreline on July 24, 2007.

The eight-page statement also alleges the company failed to inspect the site before the rupture and delayed shutting off the pipeline afterwards, worsening damage to homes.

More than 200,000 litres of oil gushed onto Inlet Drive when a contractor hired by the city struck a Kinder Morgan pipeline while doing sewer work.

The spray continued for 20 minutes before it was turned off, causing millions of dollars of damage.

Kinder Morgan and Trans Mountain Pipeline sued the city last year, claiming a contractor used a backhoe near the line before its location had been marked out.

The suit also claims the contractor should have hand-dug or used a hydro-vac - a vacuum system used in excavation - when digging near the pipeline.

The suit seeks damages for loss of reputation, repair costs, lost oil and lost business but does not specify an amount. Contractors R.F. Binnie and Associates and Cusano Contracting and an unnamed backhoe operator were also named in the suit.

The city's statement of defence says Kinder Morgan supplied R.F. Binnie with inaccurate survey plans of the pipeline, "an error that directly led to the pipeline leak."

It also claims that Kinder Morgan knew about the sewer work but didn't mark out the pipeline's location or inspect the site.

Once the break happened, the company failed to "stop the flow of oil from the pipeline in a timely manner," resulting in "an increase in the rate of oil escaping from the pipeline, an increase in the area affected by the released oil, and an increase in the severity of damage to surrounding property," the statement said.

In its suit, Kinder Morgan claimed the city did not follow procedures set out in National Energy Board regulations for pipeline rights-of-way.

In its statement, the city said those regulations do not apply because the pipeline was within lands owned by the city.

"The pipeline was not in its surveyed position at the location of the pipeline leak but was within lands wholly owned exclusively by Burnaby," the statement said.

The statement also suggests that the company moved the pipeline in the mid-'90s without completing a new survey afterwards.

A spokesperson for the Kinder Morgan Canada did not return phone calls before NOW deadlines.

More than a dozen residents affected by the spill filed lawsuits against the city late last year. Shell Canada has also filed a suit seeking to recover its losses from the spill.

Last month, Coun. Garth Evans said damages in the case could exceed $20 million.

© Burnaby Now 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:32 AM

February 26, 2008

BC's Carbon Tax Shell Game

BC's Carbon Tax Shell Game

rees.bmp
Professor Rees: growth unchecked.

Economist who invented ‘eco-footprint’ analysis is not impressed.

By William E. Rees
TheTyee.ca
February 26, 2008

There are plenty of things society could do to avert a full-blown ecological crisis but we don't do them and what we do do doesn't work. It seems that the ecologically necessary is politically unfeasible but the politically feasible is ecologically irrelevant.

To read the rest of this article click here

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:34 AM

February 25, 2008

Offshore oil a no-go for B.C. despite the value

Barbara Yaffe
Vancouver Sun
February 23, 2008

Early this month Ottawa invited bids from oil companies for further exploration of the environmentally sensitive Beaufort Sea in the Arctic.

And, of course, everyone knows development of Alberta's oilsands is going gangbusters. This, despite the fact environmental groups are sounding serious alarm bells about the devastation the project north of Edmonton is generating in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, use of valuable natural gas and water pollution.

Oddly, in the midst of all this activity, a calm has settled over British Columbia's coast, where even discussion about drilling has stopped.

Judging from this week's provincial budget, carbon is now the enemy in B.C. Which won't come as good news to those hoping for an offshore oil industry. "B.C. is under the only federally imposed provincewide ban on offshore oil and gas in Canada," laments John Hunter, of the Victoria-based Ocean Industries B.C. "We can't even look, let alone touch."

In the wake of the federal announcement on the Beaufort, Hunter is wondering why B.C. is being discriminated against.

Past estimates have put the B.C. bounty at some 10 billion barrels of oil in four subsea basins.

It was with that in mind, back in 2004, that B.C.'s Energy Minister Richard Neufeld boldly declared: "Our goal is to develop this rich B.C. resource by 2010."

The province optimistically intended to leapfrog over a web of jurisdictional and environmental problems and start pumping the crude in time for the Winter Olympics.

That's not the intention any longer, provincial spokesman Jake Jacobs acknowledges. Despite the fact that the price of oil has gone due north.

A B.C. energy ministry website vaguely states an intention to "work with the federal government, communities and first nations to advance offshore development in a scientifically sound and environmentally responsible way."

A B.C. Energy Plan, released a year ago, reported the province was still committed to an offshore oil industry. It noted an intention to uphold its longstanding request to Ottawa to lift its moratorium on offshore exploration, imposed in 1972.

A major roadblock for B.C., of course, is the federal government. Because the resource is undersea, the feds have a big say, whereas Alberta's oil is on land. On-land resource development is strictly a provincial concern, so Alberta does as it wishes.

Both the B.C. and Ottawa governments are pro-development. But the chance of the Harperites becoming involved in a debate about a West Coast offshore oil industry is as realistic as Neufeld's pledge to get the project off the ground by 2010.

With a minority government, Conservatives have nothing to gain politically by advancing the cause, given the messy complications that offshore development would inspire.

In the past, the feds have said they were studying lifting the moratorium. But this week, in response to an inquiry, Ottawa stated: "At this time, the government of Canada is not considering lifting the moratorium."

An offshore industry was far easier for Ottawa to encourage off the East Coast because Atlantic provinces were much hungrier for jobs and less doctrinaire about environmental issues.

Even if B.C. were undaunted by environmental opposition to a Pacific coast industry, the native people would contest ownership of the offshore resources.

For good measure, there would doubtless be a donnybrook about whether the federal or provincial government should collect a lion's share of resource royalties.

Resolution of the ownership issue alone would entail years of discussion. It can take decades to launch an offshore oil industry.

If B.C. were serious about development it would move to secure a mandate from voters in a provincial referendum. Then it would initiate ownership negotiations; no company would undertake a serious exploration program on disputed land.

But the Campbell government has done none of this. Instead it has been busy fostering an image of B.C. as the greenest province in the country. Few missed the fact that Finance Minister Carole Taylor wore green shoes on Tuesday to promote her budget.

It would appear the window of opportunity for an offshore oil industry in B.C. has come and gone.

byaffe@png.canwest.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 07:27 PM

B.C. turns down methane plan in Flathead area

BP's Pullout from Flathead Sets Precedent for CBM Extraction
Wildsight
Feb 22, 2008

`We're Not Out of the Woods Yet,' says Wildsight

The provincial government's declaration that the Flathead Valley is off-limits for coalbed methane (CBM) extraction is a huge step in the right direction but there's still a long way to go.

“We are extremely pleased the government has formally expressed the environmental importance of the Flathead,” Wildsight's Flathead Program Manager Casey Brennan. “But we're not out of the woods yet.”

Yesterday's announcement forcing oil and gas giant BP's withdrawal from CBM extraction in the Flathead sets an environmental precedent - one that may apply to BP's pending extraction proposal in the Elk Valley, which would give BP drilling rights of roughly 400 sq. km within less than two months.

“We are also extremely pleased the government has deemed CBM extraction as a huge health and environmental risk,” says Brennan. “This precedent now applies across the board. There's no difference between CBM extraction in the Flathead and in the Elk Valley”

Wildsight states that while this announcement is admirable, the goal remains on finding long-term solutions.

“This announcement is the product of clear thinking on the part of our government, as well as the government across the border in Montana,” says Brennan. “Let's see this realistic reasoning carry forward, so all of us can enjoy a healthy future.”

Wildsight's campaign helped to demonstrate that people can have a voice in the future of their communities. A lot of letters have been sent out from local concerned citizens to decision makers and Wildsight will continue to lead an information and action campaign on this issue.



B.C. turns down methane plan in Flathead area


CBC News
Friday, February 22, 2008

An environmentally-sensitive area in southeastern British Columbia will not be mined for methane gas.

The B.C. government has decided that British Petroleum Plc. will not be permitted to extract coal-bed methane — a type of natural gas — from the Canadian side of the Flathead River Basin.

BP had wanted to extract coal-bed methane from an area covering 500 square kilometres in the Flathead area of the East Kootenays.

But a BP spokeswoman said the possibility of the development in the Canadian Flathead has been withdrawn from the provincial evaluation process of a much larger area where BP remains interested in exploring for coal-bed methane.

"The province recognizes the sensitivity of the Flathead Valley and so we are not including this area," said Graham Currie, spokesman for the B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

The decision has pleased environmentalists who wanted to stop the project due to concerns about possible air and water pollution as well as damage to wildlife.

"The exclusion of the Flathead from this tenure [application] sets a precedent for British Columbia that signals the government of our province recognizes that there are areas that are not appropriate for this kind of industrial extraction activity,'' said Casey Brennan, who is with the environmental group, Wildsight.

Wildsight is an organization that works to maintain biodiversity and healthy human communities in Canada's Columbia and Rocky Mountains eco-region.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:14 AM

$1 billion fiscal year sets rights sales record

News Release
BC Government
February 22, 2008

VICTORIA – The Feb. 20, 2008 sale of oil and gas rights brings B.C.’s fiscal year total to an all-time high of $1.07 billion. The $116.9 million generated in bonus bids makes it the first time the province has reached over $1 billion in land rights revenues in a fiscal year and follows a billion-dollar, record-setting 2007 calendar year, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld announced today.

“British Columbia is attracting unprecedented interest and investment from oil and gas companies,” said Neufeld. “Over a billion in revenue from oil and gas rights sales contributes to B.C.’s bottom line, the long-term success of our province and the benefits of living in the best place on Earth.”

The fiscal year total of oil and gas rights for 2007-2008 surpasses the previous record of $625.7 million set in 2003-2004.

Sixty-six parcels covering 53,555 hectares were offered in the Feb. 20, 2008 sale, and bids were accepted on 65 parcels for an average price of $2,214 per hectare.

The key areas in the sale were a group of six drilling licences located within the Horn River Basin north of Fort Nelson that generated bids totalling more than $67 million. In addition, two drilling licences south of Fort St. John collected over $18.5 million on average prices in the $10,000 per hectare range. A lease parcel near the Buick Creek field north of Fort St. John earned over $1 million averaging over $3,764 per hectare.

The next sale is scheduled for March 26, 2008 and will offer 81 parcels covering 89,752 hectares.

Complete results of the sale and additional statistics are posted on the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources website:
www.em.gov.bc.ca/Subwebs/Landsale/results/default.htm

-30-

Media contact:
Jake Jacobs
Public Affairs Officer
Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
250 952-0628
250 213-6934 (cell)

Download this news release here

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 10:01 AM

February 20, 2008

Hydro costs to jump 15 per cent in next two years

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
February 20, 2008

Electricity rates will jump 15 per cent within two years, or about $120 per year for an average BC Hydro residential customer under a plan released Tuesday by the Crown corporation.

Hydro's updated service plan indicates that the increase, which requires the approval of the B.C. Utilities Commission, is necessary to support a massive increase in capital spending on expansion and upgrades to the province's aging electricity grid.

For example, in 2002 Hydro spent $531 million on grid improvements -- but that amount is projected to jump to $1.9 billion by 2011. The increase will be introduced in two stages, with annual increases this year and next year of about 7.6 per cent each.

That works out to an average monthly increase of $5 -- $60 a year -- for the upcoming fiscal year, and the same amount the following year.

According to Hydro, more than 50 per cent of customers will be paying the $5. Others will pay more, but would have the opportunity to lower their costs by cutting back on electricity consumption. Even a 10-per-cent reduction in consumption would compensate for the increase.

An application for the increase will be filed later this month with the utilities commission, the service plan indicates.

The service plan, for the three fiscal years from 2008-09 through 2010-11, shows that Hydro is also counting on a massive conservation effort on the part of British Columbians to keep electricity bills from climbing even higher -- since the only alternatives to cutting back on electricity consumption are to build more generation and increase dependence on imported power.

The amount of demand growth it proposes to curtail over the next four years is double the total amount of new power it could bring into the system by spending an estimated $6.5 billion to add a third dam, Site C, on the Peace River in northeast B.C.

About 15 per cent of B.C.'s present energy demands are met with imported power, but the B.C. government's energy plan calls for Hydro to be self-sufficient by 2015.

As part of that conservation effort, Hydro is proposing to spend up to $900 million on a "Smart Metering" program that would see all mechanical electrical meters replaced with interactive, digital devices that will allow Hydro customers to see, minute by minute, how much it's costing them to light their homes and operate refrigerators, computers, televisions and other devices.

Hydro says it will seek the rate increase to cover the cost of acquiring additional clean and renewable energy -- such as run-of-river hydro power from independent power producers -- and anticipates that in the near term, import power prices will be increasing.

Hydro also foresees expanding and upgrading its own infrastructure and that of BC Transmission Corporation "to ensure the long-term security of our electricity supply."

"This is really important work, and it's clean energy too," said Hydro president and chief executive officer Bob Elton. "It coincides with the government's climate change focus. It supports it but it is not caused by it.

"We have to do this investment. We have to rebuild these heritage assets so that, right now, we will have the reliability that we need and that it will be there for a long time to come."

Finance Minister Carole Taylor noted in a budget press briefing that the annual net in-migration to B.C. has reached 50,000 people and that it's Hydro's responsibility to ensure that their electricity needs are met.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:56 AM

February 19, 2008

Comment on BC Budget

Budget 2008 Meets Key Tests on Climate Commitments
BC's major environmental groups, 19-Feb-2008

BC introduces carbon tax
Dirk Meissner, Canadian Press, 19-Feb-2008

BC government carbon tax, cash incentives geared at greening up the public
Canadian Press, 19-Feb-2008

B.C. introduces carbon tax
Jonathan Fowlie and Fiona Anderson, Vancouver Sun, 19-Feb-2008

B.C. budget hikes fuel costs with new carbon tax
CBC News, 19-Feb-2008

B.C. pledges Greenbucks in bid to sell first carbon tax
Nathan VanderKlippe, Financial Post, 19-Feb-2008

Mining Industry Supports BC Budget
The Mining Association of British Columbia, 19-Feb-2008

Campbell's carbon tax not revenue neutral for working, low income people
B.C. Government and Service Employees Union, 19-Feb-2008

B.C. budget includes a number of smaller tax changes too
Chad Skelton, Vancouver Sun, 19-Feb-2008

Spending surpasses revenue in 'balanced' budget
Harvey Enchin, Vancouver Sun, 19-Feb-2008

BC's 2008 Budget



Budget 2008 Meets Key Tests on Climate Commitments


BC's major environmental groups
19-Feb-2008

February 19, 2008, Victoria, BC - Major BC environmental groups today welcomed the 2008 budget that will put BC firmly on the path to achieve bold commitments set out in the 2007 Throne Speech. Of the key areas in which environmentalists were looking for clear action (see below), three were given strong grades. The remaining climate-related area--cross-budget consistency-- remains a concern, with ongoing subsidies to the carbon-emitting oil and gas sector and massive capital investments in new highways. Also of concern is the lack of new funds for biodiversity preservation and management.

Carbon Pricing
The carbon tax is designed to make BC a North American leader in using carbon pricing to encourage innovation, climate-friendly behaviour change and a transition to a low-carbon economy. Government chose to make the tax fully revenue-neutral, recycling the revenues through lump sum payments and tax breaks for individuals, with a focus on low-income families and tax breaks to businesses.

A

Public Infrastructure Investments
To help kick-start the $14 billion Provincial Transit Plan, scheduled to be completed by 2020, $370 million was allocated over a four year period, including $93 million over the next year. Also included was money for energy retrofits on public buildings and green port initiatives.

A

Incentives For Citizens and Businesses
The budget contains significant incentives to help British Columbians make changes to decrease their carbon emissions, including energy retrofit funding and tax exemptions for energy efficient vehicles and appliances. It also provides BC businesses with strong encouragement to invest in innovation to be leaders in the low-carbon economy of the future.

A

Cross-Budget Consistency
There is a major disconnect between BC's climate plan and continued financial support for carbon-intensive resource industries. The highly profitable fossil fuel industry emits approximately 20% of BC's GHG emissions. Yet this budget provides large subsidies to expand carbon-intensive activities that could undermine BC's efforts to be a world leader on tackling global warming. Steps in the wrong direction include a 24% increase in oil and gas subsidies in 08/09-to $327 million -as well as continued funding and promotion of coastal oil and gas drilling, and a $621 million larger allocation for highway expansion than for transit.

F

Biodiversity
There are almost no new monies earmarked for the protection of species at risk and their critical habitat. Although there is now political direction to establish a marine protected areas system for the Pacific coast, there are no new monies to achieve this.

D

- 30 -

BC Sustainable Energy Association - Tom Hackney (250-744-2720)
Better Environmentally Sound Transportation - Kris Etches
Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society - Chloe O'Loughlin (604-512-0428)
Dogwood Initiative - Will Horter (604-418-1672)
Georgia Strait Alliance - Christianne Wilhelmson (604-862-7579)
Living Oceans Society - Oonagh O'Connor (250-230-6580)
Pembina Institute - Matt Horne (778-235-1476)
Sierra Club BC - Lisa Matthaus (250-888-6267)
West Coast Environmental Law - Greg Gowe (604-220-2520)
Wilderness Committee - Andrea Reimer (604-719-3920)



BC introduces carbon tax


By Dirk Meissner
THE CANADIAN PRESS
19-Feb-2008

Taylor_cp.jpg
B.C. Finance Minister Carole Taylor, standing, smiles
as she delivers her final budget in the legislature
Tuesday February 19, 2008 in Victoria, B.C. Taylor
is applauded by B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell
right and Deputy Premier Shirley Bond left.
THE CANADIAN

VICTORIA - Finance Minister Carole Taylor introduced an escalating carbon tax on most fossil fuels Tuesday, one she says is designed to ignite an environmental social movement in British Columbia and across Canada to fight climate change.

And she's handing every British Columbian $100 in June as seed money to get them thinking green.

"This is an important turning point for British Columbia," she said. "We think for Canada."

The carbon tax , effective July 1, will be phased in over five years to give consumers and businesses time to adjust to the new tax and understand there is a cost associated with generating harmful greenhouse gases, she said.

