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.
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
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.
October 25, 2008
Inside an explosive situation
WENDY STUECK AND MARK HUME
Globe and Mail
October 25, 2008
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 CurrenBloomberg.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.
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
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.
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.
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.
 |
"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 LatulippeNorth Shore News
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
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
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.
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.
 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.
The letter that was sent to a local newspaper just days before the pipeline bombing. |
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.
Experts say the blast shows just how vulnerable Canada's pipelines are. Oct. 17, 2008. |
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
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.
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 STUECKGlobe 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 DowdCalgary 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 HUMEGlobe 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.
Enlarge Image
 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
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
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."
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
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.”
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.
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
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.
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
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
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."
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 ColonistSunday, 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
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
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.
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 LeyneTimes 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.