This AlJazeera America piece may be an indicator of how Vancouver will be increasingly seen, even if the geography seems a little odd.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia— From a plane landing in Vancouver, the city shimmers below. Skyscrapers sheathed in glass reflect water that lies on three sides of downtown. Forested mountains serve as a backdrop that has made it easy for politicians to brand Vancouver the world’s “greenest city.”
There is more to that reputation than just PR. Vancouver’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are among the lowest of any urban center in North America. The city council has made bicycling infrastructure a priority. And in 2008, the government of British Columbia enacted a relatively steep carbon tax that has earned international praise for lowering the province’s per capita consumption of fossil fuels to well below Canada’s average. …
But Canada’s westernmost province might not stay so green. Its premier, Christy Clark, has begun a push to make B.C. a world leader in the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Her government’s plans are so ambitious that a number of studies predict that B.C.’s LNG emissions could nearly equal those of Alberta’s oil sands by as early as 2020.
“Green” seems to be the overused word of the decade !
LNG is not green ?
Nuclear is not green ?
Bird killing and noise making windmills are green ?
Electric car batteries with their toxic metals and unknown disposal methods are green ?
Diesel buses barreling down Broadway, the busiest diesel bus corridor in North-America, are green ?
Not charging for road use is green ?
Exploiting BC’s natural resources and natural exposure on the west coast ought to be exploited for its citizens’ gains so we have enough $s for required social services, education or healthcare for an aging population. Where is the required revenue coming from otherwise ? What are the alternatives to LNG development ?
Sorry, man. If you start by arguing that LNG has a lower environmental impact than wind farms, it’s not worth engaging in debate with you.
Wind farms have their place, in remote people and bird free regions were it is windy to maybe supply 3-6% of BC’s energy needs. And the other 90% ?
LNG is clean burning gas when I checked last time. It is better than oil and coal but of course any development in BC is opposed by latte sipping “green” environmentalists. I wonder, how did the coffee get here ? By e-boat ? How was the coffee roasted ? By wind energy ?
“LNG is clean burning gas when I checked last time”.
You should check again. The L stands for liquid, so it isn’t a gas. It doesn’t burn until it is converted back to a gas.
Liquified Natural Gas is chilled and liquefied for storage and transportation, not for use.
Those natural gas buses, which can be cleaner than diesel buses, don’t use LNG. They use gas from a pipeline.
LNG is gas, just compressed.
Possibly BC will miss the LNG party due to natives, land protests, uncertainty over land ownership, environmental resistance ( funded from the US or Saudis or Russia ) .. And other nations will reap the spoil. A made-in BC problem.
To be truly green the Vancouver Island based green lobby ought to consider shutting down the ( diesel ) ferries to all islands, the airports and require electric cars only. Let’s model the economic impact of that, for example on food prices, and see how green those greens really are.
How does Elizabeth May get to Ottawa ? By e-bike ? How did Desmond a Tutu get to Ft. McMurray ? Did he walk ?
Fossil fuels, aka natural oil and gas will be with us for quite some time as they make such great transportation fuels.
“LNG is gas, just compressed”
Nope. That would be called CNG.
LNG tanks can have very low pressure, a couple of psi. It is a liquid because it is chilled, not compressed. Usually to around -160 C, from memory. There is also a purification process, to take out the things that don’t play nicely at that very low temperature.
The distinction becomes important as we evaluate potential LNG business opportunities, and need to understand the energy requirements just to chill it for transportation, and then to warm it back up again for use. None of that is free.
The rise in GHG emissions would accompany any form of industrialization (compared to a low level baseline).
The construction of LNG plants represents an increase in heavy industrial use – existing industries in BC tend to be on the natural resource side – forestry, mining and hydro – which don’t generate much in the way of GHG emissions.
Build a steel plant or a big aluminium smelter – would those increase GHG emissions? Yes.
So to be green, you escrew all heavy industry? (and force those activites offshore?)
“The rise in GHG emissions would accompany any form of industrialization (compared to a low level baseline).”
That’s unimaginative and not true. What you mean to say is that historically, that’s what’s happened, and you assume the future is the same as the past. With that kind of thinking, there’s never any progress.
Check it: http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/running-to-scissors-decoupling-energy-use-and-economic-growth/
OOps – Typo in there…
Unfortunately the same type who oppose pipelines will also oppose Site C. The Enviroparty of No. Wind & solar will not meet our energy requirements.
Fun fact #1: the proposed pipelines in BC are mainly for shipping fossil fuels overseas; hydro dams are for generating electricity for use in BC (and a little in neighbouring jurisdictions).
Fun fact #2: the bulk of the growth in electricity demand in the province in the coming decades would be caused by LNG and mining loads.
Fun fact #3: you can add a lot of wind generating capacity in BC for cheaper than what Site C will cost.
We could indeed power all of BC’s electricity needs for the foreseeable future only by adding renewable (wind, solar, small hydro, etc.) generation. In fact, we could do it for all of North America if we’re clever about it. The technology has existed for some time, and it’s to the point where the levelized cost of some renewable technologies (e.g., wind) is lower than thermal plants in many jurisdictions, including BC. We just choose to pretend that the future has to be like the past, so we keep doing the same thing as we’ve always done, just more so.
How about some links to proof this claim of wind energy. Yes in some remote areas or off-shore it may make sense, for a % of BC’s energy needs, but is the cost per GW installed similar to a hydro-dam ? Is it as reliable as it is not always windy ? Even Denmark, the king of wind energy produces 50% (!!) of its energy demand from coal.
Go do some research on levelized cost of energy. There are lots of studies coming out; you can take your pick.
I am worried about fracking everywhere. Here it’s on my doorstep.
Be very, very careful!
http://www.sarkissian.com.au/bentley-csg-blockade-28-april-cant-just-take-dreams-away/
Wendy Sarkissian
Don’t believe all the hype about the dangers of fracking. Consider buying Ezrah Levant’s book on fracking called Groundswell – the case for fracking.
I read somewhere that Vancouver is nowhere near the greenest city, and that the ghg emissions does not include our garbage incinerator in delta, burning a thousand homes and gardens a year while construction rages on everywhere. Personally, i don’t care about being the greenest city in the world. Vancouver needs to get over itself and start taking care of the people who live here, instead of tripping all over itself to serve a few masters and sell more condos.
Selling more condos is big business in Vancouver, perhaps its biggest business. Those new condos employ tens of thousands of people and bring ample taxes into provincial and municipal coffers. Are you saying that stopping that would somehow make Vancouver a better city ? It would certainly be a poorer one and one with far higher unemployment.
Building less condos would actually increase prices.
Example: if 1000 people want to buy a condo but only 100 are for sale, the average price would rise until 500 people would sell theirs and 500 others decided not to buy due to excessive prices.
Unless we decide to reduce the number of people willing or able to move here that is unlikely to happen. With a roughly 1% immigration to Canada plus people moving here from other regions in Canada, like me, and hundreds of thousands of like minded people, accept the fact that MetroVan will grow and condos will be built by the tens of thousands.
So the only question is how to do that best and accommodating this growth, how to transport people around, how to tax them and how to strike a sensible balance between various land uses for agriculture, residential, commercial, industrial and recreation.
I realize there is no point in replying to you since you will just parrot the same self serving thing no matter what I say. Enjoy buying your units that you know are going to drop in value, then.
Why would they drop with another 1M+ people moving here in the next 30 years ? You need to travel more to see what people pay for decent houses or condos in other cities. Vancouver’s real estate is not that expensive actually, more or less in line with other desirable cities on the ever more crowded planet.