The carbon tax will start at a rate based on $10 per tonne of carbon emissions and rise $5 a year to $30 per tonne by 2012, Taylor said. The tax works out to an extra 2.4 cents on a litre of gasoline, rising to 7.24 cents per litre of gasoline by 2012.

Taylor said the carbon tax on diesel and home heating oil will start at 2.7 cents per litre and increase to 8.2 cents per litre over the same five-year period.

British Columbians already pay a 3.5-cent-per-litre gasoline tax to help fund transportation projects.

"We're not just going to be talking about climate change," said Taylor. "We are acting. This could be a social movement in British Columbia."

Taylor said the carbon tax will be revenue neutral, meaning the government will not use money generated from the tax to fill its coffers. The carbon tax revenue, estimated to hit $1.8 billion over three years, will be returned to taxpayers through personal income tax and business tax cuts, she said.

The government will introduce legislation that requires it to table an annual plan that shows how the carbon tax revenue will be returned to taxpayers, Taylor said.

To coax British Columbians to start thinking green, the government will send every resident a one-time $100 Climate Action Dividend in June. Taylor said the province hopes British Columbians will use the $100 to help adopt greener lifestyles.

Lower income British Columbians will receive an annual Climate Action Credit of $100 per adult and $30 per child to offset the cost of the carbon tax, she said.

Taylor said the carbon tax is one of the government's key building blocks to help it reach its legislated goal of reducing British Columbia's greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent by 2020.

"We have to find a way that we can work towards improving our environment and at the very same time do it in a way that keeps our economy strong," she said. "One piece of the puzzle, not the whole story, is a carbon tax."

Quebec has already introduced a form of a carbon tax, but the revenues return to government green technology initiatives, not taxpayers.

She said she believes British Columbia is already at the forefront of an environmental movement in Canada.

Taylor said British Columbia led Canada into the healthy lifestyles movement decades ago by choosing aerobics and granola over the beer fridge and living room couch, and the province now is ready to cut greenhouse gas emissions by driving less and walking more.

She said the budget attempts to balance the needs of fighting climate change while continuing to nurture a healthy economy.

"It is a budget that confronts and completely overturns the outdated notion that you have to choose either a healthy environment or a strong economy," Taylor said. "That either-or-thinking belongs to the past."

She said the B.C. government has decided to tackle the climate change issue despite concerns from Ottawa about patchwork green solutions that include carbon taxes and cap-and-trade emissions deals like the one British Columbia and other provinces are exploring.

"We had made the decision not to wait for a consensus," Taylor said.

The budget forecasts a $50 million surplus and annual growth of 2.4 per cent.

Taylor said the downturn in the U.S. economy will hurt the province's export and manufacturing industries, especially the forest industry, but the provincial economy should remain strong due to strong trading relationships with Asia and robust provincial job growth.

The tax incentives aimed at keeping the carbon tax "revenue neutral" will be dispersed as follows: the bottom two personal income tax rates will be cut by two per cent in 2008 and five per cent in 2009 on the first $70,000 in earnings; effective July 1, the corporate tax rate will drop to 11 per cent from 12 per cent; effective July 1, the small-business tax rate will be cut from 4.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent.

-

VICTORIA - Highlights of the British Columbia budget presented Tuesday:

Carbon Tax:

-Beginning July 1, 2008, British Columbia will begin phasing in a carbon tax on all fossil fuels including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane and home heating fuel.

-The rate starts at $10 per tonne of carbon-equivalent emissions and will rise by $5 per year for the next four years.

-As of July 1, there will be a 2.41-cent increase per litre in gasoline. By 2012, it will be 7.24 cents per litre.

-For diesel and home heating oil, it works out to 2.2 cents per litre, rising to 8.27 cents by 2012.

-The tax will generate about $1.85 billion over three years.

-Two thirds of the money raised in the first year will come from business.

-The tax is to be revenue neutral and none of the money raised through the carbon tax will go toward program spending.

-Legislation will require a plan to be tabled in the legislature each year showing how the carbon-tax revenue will be returned to businesses and individuals.

Tax cuts:

-Each adult and child in British Columbia will get a $100 rebate - a so-called Climate Action Dividend - in June aimed at helping people adopt greener lifestyles.

-Lower-income British Columbians will be eligible for a $100 payment per adult and a $30 payment per child as part of a Climate Action Credit. The money will be paid quarterly.

-The bottom two personal income tax rates will be reduced for all British Columbians, resulting in a tax cut of two per cent in 2008 and 5 per cent in 2009 on the first $70,000 in earnings.

-Effective July 1, 2008, the general corporate income tax rate will be reduced to 11 per cent from 12 per cent. By 2011, it will be reduced to 10 per cent.

-Effective July 1, 2008, the small business tax rate will be reduced to 3.5 per cent from 4.5 per cent, with further reductions planned to 2.5 per cent by 2011.

Spending:

-Health spending increases by $2.9 billion over three years.

-$144 million over three years in extra money will go to K-12 education.

-$104 million of extra funding will go to reduce homelessness over four years.

-An additional $78 million over four years to allow emergency shelters to stay open 24 hours a day.

Overall:

-Total government revenue is forecast at $38.5 billion in 2008-2009

-Total government expense is forecast at $37.7 billion in 2008-2009

-The budget includes a $375 million contingency fund for emergencies and a $750 forecast allowance.

-The surplus is projected to be $50 million.

-The surplus for the last budget year was $2 billion.


VICTORIA - Here are some things people are saying about the B.C. Liberal government's latest budget:

"This is an important turning point for British Columbia. We think for Canada." - Finance Minister Carole Taylor on introducing what her officials say is the most unique carbon tax in Canada.

"Corporate income tax reductions will make up approximately 23 per cent of the overall climate plan tax reductions, yet industry will pay approximately 60 to 70 per cent of the new carbon taxes. From the point of view of industry, more work needs to be done to ensure true revenue neutrality for all sectors." - Byng Giraud, vice president, Mining Association of British Columbia.

"We congratulate British Columbia on taking this visionary step. This marks a real turning point for British Columbia and puts the province at the forefront of North American action on climate change." - Ian Bruce, a climate change specialist with the David Suzuki Foundation.

"They have their priorities upside down again. It's not all nice, lovey-dovey stuff like she makes it out to be. It's a cheap election trick. It looks phoney." - BC Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair on the government's plan to give every British Columbian a $100 cheque.

"We hope this budget will not increase the cost of business for retailers, which has been steadily rising over the past few years due to increases in occupancy, freight and staffing costs. This budget creates the potential for further increases in the cost of goods and transporting goods to retailers." - Mark Startup, president and CEO of Retail BC.

"The budget fails to deliver either adequate resources or any details on how government will tackle the real sustainability crisis facing health care - a crippling shortage of skilled health-care workers." - Health Employees Union.

"These cuts in school tax will assist B.C.'s major industries and largest employers adjust to challenging economic times, while the elimination of the capital tax will go a long way towards ensuring B.C. will be well placed to become the financial gateway to Asian markets." - B.C. Chamber of Commerce.

"The focus on climate change will leave B.C. with a legacy of debt." - Maureen Bader, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.



BC government carbon tax, cash incentives geared at greening up the public


Canadian Press
19-Feb-2008

VICTORIA - From cleaner fuels to greener washing machines, the British Columbia government is asking individuals to take on climate change.

The Liberal government's 2008 budget includes funding for home energy improvements and tax breaks on energy-efficient appliances.

Car buyers will get up to a $2,000 reduction in sales tax for the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles and residents will even get a little green from the government to get them started.

In June, the government will send out $100 "Climate Action Dividends" to every man, woman and child in the province "to help people adopt greener lifestyles."

In addition to across-the-board cuts in personal income taxes - two per cent this year and five per cent next year on income up to $70,000 - low-income British Columbians will get a climate action tax credit of $100 a year per adult and $30 per child, to be paid quarterly with the GST tax credit.

But the cash incentives will be offset by the province's carbon tax, the first in Canada to apply to consumers.

The carbon tax will increase the cost of gasoline by 2.41 cents per litre and natural gas by 49.88 cents per gigajoule as of July 1. By 2012, the cost of gasoline will rise by 7.24 cents a litre.

The cost of the tax to individual British Columbians will depend on the choices they make, said Finance Minister Carol Taylor.

Those who choose to make changes and reduce their "carbon footprint" can save more than enough in household expenses to offset the carbon tax, she said.

"We do believe that people will have more dollars in the pocket despite this tax," said Taylor.

"They will have extra dollars in their pocket to help them make the transition if they choose to do so."

That's true of the first year of five-year plan. It may even be true for the second year, say critics.

But by the time the carbon tax climbs to $30 per tonne in 2012, the annual increase for a family that logs 40,000 on the road a year in a vehicle that burns 15 litres per 100 kilometres will be $496.80 a year. The cost of home fuel for a standard efficiency gas heater for the home will increase $105 a year.

A double-income family of four earning $60,000 a year will see a $45 reduction in income tax this year and $118 next year.

If they drive a vehicle that gets 10 kilometres a litre for 20,000 kilometres a year, gas will cost $24 more this year and $60 next year. The cost of natural gas heat and hot water will increase $21 this year and $53 next year, according to government estimates.

A senior couple earning $30,000 a year, driving 7,000 kilometres a year in a vehicle that gets about eight kilometres a litre will pay $10 more for fuel this year and $25 next. Home heating costs will increase about $30 this year and $70 next.

The government took the unusual step of making recommendations for some of the changes individual British Columbians can make to save money and the Earth.

Driving one day less per week can save $233 a year once the tax kicks in, according to government estimates. Taking public transit can save $185, walking to work $197 and weatherizing windows and doors can shave off $44 a year.

That's not to mention the savings on insurance costs, parking or the federal income tax credit for transit, according to budget documents.

Taylor said the gradual implementation of the carbon tax is meant to give people time to adjust.

"Nobody expects that immediately we're all going to go out and buy different cars or renovate our houses completely. But it gives us time to think about doing those things so that the next time a purchase comes up, we might change our behaviour along the way," she said.

Taylor said she'll use her $100 dividend to buy a new pair of running shoes. The B.C. finance minister said she has started walking to work and has worn out her shoes.



B.C. introduces carbon tax


Province is first jurisdiction in North America to have consumer-based carbon tax
By Jonathan Fowlie and Fiona Anderson
Vancouver Sun
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

VICTORIA -- Driving and other fuel-dependent activities are about to get more expensive as British Columbia becomes the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a consumer-based carbon tax.

However, Finance Minister Carole Taylor vowed Tuesday that all money collected through the new tax will be returned through a package of tax cuts and credits.

"We have to find a way that we can work towards improving our environment, but at the same time do it in a way that keeps our economy strong," said Taylor, as she presented a budget that, aside from the carbon tax, commits $1 billion over four years to fight climate change.

The $37.7 billion provincial budget also promises an additional $2.9 billion over three years for health care spending. That brings the total health budget to $13.8 billion for the coming year.

Taylor said the new carbon tax will begin July 1, starting at a rate that will have drivers paying about an extra 2.4 cents per litre of gasoline at the pumps.

If you drive a Prius hybrid, the government estimates the new tax will cost you about $20 extra per year. If you have a Dodge Ram pickup truck, that number will be closer to $68 it says.

The tax -- which will apply to virtually all fossil fuels, including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane and home heating fuel -- will then increase each year after that until 2012, reaching a final price of about 7.2 cents per litre at the pumps.

After that, Taylor said, it will rest with the government of the day to decide if the tax rate should change any further.

"We've promised you green and today we've delivered green," said Taylor, dressed in green Fluevogs and a green suit for the occasion.

"This is an important turning point for British Columbia and we think for Canada," she added, likening the climate-change budget measures as a "social movement."

To help people adjust to the cost of the tax -- which promises to achieve about 7.5 per cent of the government's legislated reductions by 2020 -- all British Columbians will receive a one-time $100 cheque this June.

"We want to bring in the benefits first," said Taylor.

Corporate and personal income tax rates will drop to help make the tax revenue neutral, and lower-income British Columbians will receive an annual climate action credit of $100 per adult and $30 per child.

Overall, the government estimates the carbon tax will bring in revenues of about $1.85 billion over the first three years -- all of which it says will be returned to businesses and individuals.

Estimates suggest businesses will pay two thirds of the carbon tax, and will receive only one third of the refunds. By contrast, individuals are expected to pay one third, while receiving two thirds of the credits.

The move was seen as a huge win by environmentalists, who depicted B.C. as a leader in taking action on climate change.

"I think this is a landmark decision in North America as far as government addressing global warming," said Ian Bruce of the Suzuki Foundation.

"The B.C. government has decided to use one of the most powerful incentives at its disposal to reduce pollution," he added, saying he expects the move to help spur innovation.

Lisa Matthaus of Sierra Club B.C. agreed.

"This is the budget that is going to support the significant throne speech commitments from last year, in particular the carbon tax."

Not everyone was equally supportive.

"I think they were pretty quick to pull out the stick when it comes to accomplishing environmental objectives," said Laura Jones, vice-president at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

"We know from our surveys that over 80 per cent of business owners are already taking action to get cleaner," she added, saying that is happening without a tax in place.

"I don't think this is the best way to accomplish the goal of getting more environmentally friendly," she said, explaining she would rather have seen a greater focus on education and incentives.

Niels Veldhuis of the Fraser Institute also took issue with the plan.

"This was a lost opportunity for British Columbia in terms of improving the investment climate," he said.

"We had a real and historic opportunity to improve our investment climate, to ensure our prosperity going forward by aggressively reducing business taxes and personal taxes."

For example top earners in B.C. pay taxes almost 50 per cent higher than their counterparts in Alberta, he said.

Instead of reducing taxes they chose to "change the mix," he said.

Though the 2008 budget is clearly a green one, health care also figured heavily into the spending, accounting for more than one third of overall spending.

The government says it will also reduce taxes above and beyond the carbon tax offset by $481 million over three years.

It will also spend $787 million over four years to strengthen social services.

Following the prudence that has become a trademark of Taylor's budgets, the finance minister is putting aside about $1 billion to deal with any surprises, such as larger than expected financial troubles in the United States.

jfowlie@png.canwest.com

fionaanderson@png.canwest.com



B.C. budget hikes fuel costs with new carbon tax


CBC News
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

British Columbians will be paying more at the fuel pump and less at tax time under a new carbon tax plan on all fossil fuels unveiled Tuesday as part of the Liberal government's budget.

The budget, introduced by Finance Minister Carole Taylor in the legislature in Victoria in the afternoon, also included breaks in personal and corporate taxes.

Taylor_cbc.jpg
Finance Minister Carole Taylor introduces
the budget in the legislature in Victoria
on Tuesday afternoon. (CBC)

As part of the new tax plan, carbon-based fuels — including gasoline, diesel, natural gas and home heating fuel — will be taxed at $10/tonne of greenhouse gases generated, starting July 1, 2008.

That will translate into a new 2.4 ¢/litre tax on gasoline at the pump and 2.8 ¢/litre for home heating fuel.

The carbon tax rate will rise by $5 a year for the next four years, until it hits $30/tonne of greenhouse gas generated in 2012, said Taylor.

The tax will earn the government an estimated $1.85 billion, but Taylor said the plan will be revenue neutral. The government will give all of the money back to taxpayers in the form of tax breaks, she said.

Income tax rates for the first $70,000 earned will be cut by five per cent in 2009, giving B.C. the lowest personal income tax rate in Canada for those earning under $111,000.

The corporations' tax rate will also be cut one per cent to 11 per cent in 2009, and 10 per cent in three years, making B.C.'s corporate tax rates on par with the lowest in Canada.

In total, businesses in B.C. will pay a total tax rate of 25 per cent when federal and provincial taxes are combined, making B.C.'s corporate tax rate 10 per cent lower than the U.S. average, said Taylor.

She also said that in the first year there will be $100 rebate to every adult and child in the province to offset the cost of the carbon tax.

The budget follows the throne speech last week, which Premier Gordon Campbell and his government urged British Columbians to take personal responsibility for reducing climate change.

Taylor said that, just as Canadians learned from British Columbians about aerobics, whole grain breads and healthy lifestyles 20 years ago, so will people in the province teach the rest of the country what it means to tackle global warming.

With files from the Canadian Press



B.C. pledges Greenbucks in bid to sell first carbon tax


Nathan VanderKlippe
Financial Post
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Forget Ralphbucks: British Columbia is promising to rain down Greenbucks in its bid to sell a dramatic new, North America-first carbon tax that will grab more cash from the pockets of motorists and those heating their houses in the cold North while leaving big industrial emitters unscathed.

"We promised you green and today we deliver green," B.C. Finance Minister Carole Taylor said as she stood on stage in Victoria Tuesday to deliver the province's budget in a striking pair of green heels.

"This is an important turning point for B.C., and we think for Canada because we are out in front on this," she said, suggesting the new tax could raise up a new "social movement" -- regardless of whether any other province follows suit, and despite serious concern from businesses cringing at the prospect of working under a patchwork of different climate regimes across the country.

And though the government's own estimates suggest the carbon tax will only trim B.C.'s emissions by 4.5% -- far shy of Premier Gordon Campbell's commitment of a 33% cut by 2020 -- Ms. Taylor was unapologetic.

"We don't want to wait," she said. "We think it's important to take the first step."

In January 2006, the Alberta government sent $400 cheques -- known variously as resource-rebate cheques, prosperity cheques or "Ralph bucks" -- to virtually every man, woman and child in the province. The rebate program cost $1.4 billion.

Ms. Taylor pledged to issue a $100 cheque to every person in the province in the weeks leading up to the July 1 launch of the carbon tax, which will begin at $10 per tonne of fossil fuel-fired greenhouse gas production. That amounts to 2.4 cents per litre of gasoline and 50 cents per gigajoule of natural gas, amounts that will triple over the next five years as the carbon tax grows to $30 a tonne.

By then, the owner of a gas-loving pickup truck who drives 40,000 kilometres a year will see a fat $500 added to his annual fuel bill.

Emissions from landfills and agriculture -- as well as from makers of oil, gas, aluminum and cement -- will not be taxed. Together, those emissions make up 30% of the province's carbon footprint -- although some may be covered in a cap-and-trade system expected to be unveiled late this summer.

In total, the tax is expected to raise $1.85-billion over the next three years, but Ms. Taylor stressed that none of that money will be used for new government spending. Instead, it will be returned to taxpayers in the form of credits to low-income people and new tax cuts that will, in 2008, drop personal income tax for those earning up to $70,000 by 2% and trim business taxes by a percentage point -- down to 11% for corporations and 3.5% for small businesses.

That makes it dramatically different from a carbon tax announced in Quebec, which will raise far less, but use the money to fund green research, rather than returning it to taxpayers. A B.C. government analysis suggests a dual-income family of four making $60,000 a year and driving 20,000 kilometres a year could actually see a $5 net benefit from the plan in 2009, the year when further tax cuts are also planned.

In effect, the carbon tax will transfer funds from businesses to individuals, who will face one-third of the burden but see two-thirds of the benefits.

The carbon tax legislation will also enforce a 10% salary deduction to any future finance minister who does not uphold the revenue neutral promise, and includes a healthy dose of government nannying, including helpful charts outlining the savings from lifestyle changes such as tuning up a car, weatherizing doors and windows and switching to a high-efficiency furnace.

On climate change more broadly, the B.C. government earmarked $1-billion for home energy audits, bio-diesel production, electrical connections at the ports and the purchase of fuel-sipping cars and energy-efficient appliances.

It also committed an enormous $2.9-billion in new health care money, and won plaudits from both business groups, who appreciated the revenue-neutral carbon tax and the chances it brings for fresh savings, and left-wing opinion groups.

A tax of "seven cents per litre, is not going to change anyone's behaviour. But I think the cumulative effect over time, when people are looking to buy a new vehicle, etc. -- that's where you're going to see the impact," said Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

"I would have liked to see something a bit more ambitious but I have to say it's very well-crafted."


Continue reading "Comment on BC Budget"
Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:25 PM

BC 2008 Budget

BC Budget Webpages
http://www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/2008/default.htm

Budget Highlights PDF
"Reader-friendly, plain-language overview of Balanced Budget 2008."

Budget and Fiscal Plan PDF
The main budget document; it lays out the Province’s three-year fiscal plan, including economic outlook, revenues, spending, tax measures, and forecasting risks and assumptions.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:00 PM

February 14, 2008

Comments on the Speech from the Throne

Download the full text of the Speech from the Throne

"A climate action plan to advance those targets will be released shortly after the budget. It will be annually updated and founded on personal responsibility, sound science and economic reality. And it will be driven by one simple truth: it is people who cause global warming and it is people who must act to stop it."
BC Premier Gordon Campbell's Throne Speech, 2008

"Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."
US Vice-President Dick Cheney, 2001

Hmm... personal responsibility ... persona virtue .... Cynical, maybe, but not wanting to be. There were big promises thrown out in last year's throne speech and they aren't being followed up with much here.

And as with last year's throne speech, we'll wait for the budget, and in the Climate Action Plan which will follow the budget.

Best catch in the Throne Speech so far is Charles Campbell's on the "energy corridor"

Campbell's activist crusade thunders out with visionary ideas
Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun, 13-Feb-2008

Small-gov't Campbell plants big-gov't seedlings
Michael Smyth, The Province, 13-Feb-2008

Green Gord: Unclear on Concept?
Andrew MacLeod, TheTyee.ca, 13-Feb-2008

'Progress' on native concerns rings hollow with the leaders
Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun, 14-Feb-2008

The new Throne speech energy corridor proposal turns rumblings from a pipeline giant into a real threat of oil spills.
Charles Campbell, Dogwood Initiative, 14-Feb-2008



Campbell's activist crusade thunders out with visionary ideas


Vaughn Palmer
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

VICTORIA - For the capstone of the throne speech this year, Premier Gordon Campbell went with a 45-year-old quote from John F. Kennedy.

"History and our own conscience will judge us harsher if we do not now make every effort to test our hopes by action."

The U.S. president was speaking in favour of a treaty banning atmospheric nuclear testing, initialled in the summer of 1963.

Campbell enlisted those words to rededicate his B.C. Liberal government to a saving-the-planet concern of our time, the fight against climate change.

He launched this crusade with last year's throne speech and this year's model took direct, argumentative aim at those who've disparaged his ambitions.

"Taking refuge in the status quo because others refuse to change is not an answer," said the text read Tuesday by Lt.-Gov. Steven Point but unmistakably voicing Campbell's thoughts. "The argument that B.C.'s mitigation efforts are, in global terms, too minuscule to matter, misses the point."

Never mind those tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions spewing from coal-fired power plants in China.

Never mind that Alberta's expectations for increasing emissions by 2020 exceeds B.C.'s targets for reducing them.

Our premier is worried about quantities far smaller than the tonne. "Every molecule of carbon dioxide released into our atmosphere by human activities matters," the speech declared.

"It hangs there for decades or even centuries and adds to the accumulated burden of global warming on our planet."

They were the words of a Gordon Campbell throne speech. But they would not be out of place in the mouth of the greenest activist.

Along those same lines, the speech cautioned today's crop of legislators against being "generationally selfish" -- putting current interests ahead of future generations.

"Critical to our success is long-term thinking that transcends the timelines of electoral cycles," was the way the speech put it.

"Most members of this legislature will not be alive in 2050. But most have or will have children and grandchildren who will be. It is for them and all who follow in our footsteps that today's decision makers must act."

Not the usual theme for a government facing the start of a reelection campaign in 14 months, as this one does. But it fits Campbell's current visionary and activist frame of mind.

More than three decades in public life, 14 years in the legislature, seven as premier, and he shows no sign of losing interest in the job or running out of ideas.

On the contrary, the throne speech overflowed with proposals and not just on the environment. There were 10 pages on health care and several on education and other social concerns.

About the only area where the Liberals didn't offer much was on the economy. They figure it's ticking along well enough to make do with a forestry roundtable, the promise of an agriculture plan and a few other tidbits.

Some of the throne speech proposals displayed the premier's penchant for loading up the public sector with agencies and programs for this, that and the other thing, all set out in capital letters.

Forests for Tomorrow. Live Smart BC. Brownfields to Greenfields. Youth Climate Leadership Alliance. Youth Live Smart. Trees for Tomorrow. Centre for Brain Health. Walking School Bus. Bicycle Train. Early Childhood Learning Agency. Centre for Autism Education and Research. And the Hip Centre, which regrettably has nothing to do with jazz musicians or beat poetry.

But in the midst of that bewildering variety of possibilities, one comes across an item that as a standalone announcement would probably make a front-page story.

This: "British Columbians want to understand why sentences in their province tend to be shorter than in other provinces for crimes such as homicide, theft, property crimes, fraud, impaired driving and drug possession. A comprehensive review of sentencing practices in B.C. courts will address those questions."

Or this: "New powers will be given to the college of teachers to remove teaching certificates from any member who is found to be incompetent."

Or the call for a tax-sheltered savings account that would allow people to put money aside for home support or assisted living in their old age.

But one has to note that this was a typical throne speech, meaning it came minus budget figures, legislation or the other trappings of actual, cost-able, checkable programs.

On climate change, for instance, the government won't be laying out the "action plan" for several more weeks.

"It will be annually updated and founded on personal responsibility, sound science and economic reality," the speech promised.

"And it will be driven by one simple truth: It is people who cause global warming and it is people who must act to stop it."

Details to follow. But as for the vision thing, he's got it and got it big.

vpalmer@direct.ca

© The Vancouver Sun 2008



Small-gov't Campbell plants big-gov't seedlings


Michael Smyth
The Province
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Once upon a time, there was a premier who believed the No. 1 job of government was to get out of people's lives and out of your wallet.

That premier was Gordon Campbell. Remember him? The guy who said he could run the province with a dozen cabinet ministers and around half the MLAs we have now?

That Campbell was a big believer in smaller government.

"It is time to rein government in," Campbell said then. "It is too big, out of touch and too expensive."

Looks like Mr. Lean And Mean must have misplaced his ThighMaster. Now Campbell's roly-poly government is sprouting more new tentacles than squids during mating season. Yesterday's throne speech unveiled at least 17 new government programs and agencies, many of which appear to duplicate work already being done by other departments. "Your government will build on the expertise and success of the Brain Research Centre with a new Centre For Brain Health," Lt.-Gov. Steven Point told the legislature. Now, I'm all for brain centres, but do we really need one for each cerebral hemisphere?

But the announcement soon became a recurring theme in the speech: Why create just one government bureaucracy when two will do? There's the new "LiveSmart B.C. Initiative," for example, to create "more people-friendly neighbourhoods." But if that's not enough to rock your world, there's also the "Youth LiveSmart Outreach Campaign" that will encourage "young British Columbians to make carbon-smart lifestyle choices."

Just what we needed! And the two-for-one deals didn't end there. "A new Trees For Tomorrow program will launch a large, urban afforestation initiative," Point revealed. Then a few minutes later, he added: "The Forests For Tomorrow program will plant an additional 60 million seedlings over the next four years."

I know what you're thinking: What, no Woods For Tomorrow program? No Timberlands For Tomorrow secretariat? No Shrubbery For Tomorrow community round table?

Don't worry. Those are probably coming in the budget next week.

Meanwhile, you have lots of other new government programs to get excited about, like the B.C. Patient Safety Council; the Brownfields to Greenfields Redevelopment Strategy; the B.C. Bioenergy Strategy; the Citizens Conservation Council; the Youth Climate Leadership Alliance; the Walking School Bus Program; the Bicycle Train Program; the Patient Care Quality Review Board (five of those, actually); the Health Profession Review Board; the Community Safety Strategy; the Early Childhood Learning Agency; the Centre For Autism Education and Research; the Education Quality Assurance Program; and the Working Roundtable On Forestry.

Don't bother asking how much all these new programs will cost or why many of them apparently need their own government departments or bureaucracies to function. Those are the type of questions that simply don't get answered on throne speech day.

Just be grateful that Campbell, the guy who promised to rein in government, now has the wisdom to set up a Trees For Tomorrow program and a Forests For Tomorrow program at the same time -- even if you think he can't see the forest for the trees.

msmyth@direct.ca

© The Vancouver Province 2008



Green Gord: Unclear on Concept?
By Andrew MacLeod
TheTyee.ca
February 13, 2008

Throne speech still fuzzy on global warming plan.

Premier Gordon Campbell's position at the head of the climate change fighting parade has been drawing criticism from the province's business leaders, so observers were wondering if the Feb. 12 throne speech would signal a renewed commitment to the file or a retreat.

They could not have been disappointed by the volume. The 42-page speech, delivered by Lt.-Gov. Steven Point, included a laundry list of ongoing projects and a few new promises, much of it focussed on the inter-related issues of climate change, forestry and the environment. There was little, however, that could be construed as a plan.

The Tyee actively requests that its material not be reproduced for public use. The full text of this article article is, of course, available at the Tyee, right here.



'Progress' on native concerns rings hollow with the leaders


Vaughn Palmer
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, February 14, 2008

The B.C. government's 2008 speech from the throne commenced with the promise of additional progress in the budding new relationship with aboriginal people.

"History has taught us that we all move forward by moving beyond positions that have held us back," said the text, written in the premier's office and read by the first lieutenant-governor of aboriginal heritage, Steven Point. "Working together, we are opening new doors for progress."

But that passage must have been greeted with a sense of irony by many of the province's aboriginal leaders, given the lack of progress on a key concern of theirs.

Native leaders have been pressing the provincial government to adopt what they call the Recognition Act, formally recognizing aboriginal rights and title.

As well, the act would set out the legal framework for "consultation and accommodation," two key concepts to emerge from a 2004 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Essentially, the high court said the provincial government must consult natives and accommodate their interests whenever decisions would significantly affect their rights and title.

In effect, the law would set out the guidelines for those consultations -- when they would kick in, what form they would take -- and the mechanisms for accommodating interests. It would bind all provincial government ministries, agencies and Crown corporations to the same set of rules, attempting to bring order and certainty to the process.

Native leaders began pressing for the legislation in the wake of the generally upbeat mood surrounding the announcement of the new relationship in 2005 and early progress toward reconciliation in 2006.

The Liberals had already recognized rights and title in the speech from the throne. They also issued general directives to government agencies to consult and accommodate.

So the government agreed to discuss the proposed legislation in face-to-face negotiations, believing it might offer an alternative to endless litigation around the meaning of rights and title, consultation and accommodation.

But privately some members of the government worried that, far from ending litigation, the legislation might open the way to more action in the courts.

Natives would use the bill as leverage to wring concessions from the Crown on land use, development and other decisions.

If they didn't get what they wanted through the legislative process, they could still go to court and ask for more -- since provincial law could not possibly limit their rights and prerogatives under the Constitution.

There were growing concerns, too, about the scope of the legislation.

It would apply to hundreds of government departments and agencies, thousands of decisions, uncounted legislative and regulatory powers.

Could a single bill cover all that without generating myriad unintended consequences?

While the government representatives agonized over the very idea of the legislation, the natives submitted a draft text -- their version of the Recognition Act.

I've not seen the text, but I gather it increased the anxieties on the government side. The Liberals decided the concept needed a lot more work before it could make the grade as government legislation.

Premier Gordon Campbell and Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong delivered the word in a meeting with native leaders late last week.

They relayed the concerns about the scope and powers of the proposed legislation. They indicated the bill was unlikely to see the light of day in the spring session of the legislature; indeed, there was no mention of it in the speech from the throne.

At the same time, the premier and the minister expressed a willingness to continue working on some sort of legislative framework for consultation and accommodation, if only natives would be patient.

I'm not aware of any formal response from native leaders to the rebuff from the Liberals.

But the informal response was evident in their absence from the legislature on throne speech day.

Two native leaders, Chief Joe Hall of the Tzeachten First Nation and Chief Frank Malloway of the Yakweakwioose First Nation, were present on the floor of the house.

But they came because the provincial government had finally responded favourably to their persistent entreaties to help fund a native healing centre in their traditional territory.

The promised Stehiyaq Healing and Wellness Centre would be located in the valley of the Chilliwack River.

Otherwise, none of the major first nations leaders -- including those who've attended Liberal budgets and throne speeches in the past -- accepted invitations to be in the house to hear this year's throne speech.

Not intended as a show of disrespect to the new lieutenant-governor, I would think. Rather, a comment on the way the new relationship with the Liberals is increasingly under strain.

vpalmer@direct.ca

© The Vancouver Sun 2008



The new Throne speech energy corridor proposal turns rumblings from a pipeline giant into a real threat of oil spills.


Charles Campbell
Dogwood Initiative
Thursday, February 14, 2008


Announcements by energy giant Enbridge and the BC government look to clear First Nation and environmental obstacles to tanker traffic along BC’s coast. But public opinion remains firmly against tankers on our coast.

Two events in the past week have made those concerned about the possibility of oil spills along BC’s coast stand up and take notice. The first was Enbridge’s February 9th announcement that it had secured “third party funding” to push its Gateway pipeline project through the regulatory process. The Gateway Project is a pipeline proposal to export up to 1,000,000 barrels of tar sands crude per day to China via a tanker port in Kitimat. The project has met strong resistance from First Nations and environmental groups concerned about the likelihood of oil spills in Queen Charlotte sound, near Haida Gwaii and along the coast of the Great Bear Rainforest.

A year and a half ago, after numerous delays to the project largely due to the efforts of First Nations and environmental groups, the money for Gateway particularly Chinese financing began to dry up and Enbridge shelved their proposal. The rumoured new money behind the push indicates that wheels are once again turning.

The second event was a single line in a press release accompanying this year’s Throne speech. It said the government would be “pursuing creation of a new northern energy corridor from Prince Rupert to Prince George.” For ‘energy corridor’ read ‘pipelines and transmission lines’. This seemingly innocuous language means that the government is willing to do the heavy lifting with First Nations negotiations and environmental assessment for energy projects in the north, “streamlining” the process for companies like Enbridge.

To date the greatest obstacle to tanker traffic and oil spills on our coast has been determined First Nations opposition. Enbridge initially shelved its Gateway Project after the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council filed a law suit to halt Enbridge’s joint National Energy Board/Environmental Assessment. In a move that echoed a successful First Nation suit involving the McKenzie Gas Pipeline, they claimed the crown had failed in its obligations to consult the First Nation. That lawsuit hasn’t been resolved.
An ‘energy corridor’ would significantly undermine First Nations ability to have input into individual projects. The government is looking to grant a general right of way for energy transmission – be that oil, gas or condensate pipelines or power-lines. Good news for energy companies, not such good news for the rest of us.

There are currently oil and gas proposals on the table that, if approved, would see up to 320 tankers per year plying our northern coastal waters. At that rate industry averages suggest we would see a major oil spill every 6-7 years. For those of us who love our coast and are aware of the long term impact of the Exxon Valdez spill that’s just not acceptable.

Despite the rhetoric about aggressive action on climate change, the BC government is now trying to undermine the ability of First Nations to ensure the continued health of our coast. Now it is up to the people of BC to say no to tanker traffic. With polls showing 75% of British Columbians oppose oil tanker traffic we have the numbers on our side. Now it’s time to raise our voices.

http://www.dogwoodinitiative.org/bulletins/energycorridor/

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:57 AM

2008 BC Speech from the Throne

Comments on the Throne Speech will be in a subsequent posting
Download this release
Download the full text of the Speech from the Throne



NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
2008OTP0031-000196
Feb. 12, 2008

Office of the Premier

THRONE SPEECH LAYS GROUNDWORK FOR NEXT GENERATIONS

VICTORIA - The fourth session of the 38th parliament was launched today with a speech from the throne that lays out new measures to create safe, secure communities, build excellence in education, further strengthen the New Relationship with First Nations, and give British Columbians options to become personally involved in combating climate change.

"Many members of this legislature will not be alive in 2050, but most have or will have children and grandchildren who will be. It is for them that today's decision makers must take action," said Premier Gordon Campbell. "By living smarter, we can save energy, water, fuel consumption, time and money. We can reduce waste and get better value from our land, our limited natural resources and our tax dollars."

A healthy environment and educated populace are essential to healthy human development and a globally competitive economy. A safe, humane society is the object and outcome of an enlightened, prosperous and caring community. The bedrock of each goal is a strong economy.

Government outlines new LiveSmart BC strategy:

* LiveSmart BC will reward smart choices that will save energy, water, fuel, time and money.

* The new LiveSmart BC initiative will help to contain urban sprawl and reward development that creates more affordable housing, new green spaces and more people-friendly neighbourhoods.

* Consumers will be given new tools to help conserve energy and save money on their power bills, such as Power Smart meters that will be installed in every home in British Columbia by 2012. That will give families new information and control over their power consumption.

* New "inclining block" rate structures will also allow families to choose and save by making Power Smart choices.

* These changes and the BC Energy Plan will be supported by a new legislated direction for the BC Utilities Commission.

* Green developments waiting for provincial environmental approvals will be fast-tracked and given priority.

* The new Green Building Code will be finalized and implemented to save energy and water.

* All new provincial public buildings will be constructed to LEED Gold or equivalent standards. Existing buildings will be retrofitted to make them more energy efficient, climate friendly and healthier for public servants.

* Higher densities will be encouraged around new transit routes to help make them more affordable and create affordable housing.

* Legislation will require local governments to incorporate greenhouse gas reduction targets and supporting strategies in their Official Community Plans and Regional Growth Strategies.

* Legislation will be introduced this session to facilitate British Columbia's participation in a regional "cap and trade" system that is being developed under the Western Climate Initiative. The framework for that system is scheduled for completion this year.

* A new Citizens' Conservation Council will support B.C.'s mitigation efforts with public education campaigns that will give citizens the tools and information they need to make informed choices.

* A new Youth Climate Leadership Alliance will be formed that will comprise students and other young people from across B.C. It will undertake paid government-sponsored field research, mitigation work, afforestation projects and adaptation efforts.

* A new Youth LiveSmart outreach campaign will encourage young British Columbians to make carbon-smart lifestyle choices that are good for the environment, their health, their pocketbooks and our planet.

* The Scrap-It program will be expanded to get older vehicles with higher emissions off the road.

* Other LiveSmart BC education and outreach initiatives will be launched by the government and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

Other initiatives to safeguard the environment and tackle climate change include:

* The Province will pursue a goal of zero net deforestation, and work with First Nations, industry and communities to put that goal into law by 2010 and establish a viable strategy for realizing that vision by 2015.

* A new Trees for Tomorrow program will launch a large, urban afforestation initiative. Millions of trees will be planted in backyards, schoolyards, hospital grounds, civic parks, campuses, parking lots and other public spaces across B.C.

* Major investments in tree nurseries will be made to assist this initiative.

* All forest land currently identified as not sufficiently restocked will be replanted and no "NSR" backlogs will be allowed to develop in ensuing years.

* The Forests for Tomorrow program will plant an additional 60 million seedlings over the next four years.

* The discharge of landfill gas will be regulated to foster the capture and conversion of emissions into clean energy.

* A new "Brownfields to Greenfields" redevelopment strategy will target existing "dirty" sites for the creation of well-treed, green, liveable communities.

* Standards for low-carbon fuel content will be adopted to reduce the carbon intensity of motor vehicle fuels by 10 per cent by 2020, and new incentives will be created to encourage the purchase of fuel efficient vehicles.

* The new BC Bioenergy Strategy will create new opportunities in clean technology for rural communities, for independent power producers, and for our forest and agriculture industries.

* New investments will be made in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, hydrogen-powered buses, clean retrofits of dirty diesel trucks and the electrification of truck stops.

* The Innovative Clean Energy Fund will help create 100,000 solar roofs in British Columbia and build on B.C.'s expertise in solar technology. * A new Pacific Carbon Trust will foster economic growth from new opportunities in carbon credit trading and carbon offsets. The Trust will invest in made-in-B.C. offset projects that produce emissions reductions that are permanent, measurable, verifiable, and additional, and that are regulated by government. Projects in energy efficiency, renewable energy, carbon capture and sequestration - including incremental tree planting - will all be eligible.

* The Trust will manage the revenues generated from government's plan to become carbon neutral by 2010. It will be open to offset purchases from private citizens, companies and other governments alike.

* The Province will expand British Columbia's hydrometric and other climate-related networks to improve our ability to monitor, predict and adapt to these conditions.

* The legislature will be asked to adopt new California-equivalent vehicle tailpipe emission standards, in tandem with California and a number of other states and provinces.

* Amendments to the Wildlife Act will build on the Mountain Caribou Recovery Plan, the Vancouver Island Marmot Recovery Project and the Kitasoo Spirit Bear Conservancy.

* Tough new penalties will prevent and punish poaching and killing endangered species.

* Comprehensive air and water stewardship strategies will be released this spring, as new steps are taken to combat global warming. * This session, all members will be asked to build on the record of environmental stewardship with new conservancies and parks envisioned in approved land use plans.

* A climate action plan will be released shortly after the budget. It will be annually updated and founded on personal responsibility, sound science and economic reality.

Live smart means safe, supportive communities. Initiatives to create safe, secure communities include:

* A comprehensive review of sentencing practices will address why sentences in B.C. tend to be shorter than in other provinces for crimes such as theft, homicide, property crimes, fraud, impaired driving and drug possession. It will also assess how the federal government's anti-crime measures might affect demands on our police, Crown prosecutors, courts and correctional system.

* That information will contribute to a Community Safety Strategy that will be released this fall. That strategy will include enhanced policing, new community courts and expanded correctional capacity.

* Amendments to the Police Act will aim to implement Josiah Wood's recommendations to improve transparency, accountability and public confidence in the police complaints process.

* An updated 10-year mental health plan will be completed.

* Patients with severe mental illnesses who require intensive, sustained and complex medical treatment will be provided care in new and existing facilities at Willingdon in Burnaby, which will be retrofitted and opened this year, and at Riverview in Coquitlam.

* A new multi-year investment will be made to revitalize Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Anchored by the new Woodward's project, new public initiatives will be undertaken in partnership with the city and the neighbourhoods to enhance the 40-block area that includes Gastown, Chinatown, Strathcona and Japantown.

* Communities will be required to include provision for mental health and addiction service facilities in their community plans. * Expanded outreach programs will help lift people out of the street and offer them personalized support.

* A "211" service, in partnership with the United Way, will be launched to give citizens new telephone access to information about the full range of social services offered in their communities.

* The Province will work with local governments to explore the potential to further integrate policing and to examine the possibilities for amalgamating police forces.

* More will also be done, as government implements the Hughes recommendations on child protection, improves programs to prevent violence against women, and increases support to people with developmental disabilities, children with special needs and their families.

New initiatives to strengthen the New Relationship with B.C.'s First Nations include:

* Support for fast-tracked treaty negotiations at common tables, as suggested by the BC Treaty Commission and First Nations. * Pursuing "incremental treaty agreements" to help First Nations benefit earlier in the treaty-making process.

* Aboriginal rights to harvest wood for domestic purposes on Crown land will be given new statutory recognition.

* New investments in carbon offset projects that benefit First Nations will be an integral part of government's climate action plan.

* The Province will work with First Nations and the federal government to put Jordan's Principle into action, and to strengthen services for Aboriginal children and families. That principle says the interests of Aboriginal children must always be paramount, and that no child, on- or off-reserve, should be put at risk due to jurisdictional disputes.

* New legislation will enable Aboriginal authorities to assume legal responsibility for the delivery of most child and family services in their communities.

* The Province will contribute to the establishment of the Stehiyaq Healing and Wellness Village in the Fraser Valley. * New mechanisms will facilitate effective engagement of all parties in meaningful consultation and help First Nations participate as equity partners in major economic development projects.

New initiatives to build educational excellence include:

* A new program leading to a certificate in leadership will be introduced for teachers.

* New powers will be given to the College of Teachers to remove the teaching certificate of any member who is found to be incompetent. * New steps will be taken to expand B.C.'s public university system, provide new clarity of purpose in our post-secondary institutions and create new opportunities for higher learning. Funding will be targeted where it is needed most, to meet skills demands with added training capacity for skilled workers.

* The Provincial Nominee Program and the successful Skills Connect for Immigrants program will be expanded to help meet the demand for skilled workers.

* Post-secondary students will be given new consumer protection as institutional accountability is strengthened under the new Education Quality Assurance program.

* A major new arts endowment will provide lasting benefits to all British Columbians.

* Steps will be taken to enhance the Vancouver Art Gallery's international reputation as a showcase of B.C. art of all genres, cultures and regions.

* The Province will support the establishment of a National Maritime Centre for the Pacific and the Arctic in North Vancouver.

New initiatives for B.C. children include:

* Another 316 StrongStart BC centres will be added in the next two years, for a total of 400 in B.C. by 2010. StrongStart BC is a free, drop-in early learning program for preschool-aged children accompanied by a parent or caregiver.

* A new Early Childhood Learning Agency will be established. It will assess the feasibility and costs of full school day kindergarten for five-year-olds. It will also undertake a feasibility study of providing parents with the choice of day-long kindergarten for four-year-olds by 2010, and for three-year-olds by 2012. That report will be completed and released within the year.

* A new Centre for Autism Education and Research will be developed that will provide a residential environment for children with autism and create a national hub for research and a centre for parental supports.

* Creating new "Walking School Bus" and "Bicycle Train" programs to encourage children to walk or bicycle to school with adult supervision.

* Enacting new legislation to ban smoking in vehicles when children are present.

* Expanded pediatric oncology research will offer new hope for cancer prevention and treatment specifically focused on children.

* Committing to the upgrading and expansion of BC Children's Hospital.

Next week's budget will build on other initiatives to support B.C.'s continued economic prosperity that include:

* Pursuing creation of a new northern energy corridor from Prince Rupert to Prince George.

* Pursue the next phase of the Port of Prince Rupert development, in co-operation with First Nations and the federal government.

* Working with the federal government, a new integrated Pacific Ports Strategy will also be developed to make the most of Canada's Pacific Gateway.

* Amendments to the Employment Standards Act will improve protection for farm workers and prohibit agricultural producers from using unlicensed farm labour contractors.

* The new Working Roundtable on Forestry will recommend new possibilities for forestry, including new tenures; and a 90-day regulatory and process review will cut unnecessary administrative and process costs.

* New pension bridging opportunities will be developed for older workers nearing retirement. New training opportunities will also be offered to help forest workers who have been temporarily laid off to upgrade skills and earning potential.

* The new BC Bioenergy Strategy will create new opportunities in cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel and other clean, renewable fuels.

* The consultation now underway will continue to advance the potential for Site C, which could be a major economic catalyst for rural British Columbia in years to come.

* A new British Columbia Agriculture Plan will ensure farming continues to have a bright future in B.C.

-30-

Media contact:

Dale Steeves
Communications Director
Office of the Premier
250 387-6605

For more information on government services or to subscribe to the
Province's news feeds using RSS, visit the Province's website at
www.gov.bc.ca.

Download this release

Download the full text of the Speech from the Throne

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 09:33 AM

February 08, 2008

Clean power bridge? Or a bridge to the past?

COMMENT:

A bridge to the past

Clean power bridge? Stepping-stone? WestPac LNG spokesmen can't figure out how to spin their project.

BC Hydro says in its 2007 Annual Report that 1.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) were created in British Columbia from electricity generation. GHG emissions in BC from all sources are 65-80 million tonnes. So only about 1.5 percent of our provincial GHGs are attributable to electricity.

Thanks to the huge hydroelectric legacy bequeathed to us by W.A.C. Bennett, British Columbians can boast that we are among the lowest GHG emitters in the world when it comes to electricity generation. That's not a problem that needs fixing. It certainly does not need the "fix" proposed by WestPac LNG.

The Texada generation project will generate up to 4 million tonnes of GHGs per year, tripling the provincial output. Some bridge. That's gotta be a "fix" of a different sort, because it certainly doesn't mean "repair" or "make better."

WestPac's gas plant may be as big as 1200 megawatts (MW), or five times the size of the former Duke Point project. Duke Point, readers may remember, was rejected in 2003 by the BC Utilities Commission and was cancelled in 2005 by BC Hydro and the BC Government. If Duke Point was not good for BC at 260 MW, how could the Texada project be good for BC at 1200 MW?

As for the natural gas, BC already produces far more gas than we use. The surplus is sold into the United States. So all the gas that WestPac proposes bringing to Texada Island will merely displace BC gas in the pipeline, causing an equivalent amount of BC gas to join that which is already being delivered to US markets. In effect, WestPac is proposing to import gas to BC to serve the US. Maybe that's what they mean by "bridge" and Texada is just a "stepping-stone."

The facts are pretty easy to understand. WestPac's Texada project is a bridge straight back to the thinking that got us to the problem that Premier Campbell is trying to fix. It is a stepping-stone to rubbing our collective faces in our concerns about climate change.

WestPac is all about making money for its investors. The Premier's climate change agenda is all about saving the world. Holy smokes. Difficult choice.


Clean power bridge


Laura Walz -- Peak Editor
Powell River Peak
Feb 7, 2008

BC introducing emission hard caps

westpac2_damoto_story.jpg

Proponents of a combined liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal and natural gas-fired electrical generation facility for the north-end of Texada Island say their project will provide a stepping-stone to the goal of producing power without emitting greenhouse gases (GHG).

Stu Leson, WestPac LNG Corporation president, and Bob Green, vice-president, business development, were in Powell River on Wednesday and Thursday, January 30 and 31. They said the company continues to wait for a provincial climate action team to determine sector targets, part of an initiative to reduce GHG. Legislation is expected to be introduced this spring to allow for the creation of market mechanisms, making BC the first province in Canada to legally require hard caps on GHG emissions. Those caps will be used as part of a "cap-and-trade system" that is scheduled to be developed by next August through the Western Climate Initiative.

"Every time we turn around this issue of how they are going to establish this cap-and-trade system, it becomes more complicated," said Leson. "We thought it was going to be some combination of western states and perhaps British Columbia. But now Canada it seems is trying to get together all of the provinces and come up with a system. Everybody has a lot of questions and it doesn't seem like anybody has answers or solutions. We really have to wait until some of the rules are established before we go too far with the final design of the projects."

Green, a chemical engineer who was a director of the BC Energy Commission, the precursor of the BC Utilities Commission, said the issue also involves a national political dilemma. "Currently, BC would like to see itself as the centre of the cap-and-trade system," he said. "Quebec would like to see itself as the centre of the cap-and-trade system. Ottawa is still on the fence, deciding how they want to deal with this issue."

Alberta has its own agenda because it has the responsibility in Canada to meet the energy needs of a good portion of North America, Green added. "Their situation is quite different and their viewpoint is quite different than others, because they are struggling to meet that responsibility as best they can," he said. "It is a complex issue. In the states, you have equally, if not more, complex issues to deal with. There is this need that has to be met, but how do you get people to agree on a course of action when the rules of the game are not quite clear?"

Green has also worked for West Coast Energy and owned his own business, Coast Pacific Management Inc., a natural gas marketing company that was bought by Avista Energy Canada Ltd. of Washington State.

The eventual goal is to produce power without emitting GHG, Green agreed, but it is a very difficult thing to accomplish. "It's what we aspire to, but to achieve that goal, there are a lot of things that have to occur," he said. "Ultimately, the people who are affected are the ones who have to buy into this. They have to agree, absolutely, to conserve and reduce their energy consumption."

There's some distance to go before that attitude becomes ingrained, Green added. "In the meantime, the world's not going to stop. It's still going to need the energy and it will be people like us and projects like ours to provide this stepping stone to that goal in the future."

While the company waits for the new provincial regulations, Green said he and Leson continue to advance the project within the confines of existing policy. "We're keeping aware of the changing policy within the energy milieu," he said. "We're keeping people, governments and government agencies informed of projects like this and we're examining the broad needs of the Powell River area."

While in town, one of the meetings Leson and Green had was with a group of people under the age of 35, who call themselves Emerging Leaders. The group meets about once a month, according to its spokesman Kevin Sigouin, and has had presentations from a range of people, including City of Powell River Mayor Stewart Alsgard, chief administrative officer Stan Westby, Tla'Amin (Sliammon) First Nation Chief Walter Paul, and Dave Formosa, president of the Powell River Chamber of Commerce. "It's an opportunity to hear from people in the know and ask them good questions afterwards," said Sigouin. "It's been really good."

The group wanted to hear from WestPac representatives, Sigouin added. "We had an opportunity to sit down with them, ask them pointed questions, hear them out," he said. "We thought we were going to be talking about WestPac and their plans for Texada, but 75 per cent of our time was debating our society and what we need to do to reduce our energy consumption."

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 02:11 PM

Primary public view on the climate plan: Don't screw up the economy

Vaughn Palmer
Vancouver Sun
February 07, 2008

When a B.C. Liberal-dominated committee toured the province seeking feedback on the "climate action plan," the first thing it heard was that the government should not do anything to screw up the economy.

"A clear and unsolicited message the committee heard was that measures to reduce greenhouse gases must neither adversely affect the B.C.'s strong economic position nor increase the province's debt-to-GDP ratio," the committee reported.

"This message was reiterated time and time again."

A second finding was that government should be careful about loading on the carbon taxes.

Such taxes should be a "second choice," after government exhausts the possibilities for "incentive-based programs," the committee concluded.

Those recommendations were contained in a report from the legislature finance committee, delivered last November.

The panel had toured the province at the behest of Finance Minister Carole Taylor, seeking public views on this year's budget and economic plan. Among other things, she wanted know what the public would support in terms of incentives, disincentives and taxes in the fight against climate change.

The answers, though they've been on the record since the 100-page report was released, take on additional importance with the approach of this year's throne speech (next Tuesday) and budget (Feb. 19.) So it will be instructive to see if the Liberals were guided by the committee's generally cautionary findings, particularly on the taxation issue.

For instance, Taylor says any tax on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be "revenue neutral."

But in almost the same breath, she claims that the definition is broad enough to allow government to retain the proceeds from any carbon tax, providing the money is spent on a "dedicated purpose."

Not so, according to the legislature committee. It adopted a much narrower definition of revenue neutrality, whereby "increased revenues from a carbon tax would be offset by lowering other taxes, such as income tax."

The committee did receive numerous submissions calling for greenhouse gas emissions to be taxed at a rate of $30 to $50 per tonne, which would translate to seven to 12 cents a litre in the case of gasoline. But it concluded that at least some of those submissions were the result of an orchestrated campaign by "technologically savvy environmental advocacy organizations."

It also took note of concerns about "fairness and equity" in the application of carbon taxes.

"If a carbon tax is applied across the board, there would be a negative impact on particular groups, such as low-income earners, rural British Columbians and those without access to public transportation."

Hence a recommendation that the makers of any new tax should be mindful of the need to cushion those least able to pay it.

"Should the government choose a carbon tax," the committee said, "it should take measures to mitigate the impacts of such a tax on lower- and middle-income families." The report also urged the government to "recognize a clear urban/rural divide with respect to increases in transportation-related taxation."

Over to you Finance Minister Taylor.

None of this should be interpreted as lack of public support for action on climate change.

"The vast majority of British Columbians taking part in this year's budget consultation process want the government to take decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," the committee said. But in the main the public preferred incentives rather than punitive action, a view the committee members came to share.

"While the committee is not entirely against introducing new forms of taxation to address climate change, we strongly believe that the government should -- as first priority -- consider incentive-based programs targeting behavioural change in both individuals and businesses."

The report's mainly positive recommendations included calls for everything from "measures to promote environmentally friendly consumer packaging" to "programs to improve the efficiency of B.C.'s trucking fleet."

Another key finding was that people did not know nearly enough about what could and should be done. "As a first step," the committee endorsed "the creation of a website that will provide factual information on the impacts of climate change, information on what steps individuals and business can take to reduce their environmental impact, and serve as repository of the myriad of programs and ideas available to individuals and business willing to change their behaviour."

In short, before the government plunges too deeply into this crusade, it needs to tell British Columbians a lot more about what it is doing, could be doing and why.

Worth noting, too, that all these findings were unanimous, endorsed by the six B.C. Liberals on the committee as well as the four members of the Opposition.

vpalmer@direct.ca

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 02:28 AM

February 06, 2008

BC Hydro launches Bioenergy Call for Power

February 6, 2008

BC Hydro to advance bioenergy production to utilize wood fibre

Vancouver – BC Hydro today released the first phase of its two-phase Bioenergy Call for Power with a request for proposals that will utilize forest-based biomass, including sawmill residues, logging debris and other residual wood for power production.

The Bioenergy Call will consist of two phases: the first phase will be a competitive request for proposals open to projects that are immediately viable and do not need new tenure from the Ministry of Forests and Range, with a goal of having electricity purchase agreements signed by fall of 2008.

The second phase will be launched by July 2008, after the ongoing biomass inventory and forest tenure analysis is completed by the Ministry of Forests and Range.

"This first phase will promote investment in new technology and take advantage of underutilized wood residue," said Rich Coleman, Minister of Forests and Range.

The Bioenergy Call for Power is a key component of the provincial government's Bioenergy Strategy, released last week, and the BC Energy Plan. It is intended to help address the effects of the mountain pine beetle infestation, while at the same time developing new sources of clean energy.

"The Bioenergy Call will help B.C. achieve its target for zero net greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen our long-term competitiveness and diversify rural economies," said Richard Neufeld, Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

"Bioenergy is an innovative new source of power that is also clean, and this Call for Power will help BC Hydro meet the province's growing electricity needs," said Bob Elton, BC Hydro President and CEO.

Contact:
Susan Danard
Media Relations
Phone: (604) 623-4220

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:01 PM

COAL: Screaming coal prices and a new coal mine on Vancouver Island?

COMMENT:The news article which follows is pointing at recent price rises for thermal and metallurgical coal. Some of BC's small coal miners react to this kind of news like Santa has just arrived and certainly spot prices of $200 a ton are a coal companies best Christmas ever. But the article also explains why these coal prices are so high right now, and it's all incidental transitory stuff - power cuts, flooding, snowstorms. You don't open new mines or enter into long term contracts based on such ephemera.

Nevertheless, Compliance Energy has announced a memorandum of understanding with a Japanese and a Korean company which reads as if these companies are about to fund a new coal mine on Vancouver Island. Whoa. Hold on.

Actually, no money will exchange hands at least until after the "due diligence" period which ends May 31. And even then, if it moves to the next stage, agreements will have to be signed, and then perhaps $600,000 will be paid to Compliance. This style of announcement is typical of the bottom-of-the-barrel companies that inhabit the TSE Ventures Exchange.

Here's another "nevertheless", and even a "however" for good measure: Nevertheless, and however, you may want to watch Compliance.

- Over the last couple of years it has been testing and sampling two potential coal mine sites on Vancouver Island, the Bear and Raven deposits. Both are on the western edge of the Comox Coalfield, between the Tsable and Trent Rivers, between Fanny Bay/Union Bay/Denman Island and Courtenay.

- Compliance is also acquiring substantial coal rights from West Fraser, and may intend to start exploring those rights for coalbed methane potential.

FYI, thermal coal is a lower grade than metallurgical coal. British Columbia mainly mines and exports metallurgical coal. There is no export market for BC's thermal coal because of shipping costs. Australian thermal coal has a readier export market in China and Japan. Compliance is here talking mainly about thermal coal.



COMPLIANCE SIGNS MOU WITH ITOCHU CORPORATION AND LG INTERNATIONAL CORP. TO ADVANCE THE RAVEN COAL PROJECT

Vancouver, B.C., February 1, 2008 - Compliance Energy Corporation (the "Company") announces that it has signed an exclusive Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") with ITOCHU Corporation and LG International Corp. ("the Parties") for the development of the Raven Coal Project located on Vancouver Island. Under the terms of the MOU the Parties will make an initial payment of $600,000 to secure exclusivity in the project and subject to the favourable outcome of due diligence will fund the next $5.4 million in payments to earn up to a 50% interest in the Raven Coal Project. The $5.4 million will be spent as follows: $2.4 million to complete the purchase of the property and up to $3.0 million for environmental assessment studies and a bankable feasibility study. The MOU provides for a due diligence period up to May 31, 2008 at which time the Company and the Parties expect to have definitive agreements signed.

ITOCHU Corporation is a major Japanese trading house and, among other things, has extensive experience in the development of coal mines and the marketing and sale of coal globally and has investments in coal mines in Australia and Indonesia. ITOCHU had annual revenues of $22 billion US and Net Income of $1.5 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2007.

LG International Corp. is a leading general trader in Korea with a worldwide overseas branch network and has abundant experience in coal mining development and the marketing and sales of coal worldwide. LG International Corp. has annual revenues of $5.8 billion US and investments in coal mines in Russia, Australia, and Indonesia.

The Raven Coal Project located in the Comox Coal Basin of Vancouver Island, British Columbia covers an area of approximately 3100 hectares and has 39,093,000 tonnes of measured and indicated and 59,004,000 tonnes of inferred coal resources as reported in the Company’s technical report prepared by O.R. Cullingham Resource Consultant Ltd. (see press release May 29, 2007). The coal is classified as high volatile A Bituminous and is suitable for targeting the metallurgical coal market as a blend product or the thermal coal market. The Company recently completed a positive Preliminary Assessment Report on the Raven Coal Project. In the report, Associated Geosciences Ltd. of Calgary ("AGL") studied two production cases: one producing 823,000 tonnes of high volatile metallurgical coal per year and another producing 1,440,000 tonnes of thermal coal per year. Based on these studies AGL believes that the Raven Property warrants additional exploration and a feasibility study to form the basis of a production decision and that the estimated net present value of the project at a constant dollar discount rate of 12% is $105.6 million. AGL’s Preliminary Assessment was prepared by Peter Cain Ph.D., P.Eng. and Alan Craven P.Eng. who are the Independent Qualified Persons for reporting purposes as defined in NI 43-101Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Compliance Energy Corporation’s shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol CEC and investor information is available on the Company’s web page at www.complianceenergy.com.

On behalf of the Board of
COMPLIANCE ENERGY CORPORATION
John Tapics
Chief Executive Officer

Contact Rob Roney, Investor Relations at 250-897-0437 or Rod Shier, CFO at 604-689-0489 for further information.
www.complianceenergy.com



South African, Australian Coal Rise to Records on Supply Curbs

By Angela Macdonald-Smith and Alistair Holloway
Bloomberg.com
04-Feb-2008

NewcastleCoal.bmp
A load of coal is loaded onto a ship berthed at the Port of Newcastle in
Australia, Sept. 3, 2007. Photographer: Andy Shaw/Bloomberg News

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Coal jumped to records at South Africa's Richards Bay and Australia's Newcastle port as production was curbed by power cuts and flooding, while snowstorms disrupted mining and transportation in China.

Coal at Richards Bay rose $12.20, or 12 percent, to $111.30 a metric ton, according to McCloskey Group Ltd. figures. That's the biggest-ever weekly rise for the data on Bloomberg that go back to 2000. Prices at Newcastle climbed $23.09, or 25 percent, to $116.44 a ton in the week ended Feb. 1, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index.

"It is another indicator of tightness" in supply of the fuel, Andrew Wells, an assistant editor at the Petersfield, England-based McCloskey, said by phone today.

The rising prices helped drive up coal producers' shares.

Centennial Coal Co., Australia's second-largest coal company by sales, gained 2.7 percent in Sydney trading and Gloucester Coal advanced 2.5 percent. China Shenhua Energy Co., the world's second-largest coal company, climbed as much as 5.5 percent in Hong Kong trading. U.K. Coal Plc rose as much as 2.2 percent in London.

Power shortages in South Africa forced Anglo American Plc to close mines last month.

Eskom Holdings Ltd., the nation's state-run power utility, is unable to meet demand after the government delayed a decision to expand generating capacity. Today it began cutting 1,500 megawatts of electricity to towns and cities.

Supply Needed

Eskom needs 5.4 million metric tons of additional coal in the next three months to restore stockpiles to 20 days of consumption.

In Australia, BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance is among mining companies that say they may miss deliveries after heavier-than-usual rain flooded pits in the world's biggest coal-exporting country.

Melbourne-based BHP Billiton Ltd., the world's biggest miner, said operations at its alliance with Mitsubishi Corp. may be affected for as long as six months.

The disruptions, in Queensland, are mostly affecting the now "unbelievably tight" metallurgical coal market, pushing up spot prices to about $200 or $210 a ton, Graham Wailes, a coal analyst at AME Mineral Economics Pty, said in Sydney.

The worst snowstorms in 50 years in China, the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, prompted the country to halt exports until April.

China Snows

More than three weeks of snow in central and southern China have brought transport networks to a standstill, killed at least 60 people and caused economic losses of at least 53.8 billion yuan ($7.5 billion). The country, reliant on coal for 78 percent of its power, is restricting exports to boost domestic supplies.

Indonesia may be unable to increase production of thermal coal sufficiently to compensate for shortages of supply elsewhere in Asia, as it has in the past, Wailes said.

"I just don't think the supply solution is readily available and that's probably why you've had these huge increases," he said.

GlobalCOAL's monthly index for Newcastle thermal coal prices rose $1.71, or 1.9 percent, to $90.87 a ton in January, the fourth successive monthly record. Newcastle is the world's biggest coal-export harbor.

The increase will influence negotiations scheduled to begin between suppliers and buyers on contract coal prices.

JPMorgan, UBS

UBS AG, Europe's biggest bank by assets, on Feb. 1 raised its forecasts for thermal coal contract prices for 2008 and 2009, citing the coal ``crisis'' in China and disruptions in Australia. Prices may reach $100 a ton this year and $125 in 2009, from previous estimates of $90 and $110, the bank said.

JPMorgan on Jan. 29 said it raised its estimate for 2008 contract prices for power-station coal to $90 a ton, from $70.

It boosted forecasts of 2008 prices for coal used in steelmaking to $140 a ton, from $120. Those for thermal coal are $55.65 a ton for the year that started April 1, while coking coal contract prices are $98.38, JPMorgan said.

In Europe, thermal coal for delivery to Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Antwerp with settlement in the fourth quarter advanced $1, or 0.1 percent, to $126.50 a ton as of 4:37 p.m. in London, ICAP prices showed.

To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Macdonald-Smith in Sydney at amacdonaldsm@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 4, 2008 11:56 EST

www.bloomberg.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:30 PM

February 01, 2008

How a filthy smelter can help clean up Alcan's books

PATRICK BRETHOUR
Globe and Mail
February 1, 2008

The creaking Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum smelter in Kitimat is one of the great greenhouse gas sinners of British Columbia, placing a close second for the title of the province's worst climate change offender.

That looks to be a perilous position as British Columbia moves to implement policies to back up its pledge to slash greenhouse gases by a third over the next 12 years. All those carbon dioxide molecules streaming into the air will soon have a price. For Kitimat as it exists, any price for carbon is all pain, a liability on the balance sheet.

But two events this week, just hours apart, point to a much different possibility - of Kitimat's greenhouse gases becoming an asset for Alcan, one that might just tilt the balance in favour of proceeding with a $2-billion (U.S.) modernization project.

The first event was the revelation from B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell that Ontario and Quebec are interested in joining his climate change crusade and are now sitting as observers in the talks to set up a regional trading system to cut greenhouse gases.

Later in the day, the B.C. Utilities Commission gave its approval to a deal between B.C. Hydro and Alcan to sell electricity from Kemano, the power plant associated with the Kitimat smelter. That approval was the last condition Alcan had laid out before proceeding with Kitimat, and means the company will now scrutinize its internal financials before its board issues its verdict in April.

Whatever the other merits of the modernization project, it comes with a conspicuous benefit in Gordon Campbell's British Columbia: Greenhouse gas output would fall dramatically with the upgraded smelter, as modern technology took the place of machinery that was barely up to speed when it was installed in the 1950s. Even by the least favourable measure, Alcan's emissions would tumble by 40 per cent in B.C.

The same is not true for much of the company's operations in the rest of the country, where it either already has modern technology or doesn't have active plans to upgrade other older facilities.

And that is why the emerging alliance between B.C., Ontario and Quebec could be a significant plus for Kitimat and Alcan, as the three provinces lay the foundation for a cross-country trading system for greenhouse gas credits. The essence of that system is that those who cut emissions more than expected can cash in by selling the difference as a carbon credit to those who haven't found a cost-effective way to reduce their carbon output.

For now, all that is being said publicly is that Ontario and Quebec are attending the sessions as observers. But a senior official with the B.C. government confirms that the two eastern provinces want to join the Western Climate Initiative, (which may want to consider renaming itself shortly).

The rules are still being written for the WCI, but the senior official said the entire reason for the regional initiative is to allow for the trading of carbon credits across jurisdictions. Add it all up, and it means that Alcan could absorb the cost of reducing emissions in Quebec by cashing in carbon credits from British Columbia.

Alcan's stated preference is for an intensity-based system, where the yardstick would be the amount of greenhouse gases generated for a unit of production (in Alcan's case, per tonne of aluminum). On that basis, Kitimat's refurbished smokestacks look like even bigger assets, since Alcan estimates it will be able to slash its intensity by nearly two-thirds.

But even using the most stringent measurement, an absolute reduction in emissions, a significant amount of cash could be in play. The company says emissions would fall by 500,000 tonnes a year under the expansion project, even with output rising. Using the current price of carbon in European markets, that results in a credit worth about $15-million (Canadian).

Set against a total cost of $2-billion (U.S.), that sum might seem like a pittance. But the Kitimat project is, like every other major construction project in B.C., feeling the strains of inflation as the cost of steel, concrete and labour soar by double digits annually. That $15-million could spell the difference between a marginal project that falls short of an acceptable return, or one that just makes it over the hurdle - a shade of green that any executive can embrace.
---

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 12:05 PM

January 31, 2008

Alcan: With new power deal, all hurdles are cleared for $2-billion project

COMMENT: Still no obligation to build a new smelter, and seldom has a Commission conclusion had such a large paragraph of "concerns."

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, January 31, 2008

Rio Tinto Alcan will push ahead with its $2-billion plan to modernize its Kitimat smelter after a favourable ruling this week from the B.C.Utilities Commission, the company said Wednesday.
Alcan Decision at www.bcuc.com

Company spokesman Stefano Bertolli said the commission's approval this week of a long-term power sales deal with BC Hydro means the multinational mining company has cleared all three major hurdles to getting the project underway.

The company had previously secured a five-year labour contract with unionized workers at the smelter and, in December, gained the approval of B.C.'s environmental assessment office.

The Rio Tinto Alcan board of directors won't make a final decision on the project for several months, but Bertolli said the company is committed to updating the smelter, which would boost its annual global aluminum production by three per cent.

In a telephone interview from Montreal, Bertolli described the power-sales deal as good news "for the company, for the people of Kitimat and for the province of British Columbia."

"At this point, we are obviously very pleased with the decision," Bertolli said. "We are now able to complete our final studies [on the revitalization] and present them to the board of directors."

Response from the city of Kitimat, where the smelter is the primary source of employment and economic activity, was more muted.

City manager Trafford Hall said that the modernized plant will require about 550 fewer workers than the facility it is replacing, and that there was enough surplus power available from Alcan's Kemano power station to sustain a much larger plant supporting more workers.

Prior upgrades of the smelter, which first opened in 1954, have already reduced the workforce by about 400 people, Hall noted.

A decade ago, the plant had 2,000 workers. That will drop to 1,000 by the time the modernization is complete.

"Almost 1,000 jobs are being shed here because of meaningless technological change," Hall said in a telephone interview from Kitimat city hall.

Energy for the Kitimat smelter comes from the Kemano power station, which the company has owned for a half-century. Kemano produces electricity at a rate only marginally above the nominal water rental fee charged by the province.

Hydro wanted a long-term contract to buy all of the surplus power output from Kemano, as a means of addressing the B.C. government's ambition to transform the province from a net importer to a net exporter of electricity to U.S. markets.

BC Hydro and Alcan, with the involvement of the provincial government, appeared to have struck a deal involving power sales and smelter modernization in 2006, but it fell apart after the utilities commission ruled it was a bad one for Hydro customers.

The BCUC ruled that Hydro was offering to pay too much for the power, given the age and low production cost at the Kemano facility, and rejected the deal.

A revised deal, saving Hydro customers between $65 million and $120 million between now and 2034, was approved by the BCUC on Tuesday afternoon.

In a news release, Rio Tinto Alcan primary metal president Jacynthe Côté said the company is "very pleased with BCUC's decision to accept the new power agreement between Rio Tinto Alcan and BC Hydro. Final approval of the project will allow us to stay on target to deliver first metal by 2012 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by half a million tonnes per year."

Rio Tinto Alcan projects the modernized facility will increase production capacity over the existing facility by 125,000 tonnes per year.

The city of Kitimat had argued in front of the BCUC that a bigger plant requiring more power, rather than a smaller one with surplus electricity, would be better for the city and the province.

"This power sales initiative has brought down what was a very powerful aluminum industry in Kitimat," Hall said. "We see this deal as further undermining the industry here."

He described the power generated at Kemano as "the cheapest in the world" because the facility has long since been paid off, and because B.C. only charges $5 per megawatt hour in water rentals.

By contrast, Hall noted, B.C. collects royalties on a sliding scale for other resources. He cited natural gas, where the royalty collected by the province increases as the North American market price for gas goes up.

"It's the only energy resource where the rent does not fluctuate with the value of the end product," Hall said.

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008


Alcan Decision at www.bcuc.com

9.0 CONCLUSION

The Commission accepts the approach and objectives of BC Hydro to the bilateral negotiations with Alcan. The objectives were to obtain the best possible deal for BC Hydro and its ratepayers and to ensure the concerns raised by the Commission in the LTEPA+ Decision were dealt with.

The Commission accepts the general conclusion, if not the specific results, of the cost-effectiveness analysis of BC Hydro; that is, the 2007 EPA is cost-effective, and is in the public interest. The Commission has concerns regarding BC Hydro’s treatment of transmission costs in estimating its avoided costs, its approach to estimating capacity benefits arising from the 2007 EPA, its estimate of average energy production at Kemano, its weighting of different price scenarios, and its justification and analysis of exchange rates. Alternative assumptions have the potential to reduce the net benefits of the 2007 EPA. However, the Commission concludes the net benefits to ratepayers, calculated by comparing the cost of the 2007 EPA to other resource alternatives, are still positive under most reasonable scenarios, and likely range from approximately $65 million to $120 million under the EIA gas price forecast.

The Commission concludes that the opportunity costs of the seller are both within its jurisdiction to consider and are particularly relevant to the determination of the public interest where a contract is reached through bilateral negotiations rather than competitive processes, such as the 2007 EPA. The Commission finds the value of the 2007 EPA lies between BC Hydro’s expected avoided costs and Alcan’s opportunity costs.

Some Intervenors, including the CAW, BCOAPO and the DoK, are of the view that the 2007 EPA should not be accepted without further assurance, if not a commitment, that Alcan will proceed with the Modernization Project. The Commission concludes that the decision as to whether or not to proceed with the Modernization Project rests with the Board of Directors of Rio Tinto. The evidence of Alcan suggests the Modernization Project is more likely to be completed with acceptance of the 2007 EPA than any of the alternatives proposed by Intervenors. In these circumstances, the Commission cannot 127 conclude that the 2007 EPA is either at the expense of, or to the benefit of, the Modernization Project. For the same reason, the Commission Panel cannot conclude that acceptance of the 2007 EPA has probable economic effects on Kitimat or the surrounding communities. The Commission concludes that it should accept the 2007 EPA because it is cost-effective and, while the Modernization Project is in the public interest, the Commission finds no reasonable alternative to acceptance of the 2007 EPA that would increase the probability that Alcan will proceed with the Modernization Project.

DATED at the City of Vancouver, in the Province of British Columbia, this 29th day of January 2008.

ROBERT H. HOBBS, CHAIR
NADINE F. NICHOLLS, COMMISSIONER
A.J. PULLMAN, COMMISSIONER

Alcan Decision at www.bcuc.com


BCH/Alcan - 2007 Electricity Purchase Agreement

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:35 PM

The Carbon Premier sees many trees in our future

COMMENT: Hmm, hewers of wood, drawers of water, truckin' down the hydrogen highway. Jaccard's points - should BC be taking credit (ie, an economic benefit) for planting a tree where one would have grown anyway? What guarantee is there that the tree will grow through its maximum carbon-uptake decades, and not be turned into yet another Christmas tree or quick remedy to a fuel shortage for all those new biomass generators we're going to build? On the other hand, we're going to have to get something growing in the interior especially, to replace all those pine. Yikes! What if the pine beetle is just the first in sequential waves of new infestations?

Vaughn Palmer
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, January 31, 2008

VICTORIA - Premier Gordon Campbell was thinking out loud this week about where his government is headed next in the effort to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

"We have to become as well known for planting trees as we are for cutting trees," Campbell told reporters at the wrap-up of a two-day session with the other Canadian premiers.

He spoke of "the opportunity to increase our forests as a means of sequestering carbon" and "recognizing the great ally that they [forests] are in carbon sequestration."

Each tree locks up a tonne of carbon dioxide over its lifetime, Campbell argues. Adding to the stock of "nature's carbon sinks," (the forests) should allow us to accumulate credits in a national or international carbon trading system.

"We have to include our trees as a major carbon sink," he maintained. "We have to ensure that we get full credit for what we're doing in terms of offsets."

As host for the gathering of his provincial counterparts, the B.C. premier spoke of building a national strategy "on forest adaptation." It would include research on existing species, experiments with new ones.

But even as he boosted the national strategy, he sketched out what is likely to happen here in B.C.

"We may plant substantially more trees as we move into the future. We may look at different forms of tenure to encourage that kind of planting in our province."

He took a similar tack in a recent speech to the annual convention of the Truck Loggers Association, asking delegates to view the fight against climate change as an opportunity to redevelop the forests.

"We should be global leaders in husbanding the value of our forests in fighting climate change," the premier said.

"We can restock our land base, protect and restore our watersheds, clean the air and create massive carbon sinks with aggressive new reforestation strategies."

Those aggressive reforestation strategies will likely dovetail with the Pacific Carbon Trust, set for launching later this year.

The trust will be used to fund "valid offset projects with a high degree of environmental integrity in British Columbia."

"These may include projects that enhance energy efficiency, produce new clean energy or support carbon sequestration," according to the terms of reference.

The startup contribution will come from the provincial treasury, offsetting the emissions impact of travel by public servants and politicians.

"For every tonne of greenhouse gases associated with government travel the province will invest $25 in the trust."

The fund will also be open to contributions from business and others seeking to accumulate carbon credits.

"We want people, businesses to be able to invest in the Pacific Carbon Trust or get offsets from that," Campbell said in a Jan. 23 speech to the Conference Board of Canada in Ottawa.

"We'll want people to know that this is a top-quality project, and we're going to make it available up and down the [West] Coast."

Campbell has been pushing this idea of translating tree planting into greenhouse gas reduction credits for some time.

In 2002, he challenged the federal government for trying to "confiscate" the benefits of B.C.'s "forest carbon sink" in establishing national targets for managing and reducing emissions.

"If the federal government is intent on using B.C.'s forests to reduce Canada's overall burden, then credit must be provided to the province."

Last year's throne speech picked up the theme, with a reference to the provincial forests as "nature's carbon sinks."

B.C. faces a unique challenge with regard to reforestation, and one not unrelated to climate change.

The out-of-control pine beetle infestation, in part a product of warmer winters, will eventually necessitate the restoration of most of the pine forests in the Interior.

But for all the good reasons Campbell has for promoting reforestation as part of a plan on climate change, he hasn't overcome the objections from advocates of stronger measures to reduce emissions.

Tree planting doesn't reduce reduce reliance on fossil fuels. It doesn't lead to changes in energy production, transportation, industry, home heating, and other sources of emissions. It may not even sequester carbon in any permanent fashion.

Mark Jaccard, the premier's technical adviser on the climate action plan, framed the concern about reforestation as follows in a recent speech to the C.D. Howe Institute:

"Was the planted tree truly an additional investment in reducing greenhouse gases or would another tree have sprouted eventually in that spot anyway?

"Does the planted tree represent a permanent increase in biosphere sequestration or carbon or will it be cut down in 10 years' time?"

Campbell nevertheless seems bent on making reforestation a key part of his "climate action plan." But he faces an uphill fight gaining credit for it in any recognized carbon-trading system.

vpalmer@direct.ca

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:32 PM

January 29, 2008

BC Hydro fires 'fairness' watchdog

COMMENT: This is somewhat reminiscent of another "fairness" issue in BC Hydro. In September 2003, the BC Utilities Commission rejected BC Hydro's own Vancouver Island Generation Project (VIGP), a proposed gas-fired generation plant at Duke Point. Following that, BC Hydro launched a Call for Tenders (CFT) process to elicit proposals for generation on Vancouver Island.

Talk about a stacked deck! The entire thing was structured such that the same old VIGP would win the CFT. And win it did, but now privatized and renamed as Duke Point Power, but otherwise essentially the same project "sold" to a private developer.

To overcome the blatant skewing of the process, no, sorry, to ensure the fairness of the process, BC Hydro adopted a Code of Conduct, "in its ongoing efforts to ensure that BC Hydro and its subsidiaries behave and are perceived to behave as ethical corporations."

It also engaged an "independent reviewer" to monitor, review and report on the fairness of the CFT process. The reviewer selected was Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) where BC Hydro's new CEO, Bob Elton, had spent twenty years, leaving as a partner.

Some felt that might not be fair, or might not be perceived to be fair, especially when the CFT itself was such a patently cooked-up contrivance to get the Duke Point project back on the rails.

And why did DPP get BCUC approval when VIGP could not? It didn't. By bringing the same project into play as a private development, BC Hydro's only relationship to it was the electricity purchase agreement (EPA). All BCUC got to review following the CFT was an EPA. Which it approved.

And which BC Hydro itself cancelled in June 2005, to fully round out a phenomenally expensive exercise in which government and our crown corporation attempted to ram through a bad idea, by bullying the citizenry using every means, straight up and devious. And not much of it fair at all, not by a long shot.

BC Hydro fires 'fairness' watchdog


Letters show outside observer questioned the handling of a series of contracts

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
January 29, 2008

BC Hydro fired an independent watchdog rather than deal with his warning about a conflict of interest in a project involving an unspecified amount of public money, documents obtained by The Vancouver Sun suggest.

An exchange of letters between fairness commissioner Michael Asner and Hydro executives indicate that Asner had strong concerns about Hydro's apparent decision to give consulting accountant firm Deloitte Touche an inside track on a major contract to rework Hydro's system of soliciting contract work.

Asner was retained by Hydro to observe the Crown corporation's handling of the project.

The project, called Procure to Pay, is a three-stage evaluation and makeover of Hydro's processes for procuring and awarding outside contracts for a wide array of goods and services -- including equipment, tree clearing and fish habitat surveys.

According to Hydro, no contract has yet been awarded on the third and final phase.

Asner indicates in a letter to Hydro that his responsibility was to ensure "fair and open competition" and "equal treatment of vendors."

Deloitte Touche won contracts to develop the first two phases of Procure to Pay -- and knew as it was writing requirements for the third phase that it would be able to deal itself in as a bidder, according to Asner's letter.

Asner says the conflict "was not a subtle issue" because it violates Hydro's own Code of Conduct Guidelines.

He writes that Hydro failed to compel Deloitte to erect an impenetrable communication barrier -- or "Chinese Wall" -- between those Deloitte employees writing Phase 1 and Phase 2 reports and those who might compete for Phase 3, the final stage of the project.

The letter suggests Hydro had a long-term understanding with Deloitte that it would have access to all stages of the project.

"At no time during Phase 1 and Phase 2 was Deloitte informed that they could not use the same project staff for subsequent work," Asner said in a letter to Hydro purchasing manager Adele Neuman.

"Deloitte had been favored in this process by its intimate knowledge of BC Hydro's plans and requirements," Asner wrote.

After one meeting with Hydro employees, Asner opines that "some of those in the meeting did not understand the role of a fairness commissioner."

Asner also indicates he rejected a request by Hydro to change his report to overlook Deloitte's involvement in the first two phases of the project.

In one meeting with Hydro, Asner recounts that "I was told that I would not be allowed to submit my report because of my conclusion that Deloitte was unfairly favored."

The documents came to light after a Freedom of Information officer at BC Hydro, following a request by Asner, ruled they were in the public domain.

"I am convinced that without the FOI Act, BC Hydro would have used my confidentiality agreement to keep the documents secret. There is no benefit to BC Hydro in making these documents public," he said in a e-mail exchange Monday with The Sun.

Asner, a Metro Vancouver resident, is an author, consultant and public speaker on handling requests for proposals.

He said he has worked as a fairness commissioner in jurisdictions throughout North America for more than 20 years -- and this is the first time he has been fired from those duties.

"Most of this work is in the United States where, in many jurisdictions, it is illegal, against the statute, to accept a proposal from a vendor who contributed to the RFP [Request For Proposal]."

In a letter of response to Asner, Hydro chief procurement officer Mary Hemmingsen said Hydro dealt with any potential conflicts by stating in the Request For Proposals that it had been crafted by Deloitte and that Deloitte was eligible to bid on Phase 3.

Hemmingsen also questions why it took a number of weeks for Asner to voice his concerns, which were "identified, investigated and resolved."

Hydro communications director Steve Vanagas said in an e-mail on Monday the Crown corporation is "still in negotiations with the proponents who submitted proposals. The total value [of the contract] has not yet been determined as the contract has not yet been awarded."

Vanagas said 22 companies requested copies of the Request For Proposals, leading to the participation of six vendors at a project workshop, and two opted to submit proposals.

"All proponents were aware up-front of Deloitte's prior work on the project," Vanagas wrote. "In any event, all bids are thoroughly and professionally evaluated on their own merits."

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:31 AM

January 21, 2008

Hereditary chiefs not consulted on coal bed methane development

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jan. 14, 2008 1:00 p.m. PST

Hereditary chiefs not consulted on coal bed methane development

GITXSAN TERRITORIES – Gitxsan hereditary chiefs announced today that potential adverse effects on their traditional territories from coal bed methane exploration and development at the headwaters of the Skeena River compels the provincial government to consult with them on the initiative.

“It is a case where our aboriginal rights and title may be adversely effected by these developments and that is a clear example of a situation that requires consultation and, potentially accommodation, as ruled by the Supreme Court of Canada in our Delgamuukw decision,” said Gitxsan Chiefs’ Office executive director Luutkudziiwus (Gordon Sebastian).

The hereditary chiefs sent a letter to Minister of Mines, Energy and Petroleum Resources Richard Neufeld Jan. 7 addressing the issue of coal bed methane development and specifically the exploration tenure granted to Royal Dutch Shell by the province for an area encompassing the headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers in northwest BC.

In the letter the hereditary chiefs make note that there was no consultation with the Gitxsan Chiefs’ Office before the provincial government granted the 400,000 hectare, eight year exploration tenure to Shell. It further states that the chiefs “are particularly concerned about the effects of coal bed methane exploration and development, and the potential for any adverse effects these developments create, to have impacts further afield from the permitted area. Of note in this regard is the potential for adverse effects on water, both ground and surface, and the impact this will have on salmon habitat and salmon within the Skeena system.”

The coal bed methane initiative by Royal Dutch Shell in area that has become known as the Sacred Headwaters is of concern to many First Nations and communities in the northwest including the Gitanyow hereditary chiefs who noted a lack of consultation in a letter to Minster Neufeld in November; the Village of Hazelton, which met with Shell representatives in August; and the hereditary chiefs of Iskut who began a court action in January against the provincial government over failure to consult.

For more information:
Gordon Sebastian, Executive Director, 250 842-6780 ext. 332
Beverley Clifton-Percival, Negotiator, 250 842-6780 ext. 370

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 04:31 PM

January 08, 2008

The B.C. Grits' great golden age

BILL TIELEMAN
24 Hours
08-Jan-2008

I hope that I am not the only member in the house alarmed by this road now taken towards the privatization of B.C. Hydro.- former B.C. Liberal MLA Paul Nettleton, 2002
Did you know that the B.C. Liberal government has undertaken the most massive privatization in Canadian history, worth up to $60 billion?

Did you know that the B.C. Liberal government has undertaken the most massive privatization in Canadian history, worth up to $60 billion?

Did you know that the B.C. Hydro is already paying more for the 10 per cent of electricity produced by private energy corporations than the 90 per cent supplied through public power facilities?

And did you know that provincial electricity rates will likely double and even triple because of the government's decision to privatize future energy production?

Probably not, but those facts are convincingly laid out in a new book about what author John Calvert argues is B.C.'s impending electricity disaster.

Liquid Gold: Energy Privatization in British Columbia [Fernwood Publishing, $24.95] explains how the government has quietly privatized electricity production, taking that role away from publicly owned B.C. Hydro and giving it to multinational corporations and friends of the B.C. Liberal Party.

It's an ironic tale, given that right-wing former Social Credit premier W.A.C. Bennett nationalized private electricity production in B.C. in 1962 to create publicly-owned B.C. Hydro and now Premier Gordon Campbell is reversing a move which gave the province the second-lowest power rates in North America.

Calvert outlines an almost-secret policy: He shows that B.C. Hydro's residential consumers are subsidizing the construction of private power facilities by paying higher electrical rates - and that once these high-cost contracts end, the companies can export their power to U.S. markets.

Liquid Gold shows that long-term contracts signed by B.C. Hydro with so-called "independent power producers" are already worth $15.6 billion for just one-third of future energy needs. If the other two-thirds also come from IPPs as planned, the total cost could exceed $60 billion.

And that will mean skyrocketing B.C. Hydro rates as our power supply eventually becomes part of the continental energy market, where consumers in San Francisco already pay triple B.C.'s electricity rates.

Calvert, a Simon Fraser University professor, says the story hasn't gotten the attention it deserves because the B.C. government has deliberately obscured it by talking about buying "green" power rather than privatization.

But Calvert says that wind power and run-of-the-river projects are often environmentally problematic and are not being adequately regulated.

And the book also shows that between 1994 and 2006 alone, B.C. Hydro provided the government with $8.8 billion in revenue.

Sadly, Calvert fears the energy privatization may soon be irreversible due to long-term contracts and international trade agreement restrictions.

[Disclosure: I provided Calvert with my master's thesis on B.C. Hydro and he is a board member of B.C. Citizens for Public Power, one of my clients.]

Hear Bill Tieleman Mondays at 10 a.m. on CKNW AM 980's Bill Good Show. Website at: http://billtieleman.blogspot.com/ Email: weststar@telus.net

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 05:14 PM

Iskut band sues BC government over coalbed methane project

Tahltan try to stop Shell drill plan
Terrace Standard, January 08, 2008

First Nations Families Take BC Government to Court Over Shell Methane Project
Media Release, Dogwood Initiative, Jan 07, 2008

Band sues over project
The Province, 08-Jan-2008



Tahltan try to stop Shell drill plan


Terrace Standard
January 08, 2008

A GROUP OF Tahltan are back in court in another attempt to stop Shell from drilling for coalbed methane natural gas in the Klappan area north of Terrace.

This time they want a declaration that the provincial government did not adequately consult them and other native groups before granting Shell drilling approvals back in 2004.

The Tahltan who oppose Shell’s plan in what they call the Sacred Headwaters because it contains the headwaters of the Stikine, Nass and Skeena rivers have already tried blockades and other court approaches to stop the energy company.

“Because the BC government granted Shell permits for exploration and drilling prior before adequately consulting our people, we consider those permits to be both invalid and illegal,” said Rhoda Quock, a Tahltan and member of the Klabona Keepers, a coaltion of Tahltan and others who oppose Shell.

“We are asking the court to grant an injunction against further development until adequate consultation can take place.”

Previous court actions have seen Shell apply for an injunction itself to have a Klabona Keepers blockade lifted which barred access to the Klappan.

And last December, the Klabona Keepers pursued their own injunction to have Shell stop repairing a road that will take them to the drilling sites for fear of harming any cultural and historical artifacts found on the route.

Shell drilled three wells in 2004 but halted further plans for 2005 and 2006 after Tahltan protests. They wanted to resume drilling in 2007 but the Klabona blockade and the need to repair the access road delayed those plans.

The Tahltan named the provincial government just last week in the 2007 suit filed by Shell to have the blockade lifted.

The Tahltan are relying on a ground-breaking Supreme Court of Canada decision which requires governments to “consult and accommodate” aboriginal interests over resource use and development.

“Shell’s project is likely to permanently harm our territory and the salmon, wildlife and cultural activities it supports,” said Quock. “The Sacred Headwaters is the place where our youth learn about our culture, where our elders want to go before they die. It is incredibly important to us.”



First Nations Families Take BC Government to Court Over Shell Methane Project


Media Release,
Dogwood Initiative
Jan 07, 2008

(Iskut, BC) -- Members of northern BC’s Iskut First Nation are heading to BC Supreme Court over a controversial coalbed methane project in the Sacred Headwaters, the shared birthplace of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers.

They assert that the BC government failed to adequately consult them and aboriginal groups downstream before authorizing Shell to carry out coalbed methane exploration – including road construction, seismic testing and well drilling – in the contested area, located southeast of Dease Lake.

“Because the BC government granted Shell permits for exploration and drilling prior before adequately consulting our people, we consider those permits to be both invalid and illegal,” said Rhoda Quock, one of the defendants in the suit. “We are asking the court to grant an injunction against further development until adequate consultation can take place.”

Shell Canada Ltd. originally initiated the suit in August 2007 in an attempt to obtain an injunction against last summer’s blockade of the main access road to the Sacred Headwaters. The defendants named the BC government in a third party notice filed in Vancouver court on January 3, which outlines concerns regarding lack of consultation.

“The limited dialogue that has occurred in Iskut has been largely conducted by Shell, not the government,” explained Quock. “We don’t think a corporation with an obvious vested interest in the outcome is in a position to fairly consult our people.”

The Supreme Court of Canada decision in Haida Nation v. British Columbia (2004) found that the BC government, not corporations, is responsible for consulting First Nations on proposed land and resource development.

Shell’s proposed drilling sites are located adjacent to spawning grounds for chinook, sockeye, coho, and steelhead in the Skeena watershed. Robust populations of grizzly bears, caribou, wolves, moose, mountain goat, and stone sheep inhabit the Sacred Headwaters area. The Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers are among Canada’s greatest wild salmon systems.

“Shell’s project is likely to permanently harm our territory and the salmon, wildlife and cultural activities it supports,” said Quock. “The Sacred Headwaters is the place where our youth learn about our culture, where our elders want to go before they die. It is incredibly important to us.”

Contact:
Rhoda Quock, Defendant: 250-234-3023
Jason Gratl, Counsel for Rhoda Quock: 604-694-1919



Band sues over project


The Province
Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Members of Iskut First Nation in northern B.C. are suing the provincial government for allowing Shell to look for coalbed methane in their traditional territory without adequately consulting the band. The project is in land the natives hold as sacred near the headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine rivers.

© The Vancouver Province 2008


Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:58 AM

Pipeline owner sues Burnaby for oil spill

WENDY STUECK
Globe and Mail
January 8, 2008

VANCOUVER — The owner of a pipeline accidentally ripped open last summer has sued the city of Burnaby, alleging that a contractor working on a storm sewer failed to use accurate maps and started excavation before the pipeline's location was staked out.

The lawsuit, filed in December by Trans Mountain pipeline and Kinder Morgan Canada, names the city, engineering firm RF Binnie, contractor B. Cusano and an unnamed backhoe operator as defendants.

The action, which claims damages and costs, does not specify an amount. But the July 24 midday spill - which sent a geyser of crude gushing up 12 metres in the air and resulted in about 30 homes being evacuated - caused millions of dollars worth of damage and required weeks of cleanup. About 200,000 litres of oil spewed from the ruptured pipeline in the 20 minutes or so it took to cut off the flow.

Kinder Morgan operates the Trans Mountain pipeline, which ships crude and refined oil from Edmonton to Burnaby and has been in service since 1953.

After years of being ignored or taken for granted, the pipeline became a neighbourhood nightmare last summer when a storm sewer upgrade went dramatically wrong.

The upgrade involved the sewer system near Burnaby's Inlet Drive, part of the area through which the Trans Mountain pipeline snakes underground.

As part of the upgrade, crews had to excavate near the pipeline - work that had to be conducted according to federal regulations that govern pipeline crossings.

According to the lawsuit, the depth and the location of the Trans Mountain pipeline were to be verified by hand digging or by Hydro-Vac (an excavation method that uses high-pressure water and a vacuum system to expose underground lines) in the presence of a Kinder Morgan inspector.

An inspector was scheduled to visit the construction site to review the proposed crossing on July 25.

But on July 24, and without notice or consultation with the pipeline's owners, the contractor started excavating with a backhoe "within three metres of the Trans Mountain Pipeline and prior to the pipeline being exposed by hand excavation," the lawsuit states.

The defendants also failed to prepare and use accurate maps of the location of the pipeline, the lawsuit claims.

The legal action "was not unexpected," said Bruce Rose, a lawyer for the city of Burnaby.

The city's liability insurer has hired counsel and will help the city prepare its defence, Mr. Rose said, saying he did not know the extent of the city's coverage.

Mr. Rose declined to comment on many of the suit's specific allegations, but said the city would be focusing on information that had been provided to it by Kinder Morgan.

"One of the main grounds we have for defence is that we believe Kinder Morgan provided our engineering contractor with some misinformation as to the location of the pipe," Mr. Rose said.

"Just in general terms, that's really why we say, 'Hey, it's not our fault.' "

Shell Canada, which runs a distribution terminal near the site of the spill, filed a lawsuit against some of the same parties last year that seeks to recover losses resulting from the spill.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 11:25 AM

January 05, 2008

Company asking to run transmission line through Pinecone Burke Provincial Park

COMMENT: As we've argued before, a park is not merely land that has been "parked", waiting for some more "profitable" opportunity to arise for it. BC's energy policy must not be allowed to put parks in second place. The government set up this situation, by issuing water licences to Run Of River Power, and the government should rectify the problem, by cancelling those licences promptly. If a legal decision determines that a settlement is warranted, then so be it.

See also:
Hydro project sought for Pitt
NO to transmission lines in BC's parks

Larry Pynn
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, January 03, 2008

VANCOUVER - A private company is asking the Ministry of Environment to remove part of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park to allow a transmission line to connect with its proposed run-of-the-river power project in the upper Pitt River Valley.

Run of River Power Inc. says its subsidiary, Northwest Cascade Power Ltd., has submitted a park boundary adjustment proposal to allow for a 230-kilovolt transmission line measuring 4.6 km long by 30 metres wide through the 38,000-hectare wilderness park.

Run of River Power president Jako Krushnisky asserted in an interview Thursday that the project won't be feasible without going through the park, and believes the impact of the transmission line to be minimal - a statement immediately refuted by conservation groups.

SUN0103_Boise.jpg
The Boise Creek headwaters in Pinecone Burke Provincial Park. A private company is
seeking the Ministry of Environment's precedent-setting approval to alter the boundaries
of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park in the Lower Mainland to allow for a transmission
line that would connect with its proposed run-of-the-river power project in the upper
Pitt River Valley.
Handout/Western Canada Wilderness Committee

"This is in the best interests of developers, not the park," responded Gwen Barlee, policy director with the Western Canada Wilderness Committee.

"The reason the transmission line is (proposed to be) going through the park is because it's convenient for the developer and it's cheap."

Krushnisky said the company has identified 473 hectares of Crown land suitable as grizzly bear and mountain goat habitat in the upper Pitt River that could be added to the park to make up for the transmission line.

The company says a total of 42 km of transmission line is needed to connect its proposed upper Pitt power project, currently under environmental review, with BC Hydro's Cheekye substation near Squamish.

The Liberal government approved the Provincial Park Boundary Adjustment Policy, Process and Guidelines in July 2004, which allowed for amendments "on a case by case basis where there are compelling provincial economic, environmental and societal benefits that exceed preserving the integrity of the existing park boundary and values."

If the Pinecone Burke proposal is allowed, it would represent two firsts under the 2004 policy: the first transmission line okayed in a park in B.C. and the first park allowance for industry in the Lower Mainland. Earlier this year, B.C. allowed the deletion of 478 hectares for pipeline expansion through Mount Robson provincial park.

"What does this signal for the integrity of our park system for the future?" Barlee said.

"It doesn't look very good. This is a government that has turned its back on provincial parks."

The B.C. government also passed Bill 30 in 2006 making it impossible for local governments to block run-of-the-river power projects, but that hasn't stopped them from taking a position. Coquitlam council has voiced "strong opposition" to the power proposal, Maple Ridge has "serious reservations," and Pitt Meadows's support is "subject to the mitigation of any negative environmental impacts."

The BC Parks website describes the Pinecone Burke as a "wilderness area protecting old-growth forests, numerous alpine lakes, rugged terrain, and remnant icefields."

Among the long list of conservationists lined up against the project is Order of Canada recipient Mark Angelo, rivers chair of the Outdoor Recreation Council of B.C. and head of BCIT's fish and wildlife program.

He said he is "very much concerned" about the project given the great ecological values of the upper Pitt, an area "that deserves to be protected in its natural state."

The company's project would divert waters from eight streams - Bucklin, Steve, Pinecone, Homer, Boise, Shale, Corbold, and East Corbold - in the remote upper Pitt River Valley north of Pitt Meadows.

"One of the reasons I'm involved in this business is because I am concerned about the environment," Krushnisky said. "I am a green guy."

Dan Gerak, owner of Pitt River Lodge fly-fishing resort, is adamantly opposed to the project.

"So, really what they are proposing is to ruin our parks so that they can save money. Why are we even creating these parks when years down the road industry can apply to change the boundaries and land can be removed?"

Environment Minister Barry Penner is on holidays and unavailable to comment.

Dolly Varden, bull trout, cutthroat trout, rainbow trout, steelhead, and five species of salmon live in the upper Pitt River, along with species at risk such as marble murrelet, peregrine falcon, northern goshawk, and northern spotted owl.

lpynn@png.canwest.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 06:37 PM

CKNW: LNG on Texada Island

Jill Bennett of CKNW interviews Chuck Childress of Texada Action Now and Stu Leson of WestPac LNG.
CKNW_JillBennett_ChuckChildress&StuLeson_20080105.mp3

WestPac's Texada LNG project is covered extensively at
www.texadalng.com
www.texadaactionnow.org

This file may stream, but if you download it, or are on dial-up, be forwarned: it is nearly 12 mb.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 05:37 PM

The smoke and mirrors of B.C.'s energy use

PATRICK BRETHOUR
Globe and Mail
January 4, 2008

VANCOUVER -- British Columbia's dirty little secret has just become a big problem for WestPac LNG Corp. and its hopes of building a clean new source of electricity.

On the face of it, the province should be sweeping barriers aside for WestPac, given Premier Gordon Campbell's dual promises to slash greenhouse gas emissions by a third by 2020 and to make B.C. self-sufficient in electrical power in just eight years.

WestPac's natural gas plant on Texana [sic; s/b Texada] Island in the Strait of Georgia should be able to help on both fronts, boosting B.C.'s output by 1,200 megawatts and allowing the province to reduce imported electricity from Alberta and U.S. border states. Much of that electricity comes from coal-fired plants, the worst of the worst when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Replacing coal with much cleaner natural gas makes ample environmental sense.

There's just one catch. B.C. Hydro doesn't count those coal-fired imports in its official tally of greenhouse gases, a secret that makes a mockery of the government's boast that 90 per cent of the province's energy comes from clean sources. If that dirty power isn't counted against B.C. Hydro, it's as good as invisible when evaluating the environmental impact of projects such as the WestPac plant.

The result is that WestPac faces the peril of having its entire operation counted as a net addition to the province's greenhouse gas tally, meaning that it would need to buy carbon credits in order to meet B.C.'s requirement that any new power project be emissions-neutral. Or maybe not. Faced with that uncertainty, the company has justifiably hit the pause button, saying that it will wait until early next year to file a detailed project description that would trigger a full-scale environmental review. "Really, we've got no direction either way from the government, and that's why we've had to delay," WestPac president Stu Leson says.

The legislation kicking off B.C.'s greenhouse gas initiative is to be tabled in the spring session, but the Environment Ministry is not yet able to say when the regulations underpinning the law will be drafted. Those regulations will hold the detailed answers that WestPac needs before it can figure out whether its project, $2-billion for just the first phase, is economically feasible.

Mr. Leson makes the excellent point that British Columbia doesn't have its own atmosphere - those coal-burning plants have the same effect on global warming, even if they are a few hundred kilometres outside of the province's borders. Common sense says that point of view should carry the day, but the reality of B.C.'s growing addiction to dirty imported power says otherwise.

Without an official tally from B.C. Hydro, it's hard to measure the extent of the problem. But some rough estimates from the Suzuki Foundation found that the utility might be leaving two-thirds of its greenhouse gas tab unaccounted for. According to the foundation, those imports generated just over two million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2005, substantially more than the official number of 954,000 tonnes. The Suzuki numbers indicate that greenhouse gases generated by British Columbia's electricity consumption jumped 60 per cent between 2002 and 2005, vastly more than the utility's numbers that state that emissions were essentially unchanged.

In the depths of B.C. Hydro's annual report, however, there is another set of numbers, measuring the proportion of clean energy used in the province, that backs up the Suzuki analysis. That proportion has been steadily falling over the past three years. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004, just over half of B.C.'s power came from clean sources, for the most part hydro projects. By fiscal 2007, just 17 per cent came from such sources. The figures only measure power generated inside the province, but the report points out that power imports have had to rise because of shortfalls in clean energy.

WestPac isn't able to say what kind of environmental liability it faces. But if B.C. Hydro were to pay for the cost of its imported power with carbon offsets costing, say, $20 a tonne, it would be on the hook for something on the order of $40-million a year.

All of those numbers add up to two inescapable facts. Some time, very soon, the B.C. government will have to decide whether B.C. Hydro or private industry will bear the cost of greening the province's power use. And private capital is not willing to gamble that it won't be stuck with the tab, Mr. Leson says. "It's just too much money to invest and take a risk."
Saturday, Jan. 5, 2008

pbrethour@globeandmail.com

COMMENT: These tables from BC Hydro's 2007 Annual Report are cited in the article above. Brethour appears to understand that the 17% clean figure in BC Hydro's report, represents 17% clean in all the power used by BC Hydro in 2007. In fact, it represents 17% of the incremental power used in the province - that is, "new" power in BC over and above the baseload supply provided by the province's huge existing legacy of hydroelectric generating capacity. More comment on this article, and these points, is welcome. These are important issues to understand well - turning out the power is only one way to keep British Columbians in the dark. Other ways include wilfull misrepresentation or misstatement by government or industry, and unfortunate misunderstanding by media.

AR2007_GHG_EmissionsTable.jpg
BC Hydro 2007 Annual Report

AR2007_CleanEnergyTable.jpg
AR2007_CleanEnergyTable_Notes.jpg
BC Hydro's 2007 Annual Report

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 03:37 PM

January 03, 2008

Emissions concerns delay LNG project

WENDY STUECK
Globe and Mail
January 2, 2008

VANCOUVER -- A proposed $2-billion liquefied natural gas project in British Columbia has been delayed as a result of the province's greenhouse-gas-cutting ambitions.

Calgary-based WestPac LNG Corp., which unveiled its plans for the project last summer, has pushed back the scheduled start date for the project to 2014 from 2013, according to company statements.

The project, slated for Texada Island in the Strait of Georgia, is one of 10 proposed LNG projects in Canada, which have generated interest as domestic natural gas supplies are drying up. There are about 60 proposed LNG projects in North America.

A spokeswoman said WestPac has decided to put off filing its project description - which would have triggered the environmental assessment process - until the company has a better sense of new greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations that may come into effect.

WestPac had planned to file its project description in the fall of 2007 but now plans to file it in early 2009.
WestPac's proposal is for a combined LNG terminal and natural-gas-fired electricity plant with a capacity of up to 1,200 megawatts, which would make the site one of the biggest electricity generators in the province.

But a natural-gas-fired plant of that size would also generate significant GHG emissions, making it unclear how it would fit into the province's energy plan, which requires all new electricity projects to have zero net GHG emissions.

In addition, B.C. announced plans in the February, 2007, Throne Speech to reduce GHG emissions by 33 per cent by 2020. In November, Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell named a Climate Action Team, a 22-member squad charged with exploring ways of bridging the gap between reductions expected from existing policies and the 2020 target.

The team is expected to make its recommendations by July 31.

WestPac had been working on a proposal for an LNG terminal near the northern port city of Prince Rupert, where a new container terminal began operating last fall, but shelved that plan after cost estimates soared.

The company is now focused on its Texada project.

Last month, environmental groups including the Georgia Strait Alliance, Texada Action Now and West Coast Environmental Law banded together to fight the project, saying increased tanker traffic would disrupt existing commercial and recreational traffic, and that the proposal runs counter to the province's energy plan and GHG reduction targets.
texadalng.com/LNG_Alliance_MediaRelease_17Dec2007.pdf

"We're looking at this as a litmus test for the provincial government's plans around greenhouse gas emissions," Chuck Childress, spokesperson for Texada Action Now, said yesterday.

"This project is going to show the world whether the province is serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

WestPac says expected traffic to the terminal - about 36 LNG carriers a year, or one every 10 days or so - would amount to an increase of less than 1 per cent over existing vessel traffic.

About 1,200 people live on Texada Island.

www.texadaactionnow.org
www.texadalng.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 06:43 PM

Run-of-river power projects concealed by a green curtain

Craig Orr
Special to the Sun
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, January 03, 2008

'Green" run-of-river hydro projects, also called IPPs (for independent power projects), produce minimal greenhouse gases.

And, unlike B.C.'s Bennett-era mega-hydro projects spanning the Peace and Columbia rivers, they do not require gigantic dams, reservoirs or flooding to generate power.

So why not embrace wholesale development of these projects on B.C.'s streams and rivers, earn climate change credit, and please both environmentally conscious voters and business folk alike?

As usual, the devil is in the untold details. Before 2006, there were only 25 operational run-of-river projects. By August 2006, a further 41 run-of-river projects had acquired Electricity Purchase Agreements from BC Hydro. Scarcely a year later, some 348 active applications for water licences were pending.

This mad scramble of planning, investment and development, likened by many observers to a gold rush, has been based on the unexamined assumption that run-of-river hydro projects are benign to the environment -- or at least more benign than other sources of power generation.

Run-of-river hydro projects -- often referred to as "green hydro" by government and industry -- divert water into a pipe (often several kilometres in length) and then into a turbine before returning it to the same watercourse downstream. If planned carefully and responsibly, many British Columbians believe, such projects have a rightful place in B.C.'s energy future.

But how green is this future if hundreds of run-of-river projects -- many actually large-scale industrial developments -- are allowed to be built in areas with high recreational, cultural, or wilderness values? How does government planning and approval ensure that "green hydro" is truly green?

To answer such questions, Watershed Watch examined the regulatory process that guides project approval and purportedly protects environmental, social and cultural values. This is a snapshot of what we found:

- The impact of projects, including extensive road-building and construction infrastructure, can in fact be excessive, especially in areas where clusters of projects are proposed, such as around Pitt Lake, Harrison Lake and the Whistler-Squamish corridor.

- B.C. refuses to consider a planning process that would measure or manage the cumulative impacts of these projects, or that would ensure development spares sensitive areas with high environmental, cultural and social values.

- No legislation exists to reliably assess and protect wildlife such as bears and elk.

- BC Hydro does not work with permitting agencies (e.g., Fisheries and Oceans Canada, B.C.'s Ministry of Environment) during project development to ensure that the total project footprint is minimized.

- IPPs producing less than 50 megawatts (sufficient power for 27,500 homes) are exempt from the environmental assessment process; many projects are thus designed to fall just under this threshold to avoid "undue" regulatory constraint.

- Local communities and municipalities have no real say in the approvals process; no rules for consultation (e.g., providing timely information for comment) with the public exist.

Indeed, the government has shown increasing impatience relative to public desire for proper consultation. In a July 2007 interview, Environment Minister Barry Penner stated, "I don't object to criticism. But I prefer informed criticism," suggesting that anyone who has done their homework cannot possibly be opposed (Penner blasts run-of-the-river critics -- Shayne Morrow, Alberni Valley Times.)

With no less arrogance, the provincial government proclaimed Bill 30 in June 2006 to silence loud local government and public opposition to Ledcor's proposed $87-million power project on the Ashlu River near Squamish. By abolishing local zoning authority, the government ensured that no one -- regardless of how "informed" they are -- could say no to a run-of-river power project, ever.

In terms of the diversity and splendour of our natural resources, British Columbians are truly blessed. But like any prudent investor, we have an obligation to use and conserve those resources wisely, so that future generations aren't impoverished by our greed and lack of foresight. To learn more about how the development of run-of-river hydro power might be done in a sustainable manner, and to add your voice to those who are asking government to do its own homework, please visit www.watershed-watch.org.

Craig Orr is the executive director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:56 PM

January 01, 2008

Strength in Community: Tom Hackney and the GSX

Will Horter
Dogwood Initiative
29-Sep-2005

Tom Hackney, President of the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition is prime example of how a community can come together to change the world. Below he discusses how the GSX Coalition stopped BC Hydro's pipeline and gas-fired generation projects on Vancouver Island. Tom is also the GSX campaigner for the BC Chapter of the Sierra Club of Canada’s Global Climate Change Program and is a director with the BC Sustainable Energy Association.

Tom was interviewed on July 7, 2005 by Will Horter, Dogwood Initiative's Executive Director.

Will: So, Tom, why don't you explain the issue that the GSX Concerned Citizens worked on?

Tom: Well, the big picture issue was with BC Hydro's strategic plan to meet BC's new electricity demand by means of gas fired power plants on Vancouver Island. And the reason for that was an initial assessment that their transmission cables linking to the island were getting old.

Then there was some fast thinking — and a little bit of government policy - jumping in there and the decision was made that rather than renewing the cables - which is BC Hydro's sensible plan - they would build a gas pipeline to the island.

And then having built that gas pipeline to the island, it would make economic sense that all generation would become located on Vancouver Island for the next 20 years. BC Hydro's electricity needs would be met by more and more generation on the island.

And, so, I got involved as a volunteer of the Sierra Club because I wanted to address climate change...

But the people who formed the real core energy against the pipeline proposal were the people in Cobble Hill and to a lesser extent, in Duncan. They saw this sort of three arms of pipeline route running through their farms, and backyards, and past their schools and stuff like that and they got very upset.

And even when it got narrowed down to a single route, people were still very energized to oppose it and their response was that of surprise when BC Hydro offered its explanation. They were not satisfied by the explanation and there was a good deal of gut response against BC Hydro in what was seen as an arrogant position – that it was a decided project and local input would be rejected.

So I would say that whole mess of stuff was a real energizer to the opposition to the pipeline.

Will: And what were their concerns about the effects on their community and the environment?

Tom: I think the actual environmental issues of digging a trench through your community and filling it in and then having to ask questions like, "Can I drive my tractor over it," and "Is it going to explode?" are genuine concerns. I guess they're the kind of concerns which I would have thought could be handled by good engineering and I think there's a real energy against – they just didn't like the idea of a big infrastructure project being pushed through their community when they just didn't see the need for it.

Will: So you're saying the arrogance of BC Hydro was a kind of a spark?

Tom: Well, that's certainly the impression I got from the people I was working with. Me, personally, I didn't get that worked up against BC Hydro. But then I lived in Victoria; my property was not directly affected by it.

Will: So what did the people decide to do about that?

Tom: The public community consultations that BC Hydro organised were packed, and people were asking very pointed questions, and quite angrily. And that was the initial response. And after that there was the "what can we do" approach.

Arthur Caldicott started up a listserv and people started discussing, and at that point I joined the project through the listserv. And we started meeting.

Will: And so who are some of the other key people?

Tom: Well, the people who got together to form the GSX Coalition, or the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition are: myself, Arthur Caldicott, Steve and Dodie Miller, [Kevin Maher, Peter Ronald of Georgia Strait Alliance]; Don Skerik and Phil Marchant, who were up in Duncan, they represented the Council of Canadians Cowichan chapter. And Saul Arbess represented the Council of Canadians Victoria chapter, he was initially a member of the steering committee. [And Guy Dauncey, well known Victoria climate change activist and writer, and founder of the BC Sustainable Energy Association.]

Will: And Steven Miller?

Tom: Steve and Dodie Miller. Steve originally worked as a statistician for the BC government for their stats bureau. He had a farm up in Cobble Hill and I think he was particularly excited by the project because he really crunched the numbers that BC Hydro was putting forward and was finding gaps in them and he was looking for explanations from BC Hydro and was not being satisfied with the explanations. His ability with numbers to really penetrate what was being said and to find the weakness in what was being said was, I think, what really motivated him to call BC Hydro and challenge them. And he came up with a very different assessment with what our electricity needs really were. And so at a very rational, factual basis he was challenging the whole rationale for the project.

Will: So, those core people became the steering committee for the Coalition. Were there other people you were working with as well?

Tom: There were a bunch of people. There were the landowners who were directly affected, and they were putting up signs saying, "No pipeline on this property," and they formed their own group, the VIPLA, the Vancouver Island Pipeline Landowners Association. And at that point they ended up in a sort of different stream of opposition because they retained a lawyer to represent their interests and became very focused on protecting themselves from the actual landholder impact. And whether they could drive their hay-loaded tractor over the pipeline and whether they would be prevented from doing that, and because of the rules, the law seemed to me, to be heavily slanted to the pipeline companies' convenience.

They (the landowners) actually negotiated settlements to a considerable extent. So from an advocacy perspective, they were not front and centre of the advocacy but they were sort of a "negotiating party".

Will: So you started around that pipeline and you were successful, what led to the success and the stopping of the pipeline?

Tom: The success: a great deal of delay and finally the economics. The advice we got from Tim Howard, of Sierra Legal, at the beginning. Tim was retained by the David Suzuki Foundation and SPEC (Society Promoting Environmental Conservation), and he told us that the legal issue would be unlikely to win without political support as well, i.e. grassroots opposition. So we just organised a lot of grassroots opposition, besides the coalition which met on a regular basis.

There were a large number of people who attended the National Energy Board regulatory process on the pipeline. One of the first things that happened was that we asked the government to have a panel review of the project rather than a so-called comprehensive study review, which is a far lower degree of review. It's a comment on the sort of slanted nature of the process and how naive we were starting out. A comprehensive study review would [in no way] be equivalent to a panel review by members of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the National Energy Board.

We were lucky enough to have one person, Suzie Washington Smyth, who had actually a lot of knowledge of how government processes worked, and she immediately said that we needed to have a panel review. So everybody mobilised on demanding a panel review and the Minister of Environment, David Anderson, accorded us one.

In retrospect, that was critically important because the amount of opportunity for us to bring forward our case, and of people to come forward and speak, was enormously magnified and was also drawn out considerably. So I would say that that was a key part in the campaign.

Just to make a long story short – and it was a really long, protracted story – the National Energy Board did approve the pipeline in 2003, but shortly, about a year later, BC Hydro cancelled the project, citing economics. The price of gas had gone up in the interim, and by that time we also had a real fight on our hands regarding the power plants that were supposed to be built on the island.

So, really, why did we win? It was the attrition and the long protracted process coupled with the price of gas going up.

Will: So then you moved your agenda to the Duke Point project?

Tom: Yes, the Duke Point Project was originally the Port Alberni Co-Generation project which the BC government ordered BC Hydro to build in, I guess, around '98 or so. And the Co-Generation part fell and it became the Port Alberni Generation project, which would have been beside a residential zone.

And one of the first and easiest campaigns of the GSX Coalition was to travel to Port Alberni and alert the local residents about what this was and what we thought it meant. Then they put together a very strong campaign at the local level to fight against a rezoning, and they succeeded in persuading council not to grant the rezoning.

BC Hydro withdrew from Port Alberni at that time and started a search for another site on the Lower Vancouver Island. They went to North Cowichan, again trying to get another rezoning. That was another one of our successful, quick actions where we participated in the communities, filling an auditorium and telling council that they didn't want a rezoning.

And then BC Hydro lit on Nanaimo which did not require a rezoning. And the mayor, [Gary] Korpan, and council, were a good deal more supportive of getting a project. So that ended up as BC Hydro's Vancouver Island Generation Project, the 2003 project reviewed by the BC Utilities Commission.

And this is sort of where the exhaustion and the attrition were starting to make themselves felt. We had just finished a very exhausting review before the National Energy Board and now the Utilities Commission came through with this project so we drank an extra cup of coffee and got right back into it.

We were able to bring Steve Miller's expert analysis of BC Hydro's load forecast, and we were also able to get some expert evidence on greenhouse gas emissions and potential liability which we brought to the process which took place in Nanaimo.

And at that time the Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee also decided it didn't like the idea of on-island gas fired generation, due to the their assessment that the cost would be higher than they wanted due to the price of gas going up.

So, at that point, their opposition and the opposition of our group – I don't know who ranked higher in the utilities commission's thinking – managed to persuade the commission that BC Hydro’s plant should not be approved and BC Hydro undertook at that point to do a complicated and different process: a "call for tenders" on Vancouver Island to verify whether they could get a better price.

And that gave rise to the "Call for Tenders" process which happened during 2004. It picked a winner, which was the Vancouver Island Generation Project, only this time in private hands rather than built by BC Hydro. It was the Pristine Power Incorporated Company, out of Calgary, that formed the Duke Point Power Limited Partnership to build the project and that gave rise to the Duke Point proceedings which took place in January, 2005.

Again, our group brought an intervention. Again we brought evidence on global climate change issues and Steve Milller's evidence on load forecasting. And again the industrial group opposed it on electricity pricing. This time around the utilities commission approved the project.

And that would have been the end of the game, except that the utilities commission panel had - during the course of that review - an in-camera meeting in which their discussion seemed to be a discussion of the actual end result that the chair wanted to achieve from the review. Or at least that was one of the ways that the discussion could be interpreted.

And at that point, I think that all parties were opposed to the plant except BC Hydro. And even within BC Hydro, if rumour is correct, there was a lot of opposition to the plant.

So, again, our group, and the industrial group decided to appeal the decision of the commission to the BC Court of Appeal on the basis of a reasonable apprehension of bias, stemming mostly from that in-camera session.

We were able to get funding from Westcoast Environmental Law (WCEL) - the Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund (EDRF) - which allowed us to retain a lawyer to do the arguing. That was Bill Andrews, who did a heck of a lot of very solid work for us during the years. [EDRF first introduced Bill Andrews to the Coalition in 2000 and the relationship continued through to the cancellation of the GSX and Duke Point.]

And we brought it to the court of appeal. We were denied leave to appeal the first time around, but we had the right to ask for reconsideration. And on reconsideration we were finally granted leave to appeal.

Several days later, BC Hydro announced that they had decided to cancel the contract citing the regulatory uncertainty that we had created by our appeal application.

Will: ...I wasn't aware of the whole story... You had multiple victories in that process. You killed the GSX Pipeline, you then killed the Port Alberni co-generation project, then you killed the idea of it in North Cowichan, then you killed the Vancouver Island project and then, ultimately, Duke Point. So that's like six or seven actual victories in that process. That's quite incredible.

Did you have any direct funding from foundations other than the support of the ERDF? How was this effort funded? Was it mostly volunteer?

Tom: There was a heck of a lot of volunteer work done and we did get $25,000 through the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to intervene in the National Energy Board review of the pipeline. For the intervention in the utilities commission proceedings we were actually able to take advantage of the legally created system of getting an award. So we were able to pay our legal counsel and our experts amounts of money that approximated professional level of pay.

They were working on spec: they were taking the risk that they would get the award, but the award did come through. And what happened was the Utilities Commission ordered BC Hydro to pay our expenses. Which they did. Without that, we wouldn't have been able to mount a professional intervention.

Will: And how do the people feel now? I mean they must feel pretty powerful going through this kind of complex process based on mostly volunteer effort and succeeding repeatedly. Are they looking for their next challenge?

Tom: I think some of the people are getting pretty exhausted from five and a half years of work to try and defeat the strategy and there are other people who are definitely looking for challenges and how they can productively input into BC Hydro’s plans.

Will: Great. Anything else you want to add that you think people need to know, or should know?

Tom: Well, I mean if you get grabbed by a project and you think it's important enough to get involved in, you'll get taken places you never knew existed.

Will: Any advice for other communities facing similar challenges?

Tom: I think I would say we did really well by focusing on the facts and the evidence. In this case we were fighting a rather ill-conceived project that was not well-planned. It's hard work. But if you want to do it, go for it.

[Epilogue: Tom Hackney was awarded the Sierra Club's 2005 Activist of the Year award (link) and has continued with Bill Andrews to represent the Sierra Club, and the BC Sustainable Energy Association, of which he is a founding director, in energy-related BC Utilities Commission proceedings. Peter Ronald is co-ordinator for the BC Sustainable Energy Association. Arthur Caldicott is the current President of the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition, co-ordinates the website (www.sqwalk.com) and list serve. He speaks and writes about energy issues, talking with communities about energy projects such as coalbed methane and liquified natural gas. The other founding directors of the Coalition have gone back to pick up their lives where they left them in 2000 at the beginning of this story.]

Posted by Arthur Caldicott at 01:01 AM